I was
invited by Pastor Ernest Chan, a well-known American Chinese leader, to speak
at a large conference he was hosting in Los Angeles in July 2001. Many
Chinese believers would be attending from all over the world. I was
seeking the Lord about what to share in the meeting when He asked me a question.
“What
hinders My kingdom from being established in the Middle East, David?”
Having been
born and raised in Egypt, a Muslim nation, I knew very well.
“It’s the
fear of persecution and the fear of death,” I answered.
“Yes, but I
have a prepared a people,” He continued, “a remnant of My body who have no fear
of persecution or death. It is the
Chinese people and they will have a very special role to play in seeing the
end-time destiny of the Jews and the Arabs being released.”
I was
stunned by this revelation. My heart has always been for my people, the
Arabs, and through my journey in Canada, God had also given me a heart for the
Jewish people. But I had never seen any connection between this and the
Chinese.
When I
shared what the Lord had revealed to me in the meeting that night, the presence
of God came in an unusual way. It was as if we were all captured in a
divine moment of sovereign revelation. In fact, Ernest was so stirred
that he immediately encouraged the people to sow into printing one million CDs
of this message, to be shared throughout the
Chinese world. On the spot, all the money was raised.
But when we
went to the professional company who was producing the CDs of the conference,
the recording of my sharing was completely blank! All you could hear was
my voice praying at the beginning, then silence throughout my message until I
came to the closing prayer. As soon as I said “Amen” the recording began
again.
We assumed
it was an equipment malfunction, so my friend and pastor Gideon Chiu, who had
been videotaping the meeting on his camcorder, suggested we could take the
audio from his tape. But when we looked at the tape it was the exactly
the same story: just as I began my
message, the tape went blank and the recording never resumed until just after I
finished.
My first
thought was that this was warfare from the enemy. But then the Lord spoke
to me clearly saying, “It is not the time for this message to go wider yet,
David.”
So I left
this conference knowing there was something profound about the destiny of the
Chinese, but I wasn’t sure what, where or when
the next step would be. A few
months later, Pastor Ernest invited me to join him for some meetings he was
having in Asia that November. I
prayed and I felt the Lord said to go. Before this though, I was scheduled
to speak in an international conference in Israel.
Then
September 11th happened. The airline schedules were in chaos and all the
new airport security measures were causing huge delays. It was not an
easy time to be an Egyptian flying to Israel. So I asked the Lord if I
should cancel my trip. But He answered that I must go because there was
someone I was supposed to meet there.
At the
conference I had many meetings with many people, but at no time did I get the
clear sense “this is the person” I was
supposed to meet. So I came home mystified.
A few days
later, Pastor Ernest called, saying he had received a message from Taiwanese
pastor who had just met me in Jerusalem and wanted me to speak in his church
during the November trip.
Suddenly I
remembered this man – he was supposed to leave back home before I arrived, but
the post 9-11 airline problems had delayed his return by a couple of days. So he “happened” to be there while I
was speaking. After my sharing he asked to meet with me, but because he
didn’t speak English we had to communicate through a translator. When he
told me he was from Taiwan, I mentioned I would be traveling there in November
and he had asked if I would speak at a leaders meeting at his church. I
didn’t think much of it – he seemed like a very nice man and I thought maybe he
was the pastor of a small church who would like me to encourage his leadership.
“David, do
you know who this man is?” Pastor Ernest continued. “Pastor Nathaniel
Chow is the founder and apostolic overseer of a movement with more than one
hundred daughter churches worldwide. He is one of the most respected and
trusted leaders in Taiwan.” At that moment I realized the Lord was up to
more than I could understand.
I will never
forget this meeting in Taipei, which was a gathering of the movement’s leaders
from all around the world. As I began to share about the destiny of the
Chinese, suddenly my translator (who I later found out was Tony Tseng, the
president of Good TV, the only 7x24 Chinese Christian TV station in the world)
started weeping to the point he could no longer continue. The rest of those
present were also so overcome that they came out of their chairs weeping and
travailing and lay across the altar and the platform calling out for the destiny
of the Chinese.
