Transcription
[Music] I'm going to start, um, a new series that I have titled "In the Corridors of Power." "In the Corridors of Power," and it's starting from, uh, today. I'm not sure when it will end, but it will end when it must end, uh, "In the Corridors of Power." And my subtitle for today is "The Pillars." Now, if you look at our backdrop, you can locate where my sermon is at the moment, in the pillars. And, uh, in this series, I'm going to talk about power and, and the role of the Christian, and particularly the church, in the power systems of the world. This is our year of influence. And in having influence, it's important for us to know where our influence will spread to.
I'm going to begin with a reading from the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter 2, 46-49. Daniel chapter 2, 46-49. In this series, I'll be making a lot of references to Daniel. Uh, he definitely is a man who knew how to operate in the corridors of power. Daniel chapter 2, verses 46 to 49.
"Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, prostrate before Daniel, and commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him. The king answered Daniel and said, 'Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal the secret.' Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts. And he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon. Also Daniel petitioned the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of the king."
Daniel knew how to influence nations and kingdoms for God. He was not a king, but he set an agenda for kingdoms and for nations. Daniel was a man of immense power in Babylon. He had gone to Babylon as a teenager from the conquered tribes of Judea and had been taken as a slave to the land. But over the years, Daniel rose in prominence, and for 70 years, he was a very critical leader in Babylon and Persia, and he served four different kings as the number one advisor. Went through difficulty, but always emerged very successfully. Daniel definitely knew how to stand in the corridors of power. And Nebuchadnezzar, the Bible says, promoted him and gave him many gifts and set him at his gate.
To have influence, you have to rise from a place of loneliness to a very high place. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 13, God is speaking about the blessings over Israel and over Israel as a nation. And in the declaration of those blessings, he comes to verse 13. And this is what God says about his people. He says, "And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today and be careful to observe them."
God's statement to Israel, to his covenant people, was that they will be the head and not the tail. It was not just a call to individuals. It was to the whole body, to the whole nation. And in the New Testament, that call is found in Christ Jesus. It is not just for an individual. It is for the body of Christ. It is for the church. It was for the whole group of people.
I just want to explain a little bit about the two words that I use there: head and not tail. What does it mean to be head? To be head means to be above. To be above, it also means to be an initiator. One who begins things. It means to be superior. It means to be favored. The head is the initiator. The head sets the tone. The head sets the agenda. God says to his people, "You are the head. You are the initiator. You are the agenda setters. You are the head and not the tail."
What is the tail? The tail is to be beneath, to be under, to be a follower, to be inferior, and to be subordinate. The tail reacts to what the head determines. The tail does not set the agenda. The tail follows the lead. In any area of operation, there are heads and there are tails. Even on a coin, there is a head and there is a tail. In every endeavor of life, there is a head and there is a tail. The head is above, the tail is beneath. God's promise to his people is that you will be the head and not the tail. Somebody say, "I am the head and not the tail." That is very important because if we're going to have influence in our world, if we're going to influence our society, we have to be heads. We have to have a head mentality and not a tail mentality. The church of Jesus Christ is called to be head and not the tail. Jesus said that we are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth. We are the city that is set on a hill. Nothing about that is tail. Everything is about head.
In this world, there are places of power. The world itself functions in a power system. And I'm going to, uh, do quite a lot of work in that area because many of us would live our lives, our entire lives, without ever being in a position of power. We may just surrender our lives to an and somebody to dictate for us what to do and never rise to become the people that God wants us to be. But by the end of this series, you are going to rise from a low level to a high level.
Today, under the whole subject of, of, uh, "In the Corridors of Power," and my focus is going to be pillars. The human society is built around pillars. These are the structures around which we build our lives. And whoever controls these pillars controls how we live our lives. And I'm going to use a story in the Old Testament to illustrate this point and its importance to us. The story is one that we are familiar with. It's about Samson, the strongman judge of Israel. And the story occurs on the last day of Samson's life. After he had been deceived by Delilah, arrested by the Philistines, his hair shaved, his eyes taken out, the Philistines made mockery of him. But on this last day of his life, Samson gets his revenge. And I'm going to use this story to illustrate the power of pillars, and then I will go ahead to tell you what are the pillars that our society is about, is built on, and what we must do with those pillars.
So go with me to Judges chapter 16. Judges chapter 16 and verses 25 to 26. Judges chapter 16, verse 25 to 26. Judges is in your Bible. It's not in a court. It's in the Bible. It's after Joshua. Joshua, Judges. Judges chapter 16, verse 25-26. And then we'll read verses 29 and 30 after that.
