godandmyducks

During the anniversary of the March on Washington, I was thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Kennedy’s assassinations.  I then thought about Lincoln’s as well.  I began asking this question, “What is it about the African American Community taking her place in this country that has Satan so scared?”  I went to bed with this question on my heart and woke up with the following which I present to the leadership of the African American Church for evaluation –  to take what is of God and to throw out the rest:

The African American Community is Joseph.   Let’s look at the basic events of Joseph’s life.  First he had a dream that told about what was to come in the future. He was then sold to slave traders by his own brothers, and then he became a slave in Egypt.  After this he became prisoner through no fault of his own.  There he met the cupbearer and the baker who he interpreted the dreams for. He strives to find a way out of prison through his own efforts by asking the cupbearer to remember him and his unfair situation. The cupbearer forgets but a few years later, Pharaoh had a dream and none of the soothsayers of that time can interpret it.  The cupbearer remembers Joseph who  is called upon to interpret it.  He was put in charge of everything.  He not only saved Egypt, he saved the known world and his own family.  He also played a major role in the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And in all this God was with him.

I suspect, though I do not know for sure, that if we go back to the oral histories of the tribes of Africa (before being sold as slaves) we are going to find prophetic words that spoke about the days to come.  Another person needs to investigate this.  But let’s look at what we do know:

1.  Africans are sold as slaves to slave traders by their own brothers as well as others.
2. They are involuntarily taken to a country that is not their own.
3. There they are sold as slaves.  (but God is still with them-look at the church that was birthed during this time)
4. Then they are freed from slavery and shortly thereafter become prisoners through racism (blatantly through the codifying of Jim Crow laws but in myriad of different ways in which racism manifests itself in this nation)
5. The time of the cupbearer began with the civil rights movement, MLK, laws being altered and is culminating in the Obama presidency.
6. The very, very short time is about to begin between the cupbearer’s release and Pharaoh’s dream.  It is time to get ready.
7. Pharaoh is about to have a dream and the soothsayers of our time will not have the answer, the white church will not have the answer, the Hispanic church will not have the answer, nor anyone else or any other church. Only the one that God has prepared for such a time as this. This is you, the African American Church.  Get ready.
8. It will result in not only Egypt (the American society) being saved, but also the world and it will be the preparation for the coming of the King.

Some folks may be thinking “How can this be?”  Maybe they are looking around at the brokenness in their community and wondering, “how could we ever become Joseph to this society?”. But let me tell you what I see.  I see a church who has remained doctrinally sound.  There are no major cults coming out of the African American church: No Mormons, JWs, Jim Jones, David Koresh, etc. etc.  The waves of Doctrine have come and gone in this society but the church in the African American community has remained faithful. Secondly when a white unbeliever has a problem for a solution they will just as easily go to Buddhism, “the secret”, Tarot Cards, humanism, or whatever else is the newest wave of false beliefs systems as turning to Jesus, the Bible or Church.  On the other hand, if an African American has a problem that is beyond them, the first place they go is the church or to Jesus.   When I go to schools that are primarily black I here gospel songs being sung at Graduations, (dare you do this at a white school).  Do you think a white guy could have gotten away with having something as blatantly Christian as Tyler Perry?  So if we look at these realities then if money is the “worldly wealth” not true riches and to know Christ is “true riches” (Luke 16:11) then who is rich and who is poor?  Don’t be fooled.

So then how to respond to this word, how to get ready?

1. Don’t believe the hype.   What do I mean by this?  The Egyptian society always tries and defines Joseph.  They said he is a slave, a prisoner and even though positionally he was these things, in reality he was the servant of the living God and where he walked, the favor of the Lord walked with him.  To the Egyptian society he may have been a prisoner but to God he was Pharaoh’s second in command – in training.  So how does this apply today?  I was listening to a sermon series once on finances and the preacher who I will not name was talking about claiming what is rightfully ours from the kingdom of darkness and he specifically mentioned lost wages.  I began to imagine, what would happen if all the believers in this country who have the inheritance of slavery would begin to call out of darkness the wages owed their family multiplied by 7 because that is what a thief owes.  And I was seeing the finances pouring into the church and I was getting excited. I suddenly realized it was not going happen.  Not because it does not rightfully belong to everyone who has an inheritance in slavery but because “The Hype” has been believed.  “The Hype” is the way this society defines you.  So I looked and saw that on this preacher he didn’t have any of that (this is not a person I know) and I asked God “why not?”  He showed me his grandmother getting on the bus in the south under Jim Crow laws.  When she got on the bus and was required to sit in the back, but the back of the bus never defined her.  Instead, her relationship with Christ not only defined her but it defined the bus when she got on it.  It defined the back of the bus, the front of the bus, and the one who was driving the bus.  Egypt could say what it wanted about her but she knew who she was.   When I look in the Spirit I see many people have accepted Egypt’s definition of who they are.  I’m not talking about the rhetoric, or the protesting, or the declaring.  I’m talking about that place deep inside that only God sees.  When this society says go to the back of the bus (and it still does, maybe not literally but in many, many ways because this is what being in prison is) that inner place says, “What’s wrong with me?” “Why doesn’t God love us as much?” “I hope I’m not who they say I am, but what if I am?” “Nobody is ever going to give us a break”, “Maybe I really am less than”.   Do not believe the message from the Egyptian Society.  This is not who you are.  (I want to make this clear: this thinking affects both the CEO of a company and the homeless person on the street.  When the CEO says, “Now finally I am somebody, look at my position and my money.” And when the homeless person says, “Look at my circumstances, I really am nobody.” And everyone in between.  This is two sides of the same coin. Am I somebody or nobody based on my circumstances and what the society says I am or am I somebody because of my relationship with Christ?)

