Source:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN7q6KfDWE5JAWtUht7DtC-94gNzqfyMB
Julio Severo
Prophet
Elijah was a man of God deeply involved in political activities. He was
not a politician, but he admonished and rebuked politicians.
Elijah
began his ministry with no fear to deliver a hard message to King Ahab
(a political creature like president Lula in Brazil and like former
president Clinton in the US):
“You’re the troublemaker… You and your family have disobeyed the LORD’s commands by worshiping Baal”. (1Kings 18:18)
Elijah
kept confronting King Ahab subsequently through many other prophetic
messages. (To see how God used Elijah in the political realm of Israel,
read the chapters 17, 18, 19 and 21 of the book of 1 Kings and the
chapter 1 of the book of 2 Kings, in the Old Testament.)
After
fulfilling incredible prophetic missions in the politics of Israel,
Elijah was taken by God (see the chapter 2 of the book of 2 Kings). Yet,
he did not experience death. According to the book of the Prophet
Malachi, Elijah will return. God says: “See, I will send you the prophet
Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will
turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a
curse”. (Malachi 4:5-6 NIV)
However,
even before Elijah’s return, a partial, unexpected fulfillment has
already happened (just as other partial, unexpected fulfillments are
possible to happen):
Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already,
and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise
the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” Then the
disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist. (Matthew 17:11-13 NKJV, the italics is mine.)
When Jesus said that Elijah will restore all
things, he also meant that Elijah will put everything in order —
especially in the political sphere. The Philips New Testament says that
Elijah will “begin the world’s reformation”. The political world, in all
its corruption, hypocrisy and wickedness, needs order, and God will
send Elijah for this purpose.
John the Baptist: the first man to have Elijah’s anointing?
In
the life of John the Baptist, Jesus himself recognized and explained
that there was a partial fulfillment for that prophecy, that is, in
addition to Elijah’s return, John the Baptist was also an Elijah of God
to the world. Probably, the ministry of John the Baptist also shows that
God can raise men in the Elijah anointing. Receiving the Elijah
anointing, John the Baptist did what Elijah did. What did Elijah do? He
rebuked rulers according to the powerful Word of God.
Just
as Elijah, John the Baptist led his life in a prophetic seclusion “in
the wilderness”, as a best way to seek God, as a best way to for him to
hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and be a powerful tool of God in the
society.
Having
the Elijah anointing, John the Baptist confronted Herod (other
political creature like President Lula of Brazil and former President
Clinton) because of a sexual sin in his life:
For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife”. (Mark 6:18 NIV)
Other
Bible translations reveal that John made that rebuke frequently to
Herod. Not only once, or twice, but whenever he saw Herod, John opened
his mouth. He did not lose any opportunity to say that the king had
broken God’s legal limits.
Strangely,
what John was doing was the partial fulfillment of God’s promise in
Malachi. Yet, no one could imagine that included in that promise was
also the return of the Elijah anointing. John the Baptist may have been
the first servant of the Lord to enjoy that anointing.
The
prophetic mission of John the Baptist was to prepare the heart of God’s
people for the greatest visitation of the Lord in the human history. Of
course, spiritually, the Lord will keep visiting his people, to make
great works, and servants of the Lord will help prepare the heart of
God’s people for the visitations of the Holy Spirit in these last days.
If the Lord keep pouring out the Elijah anointing, we will see men bold
in the Holy Spirit, ready, according God’s Word, to rebuke rulers in sin
and corruption.
What
John the Baptist did frequently before Herod is a startling contrast
with the reality of our days, where ordinary men and women who profess
to be from God support politicians and rulers having a moral and sexual
behavior worst than the behavior of Herod. Yet, the political
involvement of John went as far as where those men and women do not dare
to go. His political involvement did not flatter the powerful, but did
reflect faithfully God’s perspective to deal with specific and serious
moral problems.
Where
the Elijah anointing goes in, goes in too the prophetic ministry before
political authorities, so that their politics get aligned with God’s
politics and so that politicians get morally aligned with God’s will and
laws.
While
Elijah in the Old Testament used to exhort the Jew rulers to lead a
righteous lifestyle to please God, in the New Testament John exhorted
Herod (who was not a Jew) to correct his sexual behavior. Herod had many
serious problems (including dishonesty, corruption and violence) that
deserved sharp rebuke. John could have confronted all of theses sins,
for he had knowledge, through his parents who were from priestly
families, of the important role of the Old Testament prophets in the
denunciation against the corruption and oppression against the poor by
government offficiais.
