Church in the west, on the most, is in a state of spiritual slumber - unaware of the powers at work in the nation, to destroy the legacy that's been built over years. God is speaking to us: wake up out of that spiritual slumber.
I talked about the ‘Slumber of Jezebel’. Jezebel was a woman in the Old Testament - also a woman in the New Testament - but I want to get your eyes off 'woman'. I want you to get your eyes on 'spiritual power’ - entering and oppressing a nation.
In the Old Testament, Jezebel was a queen, who worshipped the gods of Baal and Ashtaroth - and she came into an alliance with Ahab, who was a king. You and I are called to be kings, but we have to be careful what alliances we form in our life, and what spiritual influences we allow to come over our life. This man married this woman, and through her, spiritual influences came around his life - the worship of Baal, the worship of Ashtaroth. They were gods of sex and fertility; they were the gods of war.
They introduced new value systems into the nation. They abandoned the ways that God wanted the nation to be built. The whole nation came under that spirit, under that influence: sexual sin; promiscuity; prostitution; pornography. Those kinds of things abounded under the spiritual influences in the nation - and they thought it was quite normal. They didn't realise they were spiritually, and financially, and in every way impoverished, and oppressed. God's word was to wake up out of that sleep.
I began to speak about a spiritual atmosphere that puts people to sleep. When people are spiritually put to sleep, they become very passive. Everywhere I go in New Zealand, I find it: an incredible passivity sits over people.
The Bible says that, to take hold of the promises of God – why the violent press in and take hold - by persistent, energetic, fervent, passionate prayer. That's how you get hold of the things of God; but when there's passivity - we're under a spiritual influence, and there's very little passion, very little fervency.
You can see it at a football match; but when people come into a spiritual environment - suddenly they shut down. There's something sits over them. It's something that you and I have to fight to push off - to push it off! I don't want to be shut down! I don't want to be passive! I don't want to be asleep and unaware - I want to be awake and hearing God and moving in what He's doing!
I shared with you three situations, of people who fell asleep; and what it was in their life, that opened the door for that spiritual power to put him to sleep.
1) Samson had a great call to change a nation, a call to go and to bring deliverance, freedom, salvation - to represent the living God, and to open up the nation, to bring freedom from its enemies. Instead he got sidetracked with sexual sin. He got sidetracked with Delilah, and the result: “he fell asleep on her knees”. While he was asleep, he was unaware of the danger he was in. He lost the anointing on his life, and the strength of God on his life. He lost his eyesight, he lost his freedom, he lost his character and dignity, and he ended up a slave. They took him down there into the Philistine camp, and they just mocked him and belittled him.
That's the condition of many Christians: no vision, no strength in anointing, in bondage, being mocked and ridiculed by the enemy through people, because they're not fulfilling the destiny that God called us to.
But here's the great news... When he repented, God heard his prayer - and that mighty Holy Ghost came on him again. The most wonderful thing, when we repent, is: God does restore us.