Reconciliation Between Africa and the African Diaspora
BEYOND THE DECADE PRAYER GUIDE: SEPTEMBER 2024
Once a community needed to reconcile their differences for safety, security, and progress. They decided the best way to go about it was to ensure families sacrifice themselves for the common cause of building a city with a tower, which could reach into the heavens. Their patriarchs and matriarchs had told them stories: stories of the Landlord who owned the space they occupied. They told them about how to communicate with him through his prescribed sacrifices. And some of them followed through with the sacrifices. However, some of them took offense about the part of the story where every human was wiped off the surface of the earth by a deluge save for these patriarchs and matriarchs. A philosophy was soon developed by one of their brilliant, clever, visionary, and creative leaders. The people of the preflood perished because they were not united in their efforts to build an escape route for such emergencies. It was important that such an epic destruction of humanity was avoided in the future. The vote was almost unanimous. They began building the city and the tower without permission from the Landlord. Their reconciliation effort was paying off. There was a unity of purpose, unmatched. The city and tower were progressing effortlessly because communication was effective. The people spoke the same language. The few dissenting voices were silenced by the strength and logic of the reconciled.
The Landlord came and inspected the city. He saw how effective they were in their reconciled rebellion. “Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand each other’s language (Genesis 11:7). Maybe as found in Genesis 18:16–33, the Lord went in the company of two angels, as he did when he visited Abraham and told him about his plan to burn down Sodom and Gomorrah with fire because of their very evil ways. The Lord split the people at Babel into different nations by confusing their language. In the confusion, they stopped building the city and tower (Genesis 11:1–9). “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.” (Psalm 33:10). And here, the Lord also judged and foiled the plans of the devil and his fallen angels.
But was the lesson learned that a reconciliation without the Landlord will ultimately end in confusion and displacement? No. As each tribe and nation left to his own land, they carried along with them the rebellious reconciliation instrument fashioned there. It became the template for reconciliation for communities everywhere: we will broker reconciliation between and among ourselves without the Landlord, God Most High. “Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: (Psalm 2:1–5).
The escape route for all humanity has since remained outside God Most High. The first reconciliation template was sealed by humans with the help of territorial deities, whom in consultations deceitfully assured them that their plan was proof tested. And they promised them that one day, their glorious leaders along with their perished relatives in the preflood era would all rise from the dead and conquer the world once and for all, on their terms. So since then, people everywhere have been making offerings, sacrifices, and libations to these ancestors, and recent ones. And the first post-flood community repeated the mistakes of their pre-flood ancestors, not realizing that these principalities, and their hench leader, the very one to whom they had turned for help, is their antagonist and will be their undoing in the end.
As it was in the beginning so it will be at the end. The action of the first post-flood community was a self-fulfilling prophecy; foreshadowing its future scope. Their leader was a prototype of the Antichrist and their first self-appointed prophet, a prototype of the false prophet of Revelation 13. Because at the end of the present age, their desire would be accomplished, as every rebellious reconciliation process and instrument becomes an essential building block for their hopeful escape route. What they couldn’t accomplish in Babel they will realize through the ultimate Anti-Christ and False Prophet. But, at what price?
What all the six world empires from Egypt to Assyria, to Babylon, to Medo-Persia, to Greece, and Rome, could not achieve, they would achieve under a revived One World Empire fortified with the characteristics of all previous six world empires, the seventh world power to rise in these tail end of the last days. “The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” (Revelation 13:1).
And Noah wept, if he was alive. He had seen this before. He had heard this before. The rainbow was a promise, but it was also a warning. The post-flood community had misunderstood it. The deluge cleansed the earth of the rebellious, but the coming fire will consume them in fiery torment. “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12–14). And there the separation will not be grouping people into tribes but into sheep and goats. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” (Matthew 25:31–46).
Maybe Africans should take note that the first three cities that ballooned into superpowers in ancient times were all founded by Ham’s descendants. Nimrod founded Babylon and Nineveh (center of Assyrian empire), and Mizraim founded Egypt. “Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah — which is the great city.”
And the spirt by which these first cities were founded became biblical symbols of religious unfaithfulness to the true God, a true statement to occultism, materialism, and humanism. So, there is a ring of truth in Evan Eisenberg’s statement, “No place is godforsaken, unless it be the cities of men.” All anti-Yahweh religions and political systems have roots in the Babylonian religion of Nimrod — the first known pagan religion and political system to develop after the flood. Everyone in the past, present, and future is caught in it, unless you are caught by grace into Christ Jesus. “And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.” (Revelation 14:8).
