BOOK PREVIEW
AUTHOR: REV. BABATUNDE EZEKIEL AJIBOLA
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INTRODUCTION
“Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountain of prey”.Ps.76:4 The word “Prey” is defined in the dictionary as animal that is hunted or killed by another for food. In other words, the Psalmist is here in this verse 4, having behind his thoughts the very concept of man’s attitude towards survival in the world of materialistic exploration. The Psalmist drew the picture of a world, in which mankind shows very high regard for their source of livelihood because of the need to survive. Taking a very close look at the society, the factors that influence the human behaviour most, politically, economically and socially are all about material considerations woven around the various aspects of sources of livelihood. These factors, determine the nature of family, tribes and the world at large. The intensity that the individual put into actions in order to survive, defers as you go from one social environment to another. Relating such level of intensity and commitments to source of livelihood, to the level of involvements in religious activities, especially when we intend to know how close man could be to God, his Creator or we can easily observe that it is easier to be closer to God if we live in the rural areas and more difficult to have time for the things of God when in urban areas that bubbles with social lives, determined and controlled by the need to maintain a higher and more sophisticated standard of life that characterises big cities in other words, the Psalmist in psalm 76: 4 is acknowledging the need to actually play down on our high commitments to material values that could make us to relegate God our creator to the background, while we run after the things of this material world that enhances our survival as human being, thereby honouring and glorifying the creatures more than the creator. This is what is actually regarded as idolatry in its physical and spiritual sense. Therefore, from the small agrarian communities of this world, to the sophisticated big cities, it is obvious that, man prey on one another in action concerning what they run after or pursue as prey in their quest for survival. The Psalmist in psalm 76: 4 has such successfully opened our mind to the fact that as human creature in general, we have somewhere along the line default in that we give high regard to our source of livelihood than to God the creator who make all things possible. If we therefore look inward with the purpose of knowing our individual mountain of prey, we will discover that it is a location that is so close to our heart. It is a place that we trek on every minute and second of our daily lives.It is our treasure, our earthly treasure which we cherish or even seek to effectively protect and could not afford to loose or even trade for any other substance in this world. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” Matt 6:21. This is the inherent danger that is strongly attached to the individual mountain of prey. Our mountain of prey is the source of our livelihood. Our profession, in every categories, your scope of operation and patronage both in the areas you have exploited and yet to be exploited constitute our mountain of prey. It could be a specialised area in which our location places us at an advantage of less competitions or an uncreative and cultured area that involves high level competition among peers or those in the same profession, both the geographical and the human patronage constitutes our mountain of prey. This mountain because it is attached to our existence and comfort in that, that is where we draw our income to keep us economically stable and carry out our daily functions effectively, we are highly sensitive in our attachment to it, not wanting to be prevented of every right that we have, to gain access to it. In every country or society of the world, a man or a woman is regarded and respected for his or her ability to make useful contributions to the society in terms of skill and finance. Hence to be a good citizen, a good husband, a good wife, a good child, a good leader, a good friend, a good client and so forth, you must be resourceful and fall into the class of the well to do in the least. This determines your class in the society and you can either be regarded as being rich or poor, honoured or dishonoured, valuable or irrelevant useful or useless, successful or unsuccessful. As such, because of this positive and negative perspective attached to social status as determined by how much benefits we derive from our mountain of prey, every individual in the human society is highly emotional about loosing their jobs, or their businesses running down, or becoming infamous because they have to drop from the higher wrung of the ladder because they are no more to be reckoned with as a result of failure attached to crisis on their mountain of prey. In other, to maintain and keep the status quo, the individual must be endowed with adequate skill to effectively keep in touch with his or her mountain geographically and in human relations. From the petty seller, to the large stores, from the individual professional to the highly established architectural firms or firm of engineers, the politician and his constituency, the medical doctor and his patient, the farmer and his crops outlet to the market and whatever means we reach out to enhance our profession to keep our mountain rich of prey. These factors constitute the essentials of life that can not be ignored or careless with, because it is essential for human survival both at the individual or society level. Our mountain of prey constitutes hundred percent of our worries, in that upon it we draw the benefits of meeting with our daily material needs and as such it is a treasure to which our heart is strongly attached and so, we are worried always about not wanting to loose control of it. Our Lord Jesus Christ agreed with the fact that there is need for the essentials of life which we derive from the hunting activities on our mountain of prey, but he warned us about the danger of seeking after these things with abandoned recklessness as we see in the world from the beginning of creation. Jesus Christ demarcated in the book of gospel according to Matthew, the two