I write to you as one who has no agenda except the open agenda of seeing the righteousness of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ extended and established in every place He gives me influence.

A Problem 'Out There'?

At this time, we can see that many nations are in a spiritual and moral nosedive, falling into confusion, corruption and depravity. I used to think of it as 'a problem out there', in the world outside of the church. But in recent months the Lord woke me up with this startling truth: Jesus described us as 'salt' and 'light'; we are placed here to culturally flavour and preserve society, to help people find and walk on the Highway of Holiness, which is the path of life. So, if society is not being preserved and flavoured by the Church, we have become 'salt that has lost its saltiness'!

At this present time in my home nation of Germany, being 'trampled under foot' is an apt description of the Church. The German Church is afflicted by many false teachers and apostles who preach a false gospel of liberalism. Through it they seek to undermine the authority of the Holy Scriptures. They encourage sin and teach people to show more loyalty to the state than they do to God. It is a cancer in the Body of Christ. But the Lord is hearing our prayers and guiding our actions. He is at work, and we are starting to see Him move as a master-surgeon to cut out this deadly growth.

It is no secret that Kenya is also facing major cultural issues at this time, in particular the deep-seated corruption that many sectors of society have become riddled with. I'm writing to encourage and strengthen your hope that this can be changed. As with Germany, the source of the problem is not 'out there' where the sinners are; it is much closer to home. And this is a difficult pill to swallow, but think about this: if you salted some meat to preserve it and it went bad, would you not question the quality of the salt? If you liberally sprinkled salt over your food and it was still tasteless, would you not also do the same?

In praying for your nation the Lord revealed to us that the Body of Christ in Kenya is also facing a fatal spiritual malady - a heart disease - which requires the Lord's critical intervention to be saved. Her arteries must be unclogged and unblocked if she is to survive.

We are not alone in this struggle - the Body of Christ throughout the world is in a season of deepening consecration, involving cleansing and spiritual surgery. In particular the Lord is bringing His righteous judgement against compromised leadership. This cleansing work has started with hidden things being brought out of the shadows and into the light. The Holy Spirit warned that this was coming. He gave leaders time to 'judge themselves so they would not be judged'. Many did not listen - and the time of judgement has now come.

Is Poverty the Cause?

Some people think that corruption is a symptom of poverty; therefore they conclude that more money is the answer. But I have observed that usually it works the other way around - corruption leads to poverty. The apostle James observed the same, writing that it is the rich who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind. (James 2:6). After a little research I discovered that Taiwan's recent history is an excellent case study on this.

In contrast to Kenya, the nation of Taiwan is known for its culture of honesty and trust. Its people value integrity, responsibility, and respect. In their cities, if someone loses a wallet there's a high chance it will be returned to the owner intact. In cafes, people leave phones or bags on the table to reserve their spot while they step away. And it's not uncommon for rural shops to be unstaffed - with customers leaving payment for their goods in honesty boxes.

Today, they are the fourteenth most prosperous nation in the world, but it was not always this way in Taiwan. Wind the clock back some decades and you will find a people oppressively ruled, a society struggling with deep-seated corruption, and poverty. Did integrity follow on the heels of prosperity - as though, now having money, they could afford more morality? Or did prosperity follow on the heels of integrity? I can tell you that it was the latter.

In the second half of the last century a cultural revolution, catalysed by Christian and Catholic missionaries, saw biblical ethics and morality restored to the nation of Taiwan. These values were written on the hearts and minds of an entire generation, because these missionaries invested much effort in education and schooling. Today, these values are still very deliberately taught from a young age and reinforced through family, education, and media.

So we see that there is hope, and that poverty is not the primary cause of the corruption problem.

What then is the root cause of Kenya's corruption malady? This must be clearly identified, so that the problem can be cut off at the roots. If we make the cut too high, and not at the roots, we may find ourselves pruning the problem instead - that is, we risk making it worse by encouraging it to grow! (A common problem with mere political solutions, which rarely address the root cause of any problem.)

Learning from Israel

There was a time of great corruption in Israel's history too - the prophet Isaiah wrote about it. Things had become so bad that it was recorded in Isaiah 59 that their 'courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found.' And of the suffering people it was written 'We growl like hungry bears; we moan like mournful doves.'

