Welcome to the 47th week of the year! The 47th week is a fifth season week; because it is the fifth week in the seventh 49 days of the year. The Bible keys for understanding the 47th week are the fifth day of creation narrative, the 47th book of the Bible, the 47th chapters of the Bible, and the fifth 3 chapters of the seventh book of the Bible.
A. Week 47 is a fifth day of creation week.
The creatures of the fifth day enjoy unlimited opportunities in their worlds. The fifth day of creation was the beginning of full expression of life in God’s creation. That was the beginning of movement and voice-sound in God’s creation. Freedom of movement and freedom of expression are all marks of the fifth season or 47th season. In this season, the kingdom of darkness seeks to limit the full expression of life through oppression – by men or demons. The evil kingdom seeks to limit men in this season through lack, disease, oppression, or death. For the kingdom of God, the 47th season is about freedom, healing, wholeness, abundance, and spiritual sensitivity. It is a season of awakening to full life. It is a season to work against or stop the things that hinder full expression of life. The creatures of the fifth day can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. All these point to spiritual sensitivity. The issue in the 47th season is whether you will approach life from a spiritual or carnal perspective. It is a season to test if you are going to focus on the spiritual or the material. God began to bless creation on the fifth day. The 47th season (as a fifth season) is a time of blessings and unlimited opportunities for those who focus on God and align with Him. It is a time of disastrous curses for those that are out of alignment. Keep your eyes on spiritual reality and not on superficial ‘realities’. Keep your eyes on God and not on man or yourself. Direct your attention to God.
B. Week 47 is a 47th-chapters-of-the-Bible week.
It is a week of great opportunities, blessing, and prosperity, for God’s people; and a time of great hardship for those who are out of alignment with Heaven. In Genesis 47, three things happened: 1) Pharaoh received Joseph’s family into Egypt and treated them well. He told them “the whole land is before you”. He gave them the best of the land for settlement. They had no lack of any good thing. 2) The people lacked food and money, suffered greatly, and sold everything they had (including themselves) for food. The people were hungry but had no means to buy food from the government. Pray against life threatening situations that take away everything people have from them. Joseph gave the people what they wanted and bought over the lands and people of Egypt for Pharaoh. They did not take the land of the priests. The 47th season can be a season of great prosperity for some and a season of great adversity for others. It all depends on alignment with God. While others lost their lands, God’s people received lands. 3) Jacob, though he had left Canaan and was experiencing material prosperity in Egypt, did not forget the Promised Land. Close to his death, he got Joseph to promise, under oath, that he would not bury him in Egypt but in Cannan. He did not forget the promise of Canaan because of the pleasures of Egypt. He did not feel intimidated before Pharaoh. He knew his covenant position and rights; and blessed Pharaoh from his spiritual position. This week, the Lord calls us to maintain a spiritual focus amid blessings; and utilize opportunities that come our way with heavenly wisdom. In this season, rather than lose what you have to pressure, you’ll receive what you do not have.
The 47th season is for acknowledging the Lord as Sovereign and King over all the earth. It is a time to celebrate God as the Lord and Owner of all things. Psalms 47 draws our attention to God: “Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! [2] For the LORD Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. [3] He will subdue the peoples under us, And the nations under our feet. [4] He will choose our inheritance for us, The excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah [5] God has gone up with a shout, The LORD with the sound of a trumpet. [6] Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! [7] For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding. [8] God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne. [9] The princes of the people have gathered together, The people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is greatly exalted”. As Pharaoh became the owner of, and had claim to, all Egypt in Genesis 47, that is how Psalms 47 shows that all things belong to God. He can put one down and raise another up.
In the 47th season, God demonstrates His sovereignty and humbles the proud. Isaiah 47 Is about the humiliation of Babylon from God. The 47th season is a season of vengeance against the proud, wicked, and arrogant. It is when the mighty and ungodly are brought low. Isaiah 47:1-15 says, “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called Tender and delicate. [2] Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, Take off the skirt, Uncover the thigh, Pass through the rivers. [3] Your nakedness shall be uncovered, Yes, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance, And I will not arbitrate with a man.” [4] As for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel. [5] “Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; For you shall no longer be called The Lady of Kingdoms. [6] I was angry with My people; I have profaned My inheritance, And given them into your hand. You showed them no mercy; On the elderly you laid your yoke very heavily. [7] And you said, ‘I shall be a lady forever,’ So that you did not take these things to heart, Nor remember the latter end of them. [8] “Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, Who dwell securely, Who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, Nor shall I know the loss of children’; [9] But these two things shall come to you In a moment, in one day: The loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness Because of the multitude of your sorceries, For the great abundance of your enchantments. [10] “For you have trusted in your wickedness; You have said, ‘No one sees me’; Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; And you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ [11] Therefore evil shall come upon you; You shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; You will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, Which you shall not know. [12] “Stand now with your enchantments And the multitude of your sorceries, In which you have labored from your youth- Perhaps you will be able to profit, Perhaps you will prevail. [13] You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, And the monthly prognosticators Stand up and save you From what shall come upon you. [14] Behold, they shall be as stubble, The fire shall burn them; They shall not deliver themselves From the power of the flame; It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, Nor a fire to sit before! [15] Thus shall they be to you With whom you have labored, Your merchants from your youth; They shall wander each one to his quarter. No one shall save you”.
