Passivity is a major problem in our nation. Passivity is across many men in our nation. Passivity sits in many churches in our nation. I go around to many places, there's no vibrant energy and life of the Holy Ghost. There's just people that are passive, shut down; not alive, dynamic and forceful in their spirit.
Matthew 11:12 – “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence”. You've got to be fervent in pressing in - fervent in prayer, fervent in praise. You've got to have something inside you; but when this spirit gets around you, you shut down, withdraw, and you're just going through the motions. You look like you're alive, but you're dead. You're shut down inside by the spirit – it’s a horrendous thing when this happens. I've had it happen to me a few times, made some mistakes...
He ‘sat down under the tree’ - one of the major feelings associated with this, is a deep feeling of being rejected - pushed out, rejected, unwanted. It comes against you, and you feel rejected. It says that he's “overwhelmed with hopelessness” - no sense of hope for the future. When he comes to that place, all he wants to do is die. He's now in agreement with the spirit of death.
Isn't that amazing - that a man of God like Elijah, who could: bring fire from heaven; hold the rain; start the rain going; outrun a chariot - a man of prayer, a man who walked with God - now he is sitting under a tree, in agreement with the spirit of death, wanting to die. How on earth did that happen? How did he get there?
A spirit of witchcraft attacked him - and he didn't adopt the right strategy to win the victory over it. I've seen that happen to individual ministers. I've seen some ministers literally driven out of the country, but flourishing in other countries, because witchcraft came against them, to shut their gift down in our own nation.
I've seen churches shut down in our own nation, they once moved in the spirit of God and now... I can think of one major church in our nation - absolutely gone. At one time, it touched the whole nation - then it's gone; no sign of it, nothing left - just a history. I've enquired into it, and I know some of the things that went on: a witchcraft attack divided people up; it separated people that God had covenanted to stand together, and caused the whole thing to collapse. Next thing you know, the whole thing was gone!
I've been working alongside some movements in the nation, and we found that a major supernatural dimension of one whole movement of churches had been stripped out - and we could actually identify what it was, and when it was - and it's a spiritual witchcraft attack, that took out the flow of revelation. This is a very real thing - and it happened to Elijah.
I want to show you the really good news. God never abandoned him because he was under it. God just got him to have a good long sleep and rest; gave him a bit of food; then took him into a place, and started to put anointing back into him, re-fired him and commissioned him.
Notice the interesting thing that He commissioned him to do: Elijah was a loner, and God got him out of being a loner; made him connect, and actually get into a team flow. He raised up Elisha, and he began to flow differently from that point on.
I want to show you how this same pressure came against Jesus, and Jesus handled it completely differently. I've been under that spirit, it’s attacked me on a number of occasions, attacked us both on a number of occasions. It's a horrendous thing when it happens, and I've done exactly what Elijah did. I guess there'd be a few people who've done what Elijah did; felt knocked in the spirit, felt a blow in the spirit; couldn't work out where it came from, struggling to stay out, to stay free; mixed feelings of fear, insecurity and uncertainty, under tremendous pressure. You just begin to withdraw and shut down.