And it reads, "So it happened when their hearts were merry that they said, 'Call for Samson, that he may perform for us.' So they called for Samson from the prison, and he performed for them, and they stationed him between the pillars. Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, 'Let me feel the pillars which support the temple, so I can lean on them.'"
Note what is happening. Samson is at the lowest point of his life. He's been disgraced. Uh, he, he, he's been made mockery of. And the Bible says they brought him to perform, just to, to make mockery of him. And when he came to the temple where they were having this festival and making mockery of him, he says to the young boy who is leading him, "Lead me to the pillars of this temple that I may lean on them." The impression was, "I'm so weak. I'm so tired. I just need a pillar to lean on." So the young boy takes Samson to the pillar of the temple.
And then verse 26 and verse 29 and 30. "And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. Then Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines.' And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So that the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life."
So Samson doesn't lean for support on the pillar, but he goes to the two pillars that are supporting this enormous structure where the people are having their game, and he prays and, and says, "God, for the last time, I don't think he should have prayed for the last time. He should have survived it. But I think he was so depressed he wanted to die. But he says, 'Let me die with the Philistines.'" And he pushed the pillars with all his might, and the building collapsed.
This story, story illustrates the power of pillars. Everybody say, "Pillars." It, it illustrates that when pillars stand, systems stand. When pillars are moved, systems collapse. So that Samson is showing us the importance of pillars. So what is a pillar in the sense that I am using it in my message today? A pillar is a reliable foundation. A pillar is always connected to the foundational structure. It arises from the foundation. Now, you may not know civil engineering and you may not know how buildings are built, but most buildings have a foundation. There are a couple of them that don't have foundations, like kiosks, but even then they have something, a foundation of a sort. But the buildings have foundation. Uh, when we were putting up this building, because it was the first time a building was being put up in this whole area, and this whole area was, uh, waterlogged, and nobody had built here. In fact, when we were going to build Christ Temple, we were told it's not possible. It can't be done. The building will sink. You know, all kinds of people told us it cannot be done. Nobody builds in this area. The building will sink. Building will sink. Building will sink. So, I think our civil engineers were also overcautious about building here because, you know, they didn't know what will happen. So, in building this building, we had to drive down piles. You say, "What are piles?" Piles are massive pillars that are driven down. So underneath this building are massive pillars, 180 of them, concrete, hard concrete and steel driven down. It's under this building, gone now, because they had to drive down the piles to go and meet solid rock, which is about, uh, a couple of meters, I think, seven, six meters down. So they had to drive this thing over 20 feet to go down and hit the solid rock. Now, when it hit the solid rock, then they cap the pile. How that is then done, I'm not going to tell you. They cap it, and then based on that, they created the foundation. Now, based on that, they created pillars. So some of the structures you have here cannot be moved because they are pillars. Those pillars are sitting on the piles. So the pillar is part of the foundation, but there's a foundation that has come up, and it holds the building together. There are structures here that you can move in this building, but there are the structures which you can't move because if you move them, like what happened in Samson's time, we will be in big trouble here. So we have to keep them up. So anytime we are doing a remodeling, we have to test which one can be moved, which one cannot be moved. Walls can be moved, pillars cannot be moved. All right.
So, pillars are part of the foundation of a system, but they come up, they stand up. They are a firm or reliable foundation. Secondly, pillars are a support structure. They hold things together. They are a support structure. And thirdly, pillars are upright. They are upright. They don't turn. They are upright. They are upright systems. A pillar must not be crooked. They must stand upright. And it's important because if the pillar is crooked, it's going to disturb the whole structure.
Now, that is the kind of thing that Daniel, Samson was dealing with. And in every society, there are pillars in our world. When you look at the world, you look at all the five continents and all the nations, there are seven and a half billion people on the earth. There are pillars of this earth, pillars of our world, that when you move them, the whole earth will collapse. Not collapse in the sense that the, the, the material earth will be destroyed, but the structure of human society will be destroyed.
So today, we will attempt to answer two important questions regarding pillars. The first question: What pillars hold our world? What pillars? What kind of pillars are holding our world? And the second question: Who holds the pillar that holds the world? What are the pillars holding the world? And who is holding the pillars? Because if Samson is holding the pillar, we are in trouble. He can move them.
What are the structures that hold our world? Proverbs chapter 9, verse 1 says, "Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn out her seven pillars." The Bible says there are seven pillars that wisdom has hewn out. Didn't tell us what the seven pillars are, but I have put together the seven pillars of our society. Seven pillars of our society. And you see them in our artwork out there at, at the background. And I'll go through the seven pillars very quickly.
