God’s Heart for Daylight

Once we understand the difference between being and having light, and the concept of prophetic day and night, we can discover how the rising and setting of prophetic intercessory light works in the world. What determines if our culture will see prophetic daytime or nighttime—whether or not the consciousness of our God will dominate a nation? Specifically, why has the prophetic sun gone down on another day inAmerica? And what is God’s heart in it all?

Let’s start with God’s heart. God wants it to be “day” in the world. He said “You are the light of the world. Don’t hide your light under a basket, but let your light shine.”

What is “hiding light under a basket?” Jesus is saying, “Don’t prevent your light from penetrating the culture. Don’t keep it among yourselves! Get out there and let it shine on the world.”

- Desiring the Day / Predicting the Night

Christ wants our light to shine. He expects us to promote daytime. Yet He knew it wouldn’t completely work out that way. He predicted prophetic nightfall and darkness on the world—as did the apostles:

Night is coming when no man can work…For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night…it will not come unless the apostasy comes first…[and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.] Jn 9:4; I Th. 5:2; II Th. 2:2; Rev. 9:2

So, if Jesus wants daytime, but predicts darkness, what is the reason? Why does our light fail in cultures? And why is it nighttime once again in America?

The objective reason prophetic night is predicted in history is to remind us that—no matter how much spiritual light it receives—no culture is, can or ever will become the Kingdom of Light as found only through the revelation of the Sons of Light at Christ’s coming.

Again, no matter how much Christian light earthly cultures “have,” they “are” still entities of darkness, and will end in darkness. That means every nation born of Adam—including America. Where we as children of light move from glory to glory, fleshly humanity in all its nationalities can ever only finally move from darkness to darkness.

The truth of cyclical darkness demolishes all notions that earthly kingdoms and cultures can be ultimately converted from receivers of light into beings or entities of light; i.e., into the literal Kingdom of Light. These notions pop up every time prophetic daytime comes into ascendance on a people. So even though God does want our daylight to remain, our susceptibility to this squirreled thinking requires Him to allow night to return. This is why revivals and spiritual awakenings on mortal flesh must always die out.

Why Night Returns to a Culture

That God allows prophetic nightfall however doesn’t tell the whole story. What we really want to know is what actively causes nightfall to return on a culture even though we are praying like mad for the daylight to remain? Our real question is: Why do we fail as children of light to keep our light dominating the culture if that’s what the Lord has said He wants?

Well, there is first of all from the obvious perspective the fact that every time we’re told to do something, we do the opposite. We've been called to let our light shine and not hide it under a basket. So instead we’ve built four-walled “overturned baskets” called churches where no one on the outside can see in to receive our light. We fail to engage the culture in any significant or meaningful way. That’s one reason “night” may prevail in any culture.

But for those who truly and earnestly do intercede and act to engage the culture, the real active cause of a return to cultural nightfall is this: After so long a time under the blessing of culturally reflected light, the church in its frailty begins confusing its own source eternal light with the reflection of its light on society. It loses sight of that unspeakably important distinction between our essence as “children of light” and our effect as the “light of the world” cited earlier. That is to say, we fail to distinguish between our eternal source light and the world’s reflective light off of us.

This loss of distinction usually occurs between generations. The founding generation that brings Christian light to dominance in society has just come from societal darkness. So they know the difference between their eternal light and its mere effect on their society. But later generations growing up under that favorable reflection don’t have that same knowledge, and so begin confusing the distinction.
 

Once we lose the distinction in our minds between our essential light and the world’s reflection of it, we begin treating our illumined culture as if it is of our light. We “christianize” it (declare it “Christian”) and come up with romantic heritage-based “covenantal” theologies and eschatologies to defend this thinking.

In course, we turn from our cross-bearing focus beyond this world that causes our own light to shine—to esteeming the culture that reflects our light. We move from loving the eternal God Who Is our Light to loving the world that has our light—all in violation of I Jn. 2:15 that says “love not the world.”

As a result, we become disconnected from our own light source, causing our own light to start receding. Then, as our own light begins dimming, so does the world’s reflection of it, until the culture’s reflective light goes out, the sun sets, and we must gather again under dominion of cultural darkness to figure out what went wrong and rediscover our true light source.

Aesop’s fable The Dog and His Shadow wonderfully portrays this truth. A dog with a bone crosses a bridge. Stopping to look down into the water under the bridge, he sees “another dog” with a bone in his mouth. Of course it’s only his own reflection. But thinking the reflected dog’s bone is bigger, he barks after it. But when he barks, his own bone falls into the river, and the bone in the reflection is lost as well!

This exactly describes why Christian sunlight sets on a culture. We become enamored of our own light reflection in the culture. So we start “barking” after the nation, going after our own reflection in it. We idolize it, adorn it with praise—and we prophesy over and intercede for the reflection, as if the nation shares our righteousness and is equally worthy of the Lord’s favor.

But in so doing we only quench our own light—and hence our cultural reflection as well! Then, from our new humiliated and persecuted place of darkness, we repent, and begin feeding again on the eternal realities that first caused us to shine. And—just as Samson’s hair eventually grew out again—our strength of influence begins to return. Our light shines once again; daytime returns to the culture. And so it goes across the generations.

 

[ Part IV ]

Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, RI

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

11/08

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