Let's go through some of the text step-by-step, to observe the parallels and find some clues to both the root cause and the remedy (this is from the ESV):

Listen! The Lord's arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It's your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. The people wanted to mix things up in an unholy alliance of pseudo spirituality and carnality. They expected God to bless them, even whilst they pursued wealth through compromised methods: ways of the flesh, not ways of the Spirit. It was never going to work, because as Jesus said 'you cannot serve both God and mammon'. It's one or the other. You either have faith in God and walk in the light of His word and His counsel, or you trust to your own cunning - your own devious methods - operating in secrecy, moving about in the shadows like spiritual 'Gollums'.

Your hands are the hands of murderers, and your fingers are filthy with sin. Your lips are full of lies, and your mouth spews corruption. No one cares about being fair and honest. The people's lawsuits are based on lies. They conceive evil deeds and then give birth to sin. Here, we see some 'family members' emerging. 'Corruption' goes along with 'lies'. 'Fairness' and 'honesty' go along with 'speaking the truth'.

They hatch deadly snakes and weave spiders' webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; whoever cracks them will hatch a viper. Jesus referred to the corrupt religious leaders of His time as 'the offspring of vipers'. They were 'false', they were 'liars' and 'hypocrites'. To 'eat their eggs' is to be poisoned by their teaching or example, to 'crack them' is to face the backlash of resisting such people.

Their webs can't be made into clothing, and nothing they do is productive. All their activity is filled with sin, and violence is their trademark. Their feet run to do evil, and they rush to commit murder. They think only about sinning. Misery and destruction always follow them. They don't know where to find peace or what it means to be just and good. Instead of bringing life by clothing people, their weaving brings death by entrapping people in a web - a system of politicised religious oppression and control - and after trapping, they numb them and drain the life out of them.

They have mapped out crooked roads, and no one who follows them knows a moment's peace. So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living. We look for light but find only darkness. We look for bright skies but walk in gloom. We grope like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. Even at brightest noontime, we stumble as though it were dark. Among the living, we are like the dead… we look for justice, but it never comes.

In their interactions with others, everyone has an angle — some hidden agenda — which is concerned with 'what's in it for me?' and 'how can I take advantage of this person or this situation?' The tragic outcome of this absence of straightforwardness is confusion, injustice and poverty.

We know how unfair and oppressive we have been, carefully planning our deceitful lies. Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found.

In this society everything had become political. 'Playing politics' had become their new form of 'wisdom', replacing the heavenly, uncomplicated, childlike wisdom that their ancestors knew.

Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked . The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice.

And here we are drawing near to the root of the problem, and also its remedy. The daily practice of dishonesty, incongruence, deceit and insincerity is feeding this monster called corruption.

The remedy, then, becomes rather obvious: the daily practice of honesty, congruence, truthfulness and sincerity. It must be modeled and taught from the scriptures. The young people must be trained in it, and taught to take responsibility for their lives and their conduct. This training must flow from the spiritually mature, who understand the methods of God.

I hear many parents manipulating their children into obedience by using the weapon of fear. And yet there is great duplicity, for the children eventually see that the conduct of their parents does not line up with their words. Manipulation is a work of the flesh, not the spirit. As the scripture says: wisdom is proven right by her fruit. Take a step back and look at the fruit of this approach in Kenyan society. Is it working? It certainly isn't! It only teaches children to become more cunning, until they have learnt to 'work the system', until they themselves become political animals, taking advantage of even their own friends when they think they can get away with it.

An illicit love affair with the world

So we have come to understand that dishonesty (if we want to frame it with a single word) is at the root of the curruption we see. But what is at the root of this dishonesty? This must also be determined if we are really going to cut this thing off at the root (or indeed the root of the root). Again, Israel's history can help us with this.

Asa (one of Israel's better kings), once led Israel in a tremendous victory over their enemies. They were victorious because, when they were outnumbered and the situation looked bleak, Asa turned to the Lord for help. He trusted in and relied on the Lord, and the Lord delivered them. Later on, however, when a similar situation arose, he relied on his own cunning and made a bargain, trying to buy his way out of trouble. Then the prophet Hanani came to him with these words: "Because you have put your trust in the king of Aram instead of in the Lord your God, you missed your chance to destroy the army of the king of Aram. The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What a fool you have been! From now on you will be at war." (2 Chronicles 16:7,9)

I believe we have come now to a root of the dishonesty problem: people are looking to man instead of God; they are leaning on the flesh instead of the Spirit. Whenever we do this, we are proclaiming our unbelief, our lack of faith in the Goodness of God. As a 'muzungu' visiting Kenya, I have lost count of how many times people have tried to take advantage of me because I am European, and assumed to have plenty of money. And this includes church people. This is looking to man instead of God.

