Preparing For The Last Great OutpouringSample

Storms of Change

Demonic principalities shape the culture and thought of entire societies until their diabolical ways of thinking, the evil they promote, comes to seem good and self-evident to the majority who are being influenced. Those who disagree are then seen as ignorant, the enemy, a threat, and dangerous. Sound familiar? 

In ancient Israel, Baal was the dominant principality. Subtly, over time, Baal infiltrated Israel’s culture and faith, gradually conditioning the people to accept the worship of idols with all of the accompanying hideous practices. The people of Israel didn’t see themselves as rejecting Yahweh, at least at first. 

Eventually the influence of the spirit of Baal became so dominant that when true prophets—always the minority—challenged the demonic way of thinking that affected their culture and their worship, Israel responded by persecuting, imprisoning, and killing them. Today, we who stand for righteousness and holiness find ourselves labeled as bigots and hate-mongers. Demonic cultural conditioning has been changing the face of Christianity itself in grotesque and destructive ways. 

Scripture records four marks of the dominance of the Baal spirit as it infected Israel: consuming self-focus; rampant sexual immorality; the sacrifice of children; and cutting and self-mutilation.

When a demonic principality rules a culture and has so infected its thinking that evil appears to be self-evidently good and good appears to be self-evidently evil, and when those who stand for the good become the enemy and are labeled in negative ways, then historically, in virtually every case, the only remedy left for God has been to apply catastrophic national or cultural calamity. Repentance would turn the tide, but it seldom happens once the culture has set its course. 

In the face of what is to come, we must deeply root ourselves in the truth that Jesus alone is King and our citizenship rests in the kingdom of God that transcends all nationalities, races, and ethnicities. We are citizens of God’s kingdom before all other loyalties. Jesus alone is our hope, our provider, our security, and our glory. 

The storm of the Holy Spirit is about to break upon us. For the church, the faithful, our greatest glory unfolds in the midst of this difficult time. Greatness lies ahead for us. In the midst of it all, we get to win in ways we have never seen before.