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Wow! Seventy-five days of prayer by the Canberra Declaration! It is not just an achievement by the Canberra Declaration and all the wonderful praying hearts who prayed with us in this season, but it has shifted something in our beloved Australia.

We as the family of God have shifted something in the nation of Australia, not just in regard to the Covid-19 virus, but also breaking a cycle and paving the way for the Father’s purposes for the next part of the journey.

The inspiration for me to write this article came to me in the night, not so long ago, when the Holy Spirit said to me: “What does 40 days do?” I know that the seventy-five-day period was significant, but the Lord is highlighting to me forty days, which is a significant Bible number.

Shortly after that question, He showed me a vision of four dark pink bottlebrush branches, similar to these repeated images:

The Lord spoke to me that the pink represents love, and deep pink possibly represents deep love or even healing. Therefore, four dark pink bottlebrush branches would represent four periods of time, perhaps of deep love, healing, and prayer for Australia.

This is what the Lord sees. He has seen our prayers, our deep love for Australia. He has brought us through into a new day on the other side of Covid-19, even though we are not completely there yet, but we have seen a major shift and restrictions are easing in many places.

Some are prophesying doom and gloom, but a trusted prophetic voice whom I know here in Adelaide has already shared that he believes the Lord will miraculously save Australia’s economy, and that we will not go into severe decline as others have forecast.

Today, 25^th June 2020, as I am writing this article, I came across a report from Josh Frydenberg saying:

Australia is the only developed nation to have its 2020 growth forecast upgraded by the International Monetary Fund.

This shows yet again the remarkable resilience of the Australian economy in the face of Covid-19.

God is up to something! What is He doing?

I believe He is preparing Australia to be the true Joseph nation which is our redemptive calling. Just like individuals have callings, so too do nations have callings and purposes in God to fulfil.

 

Many of us believe that Donald Trump (like Cyrus) has been raised up to do a significant work in the United States, so I believe that by the grace of God, Father God is raising up Australia to be a Joseph nation, not just to bring physical food to our nations and other nations like Joseph did, but also to bring the Gospel to Australia and beyond. This is our redemptive calling — “for such a time as this”.

The word that comes to me is transformation. In the book of Nehemiah, we see spiritual leaders and civic leaders coming together to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and bring restoration. It is not just enough to pray; it is not just enough to just bring social change, but the Lord uses us (the Ekklesia) to bring transformation in both the spiritual and the civic spheres. We have authority in the spiritual area, but we also need to land that transformational change to bring about new ways forward for our society in the natural as well; transformational ways that will bring forth life and prosperity, and not decline.

We saw this happening in front of our eyes when the Prime Minister came to pray with us on the morning of Sunday 29^th March 2020. We prayed together, the saints and the political leader of Australia, and the Covid-19 graph of new cases dropped dramatically from that day onwards. (The peak day was Sat 28^th).

All I can say is, family, we are agents of change, bringing about transformation in our society through prayer and as we will see in the Bible, forty days breaks a cycle.

Insights

Forty represents cleansing and purifying. In the time of Noah, it took forty days to cleanse the earth of wickedness.

In the Hebrew Bible, forty is often used for time periods — forty days, or forty years — which separate “two distinct epochs”. (Michael David Coogan, A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context, Oxford, 2008, p. 116)

Moses’ leadership broke the cycle of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt.

Elijah broke the cycle of oppression when he fasted for 40 days, and anointed Jehu, the next generation, who then went on to destroy the work of Jezebel.

Jesus broke the cycle of bondage to hollowed religion and took His people into the new Kingdom of God era with the new birth as it says in John 3:3 —

Jesus answered and said to him,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

When Moses went up the mountain and prayed and fasted for forty days in the presence of the Lord on Mount Sinai, it was necessary for something to shift in the heavenlies. They had been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years, and it was not a light thing to move from that stagnant situation into a new era of freedom from slavery, and ultimately the possession of the Promised Land. And so, Moses fasted and fasted. The first time was to receive the Law, and the second time was to intercede for the people.

As we know, he went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, which had the handwriting of God on them.

And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
~ Exodus 31:18

The children of Israel had been worshipping the Golden Calf idol made for them by Aaron (let’s face it, this man of God did not do everything right), and when Moses saw this abomination, he smashed the tablets and returned to the mountain for another forty days.

So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing.
So, Moses’ anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
~ Exodus 32:19

Nineveh had forty days to repent or expect judgement, it says in the book of Jonah.

After the encounter with the prophets of Baal, Elijah fasted forty days, during which time he received fresh instructions, and the oppression of the enemy was broken.

Our beloved Saviour Jesus/Yeshua fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness, not just to prepare Himself for His ministry that lay ahead of him; He was ushering in a new era that the world had never before experienced.

He also had to break a cycle. John the Baptist had come to prepare Israel for an unprecedented visitation. Yahweh Himself had sent His Son to Earth to bring in the era of the New Heart and the New Covenant, as it says in Ezekiel.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;
I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
~ Ezekiel 36:26

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.
~ Jeremiah 31:31

The people of God were about to come out of, not just believing in the one true God, Yahweh, and having a Rabbinical set of laws to follow, but into a whole new way of knowing God and encountering Him, through Yeshua, the living water, the Bread of Life who was about to bring eternal salvation through His death, burial and resurrection.

Further scriptures

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
~ 2 Chronicles 7:14

I am not saying that the Lord made Covid-19 happen, but He has definitely used it for His purposes. This is the key scripture that has been acted upon in this season. Some have prayed, some have fasted. There has been repentance on many levels, and now the Lord has something in His hand that He can work with.

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
~ Revelation 5:8

Our prayers have ascended to Heaven and they have been stored in bowls. We have already seen a major downturn in Covid-19, but there is more to come. At some point in time, in the not too distant future, these bowls of prayers with answers, I believe, will be poured back down onto us from Heaven. Even now we are beginning to see the firstfruits of our labours.

Conclusion

The reason for sharing these thoughts, I believe, is that the Lord wants to congratulate and bless us for a job well done, and to use this encouragement as an impetus to propel us forward into the next season, knowing that He has prepared the way.

“The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth.”

We as the family of God, and Australia as a nation, can move forward with certainty that He is the Waymaker for all of us to take us into a new day, pregnant with promise, to bring us into a day of fulfilment of His great promises, both individually and nationally.

And may I echo Brian Houston’s words:

“The best is yet to come!”

[Photo by Andy Hutchinson on Unsplash]