modes of activities that take place on the mountain of prey of this world.The godly and the ungodly modes.One is less of worries as those who apply this method allow themselves to be led by the will of God, while the other method is full of worries because it is dependent on human ability to outwit the other and applying a lot of demonic imposition and it is never a fertile ground for God’s righteousness. It stands in the way of entering the kingdom of God, the way is broad and it has a god that everyone that goes this popular way worship. This god is mammon, and it kills in the end. This aspect will be treated broadly in another chapter of this book. However, the very concept of the mountain of prey as the Psalmist put it in Psalm 76:4 is to explicitly expose the culture of the human mind to live by bread alone, by putting a greater part of his life activities into what our Lord Jesus Christ referred to as the worries of this life. As seen in Matt 6:19-21 as written below, our Lord gave us three characters that constitute worries. First, the urge to want to have enough prey stored up for security. That is having abundant and storing for the future while we still strive to have more. “Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where your treasure is there will your heart be also”Mat.6:19-21 The second character of hunting on our mountain of prey is that of idolatry, in that in hunting after the prey on our mountain we tend to be engrossed in the things of this material world that we forget that we owe allegiance to our God who is our creator and that he is the only One that has the right of control and dominance on our lives, henceHe should bethe only master who we must obey if his words crosses ourintentions.However, in the course of our hunting expeditions we do break rules or realised that we are about to break rules to hunt in our favour, in order to have our way for self and to overcome our worries, we ignore God’s will and go for the prey because we could not bear the cross of going through such pains that will follow the lost of such a prey. In doing this, we follow the spirit of mammon rather than allow the Holy Spirit to guide our decisions and actions. We become Carnal in mind and the Bible say, to be carnally minded is death and to be spiritually minded is life. Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore warned us against the worship of mammon. “No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye can not serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?! Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns: yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add cubit into his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin and yet I Say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Matt 6:24-29 The reason a man would want to change allegiance or location is for greener pasture. Some women would rather seek for a divorce from their husband than keep their husband and yet continue with another man somewhere. It will be impossible to maintain an equal relationship of love with both men. The same goes for the man also. You will rather divorce one and keep one. A man can get supply of goods for his store outlet at diverse cost on a single product. He would rather stick to the supplier whose product is cheaper or one whose product is more costly but of higher quality. There is always a reason why we change allegiance from one patronage to another. As our Lord Jesus Christ had stated in the above chapter of Matthew, it is impossible to want to serve mammon, the spirit of materialism and at the same time serve God. Because people are so tensed and full of worries about the need to survive in the human society, the fear of failure and rejection and inability to endure the various version of hardship that follows the refusal to do it the way of the world, makes it less attractive to follow the righteous method of hunting on our mountain of prey. In most cases, people go to the extent of breaking social norms and ethics to have their way in becoming rich. They go against the law of the land to acquire power and influences. In some parts of the world, before you can hunt successfully on your mountain of prey, you need to belong tocults or a fraternities that trample on the rights of others to acquire benefits for themselves and their children, and piling up wealth and riches for many generations after them. The Bible says such people will eventually be utterly consumed with terrors. In Psalm 73, the psalmist expressed his pain when he observed the life of the unrighteous who were worshippers of mammon. Men and women that have through worries and fear of not having access to the so called good things of life and could not wait upon the Lord as a result decided to go the broad way. The Psalmist in psalm 73 expressed his foolishness for envying them, and in doing so, he confessed that his feet were almost gone and his steps nearly slipped when he saw them in their prosperity. He thought they do not have any trouble nor plagued as other men. In verse 6&7, he said pride compassed them about as a chain; and violence covers them as a garment, their eyes stand out with fatness and they have more than their hearts could wish for. In verse eight, he affirms that they are corrupt, and they speak wickedly concerning oppression. They speak loftily. In verse 9, they set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walketh through the earth. In verse 11-12, the Psalmist says these ungodly, who prosper in the world and whose riches increase, says that God can not know their secret atrocities and that there is no knowledge in the most high. From verse 16-24, the Psalmist after thorough meditation and listening to the voice of reasoning writes “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou leadest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh; so Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant I was a beast before thee. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.” Ps73; 16-24. The position those of us find ourselves is as exactly the position the psalmist expressed in Ps 73. It is therefore impossible to serve mammon and at the same time serve God. Because we are creatures with conscience, we go wrong in some of our actions and we feel strongly compelled not to fall into errors because we know the will of God and there is need to comply with His commandments, but because we get entangled between the urge to do good or evil, depending on what we at that point consider to be good or evil, in most cases we listen to the carnal mind, except in cases in which the Holy Spirit is in control. