The Remnant By Louis Eke – Part 2

God does nothing without purpose, and the purpose for which He does everything is eternal. He created all things for His own pleasure (Revelation 4:11) and the Crown of His creation in its entire entirety is man with whom God has always desired to have fellowship. The first man (Adam) could not maintain God's standard of holiness, which was the only guarantee for the kind of fellowship that God desired. But rather than abandon this original intention in creating man, God made a plan to bring the former back to his lost glory, where he would once again exercise dominion over the rest of His creation.

This plan, accomplished in Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection, will fully be realised when God's children would have put all things under the feet of Jesus by establishing the will of God on the earth as it is in heaven, enforcing God's kingdom power to the degree that the whole earth will acknowledge the sovereignty of the God of Israel in the whole universe.

This has been God's divine objective in His work through the ages past, dealing with one generation after the other and bringing them from one level of glory to another. Thus, God has been at work right from creation till this day and will continue until His divine objective — man's exaltation to glory — is accomplished. This is the eternal will of God and nothing whatsoever can stop this, in spite of the concerted efforts of the devil and his human agents to thwart God's plan over the ages.

One Move after the Other

There is a major trend that is recurrent in God's dealing with man from the beginning of time. It is a phenomenon that, over the years, has provided a platform for the dynamism the Church has experienced since its inception. Because the focus of the Sovereign Lord is on the divine end-purpose of restoring man (His children) to the fullness of kingdom glory, the tendency for the people of God to get settled easily on the status quo has made the Lord, from time to time, to instigate moves in the Church with a view to stirring up some people out of the old, established and unresponsive order and constituting them into a new reformatory order, focused on the divine objective. They understand that God is on a journey with His children with a determined destination in view, and that God walks with one generation after the other in the divine purpose of establishing His kingdom on the earth.

Having understood this fact, the generation of the new order, while not straying from the ancient pathway, now looks up to God for direction on what new path to follow, rather than settle with the generation past and continue to run round the cycle with  them. As can been seen from the  outstanding examples in both  the  Old and  New Testaments and  also throughout  the history of the Church, whenever any generation fails to move on with God to another level, He would pick a  new  generation  and  begin  the  next  move towards the ultimate destination.

Indeed, the history of the Church is about the rise of one movement out of the ashes of another, as the Almighty continues with His work of redemption. Whenever it seemed that His work had stopped and that the devil had succeeded in extinguishing the flame of each reformation move, there erupted a new move in some corner of the globe and the journey to eternity continued. This was what the Apostle Peter captured in Acts of the Apostles 3:21 when he said that Jesus Christ would remain in heaven “...until the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by his holy prophets since the world began”.

Moving through the Ages

When sin entered the world and began to spread due to the failure of Adam and the succeeding generations, God raised Noah and commenced a new move with him. But sadly, he failed to transmit what God taught him to the generation.

After him, resulting in the most outstanding rebellion against God in that age symbolised in the Tower of Babel. The same rebellious spirit still runs its course today in the form of worldly religious systems that are mere human designs used by the devil to divert man from seeking the true God through His own ordained way.

Good enough, the fate of the worldly religious systems is summarized in the same Babel Tower that eventually came tumbling down. However, God preserved a remnant in Shem and resolved to carry on the process with the generations after him. But when they turned to other gods, God started to stir the spirit of Terah and to separate him from his environment to a place where, perhaps, he would be sensitive to God's voice. On his way to the land of Canaan, which was God's destination for him, he got to Haran and settled there, not discerning the stirring of God in his heart.

But God's plan cannot be thwarted. Job declares in Job 42:1 thus: I know that thou (God) can do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. And God moved on. The journey that Terah terminated prematurely was completed by his son, Abram (later Abraham), with whom God now entered into a covenant relationship  and summarised in him the totality  of His plan for humankind,  from that  time until eternity. But the divine process leading to the actualisation of this eternal covenant continued through generations that came after Abraham up until Joshua, with each passing generation making sure that the succeeding one received the exact copy of the eternal promise. In addition, they left them with the instructions to pay heed to God's unfolding plans and strategies as they continued their walk with Him.

