The rise of women into world leadership during the last two decades has been phenomenal. In the United States, President Bush has five women in his cabinet with the two most powerful jobs allotted to them! His personal counsellor is a woman and the chief of national security is a woman.
Changes are taking place even in Muslim countries where women had lived for centuries under the dictum of men, and had been dismissed and slighted as insignificant. Women have now managed to come to the forefront! There have been women presidents or prime ministers in Sri Lanka, India, Guyana, Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey and Rwanda with some of them still in office right now. It will not be a surprise should Benazir Bhutto, two-time president of Pakistan, return to the presidency for the third time.
A woman is now at the reins in the Philippines. In Malaysia 60 per cent of the workforce in government service are women and lately more cabinet posts have been assigned to women. India’s High Commissioner to Malaysia is a woman, and in many western countries women have risen to the forefront to become Prime Ministers, senators, governors, mayors, etc. Such things were unheard of in the yesteryears! What is happening?
The world may be baffled at the battalion of women rising in power but this should not trouble us. What is happening is, God is at work! He is simply engineering and manoeuvring events to accomplish His purposes. There can be no radical changes in the earthly realm (especially in the political scene) without divine manoeuvring in the spiritual realm. If God has permitted women to rise in the physical realm, why will He not do it in the spiritual? He surely will! In fact he had already done so two thousand years ago at the advent of Jesus Christ.
Christ’s penetration to earth and His death at Calvary actually introduced a redemptive process designed to both lift and restore women to the high position they had enjoyed in the original creation, as co-heirs with men in God’s Kingdom. When Jesus Christ was on earth, His very attitudes and actions towards women implicitly tell us three things: i) that women can be initiated into full discipleship ii) that women can be co-heirs with men in spiritual things and be iii) trustworthy witnesses for Him.
King David foresaw God’s great promise to recruit women into His army thousands of years ago. In Psalm 68 he saw this army of women being commissioned into God’s service. This is what he said, "The Lord gave the word, great was the company (army) of those (the Hebrew word is in the feminine gender) that published it" (Psalm 68:11). In this Psalm David was actually chanting God’s triumphant victory over all His enemies and in the midst of his song, he prophesied the indispensable part the women must play and had played in contributing to this victory. David saw them recruited into the army, receiving their word of command directly from the Lord Himself. Despite all the seemingly insurmountable circumstances, they did not fail their commander-in-chief; they preached the Word!
Yes, this army of women rose to the forefront and fought alongside the men and the result was awesome—the spoils of war was so extensive that even those who were not in the army got a share of it!
What do you think would have happened if women had not risen in the past decades to teach, preach, pastor and pioneer mission fields? More than 60 percent of the work in God’s great Kingdom would have been left unattended! King David saw this thousands of years before its fulfilment. This is now being fulfilled before our eyes. Women have indeed broken into the frontline of leadership both in the secular, political and spiritual world in great magnitude. No wonder the prophet Jeremiah prophesied about God doing a new thing, a thing totally unheard of in the past. "A woman shall compass (protect or encircle) a man."
Yes, the God who had allowed such an uprising of females in the secular and political world will also do it in the spiritual world. An even greater army of trustworthy women will rise up and do even greater exploits for God in the coming decades— exploits that will baffle the minds of men! Whether men like it or not, women will rise because this is what Father God wants done in the endtimes as a final defiance and reproach to the works of darkness. It was through a woman that sin entered the world; it will be through the indispensable contributing force of women that the works of darkness will be shamefully defeated. The purpose of this book is to call men in every nation to rise as strong intercessors. The need has never been so great because if women are rising to the forefront of ministry, then men must rise and cover them with their prayers! If ministering women do not have this covering of prayers from the men, then it is going to be very easy for them to enter into deception, become side-tracked, become weird or cultic, etc…O how we ministering women in high positions of leadership need the men in our nation and in every nation to rise up and pray for us and protect us. Just as Eve could not make it without Adam, we definitely cannot make it without the praying men.
I would like to plead with all Christian men on behalf of all women ministers that they pray for us, cover us and release us into ministry instead of belittling, intimidating or hindering us. There is much spoil to be brought in for the Lord in this endtime battle for souls, and if women are not recruited into God’s army with the blessings of the men, then God’s great work will not increase in magnitude.
How wonderful it will be if all Christian men in this nation will make it a point at every church meeting to pray for women ministers (pastors, missionaries etc) by saying, "O God, we rise to cover and to bless women who are active in the battle field. We, as the head of the women take our stand against the works of darkness over their lives and break their authority over them! We men are here to form this wall of protection around them—the enemy cannot touch them unless they first touch us and they cannot touch us unless they first touch the Lord, who is our supreme Head!"
Yes, men, return to your highest calling. Return to your greatest place of honour …intercede before the throne of Father God for women. We surely need your prayers and your priestly covering.
Taken from Prevailing as Davidic Intercessors by Pastor Susan Tang. Available at Christian bookstores. |
