Almere, August 27h 2010
Dear Intercessor Friends,
May we walk with you through our agenda to oversee an exciting year.
New York; intercession for the UN
Our previous letter was mailed early in September 2009, when I was about to follow Helene to New York, where, for the 2nd time several hundreds of intercessors from around the globe gathered to pray for the UN. In 2007 Helene had surprised the audience, and in a few cases irritated them, as she distanced herself in the prayer points from the UN and its strategies. Some were of the opinion that the UN was a good organisation that through prayer even might become a Christian organisation. Over the years Helene visited eight UN and G8 conferences, mostly as an intercessor with a press pass, and she discovered quite the opposite.
Nevertheless, this time the International Prayer Council invited her again to contribute prayer points (in short): 1) The UN is, after the League of Nations, the second effort to make a One World government, under Lucifer; the UN implicitly promotes a New Age World religion. 2) Since the early 90ties the member states are led to shift authority more and more from democratically elected representatives to activist NGO’s who only represent their own viewpoints; the UN calls the growing co-operation with them “global governance’’ but it is a “hijack of democracy”. 3) The concept of “sustainable development” has become the highest value in UN-treaties, and in the Millennium Development Goals, but the shady definitions clearly show that the worship and survival of Mother Earth is the leading principle. This is nothing less than an emerging global idolatry.
Helene’s contribution was highly appreciated. The Group of about 400 intercessors from all continents prayed for over 50 UN-ambassadors who came for that occasion.
New York: Dutch liquor policy to Native Americans
We moved on to Albany and then back to New York, to meet with Native American leaders and to repent of the Dutch liquor policy to Native Americans from the very first time the Dutch landed in those regions. The Dutch used alcohol to make the Native Americans drunk in order to cheaply buy their goods (hides) and their lands.
At the Hudson quay, where the liquor was unloaded by the ton, we confessed – that we had not recognised them as the God-appointed custodians of the land; – that we sold alcohol instead of sharing the gospel; – that we used alcohol to incapacitate (and humiliate) the First Nations in order to impoverish them; – that we sold alcohol to addicted Natives who pawned their clothing and their tools; – that we sold alcohol notwithstanding the chiefs begging to not sell alcohol to their young men, even after it was forbidden; – that we robbed the dignity of the Native Americans, because the Dutch were not ashamed to be drunk, but they, with their sense of dignity, were, and very deeply so. The Lord gave us tears to weep and gave the Native American leaders the grace to forgive.
In the centre of Manhattan, at the corner of Pearl street and Coenties Alley, a rectangle in the pavement shows the place of the first ever pub, later the first ever town hall. This also shows that there is a connection between alcohol and government. In that yellow rectangle a Native couple, Mohawks, both former addicts, heard our confessions. How we wept! Then something beautiful happened. The name Manhattan, Manahatta, is a Native expression for “For ever drunk”. Suddenly the Mohawk pastor proclaimed, heard himself proclaim, out loud: “This place shall no longer be called “For ever drunk” but “Place of sound mind”. Turning around to the surrounding skyscrapers he pointed his finger, prophetically: “Place of sound mind, place of sound mind, place of sound mind”. That was monumental. All of us joined in.
The last day we went to the UN headquarters. The Native leaders confessed that their worship of “the Creator” had corrupted into worship of the land, which was an opening for the occult. The Dutch confessed that the selling of liquor became an opening for the occult as well. We realised that, in the course of 400 years, both dynamics had grown to international proportions: the worship of Mother Earth by the UN and the worship of money in Manhattan. Evidently the place had and has a God-given potential to grow to international importance, but the gospel was the missing ingredient to reach her destiny: “Place of a sound mind’’! Five days earlier Helene could inspire prayer inside the UN-building; now we walked around the building, proclaiming God’s victory, over the Native Americans and over the world.
New York: the effect
We had prayed on the very spot of the first ever church building in New York. Three months later, the Collegiate Church, the congregation with the longest history in New York, realised that with all the festivities around New York 400 years, no mention was made of the atrocities of the white (Dutch) people against the native Americans. And they made a public apology. It was broadcasted internationally.
Our prayer is that at last the topic of reconciliation will reach the agenda of the white churches and the white governments. Confessing corporate historic sins is presented in Leviticus 26:40-41, is modelled in Daniel 9, Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 1, and is an ingredient of preparing a nation for the return of Christ and the judgment of the nations.
