STANDING BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

The closest female friend I have ever had and the one I doubt if I can ever forget is a very young lady who is gifted in dreams. When she saw a vision that she buried her mother, I made sure I stood by her till the end. But I still remember how she used to cry and talk back at me every time I saw her crying and consoled her. “You don’t understand,” She often said. “My dreams always come through. If I see that my mother is going to die she is going to die!” Her mother died about a month later.

I really wished she could understand my point of view then. I have lost two people I love before: the first was my elder brother, and the second was a friend whom we used to do music and drama; both died the same year! But if I have her kind of gift, I knew I would see that vision in another dimension.

If you were me, and God revealed to you that people of such calibre as above were going to die, what would you do? God did not tell me they were going to die (And I guess that was because there was nothing I could do about it), but I wished He did. Maybe because I now know I could have done something to alter the course of events.

When the Israelites were sojourning in the wilderness, there was a period God’s anger was kindled and He felt like destroying them. But the Bible records that Moses and Aaron got to know and quickly intervened, “And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.” (Numbers 16:47-48).

What do you think might have happened to the children of Israel if Aaron did not do anything after hearing that they were going to be destroyed? Despite the fact that God had promised Abraham that they will become a great nation (Genesis 15) I guess something more disastrous than that could have happened.

Let’s take a diversion from that story and consider an incidence I heard: A pastor had a vision that a man of God is going to fall and he told him. (Take note that a man of God here may not necessarily be a pastor). The pastor kept stressing the vision, yet the man kept increasing in wealth and growing in grace… I believe this popular pastor heard God before he talked about the vision. Yet, I can see why his vision did not come to reality; the man who could have been the victim of the vision had gone back to God to correct his ways. Unknown to the pastor, God had restored him. And while the pastor sat idly in expectation of the manifestation of his vision, the other man has already outgrown him in grace. This scenario is peculiar to those who see vision these days!

A similar case was when God added 15 more years to the life of King Hezekiah whom God had earlier said he was going to die (II Kings 20: 1-11). The mistake many people are making is that they don’t know that when God releases a vision He is saying a good or negative event is about to take place but it needs prayer-so that what you don’t like may not happen. If what you saw is a negative vision, God may be saying a negative event is about to happen, but you could pray to avert it: He is not declaring doom! If you are a dreamer, a prophet, or whatever gift God has given you to see into the future and know about what could happen to somebody (either you love the person or not) God is placing a responsibility on you to pray. And if you can’t pray, tell somebody who can.

God’s priority when he releases a vision is to let you know you need to do something about what is about to happen! Remember the case of my late brother that I said earlier; if God wanted to keep him alive I would have seen it coming. I can remember my spirit restrained me to pray for his life like I used to about three days before he died. Even a spirit filled friend who came in that period struggled to pray for him. We asked God, but He did not tell us why.

When Aaron stood between the living and the dead, he did exactly what most of us who see the future these days should be doing. PRAY!

(c) The Enigmatic: Olumide Bisi’ EdiMulo

(This Article was published in KINDLE, Volume 1, Edition 12, November 2008; a publication of the Eternal Order Ministries… I hope somebody has been blessed again.)