“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, KJB)
In bible times the people who were turned outside of the city walls of Jerusalem were sick, diseased or incurables who would be certified by the Priest to be ritually ‘unclean’. They would remain outside the city walls until they were ‘clean’ or better put, cured of their afflictions. Many died outside the gates of Jerusalem because there would have been no support systems for them. Leprosy was a highly contagious skin lesion afflicting many in those times. The rejects of the society were socially cast out by virtue of their maladies and afflictions, isolated to protect the ‘clean’ citizens living within the city of Jerusalem. One can only image the lepers’ colony being a sprawling landscape of makeshift habitats amongst the rocks, nooks and crannies, cavities within caves and hollow dwellings excavated around the hillsides. The scent of death and decay would have filled the air as they lay helpless, hungry and thirsty, often succumbing to their persistent health challenges. It was to these poor and needy folks that Jesus came. Jesus’ testy relationship with the authorities often prompted a curt response from Him. On this occasion, His interaction with those deemed ‘unclean’ by the priests, initiated a retort to the leaders’ objection. “Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. (32) I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (John 5:31-32, BSB)..
Sin is a spiritual plague destroying the people. The realm of evil will always unleash with fury a backlash against the healing of the people. This spiritual force of resistance to wholeness and health in the people was prevalent in Jesus’ time. These hostile contending spirits against Jesus’ ministry would rise up in the hearts of the religious leaders. The Spirit of Light would shine in the dark recesses of the human soul to reveal the works of the Evil One. Jesus’ earthy mandate to destroy the strongholds of evil residing in the cavities and chambers hidden deep in the foreboding distressed heart. With the breaking of the dawn of grace, the Eternal Light would stream into makeshift habitats of the soul isolated under the dominion of sin. The brilliance of His light is an unwelcome and uncomfortable exposure as the spirits of the dark shudder, scattering in the brilliance of our glorious Lord. He came to crush and destroy the powers that rule in the dark night of the soul. To break the chains of affliction that binds a human soul in the pit of despair. The release of the people, the sick, the lost, and the tormented is the eternal mandate of our Lord. “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed”,(Luke 4:18, BSB). Whatever comes against the people will be discharged by the power of the cross that knows no bounds to deliver men from their spiritual captivities. “The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.” (Deuteronomy 28:7, BSB)
The time has come for the healing to begin. The Spirit of Healing will flow into every lepers’ colony, the healing streams will reach into every terrain where the people are hidden, afraid to go into the daylight of the walled city of the spiritual Jerusalem. The healing flow will begin to bubble in the forgotten regions, waste places, dry dusty plains shimmering in the heat of sin. The Spirit of Healing will flow along impassible dirt roads, obscure off-the-beaten tracks and marked-off isolated paths where souls are spiritually isolated and forgotten. A Spirit overflow will surge into the ghettos of tenements where the forlorn and dispirited dwellers reside, ostracised and stigmatised by generational abject poverty,. Territory control by warring factions of gangs addicted to lawlessness will experience the bubbling flow. These manifestations are indicative of strong demonic controls over human life. They are spiritual problems that requires a spiritual solution, hence why governments and politicians have never been able to resolve these communal and social problems. It will be an end time prophetic mantle that will stir the world and turn over the order of sin to bring God’s New Order. The souls bereft of solutions to unending life challenges, languishing in uncertainty, hopelessness, broken by life, leprous and dying will experience the bubbling flow of the Spirit of Healing. The Spirit of Light will expose the haunting pitiable human conditions holding people in spiritual, social and emotional captivities around this distressed globe. The walls of the fortified city, the place where the priests sends away those certified ‘unclean’, comes down now as the Spirit of Light explodes to reveal the hidden works of darkness in the eerie uninviting places of human life. There will be no hiding place for evil to thrive under the radiant eyes of the Spirit of Truth. In the secretive regions of the human soul every hidden works will be made known to bring release and healing. “For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.” (Psalms 12:5, BSB)
Gwendolyn Smith. : 17th September 2020