What is God saying for 2018? — Cindy Jacobs

‘Africa is going to experience an explosion of God’s power’

Originally published in Charisma News

I hope you all had a wonderful, happy New Year’s Day. This is the season where we like to share with you what God has been saying for 2018, and I’m very excited about this year.

What I have with me is a compilation of some words that came from the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders and the Global Prophetic Consultation in Nov. 2017, which people say was one of the most historic events they have ever been to in their lives. It’s so good, and we know that God has given us a great harvest. We had prophets from around the world sharing together prophetically what they’re hearing for the upcoming season. There’s a theme that developed for 2018, and this common theme is that it’s going to be a good year.

You know, 2017 was a very difficult time of uncertainty for so many of us. There were terrorist acts, riots, political unrest and division. As we look on the world news, we have the threat of North Korea looming over the world. We had natural disasters here in the U.S., with fires and flooding across the nation. But, in the midst of it, I found myself starting to feel really good, and people looked at me like, “Are you crazy? Why are you feeling good right now?” Because I’m seeing what God is bringing.

God is doing a new thing. As you may know, as we prophesy, we often look for a biblical connection. Why do we do this? Because the Bible is a book of Hebrew thought. It’s not a book of Western thinking at all. So, if we’re going to understand the Bible, we need to understand the numerology. There are very important things that are hidden keys in Scripture. People can say, “Oh, it’s an occult thing”. No, it’s a Hebrew thing, and if we want to understand what is written in the context of what is written, we need to look at the keys that have been given to us.

Possessing the gates
On the Hebrew calendar, 2018 is the year 5778 and, if we see the pictorial emphasis from this, 5778 forms a gate. In fact, this gate can look kind of like a bridal canopy. So, as I was asking the Lord what is going to happen in 2018, I felt the Holy Spirit saying, “It’s the year to possess the gates of your future.”

This is very important. I’m going to use the text Genesis 22:17-18, “Blessing I will bless you. Multiplying I will multiply.” Whenever the Scripture reiterates something, such as “blessing I will bless you”, this is a form of emphasis meaning it’s superlative. It’s going to be greater than you can imagine. “Multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars in the heaven and as the sand washes on the seashore and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies, and your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.” I feel those descendants are not just our natural children, but also our spiritual children—people we have mentored or movements that we have started.

Some of you know that I wrote a book that came out in 1991 called Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, and I’ve just finished the fourth edition for it, which is coming out later this year. It’s a new update with a fresh, new look at prayer and spiritual warfare. As I was writing it, I didn’t even think about the significance of gates. But, this year will be a time where we are going to possess these gates—opportunities that are before us that we haven’t been able to reach before. In other words, we’ve not been able to go through the gates of opportunity.

It’s very interesting that this promise was given to Abraham around 2018 B.C., which was 2018 years before Christ and [it’s now] 2018 years after, so it’s like a double full-circle time. We are children of Abraham, since we have been grafted into the vine, so promises given to Abraham are promises for us. Now, let’s talk about some ways to possess those gates.

Number one, you have to be prepared. Sometimes people just take life day by day, like, “Well, whatever comes, I’m going to deal with it, but this is a year to possess your future. So, you need to look and say, ‘What does God want me to accomplish this year? What is it that I am supposed to possess? What are those things that have been dreams that you have longed to fulfill?'”

It’s a time to dream again. It’s a time to sit down and say, “Maybe we had a business failure, or maybe we had something happen to our family, or maybe that dream didn’t come true,” but don’t give up on your dream. Possess it. This is a special year with special promises. We need to get ready for it, but how do we do that? One way is to surrender to God. Just surrender everything to God.

What gates gas Satan closed?
Where has Satan closed your gates? Don’t just let life pass you by. Think about where Satan has come in to those gates. Maybe it’s been friendship gates or family gates. Maybe there are some things that happened in your family, and they were really painful. Don’t let Satan just win. Say, “No! Satan, you can’t win. You can’t have my family.” It’s time to stand and declare and decree.

As we sought direction together for the year, we kept hearing that “Glory” is going to be a significant word in 2018. There are going to be so many incredible miracles that God is going to show us. Habakkuk 2:14 says that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. God is going to show himself as the great God, the glorious God.

We are to live from the glory down, not from the problems of our life up. In other words, if we’re seated with Him in heavenly places, and He’s a glorious God, He has all the solutions. He has all the answers. He has everything you need. So, when you’re looking at a situation, don’t look at what the current situation says. Don’t look at the problems of it. Seek God from the heavenly, being seated with him in heavenly places. Ask him to give solutions and bring those solutions down into the problem. God is full of wisdom. He’s a kingdom administrator. He knows how to do everything.

I can’t tell you how many times I could not figure out what to do until I finally just calmed myself inside and said, “God, you know what to do”, and all of the sudden, I had the solution. It was like I suddenly realized that I was seated with him, talking to the Lord and He gave me the solution. I knew what to do, and I brought that into the current situation. You can do this when you need wisdom with your children, wisdom with teenagers—praise God, that’s a very interesting time of life, isn’t it?—or whatever it is. If you’re married, you might need wisdom regarding your spouse.