However,
he acted according to the righteous priority God had put in his heart,
perhaps because it did not much sense to press a politician to try to
“fix” the things in the society when his life needed a moral “repair”.
He did not waste his energy attacking all the sins of a politician. He
began attacking head-on the sin his spiritual vision saw as the most
critical in that point. His absolute priority was to deal directly with
the moral issue, even though he did also condemn other sins in King
Herod. For his attitude of rebuking the sexual sin of a man in the
government, John eventually suffered prison and death.
Jesus
endorsed the prophetic behavior of John. While John was in the prison
because of the “crime” of condemning the sexual sin of Herod, Jesus had
only kindly comments about him. “I can guarantee this truth: Of all the
people ever born, no one is greater than John the Baptizer… If you are
willing to accept their message, John is the Elijah who was to come.” (Matthew 11:14 GWV, emphasis is mine.)
If
he lived in our days, there is no doubt that John would open his mouth
before politicians like President Lula in Brazil, who actively promotes
abortion and homosexuality in the society. Yet, who could say that the
Elijah anointing cannot be given to men of God in Brazil? While the
pouring out of this anointing is not seen, nothing keeps God’s people
from crying out ceaselessly: “Lord, Brazil has in its government Herods
and Ahabs, but where are your Elijah for Brazil?”
Restoring and reforming the political world
At
the same time he declared John symbolized Elijah, Jesus made also clear
that Elijah will really come to restore everything and begin the
world’s reformation. There are many crooked, perverted and wicked things
in the political leaders and in the politics and laws themselves made
by them, and Elijah will come with the powerful Word of the Lord to
rebuke the political world, to manifest to the haughty world rulers that
God demands governments and nations to behave according to the
righteousness of God’s Word.
Perhaps,
as the example of John the Baptist, God will be able to raise also in
these last days men to represent Elijah. After all, there are many Ahabs
and Herods in the modern governments and they also need to be rebuked
according the Word of the Lord. They need to know and recognize that God
does not move only within the Christian churches, but also among the
haughty world rulers. They need to feel, through the prophetic Elijah
anointing in the servants chosen by God, that their politics and
behavior are an abomination in the God’s eyes.
The
Ahabs who promote the state idolatry, witchcraft, prostitution and
homosexuality need to know God’s power through his prophets. The Herods
who live wicked sexual behaviors need to be rebuked by the prophets
having the Elijah anointing.
The
world rulers have no right to do as they see fit, for God gave them the
specific responsibility to serve God chastising the wicked and praising
those who do good. God’s Word makes clear that governors “are sent by
him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:14 NKJV)
All human government was called to be God’s servant in this fundamental obligation:
“For
[the State] is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be
afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s
minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” (Romans 13:4 NKJV)
However,
the modern State intrudes even God’s realm promising to grant
everything (health care, education, etc.) to the population and meet all
of their needs, as if it were God himself! Gerald Ford, US president in
the 70s, said a great truth about government:
“If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have”.
When
a government fails to be a minister of God in the mission God gave it
to punish the wicked and praise those who do good and intrudes areas
that God did not allow it (the control over children and education),
then the State becomes a Monster.
The
Brazilian government has been steadily failing in its responsibility to
make Brazilian people safe from criminals, which is its obligation and
also the duty God imposed on it. It has also been steadily failing in
education and health care, which God did not entitle it. Result: the
government takes away almost everything from its citizens, but it gives
them almost nothing in return, and the little quantity the people
receive is precarious and poor.
When
the State wants to do everything, eventually it does almost no thing,
except overburdening the population by a great number of high and unjust
taxes. So much money for security, health care and education taxes and,
at the end, citizens end up with no money and no one of the many state
“promises” they were forced to pay at so high prices.
No
government has God’s call to get involved in the control of families,
children and promotion of politics of abortion, homosexuality and other
perversions. The basic responsibility God gave the government is “to execute
wrath on him who practices evil”. Everything that is beyond this
obligation is state intrusion and may seriously be considered as
illegality in the God’s eyes. The Elijahs of God will confront
presidents, governors, mayors and other elected officials for the
negligence of their obligation and will rebuke them for intruding
spheres that are not proper for them.