Prayer for ten nations
Last October Pieter taught in the YWAM School of Intercessory Prayer, Scotland. He does this once or twice a year somewhere in the world and loves it, this time in Scotland in combination with the School of Frontier Missions. One thing stood out this time. Wednesday evening was scheduled “prayer related to the teaching” (which erupts anyway during the teaching sessions, but this evening was planned for it). Among staff and students ten nations were represented, five from Norway and Sweden. A tough thing in Scandinavia is the “Jante law”, the lie that leadership is wrong, dangerous, proud, not to be trusted, not to be pursued… In other words: the “Jante law” is a stronghold, exactly according to the definition of Paul in 1Cor 10:4-6: a pile of disconnected lies that manages to dominate a person or people to the point that change is believed impossible. What to do against a stronghold? Just as Paul instructs: 1. To call these lies lies, 2. to confess living the lie, 3. to speak the biblical truths, 4. to pray those truths, and then, only then, 5. to live those truths. So what we did was this. The Scandinavians standing in the midst of the other eight nations, went through each of these five steps, groping for words and praying for revelation. The difficult part came in phase 3: proclaiming the biblical truths concerning leadership. All physical, mental and spiritual strength was needed, even against manifest evil spirits who resisted these truths, before the breakthrough came and the five Scandinavians were gloriously set free from the stronghold. Nations can be healed; it was taught and now also experienced.
European Prayer Forum, Timisoara, Rumania
We had a wonderful time, joining Ioan Peia and his team in Timisoara. For four days there was 24/7 prayer, there was 24/7 reading through the whole Bible and there was 24/7 worship (with only brief testimonies and introductions to prayer), really very simple and very holy. Holy is the word indeed, for the peace of the Lord was always there, sometimes overwhelming all of us. The closing off of the 24/7 Bible reading was special: When in the prayer room on the seventh floor Revelation 21 was finished, the whole 400 audience, every one in his own tongue, read out loud the last chapter of the Bible. In the meantime little notes had been distributed, indicating 3-4 chapters of the Bible, together covering the whole Bible. We then spread through the space of the church, directed our voices in all different directions and in one quarter of an hour, each reading in his own tongue the 3-4 chapters on his note, proclaimed the whole Bible over the continent of Europe. This whole 24/7 Bible reading and worship was coined “the minimum protocol to welcome the King”.
Helene was asked to introduce the prayer for the EU. When we prayed for the Islam she shared also, gleaning from a Messianic prophet: Islam states that god has no son, which is in fact a bitter fruit of Jewish influence; however, when Israel will admit that God does have a Son, that will break the power of Islam. The night after we prayed accordingly, Mecca experienced an unprecedented rainfall!
Global warming or climate change or what?
In December in Copenhagen the UN-Climate Summit convened. Over the years Helene attended eight UN and G8 conferences, and summarises the following.
In 1992, at the Rio de Janeiro UN “Earth Summit”, a treaty was initiated, based on the assumption of global warming. In 1997-’98 these “Kyoto protocols”, trying to regulate CO2 emissions, were presented and heavily debated. At that time some 9000 scientist s , most of them not or even dis-invited to Kyoto, publicly and together disagreed with the assumptions, the procedures and the conclusions. Between Kyoto ‘98 and Copenhagen ’09 there was enough scientific debate, causing the issue to change from global warming to climate change (not insignificant!), but not enough to prevent the issue being politicised: to question the issue became politically incorrect. In the meantime the number of 9000 opponents found itself growing to 32000. The fact that some of the research data and research procedures were not so scientific increased the global warming/climate change scepticism. This is the scientific issue.
Parallel to this debate runs the issue of “blaming” the rich nations into paying the “necessary” industrial change for the poor nations. This concerns billions and billions of dollars for industrial restructuring. Behind all this, as a third issue, looms the concept of “protection/survival of Mother Earth” .
Altogether in the Copenhagen Climate Summit a scientific, an economic and a philosophic issue cause an increasingly hot political debate, blurring the truth and heightening the tension around all three topics.
A oneworldgovernment?
The Draft Copenhagen Treaty presents a “Conference of Parties” (COP), that is supposed to organize the legislation and the financing of this enormous project. The COP is not democratically elected. Critics label this setup a runup to a oneworldgovernment, socialist in nature because of the element of global redistribution of wealth. The UN is said to be an unmanageable, money wasting and corrupt institution; can the COP, appointing her own executives, with this enormous responsibility, be expected to be different?
The push towards a oneworldgovernment has a long history. The Copenhagen Treaty can hardly be understood as not another try in the same direction. The emphasis in the 180 page document on the new ethics, sustainability, responsibility for the environment and for poorer nations speak a loud message.
Sign of the end time?
Jesus warns us to be watchful and alert. Since the building of the tower of Babel the concept of oneworldgovernment is hot in world politics, and alive in Islam, freemasonry, Buddhism and now in the UN (even with a one world religion around Mother Earth). But the concept of oneworldgovernment originated by its creator, the coming King of kings and presidents. Only He can, and will, rule in justice and righteousness; only He can guarantee peace and justice.
Three evenings on ‘Jesus comes’
In January and February we taught on how to be prepared for the coming of Jesus. We touched on
- The core. The message of reaching and blessing the nations runs all through the Bible. Israel and the Church are called for no other reason than to show God to all nations, to disciple all nations.