As I watched
this scene unfold, the Lord spoke to me that the day would come when He would
gather the Chinese people to worship and seek His face, waiting on Him for His
steps to see the destiny of the Chinese fulfilled. And when they did,
this would benefit not only the Chinese, but God’s end-time purposes for the
Middle East and for the body of Christ globally.
The Journey Begins
I believe
that we are now living in the days when the destiny of the Chinese is coming
into collision with the timings of God.
In 2009 the Lord opened the door for the first Chinese gathering in
Vancouver, Canada during Rosh Hashanah. One thousand believers gathered to
worship and wait on the Lord without man-made agenda or schedule. The Chinese are masters at planning and
scheduling, but for this gathering they chose to lay aside these natural
talents to allow His Spirit to completely direct the meetings. And the Lord honoured their obedience
by His manifested presence. And He
used this gathering as a seed to birth the first global gathering of the
Chinese in Hong Kong in May 2010.
In the first
Hong Kong gathering, the Lord focused on uniting the five thousand Chinese,
attending from Asia and around the world, into one Body as a prophetic sign of His
desire for the greater Chinese Church. As the remnant who attended obeyed and waited on the Lord
together, He released a spirit of repentance that broke through traditional
barriers between streams and nations and caused the hearts of all those present
to be knit together as one true family. At the end of the gathering, all
those present stood and declared prophetically, on behalf of the wider Chinese
Body of Christ, “The Chinese are one family! The Chinese have come
home! Back home to the Father!”
The next year, the Lord
released another call for believers, from Asia and around the world, to gather
in Hong Kong during the Feast of Pentecost, June 8-11, 2011. And He gave this promise from Jeremiah
32:39: “I will give them one heart and one way.” Twelve thousand believers
from more than thirty nations responded to this call. During the gathering, the
Lord challenged the Chinese to lay aside their own agendas and plans and
surrender their lives unconditionally to Him. His desire was that this act
of corporate surrender would become a seed through which He might restore the
miracle of one accord (divine unity) into the Body of Christ worldwide,
preparing the Bride for her end-time mandate and hastening the Lord’s
return. As all those present stood and covenanted by faith, I
believe a beachhead was established in the spirit realm for the sake of the
body of Christ worldwide.
In 2012, fifteen thousand
believers from many nations once again met in Hong Kong for the “Kingdom Come”
gathering, August 1-4, 2012. Before God’s Kingdom can be established in
the world, first He must secure His rule and reign over a remnant of His
Body. And the Lord used the Chinese as a prophetic seed for the whole
Body as they declared His Supreme Rule as King of kings and Lord of lords over
His Bride, from every colour and tribe and nation. Then Chuck Pierce, standing on behalf of the Western Church
leaders, presented a key, inscribed with Isaiah 22:22, to the leaders of the
Mainland Chinese church. This was
a prophetic symbol of the West acknowledging and affirming the role God is
giving the Chinese to lead the next wave in the Church.
The Road to Jerusalem
If we look
at the bigger picture of the Church since Christ came to earth, we know that
its foundations were laid by the Jewish people – the twelve apostles and
faithful early converts. There
were no Gentiles in the Church at this time.
But when the
Lord opened the door for the Gentiles, it brought the Church into a whole new
dimension of our journey; the phase of taking the gospel literally from
Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
This phase, led primarily by the Western Church, has lasted almost two
thousand years and was primarily evangelism and missions-oriented. But the next and final stage of
the Church I believe will be the Church returning from the ends of the earth to
Jerusalem and it will lead to an unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit
and world-impacting revival,
Many people
speak about the “back to Jerusalem” movement and the Chinese Church has
recognized this is a part of their destiny as a people. But what does this term “back to
Jerusalem” actually mean? One view
is that it’s about preaching the gospel in the Middle East. And there is truth in this as we will
always have a mandate to preach the gospel everywhere we go and to see the lost
saved.