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ emphasised, in our hunting expedition that we are not at liberty to hunt the way we like on our mountain of prey. God’s righteousness is of higher quality and very costly because it demands absolute trust in Him in faith. This brings us to the third character of the mode of hunting on our mountain of prey, which is faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.” Hebrews 11: 1-2. Reading through matt chapter 6, the average Christian is faced with a great challenge of climbing the mountain of prey named faith because the very fundamental of what the Lord Jesus was telling us is to submit our will absolutely to God. In the world of materialism, this gate of hell which is the love of riches and wealth is even staring the Church of Christ in the face, that these days when you look at the position of the Church concerning many issues that affects the spiritual life of Church goers, the struggle to maintain the standard as Christ had laid down in Mathew chapter 6, is almost becoming impossible. The economic down trend confronting the nations of the world is making it difficult for Churches and ministries to raise fund for their missionary work without going extra mile away from Jesus injunctions. Ministers of the Church founders of ministries are being plagued by financial shortfall making it even difficult for them to feed their family without going extra mile away from the teaching of Matthew chapter 6. The mountain of prey of church members and some financiers are questionable considering the way they hunt down their prey. It is as if this is an obvious problem, but eyes are being turned aside so as to appear as if we do not know that the churches on earth have gone into the world and the world has successfully fused into the Church. No wonder the Church itself is coming under suspicion as to be a possible forum for the appearance of the man of sin, the Antichrist. Should we ask why it is so? The answer can be found in Luke 18:8, in which Jesus asked the question after teaching about the need for men to always pray without fainting. “… Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8. Jesus had seen this problem arising especially in these latter days; as to our ability as Christians to keep praying until we receive from God in accordance to His will. The inability to endure sound doctrine of the Lord, waiting in prayer, endurance and patience until we receive is the Christian tenet we could not abide with; hence we are short of the standard. Once we lay the foundation of our Ministry by hunting in the way of the world, it becomes difficult to revert to the righteous mode of hunting, because we have no previous testimonies of the workings of God in ourindividual life. As the Lord Jesus upholds the tenet of faith as a yardstick in submitting to the will of God in prayer and thanksgiving, it could only be possible to depend on God without caring about the things of the world, which our heavenly Father knows we need. It is by faith alone that we can desist from following the way of the Gentiles (unbelievers). Yet, the way of the Unbelievers is more acceptable in this end time generation. “Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, o ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things? But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness: and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”Mat.6:30-34 The concept of Mountain of Prey in its original sense is that which depicts the early life of man as a hunter that goes into the field to hunt for animals, and animals or birds going after weaker animals to devour for food. As prophet Amos asked, “Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den if he hath taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?” Amos 3:4-5 “Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? Or fill the appetite of the young lions when they crouch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? Who provideth for the raven his food? When his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.” Job 38:39-41 “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? But thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.” Isaiah 49:24-25 As we can deduce from the above Bible portions, the scene describes the Mountain of Prey as a location that is full of violence, conflict, oppression and strife. A World Scene of the necessity to survive. A jungle life conditioned by the nature of the animal that occupy it, creatures, man being the most sophisticated of them all. It is a World Scene in which you must go out to hunt and be at alert otherwise you also can be hunted and be turned to a prey to other men or animals. “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness which they have described; to turn aside the needy from judgement, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless.” Isaiah 10:1-2 The World Scene as a mountain of prey therefore is that which couldan be studied and analysed along with an objective view as to how the system operates and the ability of man to survive without going against the will of God the Creator. Also, it will be necessary to draw a line between the ability of man to do that which pleases God and how his limitation could be turned to an advantage when he comes to be confronted with God’s plan of Salvation in Christ Jesus, a sure source of protection from the storm that plagues the World Scene, which is the Mountain of Prey we are about to navigate. We then can ask the questions, can man afford not to live by bread alone? Can man live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord? Can there be sanity on the Mountain of Prey, which is the World Scene? What are the magnet forces of social, political and economic factors that keep man more attached to the flesh than to the Spiritual? Could man be detached from the fear of the needs of today and tomorrow? What will be the end of this World Scene?
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