In the Egyptian society, prison was worse than slavery, and in many ways, I see the same today.  The time of prison has been much more devastating to the soul than slavery (look at reconstruction).  Under slavery, a person knows why they can only get so far, under racism: “maybe it’s me”.  I believe most of the brokenness of the community (obviously not all, we are fallen creatures after all) comes from this place.  “Since it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I might as well do whatever.”  “No matter what I do it won’t work, so why bother.”

This is a lie.  The truth is you are the servant of the Most High God and if you see yourself that way, not just individually but as a community, you will define the places where you walk and the cities you live in.  Favor will begin to follow you and your community just as it did Joseph.  This is true for the most crime ridden neighborhood and the safest neighborhood, for the most impoverished neighborhood and the richest neighborhood. 

2. Stop striving to be somebody in the Egyptian Society. The Egyptians did not need another Egyptian.  They needed a Hebrew that had been taught about the living God from birth, who knew how to access the heavenlies and walk in the wisdom and the ways of God.  No one in Egypt could do this except Joseph.  This was true of him while he was a slave and a prisoner not just when he was put second in Command of Egypt.  God does not have a piece of the “American Pie” for you.  He is going to give you the whole pie, because He has set you aside for such a time as this.  The riches God has put in this community are true riches and striving to be a part of the Egyptian society always calls you to give up True Riches for worldly wealth.   How many times has someone made it “big” in the Egyptian Society and then you hear that they are “meditating”, “following The Secret”,  trying out other religions (of course there are exceptions).   When the cupbearer left prison Joseph said, “But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house:  For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”   He was looking for mere justice when God had second in command of all of Egypt for Him.   The Egyptian society was never going to be “fair” to Joseph.  He was a nobody in their eyes.  He was never going to win what he sought through striving.  But when God released Joseph into his position, it was more than mere “fair”.  See Pharaoh is about to have a dream.  You must get ready.  Do not despise your birthright.  Don’t exchange your birthright for pottage just because you are in prison right now.  

3.  Repentance and healing.   Let’s look at Daniel 9:2-3  In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.  And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:  When Daniel realized it was time for his people to be released from captivity what did he do?  He repented for the sins of his people.  Notice the language. “We have sinned”. This is corporate confession.  When I lead people through the Daniel prayer in chapter 9, beginning in verse 4, I first have them write down the list of sins from the group they are confessing for  (this only works if by the laws of the Spirit, you are a true, legal representative of the group for whom you are confessing).  I then have the person or group see themselves  standing as a representative of their people (this could be on behalf of their family, their church, a church body e.g  the church of NYC, the church of America, etc., a city, a nation: look at what Uganda did on January 1, 2000.)  Then I lead this prayer changing the words “Judah”, “Jerusalem”, “Israel” to the name of the people they are representing,  e.g. last names of the family.  When I get to vs. 8 where it says: because we have sinned against thee I then lead the person in listing the sins of the people they are representing. At the end of the prayer the list is erased or torn up.   

Healing comes as you declare God’s healing power over the soul and spirit of your people where slavery, prison, striving, believing garbage, has hurt and devastated the heart of your people.  It is renouncing lies that have been believed for generations and declaring the acceptance of God’s truth about who you are and your circumstances.  It is allowing the cleansing of the blood of Christ and the poultice of His Spirit to wash the poison of prison and the Egyptian society out of your soul.  It is to become new.  I know the Lord will lead in all these things.

4. Get prepared.  There is very little time left in prison. During this time you must become like Joseph because this is the training that God has for what He is about to do.  Scripture says in Genesis 39: 21 But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.  And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it.  The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand; because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.  This is what the Lord wants to do right now with this community which he has preserved for himself.  He wants to show mercy and favor in the sight of the warden of the prison or in other words, “those who keep you down”.  He wants to release authority and responsibility – right where you are now, where you will be fully trusted because this is God’s training ground for that which is to come.  God wants to release this authority and responsibility in all your spheres of influence: where you live, where you work, where you play, where you study, where you worship and all other areas.  Once you cease to focus on the Egyptian Society you will have time and energy to define the place where you currently are by your relationship with Christ.  And mercy and favor will begin to fall on this community in ways that we have never seen before even though you are in the time between the cupbearer and Pharaoh’s dream.  Be aware, I sense strongly from the Lord, this is a very short time.  Get prepared.