But I think
there is another angle that we may not have fully understood. I believe that
the Lord is also entrusting the Chinese to lead the nations into the
convergence of the end-time Kingdom. What do I mean by that?
The Church worldwide is going to make its way “back to Jerusalem” in the
spirit realm, reclaiming all the Lord originally intended His body to be. And through this journey, God will confront the
principalities and powers that have kept the Church captive for centuries.
Shaking the Idols
The Kingdom
of God was never meant to just be a teaching, it was meant to be the living
reality of the Church. But in
order for God to birth this unshakable Kingdom among and through the Body of
Christ, first He must shake the kingdoms of this world and set the Church free
from the powers that have defiled His name.
The
financial meltdown that began on Rosh Hashanah 2008 and left the economies of
many nations de-stabilized is a first sign of this shaking. God is determined to set His people
free from the control of Mammon so that through the Church, He can birth a new
economy based on His laws and principles.
It will be the economy of the Josephs and the Daniels.
The
increasing turmoil in the Middle East in the last few years is another major
sign of the clash between kingdoms. Egypt is shaking and so are Iran, Iraq,
Syria, and Turkey to name a few.
Why? Because these are the nations that were the birthing places of many
ancient strongholds, the habitations of powerful spirits that are still ruling
in the earth today. And God is
looking to confront these spirits, like the spirit of the prince of Persia and
the Babylonian system which, fueled by the power of human initiative, seeks to
build a name for itself. And He
will also confront the spirit of religion that we see warring over the land of
Israel, as well as the gods of Egypt.
Some people
think the gods of Egypt are long gone. But they didn’t vanish – they just took
on new names in our modern culture: Freemasonry and the New Age. Both of these systems find their roots
in Egypt. That’s why the Freemasons have adopted the obelisk, the pyramid, and
the “all-seeing eye”. Have you
ever wondered why many of the major financial centers of the world have an obelisk?
It’s because the Freemasons took them from Egypt and erected them in these
places so that they could exert spiritual control over all the financial systems
of the world.
Now in our
Western rational mindset we think, “What are you talking about? An obelisk is
just a statue. What kind of power
is in a statue?” Well, if you want to know the power, go back to I Samuel 5 when
the Ark of the Covenant went into the temple of Philistines. There was a god in
that temple in a statue form called Dagon. And when the Ark of the Covenant entered
the temple of the Philistines that statue, Dagon, fell down. Why would a statue
fall down if it’s just a rock?
After all, a rock can’t think or see. So why did it fall down? It fell because there was a spirit
inhabiting that statue and in the presence of God, there is no power that can
stand. So down Dagon went, bowing
before the Ark. The next day the Philistines found him and pushed him back
up. But when they returned, what
did they find? Dagon was not only bowed down, now he was broken
too.
Isaiah 19 is
a prophecy about Egypt and the end times. And the first line of that prophecy
says that the Lord is coming on a swift cloud and the idols of Egypt will
tremble. And the ancient “gods of
Egypt”, these spirits that have tried to exercise their rule through governmental
and financial authorities, are being shaken.
Establishing an Unshakeable Kingdom
But it is
very important for us to remember that this battle, the clash of the kingdoms,
is not something you and I can face on our own. This battle is the Lord’s and all
we need to do is align ourselves behind the Commander-in-Chief. God is looking for a people, a remnant from throughout the
nations, over whom He can reign and rule.
And the Lord will use humble, broken people, who don’t care about their reputation,
but only care about the Name of the Lord being honoured and the Kingdom of God
being established. And through
these people, He will confront these spirits.
That’s why I
believe at this hour, the Lord is calling the Church to another standard
because He wants to establish His Kingdom over our hearts. He wants to reign
and rule in His Church. And for
that to happen, we have to make the decision not to tolerate any more
defilement in our lives. No more
mixture in our hearts, no more mixture in our thoughts.