Jeremiah 47 is a witness that God humiliates the proud and exalts the humble in the 47th season. Think of 1947 and the British Empire. In this year, India won independence by non-violent resistance and humbled the United Kingdom. The British empire began to lose power and to decolonise territories. She did not prove to be a good custodian of the nations God gave her. The independence of India in 1947 was a statement that the great empire shall go down without the force of arms – though she and her allies won WW2 by military might. In 2007, the 47th year of Nigeria, God exalted Umar Musa Yar’Adua to the Presidency, and Goodluck Jonathan to be the Vice-president. Two former teachers became the foremost leaders in the nation. It was an act of God.
Jeremiah 47 is about God’s counsel against the Philistines. It’s about God’s season of plundering the Philistines. The 47th season is the season of the failure of the proud and fleshly. Jeremiah 47:1-4 says, “The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before Pharaoh attacked Gaza. [2] Thus says the LORD: “Behold, waters rise out of the north, And shall be an overflowing flood; They shall overflow the land and all that is in it, The city and those who dwell within; Then the men shall cry, And all the inhabitants of the land shall wail. [3] At the noise of the stamping hooves of his strong horses, At the rushing of his chariots, At the rumbling of his wheels, The fathers will not look back for their children, Lacking courage, [4] Because of the day that comes to plunder all the Philistines, To cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who remains; For the LORD shall plunder the Philistines, The remnant of the country of Caphtor“.
The 47th season is a time of healing and restoration, God judges dryness, disease, distress and death in the 47th season. Ezekiel 47 is about the healing waters that flowed from under the threshold of the temple; and brought healing to waters in the seas and whatever else it touches except the swamps. The healed waters caused the multiplication of fish and fishermen and the growing of trees used for food and medicine. Pray that healing waters will flow from your life to others and bring healing to their lives and situations. Water is refreshing; and people need refreshing in the 47th season. This chapter also speaks of the distribution of land to the twelve tribes of Israel. The waters of Ezekiel 47 flowed from 1947 when both Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Voice of Healing Movement kicked off. This week in 2018, Pastor Paul Enenche and Dunamis Gospel Center International dedicated the world’s largest auditorium, the 100, 000 seat Glory Dome, in Abuja, Nigeria. That was a material and outward expression of something deeply spiritual. God is releasing healing-waters from Nigeria to the nations.
C. Week 47 is a 47th-Book-of-the-Bible week.
The 47th book of the Bible is Second Corinthians. This book opens with thanksgiving to the God of all comfort. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. [5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. [6] Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. [7] And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation”. The 47th book reveals that the 47th week is a season of triumph in tribulation, trials, and troubles, gain in pain, life in death, generosity in poverty, strength in weakness, and comfort in conflicts.
The 47th book of the Bible is a call to focus on God and on the God-side of things – the invisible, the inner man, the spirit, and so on. It is a season to enthrone the spiritual over and above the material; the spirit above flesh, the invisible above the visible, heaven above the earth, the supernatural above the natural, and God above man. The things that happen in a 47th season come to draw the attention of men, from themselves and things around them, to God – the Creator, Sovereign Ruler, and Sustainer, of the Universe. The 47th week is a season to look at all people and things from a spiritual perspective. This week, pray for yourself; that you may see all people and things as God sees them. Pray also that people will see you as God sees you; and relate with you accordingly.
D. Week 47 is a Judges 13-15 week. The 5th three chapters of the seventh book of the Bible are applicable to the fifth week in the seventh 49 days of the year.This section records Samson’s birth, emergence, and exploits by the Spirit. Samson was a man of great spiritual power but was also addicted to the flesh. He struggled to keep the balance between the spirit and the flesh. He exerted great physical strength but his power had its spiritual root in his consecration to God. The 47th season is a season of releasing spiritual energy.
This week, I call you specially to exalt the word of God, and the will of God, above all other things in your life. Give God the room He deserves in this season. Interpret all things from God’s perspective. This week, do not judge anyone or anything by outward appearance; do not measure people and things per the flesh. Happy 47th week!