There are gates that Satan wants to shut—gates of relationship, gates that will slam in your face—and Satan will say to you, “You’re never going to have a good relationship with your family. You’re not going to have good times. The things that have happened have caused irreparable damage.” No, that is not true, because it’s not God’s will, and God created your family. He meant it to be good. Don’t give up your battle. Now, maybe it won’t come about in 2018, but don’t give up the battle. God will turn it.

A season of suddenlies and acceleration
God is moving us into a season where He just does something suddenly for us. Like, one day everything’s terrible, and the next day you’re just shocked that everybody loves each other. It’s as if nothing bad ever happened, and you’re just kind of looking around, and you’re going, “Wow. Yesterday we were all at each other’s throats, and today it’s like it never happened.” You know, God can do that.

Salvation came to the earth suddenly when Jesus was born, and you know that Moses came as a liberator seemingly suddenly after all those years of captivity. God spoke after hundreds of years of being silent. The suddenlies will come in your life, and that should give you hope in the midst of all your problems that suddenlies are coming.

Another word that was corporately given across the board was acceleration. This is a time when your wealth will accelerate. Blessings will accelerate. Prosperity will accelerate. You need to believe for it. The Bible says the word did not profit them not being mixed with faith.

You need to believe God that He’s going to give you that prosperity, that He’s going to give you blessing, and you know you say, “Well, what if I believe and nothing happens?” If you don’t believe, I can assure you nothing will happen. Whenever God says ‘I will’, that’s a powerful promise, and multiplying ‘I will multiply you’. So, let’s believe for acceleration, suddenlies, and for God to multiply you suddenly.

God is going to give business opportunities to many people. Maybe you are in poverty right now, or maybe you’re not able to make your bills, but God will download something to you that you’re good at. You’re not going to have to work harder, but you’ll work smarter, and it’s going to bring you the funds you need. You’re going to be able to do what your main thing is, and these other things will not take you over, but yet it’s going to give you the income you need.

Suddenly, that gate of favor is going to open up for you, and that gate of honor. Where there’s been dishonor, there will be honor. Somebody was telling me how Billy Graham used to be dishonored in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and now there is a highway or a freeway named after him there. That can happen. You can outlast your enemies. You can live longer, do better. Keep your heart right, and one day honor will come into the place of dishonor.

These are all very significant things. God is saying something to us.

A moral reformation
God is exposing immorality. There is going to be a moral reformation, and this is going to happen in Hollywood. Many, many people in Hollywood are going to understand that biblical values are important. I see many, many in Hollywood being interested in what we call good moral programming, and I’m just thankful for the people in Hollywood. You know, we always diss them, but they work so hard, and I just want to put in a good word for them right now.

After the Reformation, there was a counter-reformation, where a lot of the work that had been done was undone. It was a very dark time. Well, the Lord spoke to us that if we are attentive, there will not be another counter-reformation. If we don’t evangelize the Millennials with a biblical worldview, if we don’t speak to their hearts, in a decade, we’re going to see all that we have gained in this time of going into the seven spheres, or mountains of authority, start to be undone again. We want to reach the Millennials. We want to listen to the Millennials, and God is going to anoint people to do this and pray. It’s time to pray for the Millennials, and I prayed about that, too.

There’s a revival coming—a revival of a magnitude worldwide that we cannot imagine. There’s a reformation coming, and I want to say something about that. We are in the midst of the Great Awakening now. The Great Awakening worldwide has begun. It’s not going to begin. It has begun, and it’s going to begin in different stages. We have seen great revivals come before, the Welsh Revival, different Revivals, but they didn’t last. However, we know with this reformation, there’s going to be a marriage between evangelism and reformation, and we’re going to see nations changed. We’re in the process.

The Isaiah 19 highway
Another word that God gave us is about the Isaiah 19 highway. You may not be familiar with that, but it’s talked about in Isaiah, the 19th chapter, that there’s a highway of holiness that will be built from Egypt to Assyria to Israel. What is going on right now in Iran and the unrest there, what happened recently, there was such a reformation of Saudi Arabia. God is preparing a highway.

God is preparing a way for nation after nation after nation to be touched through religious freedom with his power, and there’s going to be a connection that will happen even with Israel. Sometimes people say, “Well that could never happen.” It’s going to happen, because the Bible says that it will happen.

The great transfer of wealth
Another thing that God spoke to us about is a transfer of wealth. This will happen in more of a season than a one-year time frame, but we see the beginnings where believers are going to open their eyes, and they’re going to see opportunities for wealth. They’re going to know how to go through the gates, how to go through the doors of opportunity.

There will be great financial blessings start to come to the U.S. Things are already beginning to turn around. God also showed me that for all the Middle East there are going to be blessings come for the believers there too, because what God is doing is all part of this Isaiah 19 highway.

