WHEN Gideon met the angel of God and recognised the Lord had remembered Israel, he immediately went and destroyed his father’s altar that was erected in their city in honour of foreign gods.
Divine insight BY HUMPHREY MTANDWA
For seven years, Israel was under bondage because they had sinned against God by following other gods.
In Joshua 7, the children of Israel were defeated and chased away from their inheritance because of Achan’s sin. God had promised them victory and He had promised that He would fight with them yet something empowered their enemy to have victory over them. Ai was a small nation and when Israelites were going to battle, they were assured of victory, yet this small army overpowered them. Because Israel had broken the commandments of the Lord, the sin of Achan empowered the enemies of Israel and only until this sin was dealt with, Israel did not have victory.
Every time Israelites sinned against God, they would go through difficulties, at times their enemies would occupy their land and enslave them.
When Joshua sent spies to scout the land and the city of Ai, on their return they advised Joshua that by virtue of Ai’s size, it was a walkover and assured the children of Israel victory. when they assembled troops they only carried 3 000 men to battle, but to their surprise they could not overpower the small army of Ai.
Joshua could not believe it and immediately cried out to the Lord in prayer and God said that Israel had sinned by taking accursed objects. This is similar to the story of Jonah. Merchants suffered great loss because he was going against God’s will for his life. A single man’s sin can bring misfortune to those around him. The sin was not of Israel, but when God spoke he said Israel had sinned. Some companies have closed because they hired a person who carried a curse over his life.
Had Jonah not been thrown out of the boat, all the individuals within the boat would not have only suffered loss of merchandise, but maybe the ship would have eventually sunk and caused the death of others. A whole nation can suffer because of the sin of a few individuals, companies can close, families can suffer serious loss, all because of a single man’s sin.
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All the families of Israel were gathered, Joshua wanted to root out who had caused Israel’s defeat and Achan confessed of what he had done. He was killed and after he died, Israel went back and had victory over Ai. When Achan died, the nation was freed, so Achan’s death allowed the curse to be lifted. Jonah did not die, but when he was thrown into the sea the storm stopped.
When Gideon destroyed the altar of Baal, Israel had victory. At times it takes you praying to identify what area of sin has given the enemy access to your life; when you identify the area ask for instructions on how to deal with that sin.
Repentance is key to breaking demonic chains over families and nations. If my father sinned and I discover the sin, I can ask God to forgive my family. An experiment was done on mice and before they shocked them with electricity, they rang a bell. for generations they did this to different mice within the family. They rang the bell to mice that had not been shocked before or even heard the bell generations later with the same bloodline and they acted the same way as the first experiment— they were afraid of the bell. Like the mice you may not have been shocked with electricity, but the sound of the bell produces the same response to sin.
The sin is not there, but its effects, by dealing with the sin in my blood line I become immune to the effects of the bell. God bless you.
Humphrey Mtandwa is the founder of Voice of Triumph in Harare. He has written several books including The Enoch Generation, Truthfulness and Theophany. He blogs at mtandwa.blogspot.com