When King Saul was instructed by the Lord to destroy a city because of its wickedness, he did it, but he was disobedient. He preserved some of the spoils of the battle that were supposed to be destroyed. This compromise revealed that He was not trusting wholly in the Lord to prosper and protect him; he acted in fear, chose self-preservation, and it cost him the kingship. Saul was a masterful politician, but this is not what he was called to be. And as soon as the Lord saw him playing politics His throne was appointed to another, to someone better than him, to someone who 'had a heart after God'.

In Jeremiah the Lord lays this out very clearly: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” - Jeremiah 17:5-8 (NIV)

Bishops, apostles, pastors and teachers of the Kenyan Church, I implore you to return to a whole-hearted devotion to the Lord. A devotion that trusts and relies wholly on the Lord. Return to childlike faith, because without it you will never see the kingdom of God manifested on earth, through your ministry (Matthew 18:3). Forsake the folly of the 'wisdom that is from below', which is playing politics, and practice the straightforward wisdom that is from above.

'But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.' James 3:13-17

The manipulation of the heart's of men and women through showmanship and intimidation is no more palatable to Jesus now, than it was when he rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees for it 2000 years ago. Such practices have more in common with witchcraft than they do with true Christianity. By failing to consecrate yourselves, by shrugging your shoulders and saying 'this is just how we do things here' you are practicing spiritual adultery. James put it this way: "You [are like] unfaithful wives [having illicit love affairs with the world and breaking your marriage vow to God]! Do you not know that being the world's friend is being God's enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world takes his stand as an enemy of God."- James 4:4 (AMPC)

Is not the acceptance of polygamy by some church leaders - in direct contradiction to the scriptures (1 Timothy 3:2) - evidence of this adulterous spirit? What about the casual swapping out of marriage partners? Is this consistent with being 'a bride without spot or wrinkle?' Of course we all still mistakes, but the days of excusing deliberate sin are gone, especially in leadership! Paul specifically commanded married couples not to separate, but if they must for the sake of peace, they must not remarry. And Jesus himself said “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Luke 16:18 NIV).

The time of the marriage supper of The Lamb is rapidly drawing near. The bride must make herself ready. She must prepare her wedding gown by doing righteous deeds, in dependence upon the Lord (Revelation 19:7-8). She must depart from her spiritual adultery and from the apathy and presumption of 'the foolish virgins'. Leaders: you have a duty to help the bride of Christ with this. As the scriptures say: "...set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." - 1 Timothy 4:12

I pray for a consecration movement to arise in Kenya; a movement that reflects the words of this prophecy:

Regarding these 'fatty deposits', the psalmist put it this way: 'The proud have forged a lie against me… their heart is as fat as grease (Psalms 119:69-70 NKJV).

The problem of corruption 'out there in the world' will not change until the corruption 'right here in the church' is dealt with.

To close, let me share what I myself saw whilst praying for Kenya. I saw things being drawn into a bucket. At first, I didn't understand what it was, but then the Lord spoke and opened my eyes to a play on words:

"Buck it. Buck the trend. Don't bend* but be wholehearted, and spend what you have declaring the truth. Offerings aren't offerings when they don't reflect My sufferings (2 Cor. 9:7, Mark 12:33, Eph. 5:2, Phil. 4:18).

I suffered for the truth, for the truth sets free and freedom is what I will bring to Kenya if you bow the knee, walk with Me in humility and turn from your idols of silver and gold, to worship Me in spirit and in truth."

* Bend the truth
: to be dishonest
: to manipulate information in a way that misleads others.
: to change certain facts of a story or situation in order to elicit a specific response in an audience.
: to exaggerate in order to make a point more convincing.

Does not the scripture say that the love of money is the root of every kind of evil (1 Timothy 6:10)? Is a love of money also at the root of this problem of dishonesty - dishonesty that leads to corruption? Are we serving and trusting in mammon instead of serving and trusting in the Lord?

It's time for change. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees. Let us be agents of this change.

With warmest regards,
David Cragg

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