If you have
been enduring a time of shaking in your life, don’t be discouraged. This is the preparation of the Lord for
you. He is shaking you not to destroy you but to prepare you for the
unshakable. So count it all joy
and don’t look back. If you are alive in this hour, it is because the Lord has
a purpose for you. You are called to be part of His overcoming Kingdom.
The V-Formation
And I
believe that it is because of God’s plan to establish His overcoming kingdom
that He has destined the Chinese to take the lead in this hour. The Chinese Church has been shaken,
tested and tried, even to the point of death. Yet they have remained steadfast and faithful, unswerving in
their absolute devotion and surrender to the King. And as they have embraced humility and brokenness for
His sake, now the Lord is raising them up with an authority to birth a pure
seed of the establishment of the Kingdom on behalf of the whole body of Christ.
But that
doesn’t mean that the rest of us, especially those of us from the Western
Church, can just sit back and watch them run. Often we have heard the moves of God described like a relay
race; one runner finishes his leg and passes the baton on to the next. And this is a true picture when we are
talking about one generation releasing the torch to the next generation as they
pass away from the earth. But in
the accelerated times in which we are living, we are not only seeing one move
in a generation, we are seeing many.
And so perhaps a better way of looking at these leadership transitions
in the global body is to look at the V-formation that is common among the
Canadian geese. A whole flock of
geese fly together, but there is one goose which is positioned at the very front
of the V, to take the full force of the wind resistance and make it easier for
all those behind him. But of course, facing that wind is exhausting, so after a
period of time the lead goose will move back into the formation while another
goose will take his place at the head of the V.
And that’s
how I see what God is doing right now with the Chinese. For a long time, the Western church has
been positioned at the front of the V, leading the charge through many moves of
God over centuries. And I believe the
Lord is saying, “Western Church, you have done well and you have broken through
again and again for the rest of the Church worldwide. But now I have specially prepared another part of My
body, the Chinese, to take the lead for this leg of the journey. And they will have the faith and
perseverance needed to stand strong in the face of the resistance that is
coming.”
This kind of
shift in leadership takes a certain amount of humility and grace from both
parties. First, the Western
Church, which have been used to leading for a very long time, has to be willing
to acknowledge the hand of God upon the Chinese. And we have to understand that, though our position may be
changing, that doesn’t mean that we can leave the flock. We need to remain in the
formation, flying together, supporting the leadership of the Chinese. At the same time, the Chinese have to
have the humility to honour what the Western Church has sown, because honoring
the fathers, those who have gone before us, is what keeps us in the flow of
continuous blessing of the Lord.
I have been
genuinely touched to see how much God has deposited this heart to honour in the
Chinese. When Chuck Pierce
presented the key to the mainland Chinese leaders in August 2012, their
response was to fall on their knees, thanking the Western Church for their
sacrifice in sending missionaries, men like Hudson Taylor and thousands of
others, who gave their lives to see God’s purposes being fulfilled among the
Chinese. They also repented
for their historic sins of rejecting, persecuting and even killing these
missionaries. And then they
declared something truly beautiful:
“As God now gives us the privilege to lead, we will rise up and bring a
fulfillment to everything the Western spiritual fathers and mothers had hoped
for and longed to see.” Then they
turned to the Western Church leaders standing on stage with them and said,
“Please walk with us. We need your wisdom, we need your support, and we need
your love. We are one family.”
God’s Sovereign Plan
So I believe
God has uniquely positioned the Chinese, through their faithfulness and
humility, to lead in the Church in this part of our end-time journey - from the
ends of the earth back to Jerusalem.
But the Chinese also possess a key something beyond their freedom from
the fear of death that qualifies them for this journey: an equally fervent love
for the sons of Ishmael and for the sons of Isaac.
