“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” (Isaiah 60:1-2)
Isaiah in the above scriptures prophesied about the pervasive nature of darkness in the last days and how God himself shall come upon his people to dispel that darkness with his lightning presence. The darkness is said to cover the earth and the people of the earth. It is God’s plan that we his people engage in spiritual warfare to dismantle the satanic infrastructure that enforces this darkness.
It is God's plan that we his people engage in spiritual warfare to dismantle the satanic infrastructure that enforces this darkness.
Understanding the Nature of Darkness
Darkness itself is not real. Darkness is actually the absence of light. Once light comes, darkness automatically disappears.Â
An altar has always been and still today is the place where men make sacrifices, present various tokens and seek to make covenants with God. It is the place of calling upon the name of the Lord and consequently the place of receiving help and interventions from God. These we see in Gen. 8:20-22; 12:7; 13:4, 15-18: 26:24-25. These Patriarchs of old made a habit of securing places and promises God made to them by building altars at the place of encounter and servicing those altars regularly with sacrifices, crying unto the Lord and thereby ensuring divine help. The person that ministers at the altar is called the priest of the altar.
The most significant aspect of an altar is that it serves as a gateway between the realm of the physical and the realm of the spirit as we see in the narrative of Jacob when he arrived in Luz, one of the locations his grandfather Abraham had built an altar. Gen. 28:10-22. His dream encounter as he slept at this location (vs. 12-15) describes the gate nature of an altar. He saw angels ascending and descending to and from heaven with God visible under open heavens conditions speaking expressly to him with assurances and promises. His conclusion was that the location was the house of God and the gate of heaven (vs 17).
An altar raised to God hence is a gate that connects the priest of the realm to the God of the altar who is altar ministering in the physical in the spiritual realm. The altar also serves as a gateway to allow angels as spirits to now, by the invitation provoked through the sacrifices, tokens and prayers offered on the altar, enter into the physical realm to assist the priest of the altar. This is the gate of heaven principle.
Conversely, because satan copies whatever God is doing for building his own satanic dominion, he has offered himself for worship to man. Men have therefore established satanic altars and varying satanic priesthood orders who minister diverse demonic sacrifices and tokens on those altars to secure satanic assistance for various activities on the earth.
These satanic priesthood activities provoke a different spiritual traffic. Instead of the angels, it is demon and satanic spirits that arise from hell through these satanic altars unto earth to do the bidding of the satanic priests. This is the gate of hell principle.
When satanic spirits start their entrance into territories through the gates of hell opened to them by from the priests who invite them satanic priests, they hijack control and of course begin their ministry of the thief which is to steal and to kill and to destroy. (John 10:10). This is the beginning of light affliction.
This is the phenomenon of darkness covering the earth. The extent of the cover is determined by the level of the priest. Altars are at different levels of mandate. There are family altars and there are community altars of various territorial mandate as controlled by the sacrifices and tokens that are made on the altar.
Witchcraft altars and the accompanying priesthood which are also of varying territoriality are at the core of establishing gross darkness. Nahum the prophet describes this as the sale of families and the sale of nations through the tokens of sexual perversions and other horrible sacrifices of human blood by the Mistress of Witchcrafts. “Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her  witchcrafts.” (Nahum 3:4)
This is the phenomenon of gross darkness. It manifests itself through extreme violence on the land with multitudes of killings through rampant and unchecked impunity. “Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not: The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:” (Hab. 3:1-3)
Witchcraft progresses when unchecked to produce abnormal beings through sexual intercourse between demonic spirits in human form and actual humans. This is the phenomenon recounted in Gen. 6:1-6. In that era, scriptures state that the offspring of intimacy between fallen non-human spirits in human form-called sons of God (Gen 6:2: Job1:6; 2:1) and daughters of men, produced giants called mighty men who did such unprecedented things that made God decide to wipe off man from the earth. (Gen. 6:4-6). These so- called giants or Nephilims were in actual fact non-human or part- human beings who have non or very little of human nature in them.
When abnormal beings in human form arrive in the earth through advanced witchcraft and the outcomes, those nations are sold, and we thus see the phenomenon of gross wickedness of men to men. Normal human beings even when not born again still have varying deposits of God’s nature and attributes as created in them such as kindness, discipline and order, love, morality and human conscience. That is why we talk of “The milk of human kindness” which exists in normal humans.
This is how various societies and civilizations have been governed and have thrived over time.
When gross darkness settles over a territory as we see in various nations such as Syria, Nigeria and other nations where we have witnessed uncommon wickedness of seeming mankind to mankind, through abominable beheadings, killings, infanticide and ripping of pregnant women etc. you should understand that we have Nephilims in these territories. This is the phenomenon of gross darkness that gives rise to grievous affliction.
Spiritual Warfare for Creating Open Heavens
The Church of Jesus Christ is the only Spiritual Police Force that has the mandate to overthrow darkness in all its dimensions and call bluff of satan’s hosts of darkness. When the Lord was laying down the vision for his church he said: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Mat.1618-19)
It is through prayer and spiritual warfare that we can overturn the covering of darkness that satan has built over peoples, families and nations. Prophet Isaiah said that God’s house in the last days shall an house of prayer. “Also the sons of the be the stranger, that join themselves to LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.” (Isaiah 56:6-7).
The church in the new testament is God’s house and it is called to function as an house of prayer. The Lord Jesus demonstrated this when he got really angry because this principle was being violated at the time of his first advent. “And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; Saying unto them, It is written. My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:46). Isaiah had earlier declared in the scriptures that it is as we join ourselves to the Lord to love the Lord and raise altars to our God at the level of families, churches, communities and nations that we fulfil this mandate of being his house of prayer which Isaiah calls God’s Holy Mountain.
It is this holy mountain that God will use to both provide feasts (seasons of spiritual revivals and renewal) in the last days as well as destroy the covering of darkness spread over nations. “And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.”
This is why the Lord describes His Church in the New Testament in various ways as an indomitably strong body. Paul admonishes that we should be strong and consider ourselves as soldiers in a war. “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2Tim 2:1-4). Paul describes that it is our duty to take down Satan’s spiritual structures in the heavenlies which constitute darkness over nations and peoples. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:10-12)
We need to war as disciplined teams bound together in oneness of divine purpose. Warring as teams increases our territorial clout. Our weapons for this activity are spiritual and irresistibly potent for defeating any satanic gang up. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself bringing into captivity every against the knowledge of God, and thought to the obedience of Christ: And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” (2Cor 10:3-6)
It is when we operate in this way, that we liberate our territories from the pervasive light afflictions and grievous afflictions through sustained spiritual warfare as an occupational army. The glory of the Lord can then come upon the nations. Hear Paul “And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared into the for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26: 16-18). This is when and we can begin to really shine as lights as Paul further said “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Phil.2:13-15).Â
May you truly shine with the glory of our risen Lord as you arise from sitting on the fence, and dislodge satanic hosts so as to earnestly engage in territorial intercession and spiritual warfare to release the glory of our risen Lord over your territory. God bless you!