I remember when we met with the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders, God spoke to us a number of years ago that the EU would fragment, and it has happened. We know there was Brexit. The Lord also showed us that the dollar would remain in a stable place for investing when things were shaky. This was around five years ago, and many people are saying it was going to crash, and it’s going to go down. Well, the stock market is going up and up and up.

There will be some course corrections, but I do not at this time see a major crash, where it’s going to completely plummet, as long as we continue on the current path. But, if there’s compromise, it will go down, and you will see this directly correlating with what’s happening with our connection with Israel.

I also want to mention the Middle East. The Middle East is very important, as is China. Asia’s a very huge part, and the Chinese people in particular, but all of the Asians with this Isaiah 19 highway. Look to numbers of people going to Egypt. Numbers and numbers of Christians will start going to Egypt to pray, because this move of God, it’s happening now. It’s not something just beginning. It’s been happening, but we’re going to see it’s going to be on a greater and greater scale.

Africa is going to experience an explosion of God’s power, but the nations are going to be transformed, as well. At the meeting of prophets we had recently, we had prophets from all over the world pray together, and we were decreeing that the evil dictator Mugabe of Zimbabwe was going to come down immediately. At the exact moment that we were taking authority over the spirit that had held Zimbabwe bound by this dictator, the tanks were rolling into Harare. We have to keep praying that it doesn’t go back into the same way. We have great authority through the name of Jesus, and God has been speaking to us that we are going to go through gates of authority. It’s time for the Daniels in Babylon to arise.

Daniel captured Babylon, instead of Babylon capturing Daniel. God allowed Daniel to be captured, but then he became head of all the soothsayers. The Lord showed us that, as prophets, we are going to go into many, many doors and places in secular society, governmental places, where there’ll be those that are psychics there, but God is going to give us words that outshine them all through signs, and wonders and miracles. We see this in the case of Moses and the Pharaoh with the serpents and the rod that Moses threw down.

We prophesied a lot about North Korea, that they are going to have a suddenly, where God is going to deal with Kim Jong-un. In fact, the word was, “I’m dealing with the evil dictators of the world, and these evil dictators are going to shake.” Maduro’s going to shake. He’s going to come down, and some of the others. We’re seeing Iran shaking right now. We saw what happened with Zimbabwe. We’re going to see it with Kim Jong-un. There’s going to be some turmoil, but Kim Jong-un is going to come down. God is hardening his heart like Pharaoh’s heart. He’s not going to allow Kim Jong-un to stay in that position. He’s not going to allow compromise to come. Something is going to dramatically happen, because his time for being a dictator is over, unless he turns his heart to the Lord.

Kim Jong-un, if you’re reading this somehow, turn your heart to the Lord Jesus. There are people praying for you, and if you will completely change, God is going to help you on a path that will not be destructive. So, you can choose, Kim Jong-un. You choose who you’ll serve. If you serve God, and if you change your ways, God will protect you. He will protect North Korea in a unique way and make peace with South Korea. However, if you continue on your path, it will lead to your destruction, and the sad thing about that is your destruction will lead to the path to hell. So, I just pray that somehow God will get that message to Kim Jong-un, because God cares about him. He doesn’t want that anyone should perish.

One of the words the Lord gave us is the word amplification. God wants to amplify your voice, and then it’s going to be a wave that’s going to be love-motivated. God is going to give us that love motivation, and we’re going to prophesy in a new way. We’re going to prophesy innovative strategies.

Now, not all of these will really touch everyone’s heart as I’m sharing this, but take notes and go over it again, because there will be parts of this that will stand out for you, and you’ll say, “This is my part. This is what I need.” It’s a lot of information, but go over it again and again, and believe it, declare and decree it.

So, this is the beginning of strength coming. There’s humiliation that has happened to some of the body of Christ. Maybe it happened to you on your job or maybe you’ve been persecuted in another way. Maybe you’re a student and it happened at school. Listen, God is going to cause you to shine. He’s going to take you to the top of the heap. He’s going to show you what to do to be the best of the best. There are spiritual confrontations coming, but God is going to anoint the business leaders. God is going to anoint those who, like Nehemiah, will be able to build walls of culture and change things in every way.

So, Father, I pray for those who will possess the gates of their future. Father, I pray that there will be strategies, and that there will be a new levels of intimacy. Father, I pray for those who have felt overwhelmed.

The Lord says, “Don’t be overwhelmed. Calm your spirit. Calm your spirit. Be still and know that I am God, and as you just take time in stillness just abiding with the Lord, just be still.”

You’ve asked Him so many questions. Now let Him talk back to you. Give time for the Lord to speak to you as well as you speak to him. God will show you which are your gates.

So, Father, I pray for those doors of opportunity. Father, I thank you, Lord, that you’re going to give innovation, strategies, acceleration, suddenlies, favor and honor in the name of Jesus.

Let’s go through the gate of 2018. Let’s possess the gates of our future. Let’s do it with excitement, joy and happiness. It’s going to be a great year. Now just go do it! 

Cindy Jacobs is an author, speaker and teacher with a heart for discipling nations in the areas of prayer and prophetic gifts. She and Mike—her husband of 43 years—co-founded Generals International in 1985.