With Joshua out of the scene and no one with enough spiritual depth to command the whole of Israel before God, rebellion entered the House once again. And here and there, God raised judges to deliver the people each time they came under judgment, until He finally found a man that yielded to Him and was ready to receive instructions from Him and to command the House again, in the person of Samuel.

When later, king Saul proved to be unfit to lead the new move that started with Samuel, God prepared and anointed David who then carried the torch in his generation. David handed over the baton to his son, Solomon, who brought Israel to the height of its kingdom rule and establishment, and who also set the stage for another period of rot. No sooner had he left the scene than the generation after him wallowed in rebellion again. Once more, God's judgment came on Israel, which later and for decades went through about the most excruciating period in its history, with its exiles in Assyria and Babylon as the climax of its punishment.

The Journey Continued

Shortly after the revival that greeted the return of the exiles from Babylon to the land of Israel, the light went out again and Israel as a nation did not hear the voice of God for about

400 years. 

To make up for this void, the people slipped into religion instead of a relationship, as they devised ways and means of maintaining a semblance of pure conscience.

In the course of this, various sects such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Zealots and the Essenes emerged and succeeded in heaping on themselves and the people burdens too grievous to bear with their strict moral codes and radical nationalistic fervour. The experience of Israel at this time and at other times in the nation's history, is the picture painted in Proverbs 13:13

Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.

With the  prophetic  ministry  of John the  Baptist, whose coming was foretold in the Old Dispensation shortly before the  intervening  years  (Malachi 4:5), a  new  chapter  was opened in God's walk with His people. At the fullness of time, however, God sent the Messiah, Jesus Christ, to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15 and subsequent prophecies in the Old Testament that attest to His first advent. And having sowed the seed of the kingdom of God on the earth by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God inaugurated another major move, this time more radical and violent, shifting the battlefield to the realm of the spirit. He thereafter prepared a group of “unlearned” men (the foundational apostles) to sound the gospel alarm, which echo still reverberates around the globe today. There is reason to rejoice because even though the Church may hold back the hand of God, albeit temporarily, the body of Christ cannot stop Him from carrying on and completing His eternal plan.

Today, God is dealing with the nations – His nations. The original vision of the Church as one body of Christ representing the eternal God on the earth is coming alive and strong. A prophetic/apostolic ministry has been sent forth to the earth to rekindle the apostolic flame of the early Church and stir believers into taking up their age-old kingdom mandate of subduing and enforcing the will of God on the earth and bringing the spiritual rulers of the earth (principalities and powers) and their human agents (kings and princes) under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, the Redeemer of man and the King of kings.

This emerging priestly company is not “drunk with new wine” as some, even respected brethren in the fold, may suppose, but are moved by the Spirit of God. If you lack an understanding of the times, go to God and ask to know His plan for this hour, but do not stand on the way. When God initiates a new move, He takes only a remnant with Him.

In the history of the Church, we have recorded various reformatory movements through which God advanced the Church in the revelation of His plan and kingdom mysteries. The most recent being the moves of the Pentecostals and Charismatics, which preoccupied the Church for almost the entire 20th Century.

However, as we advance in the new century, and the new millennium, a decree has gone forth in heaven, signaling a move beyond signs and wonders (which are not an end in themselves, valid as they may be) to actual enforcing of kingdom principles and lifestyle in all facets of human existence.

God has moved beyond the Pentecostal experience. The Church must establish its saltiness on the earth. The power of our God must be revealed in the nations so that every created being will acknowledge that the Lord we worship is different from the gods of the religions of this world; that He is the One who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them (visible and invisible) and who rules and reigns with sovereignty in the nations and in the affairs of men.

(To be continued)