The first pillar is the pillar of family. Everybody say, "Family." Family gives us identity. This is where everything begins. Father, mother, children. When family is disrupted, everything else is disrupted. When the structure, the pillar of family is moved, the society is going to collapse. And the pillar of family has been there throughout human history. The family is made up of a father, a mother, and children. A father, a mother, children. And there can be extensions of it, but it will be still extension of father, mother, children, father, mother, children, father, mother, children, father, mother, children. That's family. That's the first pillar. It's the first pillar God built for human society: Adam, Eve, and their family. The first pillar, very important. If this pillar is moved, something is going to happen to the way the human life is.
Second pillar of society is culture. Culture gives us meaning. Culture includes our beliefs, our religion, the arts. It tells us what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Our customs, our values derive from culture. Culture is a very strong pillar, very important.
Third, education. Education teaches us what we know. Teaches us what we know. This is where we acquire the tools to understand ourselves and our world. Education is a strong pillar of society. When that pillar is collapsed, society is in big trouble.
Fourth, media. Media, powerful pillar, tells us what is happening. This is how we get to know what is happening beyond our own experiences. Much of the opinions we have in life, we were not there when they happened. It was reported to us. And media is what reports it to us. The first media was gossip. "Have you heard? Have you heard? Have you heard? Have you heard? Have you heard?" That's how news spread. So over time, we went beyond "Have you heard?" to writing down, and then now we are in broadcasting, television, social media, and so on. Media is very powerful because it tells you what is happening, but it also tells you how to see what is happening. Now, why do I say that? Have you considered that when you watch television, and everybody watches television here, don't you? Or you watch a movie, you only see what the cameraman shows you. Have you considered that? When you're watching TV, you are only seeing what the cameraman has chosen for you to see. So you may think you are seeing the whole picture, but no, you are only seeing the picture from the vantage point of the cameraman. Now, if he decides not to show you something, you would not see it. Whatever he decides to show you is what you see. So when you, you look at it and say, "This is the truth," your truth is based on the vantage point of the cameraman. It has serious implications. I'll come to that. When you read an article in the newspaper, you only read what the writer wrote. You know, there are people who read the newspaper, and the moment they read a story, they think it's true. When we were younger, when something was in "Graphic," it was almost like it's true. Somebody say something, you say, "Where did you hear that from?" "Oh, it's in 'Graphic.'" But the story was written by somebody, and the person only wrote what he wanted you to read. So if he takes out something and filters something, you can't see it because you only read what he wants you to read. When you listen to news on the air on radio, you only hear what the newscaster said, nothing else. Media is very powerful, but media is filtered. So anybody whose reality is based on television, newspaper, or what they have read, read, you have to be very careful because you may not have the entire picture. It's a power. It's a pillar. The media, whether you like it or not, or better for what is the media.
Fifth pillar of society is science. Science shows us what is possible. It is the seat of technology, of innovation. Science tells us what we can do and what we cannot do. And there are serious implications of that.
Number six, sixth pillar, business. Business determines who has money. Business controls money. And for us in Africa, that has serious implications for our share of power.
And the seventh pillar is government. Government rules and manages our lives. Government begins with self-government, to family, to community, and larger systems. Those who control these seven pillars control how the rest of us live. For about 1,500 years of what is called Western civilization, from the Roman Empire right through until recently, the church controlled almost all the seven pillars. But it's changed, and it's changing very fast because sometimes a pillar can stand for so long and nobody touches it and nobody moves it. This is how family is. This is what science is. This is what education is. This is what the media is. This is, this is it. This is how the pillars of society are built. And nobody touches them. Everybody accepts, "This is how it is," until a Samson comes along. And when a Samson comes, he changes the structure of the pillar.
And who is a Samson? A Samson is a person I call the holders and the movers of the pillars of society. The holders and the movers of the pillars of society. Please pay close attention to what I'm talking about because it affects your life. A Samson is somebody who holds and moves the pillar, as we saw in the story of Samson. What are the characteristics of the Samsons who are able to move pillars? They are, number one, those who have knowledge. These are philosophers, researchers, experts. Their views control education, what we know, and so on and so forth. Those who have knowledge. Number two, those who have money. They are the Samsons. They can be nations, institutions, families, or individuals. Those who have money are able to sell their viewpoint to the rest of us. Less than 1%, less than 1% of the world's population owns 41% of the world's wealth. Less than 1%. And this 1% is people who earn $1 million and above. 1%. They own 41% of the entire world's wealth. About 70% of the people on this planet hold only 3%. So if you are in the 1%, you are a Samson. If you are in the 70%, you are in the crowd. The pillar is going to move, and you wouldn't know what killed you. You will just be there. Somebody moved the pillar. You say, "What is happening? What is happening? Where is the work coming to?" Hey, where is it? You're gone. There are movers of the pillars. Now, it makes it very serious because if you are not even aware that there are people who are moving the pillars, the pillars will move, and they will tell you to accept the movement that is in your interest.