So how should the Pan-African Church participate in reconciliation efforts between and among themselves with respect to slave-trading, slavery, and colonialism with the knowledge of this history? Should it have an eye to the imminent coming of Christ? As we are living in the very end of the Last days, we should understand that these ancient spirits of false reconciliations would revive and intensify and materialize the goal of the ultimate Antichrist.
Pray that the ancient spirit of Babylon will not be employed in reconciliation processes between descendants of African slavery and descendants of African slave-trading. This spirit thrives in those in whom the spirit of offense rests. The spirit of Babel reconciles people to reject Jesus, as their primary need, and to make temporal needs their primary goal: false justice, security, safety, prosperity, and global influence. Through this reconciled rebellion, religious systems along with powerful political systems in opposition to Jesus are developed and maintained to control the world. “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Pray against all sorts of conferences by academia, professionals, and associations both in the African Diaspora and on the Continent, which have incorporated ancestral worship into their schedules disguised as science and social research processes of reconciliation, justice, and unity.
“Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). “Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.” (1Corinthians 3:18–19).
Pray that descendants of African slavery returning to Africa are doing so because God has called them to it. When Cyrus issued a decree for the Jews to return to the land of Israel, it was because God had commanded him to release them to go and build the temple so they could be reconciled to God Most High. This was how their spirits would find rest. “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.’” (Ezra 1: 2&3). Earlier in Israel’s history, God commanded the same of Pharoah through Moses, to release the Israelites to go and worship him in the desert: “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, `This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” (Exodus 8:1).
Thank God for descendants of slavery who have returned to Africa to be instruments Jesus is using to build His Church. This is true reconciliation. Thank God for those who have been called to minister to descendants of slavery in Brazil (the largest population of descendants of slavery), the Siddhis in India, descendants of slavery in North African countries, and Iran. Like Ezekiel, pray that they will be emboldened to speak God’s judgments against the rebellion, idolatry, and immorality in the Pan-African community; pray that they will be empowered to speak God’s judgments against rebellious nations; pray that they will share God’s promises of restoration with all Pan-African communities. (Ezekiel 2:7).
Pray that, as King Cyrus commanded the people in the cities returning exiled Jews were living, to assist them with gifts of gold, silver, goods, and beasts besides free will offerings, to build the Temple in Jerusalem, descendants of slavery returning to Africa to spread the gospel and disciple many into the kingdom, will experience such favor from the communities abroad they are retuning from. “Whoever among you belongs to His people, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let every survivor, wherever he lives, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem.’” (Ezra 1:3 & 4).
Pray against the spirt of Sanballat the Samaritan and Tobiah the Ammonite who snickered at the possibility of the re-erection of the second Temple. “And in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble — burned as they are? (Nehemiah 4:2). Pray that Returnees who have been sent by God to execute the ministry of reconciliation will resist this spirit operating in Africa and flourish in their calling. Pray that Returnees will not be fooled and deceived by this spirit of Sanballat and Tobiah, but that God will give them discernment and wisdom to navigate the spiritual landscape in Africa.
Pray that the Holy Spirit will prep many African Christian extended families and clans on the continent to adopt willing Returnees to stop the trend where many are trapped into ancestral worship and idolatry through idolatrous and ancestral rites and rituals (naming ceremonies etc.).
Pray that God will raise many Christian agencies to assist returning descendants of slavery into safe spaces where they will find Jesus-based reconciliation and grow into the African God designed them to be. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10).
Confess your sin if you, your family, your organization or agency have compromised by participating in any of the rebellious reconciliation processes and ceremonies in the past that involved the invocation of gods and ancestral spirits for Returnees. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.” (1 Timothy 2:5 & 6, Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24).
Pray that the Arab world and the West will sincerely acknowledge their wickedness in the slave trade and its perpetuation in the form of structural injustice in contemporary Arab and Western societies. Pray that reconciliation processes will not be window dressing solutions but improve the socio-economic status of people of African descent where poverty and social deprivation, which manifest in lack of access to justice, quality education, healthcare, and housing, will be a thing of the past. Reparations as suggested by Gill and Thompson, must be holistic including such as returning colonized land, safeguarding the right to land, offering better access to quality education and healthcare, and rectifying social policies that sustain institutional racism. Pray that descendants of African slavery will be open to forgiving both Arabs and the West.
God richly bless you as you endeavor to intercede for everyone of African descent to be set free to fully live for Christ Jesus, our only Lord and Savior, so we can fulfill our assignment as a people God has planned to use in His Last Days Agenda.
Beyond the Decade Vision is led and implemented by Beyond the Decade Coalition. To learn more about the Coalition, its members, and its mandate, visit www.beyondthedecade.org.