Yet,
where are the Elijahs of God to warn presidents and other governors
that their government and their politics are unlawful in the God’s eyes?
Where are the Elijahs of God to tell the government that its
responsibility is just public security? Where are the men of God to
imitate John the Baptist and say to the modern-day Herods: “What you are
doing is against God’s Law”? It is very easy to come near a president
or another corrupt and immoral public official and limit oneself to
praise and flatter. Multitudes of religious leaders meeting high
authorities do exactly so. They do not seek God’s face and when they are
face to face with a governor, they have just praises, and often the
governor rightly deserves rebuke and warning. There are abundant
flatterers. But where are the Elijah? Where are the men with the
anointed courage to tell to the presidents that their government broke
the limits God gave?
The key to cultivate the Elijah anointing: the direct involvement of parents in the upbringing and education of their children
Where are the Elijah of God? They are, or they may be, in the spiritual environment proper for their development. God says:
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse”. (Malachi 4:5-6 NIV, emphasis is mine.)
In
our time, the State has been getting children to distance themselves
from their parents, for parents are not properly committing themselves
in the lives of their children. With such state-induced separation, it
has been very easy for parents to turn from children and children from
parents.
The
State, that Elijah and John the Baptist so much rebuked, has today as
one of its supreme goals to control children — through schools. The state control over children and education is a recent novelty in the human history.
Of course, the State alleges to defend “the right to education” of the
children. Yet, even though parents have post-graduate college education,
the Brazilian State, for example, does not give to those parents the
right to homeschool their children, under the pretext that it wants “the
best interests of the children” — which are, in fact, just a disguise
to protect its best interests.
A
child learning at home may receive a good education, if her parents
have the means to sacrifice themselves in that education, and the State
will have a hard time to sow its new and strange values in her while her
parents are near. At school, even when children do not receive a proper
education — and studies show that the Brazilian education is not well
—, the important thing, for the State, is that faraway from their
parents at least it is easier to put children in touch with different
values from the values from their parents, values approved by the state
criterions. The state god demands the sacrifice of children in the altar
of the government indoctrination.
What
is in stake is the life direction and values of the children. The State
knows very well that the control over education and children is
fundamental. So the government does not give up its own law that
requires children to attend institutional school. The aim per se
is not education. It is to distance a child from her home and keep her
in the institutional environment — faraway from her family and their
values — the most time possible. The result? After some years exposed to
the state indoctrination, many teenagers from Christian families begin
to fall away. When they finish a college, the majority get detached from
God and his values or from family and their values. They end up
“educated” and immoral, “educated” and rebel, “educated” and faraway
from God, “educated” and faraway from the family values.
“Educated”
is an expression virtually empty of its real meaning, for most
schoolchildren who finish school today are functionally illiterate,
writing and reading poorly, but very “educated” in completely
unnecessary issues, as dating with birth control, abortion and free sex
and pornographic sex education with a right to homosexual immorality.
The
fact is that children are turning away from parents and their values,
for their parents delivered them to the harmful influence of the state
indoctrination of the institutional schools.
What
is the advantage in a great “education” when the cost is the life and
spiritual values of our children? Probably, the apostles of the Lord
Jesus Christ would quickly sacrifice such academic opportunities,
instead of sacrificing their children for the sake of this kind of
education. They would never see education as more important than the
life and spiritual values of their children.
If
the apostles had just those two options, of course they would choose to
protect their children. Yet, there are not only those two options. Where education is concerned, the institutional school is not the only choice!
When the heart of the parents turns to their children, taking on the
direct supervision of their education and upbringing and refusing to
turn them over to the state Monster, the heart of the children turns —
not to drugs, rebellion and wicked behaviors. Their heart turns to their
parents. It is no coincidence that in the homeschooling movement most
children admire and respect their parents, a behavior increasingly
difficult when their children have already been attending an
institutional school for some years. Education is the key. The State
knows it. God’s Word teaches it. It is up for parents now to discover
that important truth.
He who has control over the education of a child will have decisive influence over her values. That is why the State demands that control, even when parents have a great education.
The State needs to control the education, so that it may have total
freedom to preach and teach its “democratical” values — that are not
anything more than its “gospel” of humanism, socialism, feminism,
homosexualism and liberalism. The State needs to control the children,
so that it may have total freedom to turn them into disciples of that
“gospel”.
