Spirit of the Age

An important role for all christians, but especailly those called to intercession, prophecy and evangelism (which, I guess, is all of us) is to understand the prevailing principalities and rulers, the dark forces which rule over our culture.

In the modern age this was clearly the spirit of arrogance tied to the false doctrine of consumerism.

The spirit of modernity is rapidly givng way to the spirit of post-modernism, and new principalities are starting to be manifest.

We are now moving into an age dominated by the spirit of fear. The media have always thrived on and fed this spirit, after all bad news sells.

Starting with the change in the millennium there was a new emphasis on fear. Remember the panic casued by the Y2K bug? Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, fear of terrorism has driven much of the agenda of governments and the media. As the terrorist threat is being more or less brought under control, fear of global climatic annihilation has taken its place.

The Greens have really leapt onto this- this is THE issue that they have been looking for. And what can be bigger than human beings destroying the planet through our own carelessness? Australians have bought into this lie more than any other western culture, probably influenced by the drought and the resultant water restrictions in the big cities.

Associated with this now is the poverty spirit of the environmental movement which wnats to tell us that the planet doesn't have the resources to support our current population. We have to lessen our impact on the planet, reduce our footprint and generally make do with much less than we now have.

People have been saying things like this for over 100 years (possibly since Adam and Eve left the Garden!). Mankind was supposedly on the brink of catastrophe in the early 1900s because the agricultural system could barely support what was there back then. London was about to be overwhelmed by an over flow of horse manure. Well, the global population is about three times what it was then, and the average wealth acrosss the world has mulitplied also. Heart disease, diabetes and obesity are not just problems of Western cultures but are now making inroads into the formerly poor nations of China and India. And of course, the internal combustion engine displaced the horse as the main cause of urban pollution.

But still there are people who want to tell us that the world can't support the population.

All christians need to rebuke these spirits in the name of Jesus. We need to declare that God is our provider and that He is our shield and protection.

These spirits have no part in our culture.

We also need to redeem popular culture. The Greens come from a philosophy that says humans are just a feral biological element running unrestrained in the world. God says that human beings are infinitely precious.

Don't buy the lies being propagated by these people.

Stand against the spirits of poverty and fear.

Blessings

Keith