For a long time, the pillar of family remained unmoved throughout all human history in every culture: husband, wife, children. In the last 10 years or 20 years, that pillar is being moved with husband, husband, children, wife, wife, children. And when you talk about it, those with money will come against you. And they're going to call you all kinds of names because they control the media and determine that they're going to move the pillar, the pillar. And if you talk, you are in trouble. They are the Samsons. Knowledge, money, and power. The Samsons have got power. Sometimes it's military power, or or whatever power. But have you noticed that even in normal, you know, relations, when when somebody is physically strong and he talks, his argument may not make sense, but you look at his face and you refuse to argue. When somebody holds a gun and you have no gun, your opinions don't matter at that time. Arm robbers entered people's homes and dispossessed them because they have a gun, not because they have intelligence. When somebody has more power, more money, more knowledge, they are what I call the Samsons of society. And they are just a few people. In the story of Samson, he was one. The people in the theater were thousands. He was one. But one man moved the pillar, and everybody was gone. There are people who are moving the fundamental pillars of society. Family. And some of you, some of us are so clueless. They have so educated us. If they want to move society, they're going to put it in the syllabus. Once it goes through education, UN passes it because most of us believe the UN is God. The UN passes it. It becomes law. It's taught in your classroom, and you are there thinking, "Oh, I'm worshiping Jesus." But the pillar is being moved because somebody is changing the structure of education. [Applause] Somebody is changing the structure of science. The preoccupation of science currently is to prove there is no God. Why is that important? Why don't they want to cure diseases? Why do they want to prove there is no God? Because if you move God out of the equation, then we are in charge, and we can, we can decide a man should have a donkey's head and have a tail, and it doesn't matter because he was not created by anybody. He's not created in any age, anybody. We can form people the way we want. The pillars are being moved by the Samsons.
The problem with us Africans is that we are here. You see, we are the 70% who control only 3%. We are here. IMF says something, we do it. WHO says something, UN says something, we do it. Whatever they say, America says it, Obama says something, we do. What? You know, we, we, we are just there. What? "Oh, I saw it on CNN. It's true." "Oh, I saw it on BBC. It's true." Who told you? Who told you? They just showed you what they wanted you to see. But you know, we Africans are simple people. So, we are just there worshiping. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. The pillars are being moved. We Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Pillars are being moved. Then one day it collapsed. "Oh, where did it go?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Samson came. They said, "We want to lean on the pillar." And we said, "Okay, come and lean." They didn't want to lean. They wanted to push. The systems are collapsing. Africa is not poor by accident. I'll get into that later.
So now, if you are like us, you say, "Then, then we are finished. We are not strong. We don't have money. We don't have all the knowledge. We don't control media." Well, there's some good news for us. Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 11 says, "I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all." So there is an escape route for us to deal with those who have the power, time, and opportunity. 1 Chronicles 12:32. "And of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, who to know what Israel ought to do. Their chiefs were 200, and all their brethren were under their command." So the Bible is saying, we may not have all the power and the money, but if we have understanding of the times and we seize opportunity, we can win. Daniel was not a king, but he understood the times and he knew what the king ought to do, and the king made Daniel his head. Joseph was not a king, but he had understanding of the times and he knew what Egypt ought to do and Potiphar ought to do, and that changed the equation. So if we're going to outsmart the power systems, we need understanding, and we need to be quick to seize opportunity. Understanding of the times.
One of the problems of the church is that the church sometimes we don't get it. And when we get it, we get it too late. And the things we fight about and argue about are of no substance. But they occupy us for so long that the Samsons are moving our structure. But we don't care. We are fighting over all kinds of little, little things. So, for, for example, when the first television set was invented, the Christians of that time said, "It's the devil's box." So we didn't put any programming. We didn't put any content. We, we just allowed television to operate. We cursed it. We came against it. We bound it in the name of Jesus. Shalaba. And we, we condemned television before we realized television has been taken over by the world. And then we started having TV programs preaching for 30 minutes. But the damage had already been done. New media opening up. Social media is opening up. Christian content, very minimal. Pornography, so much. Gambling, so much. The world takes charge of it, and the church says, "Well, you know, we believe God will, we, we will do something." And, you know, some, somehow we don't get it. But we need understanding of the times, and we need to seize opportunity. You may say, "Pastor, but this why it doesn't concern me. I have to go and pay my rent." The reason why you can't pay your rent is not just because your landlord is wicked. There are systems greater than that that have compounded to create the poverty you are in. Your landlord himself is poor, trying to survive. It's not just the immediate problem. There are pillars that are being moved, and until you have a vision of the big picture, you will only struggle at the small level.