- The way there. What is often coined “end time” is in fact transition time, transition time from history without Jesus as visible Ruler, to the Realm of Peace with Jesus as visible Ruler. Prophets in the OT, Jesus, Paul and John give a clear picture: God turns history into that direction. The emphasis in their teaching is not on the precise sequence of things, but on the importance of being ready for whatever happens. The Church in our time is either overexcited or avoiding this topic, and that is not right.
- The Realm of Peace. The Bible presents a clear picture: at Jesus’ return life does not stop, but continues (a good “1000 years”) “under an open heaven” and under a holy King. This clear picture makes us long for it and makes us pray for it: ”Come Lord Jesus, your kingdom come”. (The realm of peace precedes the final judgment and the “new heaven and new earth”).
90 day fast in Sierra Leone, and then a covenant?
Last year in New York, during the IPC-conference, Helene met a prayer leader from Sierra Leone who told her that their president had dedicated his nation to God. To make a long story short, an e-mail exchange between this lady and me resulted in her request: “Please, write a letter to the president in which you explain the spiritual significance of dedicating a nation to God, the possible follow-up through covenanting, and the conditional role of the church in all this”.
Only after I arrived, early March, it dawned on me what really was happening: – the Christian president again, like in 2009, calls for a national 90-day fast, from 20/4 -19/7/2010. – He sends a team, including myself, through the nation to sensitise the nation to this fast; – in Sierra Leone the spiritual is allowed, even expected, to play a role in the public and political life; also Islamic politicians support this, wanted the team to pray for them; –the nation has a healthy family life and little hiv; – the nation is very poor, but wants to get out of the poverty mentality by giving $ 100,000 to Haiti; – the unity among spiritual leaders is growing and their openness to accept my teaching on the responsibility of the church was heart-warming; – recently also the capital city Freetown has been dedicated to God; – the option of covenanting the nation to God was embraced and at the last strategy meeting it was prayed that Sierra Leone might become God’s next “pilot project” in Africa!
We travelled 1400 km through the whole country, mainly along jungle roads. I talked to the president, to several ministers, to mayors and tribal chiefs in eight cities and to many, many spiritual leaders. To them I emphasised that the authority of the Church – and her resistance against wrong tolerance - is in 1. her unity, 2, her holiness and 3, her divine vision for her nation. I heard some awesome testimonies on the result of the fast last year, and high expectancy for this year.
It was an awesome experience; a nation still recovering from the atrocities of civil war, 1991-2001, now gearing up to be a nation under God. (I have not yet heard of the out come of the 2010 fast.)
Pastors in Kono: “We knew it, but did not practice it. Let us now drop our church programs and start a city program”.
City council, with Islamic mayor, testifying of four answers to prayer at city level through the 2009 fast.
Tribal chief (middle) testifying how he turned from Islam to faith in Jesus; all chiefs, also the Moslems, applauded.
Ffald-y-Brenin, Wales; the presence of God
Early May we visited this retreat centre and house of prayer, expecting the presence of God because of the testimonies, and indeed, his presence was evident. In an area of outstanding natural beauty, in spring colours, with a tradition of prayer of seven centuries, we joined the rhythm of daily prayer, and were greatly blessed (one morning we spoke at the regional prayer day, but that is not what we came for). The chapel, the prayer room, the cross overseeing the valley… we were surprised how physical places can be holy sites.
Brussels, Congo celebration.
In June, 50 years of de-colonisation of Congo was celebrated. Belgian Christians had worked hard to recognise the complete history, but hit many walls. As many and convincing as the positive responses had been towards our reconciliation efforts in African nations, at government level, so hesitant and reluctant and suspicious were the responses in Brussels towards any effort to organize a celebration with emphasis on reconciliation, even on the part of Africans. Many Africans living in Europe respond very differently from Africans in Africa towards the past. But whatever they think, the Europeans must think and respond for themselves, and it is in Belgium no different from the Netherlands: Christians are very reluctant to admit their role, and politicians even more.
Thüringen, on the slopes of the Thüringer Wald
Just this month we were offered a week of holiday in a Christian retreat centre in Thüringen, in former East Germany, with the request to do some research on that region, because there is so much depression. Indeed, twenty years of capitalism have led to major unemployment and young people leaving the region. But we discovered something (certainly discerned by others before, but in this context?): a significant part of German history, even of European history, has got Thüringen as background. The cities Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena are in Thüringen; names like Von der Vogelweide, Luther, J.S. Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Fichte, Marx, Klee, Kandinsky, Gropius, van Doesburg, the phenomena like battle of Jena, Bauhaus, Weimar Republic, Hitlerjugend, Buchenwald, these are all of European stature and… all connected to Thüringen! What can it mean that depression rules that region?
We were offered a week of holiday. At the end of the week we concluded that it was an adventurous week indeed, with divine appointments and revelation. We are working on a prayer strategy for this region.
These are the highlights. Of course we have some involvement in our own country. And trips to India and Burundi are in pencil. And we have plans/prayers to move house. This year both of us turn 70, and in several ways we are celebrating this. How faithful and caring is our God and Father.
Blessings to you all.
Pieter and Helene Bos
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