Long before the Tainos and Arawaks established homesteads in the hills of Jamaica, God declared this piece of rock a Goshen. Even before Christopher Columbus first set his clumsy foot on the island, God knew that Jamaica would thrive, be a cultural powerhouse, and be a sporting giant in the global arena, despite its small size.
So, regardless of how governments and generations under them have rejected righteousness and rebelled against Godliness, Jamaica, with its lush topography of mountains, fruitful valleys, flowing rivers, rainforests, and reef-lined beaches, will be reformed and ultimately transformed. The Goshen, called Jamaica, will emerge at latitude 18° North and longitude 77° West, southwest of Cuba, exactly as God intended, even if it has to happen by force.
Jamaica’s prosperity is coded in our repentance and submission to the Sovereign Lord. As in the days of Joseph, as a Goshen, Jamaica is destined to be a land of plenty and comfort, spared from famine, plagues and hardships, lending to others, and borrowing from none.
Every Jamaican wants prosperity, but too many want it on their own terms, failing to understand that prosperity without God is certain disaster.
Know this: Jamaica’s decision to seek prosperity promised by corrupt politicians has delivered a long laundry list of woes beyond the wildest imaginations of the population. The list documents the high levels of deception, broken and feuding families, wanton bloodletting by the people and the police, a ramshackled education system, and dilapidated health service. It also highlights the high cost of living, dwindling agricultural production, rising import bill, too frequent road accidents, unstable communities, plummeting birth rate, and a compromised church.
The most glaring items on this woeful list are the rejection of righteousness, the embrace of the occult and other false gods, and the deliberate and sustained refusal to repent.
News that the 1898 Obeah Act is being constitutionally challenged shored up the forces of darkness across the island last week. For some time now, the government has been dropping hints that it is heading in this direction, as it pandered to the segment of the population who believe they should have the right and wherewithal to practise the dark arts at will.
The first stand-alone Obeah Act, passed in 1854, made obeah a crime punishable by flogging and imprisonment. It defined the practice as a system of beliefs and activities often associated with magic, rituals, and the use of supernatural powers for various purposes, including healing, protection, and, sometimes, causing harm.
Obeah is associated with the ability to manipulate supernatural forces, including casting spells, warding off evil, and summoning luck.
In 2013, the Obeah Act was amended, and the penalty for the practice was changed from lashes and imprisonment to a fine.
While Obeah remains illegal, the practice is prevalent across the country. For decades, ‘the science’ was brewed mainly in secret, signalled only by windblown flags on bamboo posts in the deep rural parts of the country. Not so today. The occult has taken root and mushroomed into town squares, boardrooms, and classrooms. The practice is prevalent in the face of the church, which had hidden itself behind four walls of silence and an iron curtain of irrelevance.
This nation, which once proudly celebrated the Christian brand, is now comfortably in bed with the occult. Politicians, academics, and attorneys are now boldly standing in Parliament and press conferences to demand that wickedness be legalised.
We are a nation under judgement, and as the laundry list of woes gets longer, more acute, and extraordinarily severe, the anger of God is intensifying. Jamaica seems hellbent on continuing along a path to its ultimate destruction, totally oblivious to the red flags warning of impending obliteration.
Dramatic decline in agricultural yields is a flaming red flag across the food-producing parishes. While agriculture accounts for a large chunk of the GDP (gross domestic product), small farmers, who supply our markets, supermarkets, hotels, schools, and other industries, are sucking salt through wooden spoons. These men and women face the outer bands of the judgement as the sky is like brass over their heads and the earth is like powder under their feet.
Jamaican farmers cannot compete with food imports from the United States and other countries.
Huge quantities of chicken meat and other meats arrive on the island from foreign countries weekly, despite the fact that much of this can be produced locally. Plant diseases demolish coconut crops, citrus, coffee, and red peas. Much of these have to be replaced by imports.
Jamaica has also been grappling with unconscionable levels of criminality for decades and has been swinging between two political parties, both of which are known to be aligned with gangs and dabble in corruption, even as they implement a splintering of commendable public policies when they govern.
The current government has invested billions of tax dollars in locking down communities and parishes on account of the unacceptable murder rates. States of Public Emergencies, which had become the main crime-fighting mechanism, have been declared unconstitutional by the high court. The old failed strategy of killing young men, the state labels as ‘violence producers’, has been implemented despite the pushback from people with a good conscience.
The government is blind to the fact that the shedding of blood is the mission of the enemy, who is determined to steal, kill, and destroy. The more blood he gets, by whatever means, the greater his thirst for it.
God is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness. He is long suffering toward Jamaica, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It is God’s will that we arrive at the Goshen status by choosing righteousness. But if the population continues to reject God’s way, we will have hell to pay regardless of the fact that generations of our people were raised in the Church.
Remember this: there were many occasions when God’s wrath boiled against His chosen people, Israel. On each occasion, after the judgement, His compassion and grace abounded towards them.
Jamaica is playing with fire and is certain to get burnt. No one can tell if the burns this nation will suffer will be third degree or fourth and fatal, but it will happen if we do not repent.
Jamaica has a choice to make. The jury is out as to how many of the current generation will repent and live to enjoy the Goshen that we will become, by God’s grace.