I like a story Bishop Bismark told years ago when he was preaching and talked about a young boy whose mother is a banker. The mother takes the boy to the office, and the boy is playing under the mother's table, and the mother is sitting at the computer transferring billions of dollars, doing big transactions. The boy is playing. He doesn't know right on top of his head what is happening. He has no clue. He's running after cockroaches on the ground. But things are exchanging. That's the, that's the picture of the church. We are there playing our small games, but massive things are happening on top of us. All I'm saying is, stop looking to the ground. Lift up your head a little bit and see that the picture is bigger. If we're going to be influential, we have to learn to move the pillars of society.
Let me conclude with what I believe God has called us for. Jeremiah chapter 1, verses 4 to 10. "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations.' Then I said, 'Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.' Then the Lord said to me, 'Do not say, "I am a youth," for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord." Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant."
So, what does, what must we do at this time? First, we have to embrace our prophetic mission. And when I say prophetically, I don't mean telling people about their house numbers and phone numbers. The prophets of old, Jeremiah, wasn't telling people that. It's about knowing and speaking forth to the seasons and times that people are in. The prophets of the Old Testament had a mission to remind the people about God's purpose for their lives. When the people started thinking small, they reminded them, "You are God's people." When they turned their back on God, they called them back to God. That's a prophetic mission.
Secondly, we have to see ourselves as overseers of nations. Our calling is a calling of headship. God wants Jeremiah not to allow his age and personal fears to diminish his calling. Jeremiah, on the one hand, was a citizen of his nation. On the another hand, he was the overseer of the nation. God says, "I have set you over nations." So you, you, you may sit in, in this place and think, "Oh, I'm nobody. I'm nothing." God says, "Don't think you are nothing. I have made you an overseer of the nation." We have to start embracing that.
Number three, we have to be bold to pull down and destroy wrong pillars. The church must be the Samsons of their generation. And we must pull down the pillars of mockery and scorn against God.
And number four, we must build and plant righteous pillars for our world. And I'm going to expand on this later in the series. But the point I'm making is, your life is not just you and your survival. I know poverty makes us all concerned about survival. That is why 70% of the wealth of the world's population controls only 3%. Africa accounts for only 2% of world trade. Upon all our gold, silver, diamond, bauxite, oil, and all the national anthems we sing at AU, and all the presidents in motorcades, 2%. There are individual businesses which do more business as one individual than the whole continent of Africa. Ghana, in spite of all our problems, and we're fighting all the fighting and all the things we're doing, we are a totally insignificant country, totally insignificant in terms of commerce. We don't register. We are not even a blip. We don't register. There are individuals who can tell the whole nation of Ghana, "Sit down, don't do anything, and I will pay your bills," and they can do that. So we are focusing on little, little things, but the issues are huge, my brothers and sisters. It's huge. It's huge. The problem with the church generally, especially Pentecostals, we're so spiritually minded, we, we, we don't understand the dynamics of the world. But Jesus is sending us to be light to this world, to be salt to this earth, to be a city set on a hill. You cannot play those roles thinking small about yourself. And I pray that God will help us to move into the corridors of power. And my vision and my dream is to nurture and nurse a new generation of power brokers. Power brokers. Power brokers in the family system, in culture, in media, in education, in science, in what else? Business, in government. We need Christians who would go and hold one of these pillars and say, "This is my pillar, and I'm going to command what happens in that area," and I will make sure anyone who wants to move this pillar out of the will of God, I will fight and make sure the pillar of family is preserved. The pillar of education is preserved. Business is for Jesus. The, the media is for Jesus. Culture is for Jesus. Government is for Jesus. Education is for Jesus. That means that we're not just going to go to school. We're going to examine curriculum. And we're going to make sure that the knowledge that goes into the African head is not subversive to the African destiny. That people will not teach us how to destroy ourselves, and we learn obediently how to destroy ourselves, but we will learn how to liberate ourselves and live bigger, better, and greater for God.
Somebody say, "I receive it." Say, "I receive it." Say, "I'm a Samson." [Applause] We're going to move some things in our time. Amen.
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