The
state Monster uses the educational system to create small and big
monsters according to its own image and likeness, so that they may learn
from the state masters that what is an abomination in God’s eyes is
normal for the state Monster, and that what is just and right in God’s
eyes is abomination for the state Monster. There are abundant examples
of that reality. The state Monster in Brazil sees as abomination the
instruction of Proverbs giving parents the right and full freedom to
discipline, through a rod of correction, the wicked behavior of their
children. But it sees as normal and just to deliver, in adoption,
children to gay couples.
The
Brazil Without Homophobia campaign of the Lula government wants all
Brazilians to respect sodomy. Parents not respecting sodomy run the risk
of losing the custody over their children — which may be granted to a
homosexual “couple”. Only a Monster could behave this way. And such
Monster is real: it is the State.
The
state Monster sees as normal to deliver unborn babies to the
extermination of the legal abortion. For it, it is normal to teach
schoolchildren that homosexuality and sex without marriage are life
options and deserve respect.
The
state Monster requires, in the religious classes in the public schools,
Jesus Christ to be put in the same level of the gods of Candomble and
other pagan and Afro-Brazilian religions.
The
state Monster requires the exclusion of God and his values from schools
and the social realm, under the pretext that the State is secular. The
exclusion is willful, so that the place of God may be occupied by the
state Monster. So, the modern State is like the old kingdoms, where
paganism usurped the place that belonges to God. Today the usurper is
humanism, statism, secularism, socialism and other similar ideologies.
Even
with so a strong control and with draconian policies and laws governing
education, the Lula government, after several years investing in the
“improvement” of education, recognizes that its “objective failed” and
that in the Brazilian education the “picture is negative”. In fact, it
also recognizes that, even though institutional education is compulsory
and homeschooling is banned, illiteracy is relatively high and that
children finish fundamental education virtually unable to read and
understand what they read. In other words, the government itself is
saying that its education is a disaster!
In
spite of that much-recognized failure, the Lula government was able to
lower the compulsory school age, changing the law so that parents may be
forced now to send their children to the state indoctrination of the
institutional school no more at the 7-year age, but at 6. Yet, the state
goal is much more ambitious:
“Information
by the National Campaign for the Right to Education reveal preoccupying
figures… More than 50% of the children between 0 and 6 years are not at
school…”[1]
That
information indicates a scary reality: in spite of the state failure in
its education for children above 6 years who are forced by law to
attend an institutional school, now the State worries that, below 6 years, only 50% children attend schools.
The solution? Make school attendance below 6 years old compulsory too!
The State is considering legal and political measures to extend its
control over those little children.
The
government is not happy with its performance in the illiteracy of the
Brazilian children, but it is satisfied that its own laws keep children
more under its own control and supervision than under the control and
supervision of parents. What can then the government do when children
are faraway from the direct supervision of their parents?
The
Lula government has confessed its failure to educate schoolchildren in a
minimally satisfactory way, but it wants to guarantee that they may
have access to condoms and pornographic books at schools. The Brazilian
State wants to make up for its educational failure through condoms and
pornography. So schoolchildren will not worry about their low grades,
for they will be intoxicated by free sex and a self-esteem induced by
psychological techniques of brainwashing. They will become happy morons.
Parents
who desire to invest themselves in their children for the sake of
Jesus, upbringing children having their heart turned to their parents,
will need the Elijah anointing, so that they may challenge the immoral
state impositions requiring control over children in the education. In
fact, the Superior Tribunal of Justice, perceiving the “threat” of
homeschooling to the state ambitions, affirmed that “children do not
belong to their parents”, in a judicial decision against a homeschool
family in Brazil. The modern State, as the old pagan kingdoms, demands
child sacrifices in its altars, and all effort by the Christian parents
to rescue their children from that secularist and pagan sacrifice
requires the Elijah anointing, requires the parental sacrifice in the
lives of their children, taking on their education and the supervision
and formation of their values.
The
Elijah anointing is for these last days. It is for parents — to enable
them to face the state absolutism. It is for parents — to enable them to
dedicate themselves to the total education of their children. It is for
parents — to give them courage not to deliver their children in the
educational altar of the state Monster. It is for parents — to enable
them to raise up prophetic children, in the anointing of Elijah and John
the Baptist.
