“I WILL RESTORE”: VISIONS OF YOUR KINGDOM HERITAGE

“Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shall see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee” (Isaiah 60:4,5).

These verses have a primary significance, but there is a particular way in which I want us to look at them in this article. To do this, we will consider the Lord’s promise through Joel: “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:23-25).

The “consumed years” in the preceding passage could be read to include all the things that the Lord foresaw and predestined to us before the foundations of the world. Some call it our “destiny,” but I prefer “His purpose” for our lives. The truth is that, some may never accomplish these things in the present life. Really, in the strictest sense, none of us would fully do so. And this will not necessarily be because of slothfulness or some sin in our lives, but because of what went wrong in Eden when our foremost parents rebelled against  the original plan and purpose of the Almighty. The rebellion weakened us and until we are fully re-empowered at the return of the Lord, there is a limit to how far we can go. We have lost many years to the locust, the cankerworm, the caterpillar and the palmerworm, the generations of the lethal bug that invaded our terrestrial system in Eden, and we would never be able to fully recover them and execute all the instructions of the original programme until we have been fully purged and fully reconnected to our original power packs, our horsepower Angels, for our kingdom ministries.

It is the full recovery of this lost heritage that I want you to see in the opening prophecy of Isaiah. So go back to it and read it this way: “Whatever is yours, whatever is your divine legacy, whatever constitutes your posterity, your ‘sons’ and ‘daughters,’ in the sense of the totality of all that were predestined in the beginning to be the fruits of your life – by whatever means they might have been taken captive and dispersed from you, Lift up thine eyes and behold their impending full restoration in the promised kingdom!”

Did you notice the “forces of the Gentiles” that Isaiah spoke of? They are the ones, natural and supernatural, who think they have pillaged and usurped you. They are the ones presently dominating the world, occupying the land given to you for an inheritance before the foundations of the world. Very soon the seat will get too hot for them and they will be begging you to take what is yours. And as the prophet said, you would be awed at the turn of events!

The veteran minister Bob Gass caught the essence of what I am making out of this prophecy of Isaiah, especially about our “sons” and “daughters” being restored to us. In his little but powerful book DISCOVERING YOUR DESTINY, he observed, “Dreams [or aspirations and desires] are like your children; they’re your offspring. They’re the joy of your present and the hope of your future” (emphases added). Wonderful! The hope of our future!

What is that thing you obsessively meditate and dream about, “when none but God is near”? What is that passionate desire and trembling prayer of your heart, even though you sometimes think it is a futile ambition? “In the stillness of the night,” you wakefully dream about it. But when morning dawns and the realities of life awake, those stirring visions seem to have grown wings and taken flight with the rising Sun. You do not have an idea in which direction you could reach to grab at their reality. The realities of your life seem to be as far from their indications as the North Pole is from its southern counterpart.

Yet the “burning desire,” to use the expression of Napoleon Hill, will not let you be. It keeps coming back. When you think you have reasoned it away, or steeped it in the depths of forgetfulness, it latches onto the lateness of sleep after a tedious day, or the sighting of a peculiar scene, or the hearing of a particular sound. Like the flash of a camera from nowhere, the utopian visions hit you again, almost knocking you off your feet. In bewilderment you cry, “Abba, Father!” Yes, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:15-17).

You might have heard motivational teachings about how such feelings and experiences are indications of God’s purpose for your life. Be careful all the same, for what might be offered to you to fulfil it might in reality be a “serpentine” offer, the kind made to Eve in Eden. It was repeated to our Lord at the time of His own temptation (see Matthew 4:1-10), when He was offered an opportunity to possess the promised kingdom by taking a “simple, courteous bow.” It may be a shortcut to the Promised Land that requires you to lower the bar.

In that case, you must resist the temptation and console yourself with the Lord’s promise of due restoration. “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength [in the regeneration]; they shall mount up with wings as eagles”! (Isaiah 40:31.) Yes, those utopian visions you are seeing may actually be previews of your kingdom heritage and you should handle them with reverence. “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:3).

To be sure, some of us will “possess our possessions” and do some great exploits in the present time, but it will only be as a rehearsal for the real performance in the kingdom. Nothing of the present time – I repeat, nothing we achieve in the present life, no matter how glorious it may seem – can compare with “the glory which shall be revealed in us” in the promised kingdom (see Romans 8:18). So keep the faith and remain posted.

God bless you always.

In the King’s Service,

David Olagoke Olawoyin.

NB: My coming book THE COMING GLORY presents a more detailed and chronological examination of this awesome kingdom agenda of the Almighty that we have been peeping into on this site. The manuscript has been completed and I would greatly appreciate your joining me in prayer for its speedy publication.