The Chinese
Church loves the Jewish people in the same way that they love and feel called
to the Arabs. And in His wisdom,
God has even positioned the Chinese in the natural realm, to have major favour
among the Arabs as well as respect among the Jews. So the Chinese are able to
go where the Western Church cannot. They are able to stretch their arms wide to
embrace not only the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac, but also the
Western Church, bringing the whole Body together into one family.
The Restoration of All Things
Acts 3:21
tells us that a time is coming before the return of Jesus when the Father will
restore everything. Every promise
will be fulfilled, including the one spoken in Haggai 2:9 that the “glory of
the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former.” I believe one of the next major
restorations we are going to witness as the Body of Christ heads “back to
Jerusalem” will be the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles – God dwelling
among His people in a way unprecedented since the days of Solomon.
And I can
see how again, in His sovereign wisdom and timing, the Lord is raising up the
Chinese to be forerunners in this for the whole global body of Christ. What I am witnessing today among the
Chinese defies description. Their humility and complete abandonment to the will
of God, is allowing the Lord to speedily bring them into unity one with another
and alignment with his Headship.
And the presence of God that I have experienced when I am among the
Chinese I believe is a foretaste of the glory that is the Bride’s inheritance
in the last days. And I trust the
Lord will use this deposit of His presence among the Chinese to provoke
jealousy in the rest of the Church, causing a remnant in every nation to begin
to cry out to the Lord to prepare them also to be a resting place for His
glory.
Wise Men from the East
Two thousand
years ago, wise men from the East followed the signs pointing to the coming
Messiah. Today, as part of their eternal destiny the Lord is once again raising
up “wise men from the East” as forerunners to trumpet a call to the Church
worldwide to recognize the signs of her soon-returning King.
In the
global “chess board” of God’s end-time purposes, the Lord is now surprising His
opponent by moving His “Chinese piece” into a strategic position, a spiritual
“checkmate” that will assure His victory at the end of the game.
To the
Chinese believers: the Spirit is
calling you to embrace your destiny – you have been brought into the Kingdom
for such a time as this.
To all the
Asian brethren: the time has come
for “wise men from the East” to walk in humility and brokenness together as one
so that you might to fulfill your mandate to awaken the global body to the hour
in which we are living.
And to the
Western Church: God is asking you
by faith and humility to join with the Chinese believers as they lead the whole
body of Christ in this new journey, from the ends of the earth back to
Jerusalem.
May God
grant the grace for us all to walk together as one man in complete submission
to the Headship of Christ, bringing pleasure to the heart of the Father and the
fulfillment of His purposes for the Bride worldwide.
__________________________
David Demian
was born in Egypt to Coptic Christian parents. In 1984, he left a successful career as a medical doctor when
he obeyed the call of the Lord to begin to prepare the Bride for the Second
Coming. His passion to be a friend of God, first and foremost, has led him on
an amazing journey in life and ministry. In 1988, he and his wife Ruth, a
Canadian medical doctor he met in Egypt, came to Canada for the birth of their
first son. Though they intended to return to Egypt a few months later, God
clearly directed them to stay in Canada.
Today they still live in Vancouver, BC where they raise their family of
seven children and Ruth continues to practice as a physician.
For almost
fifteen years, under the umbrella of Watchmen for the Nations (a relational
network of hundreds of ministries in Canada) David facilitated a journey among
a remnant of the Canadian church to stand in the gap to redeem the destiny of
the nation. He began traveling to
China in 2006 after a group of leaders, who had attended a Canadian national
gathering, shared their longing to see the Chinese walk in the same redemptive
journey for their people that they had experienced in Canada. Today David’s main focus is walking
with leaders in China and other Asian countries, helping them to facilitate
their own journeys to see the redemptive destinies of their nations released
and the Bride of Christ prepared for Jesus return.
For more information about David and the journey among the Chinese and Asian nations, please visit www.asiagathering.hk.
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