Elijah
(and his last-days prophetic anointing) will convince parents to take
on completely the upbringing and education of their children and the
children to respect and admire their parents. That purpose has already
been fulfilling itself in a startling way in the homeschooling movement,
where parents turn to their children and children turn to their
parents.
The homeschooling movement offers excellent opportunities to raise men and women in the anointing of Elijah and John the Baptist
Elijah
(and his last-days prophetic anointing) will convince parents to reject
the unfair state impositions in the sphere of upbringing and education
of children. This anointing will challenge governments and politicians.
It will be anointing to shake what needs for so a long time to be
shaken. Before the determined state opposition to homeschooling, it is
impossible for parents to get involved in that prophetic movement
without challenging the corrupt, pagan and immoral State.
Yet,
the cost is worthwhile. There is no greater blessing, for a family,
than to have their children at the Lord Jesus’ feet, not under the paws
of the state Monster and its immoral values. In order that such blessing
may be a reality, God’s people, as Elijah did, will have to confront
governments and authorities.
The fundamental characteristic of the prophetic lifestyle of Elijah, which will be active in the last days, is the prophetic isolation.
Elijah lived completely isolated from the social sins. Surely, if there
were public (state) schools in Israel in his time and if he had a
family, he would not send his children to school. He would take on their
education, in the Lord. That necessary isolation is part of
homeschooling, where Christian children receive a good education,
without the state indoctrination and without the pressures and influence
of classmates who have morally problematic behaviors.
In
his isolation, Elijah always sought God and got prepared to attend
whenever God called him to go to society and confront its political
leaders and wicked values. In homeschooling, committed parents have the
opportunity to invest deeply in the spiritual, moral e educational
formation of their children, preparing them to attend to God’s call in
the social sphere, combating harmful values. Like Elijah, the
homeschooling movement offers excellent opportunities for the parents to
raise and educate children who will challenge the modern secularist,
pagan, abortist, homosexualist and immoral political system.
While
the aim of the Lord in the education is for parents to form their
children in the Elijah anointing in these last days, the aim of the
state Monster is to form the new generation in the ethical, sexual and
spiritual anormality of Ahab and Herod.
Brazil and the world need Elijah’s return and many other men like him and John the Baptist.
We
do not know how or when Elijah will come, but Elijah or the men having
the Elijah anointing who will come will do a prophetic work of
restoration in the governments, shaking the structures of sin and
arrogance. Those men will have a life preparation as the life
preparation Elijah and John the Baptist had.
It
is much a possibility that God may have chosen the homeschooling
movement to give parents the opportunity to raise children in the Elijah
anointing. Those children, raised and educated isolatedly from the
state indoctrination, will be strengthened in Bible values which will
enable them to be God’s instruments to rebuke futurely political
leaders, their immoral behaviors and their unfair policies.
Homeschooling,
where parents turn to their children and children turn to their
parents, is the proper soil for the “cultivation” of new Elijahs. Only
this way it will be possible to escape from the curse that will occur as
punishment to our nation because of the separation between parents and
their children and children and their parents and because of the
perverted policies of the state Monster that provoke and facilitate that
separation. (See Malachi 4:6)
The
opportunities of blessings are many in the homeschooling movement, but
the parents who want the Elijah anointing for their children will need
to pay a high cost because of the violent threats of Ahabs, Herods,
Lulas and other menials of the state Monster. They demand complete
control over the education of our children, a control God did not give
them authority or permission to require.
In
the past, the state Monster used to demand child sacrifices. That
requirement has not changed. The state Monster is still thirsty for
children.
Whom then we will deliver our children to? Which altar will we offer them in?
Whether
by homeschooling or other Holy Spirit movements, the God who acted
through Elijah is going to show to the world that he has not stopped his
activities in the political world. He is going to show that he has not
stopped confronting politicians in their immorality and injustice.
The best from God is still about to come.
Elijah shall come.
SOURCE:
http://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/
Your sons and daughters (or/and you) can be the Elijah in the future if you teach (or/and learn) the real values of God.
God blesses you and your family!
Shalom!
This year Israel is turning sixty-four. 
These
and other events allowed Egypt in secret coordination with Syria to
prepare for the worst war in Israel’s history, when on October 6, 1973,
on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Israel came under a surprise
attack. 2,688 soldiers fell. The Yom Kippur war was followed by a series
of Separation-of-Forces agreements with Egypt and Syria, establishing a
strip of territory in which no troops would be allowed. 
