Early 2003 a Hamilton pastor said he believed the Lord had said to him that there would not be revival in NZ until we dealt with the abortion issue.

I was very interested in and praying for revival, so I asked the Lord why the abortion rate was so high in NZ, why the STD and solo parent stats were so high in NZ.  A Waikato Times story told of a 48% increase in Chlamydia in five years.  I felt there was such defilement in NZ.

A bit later I happened to walk into our lounge when my daughter was watching a NZ Wars video.  The commentator spoke the words “sex for guns”.  This caught my attention.  I felt this incident in our history was a key.  I did a transcript of that part of the video and researched the issue more.

One historical, foundational issue in NZ that seems to have opened a major gate for the sexual sin that has ravished our land occurred at the point of first contact when Captain Cook visited NZ in 1769.  Although Cook himself did not participate, declining offers of hospitality, his men had sex with women in every Pacific Is visited, with destructive consequences, passing on and suffering from, venereal disease.  While many, maybe all, sexual liaisons were the free will of those participating, there were consequences which affected a wide range of people.

Cook wrote in his journal, “To our shame (as) civilised Christians we debauch their morals…and we introduce among them wants and perhaps diseases which they never knew before…”

During the early to mid 1800s whaling ships, primarily from America, France and Britain, began arriving, calling into the Bay of Islands, mostly Russell (then called Kororareka), to stock up on food, water, firewood and for recreation.

During the 1830s several hundred whaling ships visited, each with a crew of about 30.  Each ship stayed 2-5 weeks.  The sailors had been at sea for months, even a year or more, and were eager for recreation/sex.  The normal price for a three week contract, often called “temporary marriage”, was a gun/musket for the tribe plus something, e.g. a dress, for the woman.

Often Maori men, usually chiefs, controlled the industry using women from their tribe, enslaved women from other tribes, and at times very young girls.  Babies were conceived, some were aborted and there was some infanticide.  Although some fathers were faithful to their “wives”, revisiting when the ship was in port, it seems most fathers abandoned the women and children.  One British captain had four such “wives”.

The sexual sin that began with Cook’s ships continued and grew.

There was much drunkenness and lawlessness amongst the Europeans/Pakeha.

Kororareka was known as “Hell Hole of the Pacific”.

Missionaries preached unavailingly and tried to intervene.

As the Word of God was being successfully planted in the hearts of Maori bringing light and life, the enemy was doing his work of death and darkness.

The musket wars and tribal violence of those years killed thousands of Maori and displaced whole tribes.  The violence ended when they all had guns and no one tribe had the supremacy.

This is a brief summary of how I began this journey into the abortion issue.

As a working title for my research, prayer and talking to various people, I used “Sex for Guns”.  Several people took offence at that.  The issue was called a can of worms.  Many didn’t want to acknowledge this part of our history.  Some felt the issue had been prayed into.  My argument is that all the sin is still there, it’s current, and each generation it has got worse, so prayer is still needed.

Parliament has passed laws: abortion, prostitution, Civil Unions that have reinforced Sex for Guns.

Over the years I have talked with many key people, Maori and Pakeha, and have been supported in the need for this issue to be dealt with.

George Otis, in his research for the Transformation series of videos, became aware of four main common areas of sin that those in the transformed communities featured in his series prayed into, thus opening the way for God to work.

• Broken covenants
• Bloodshed
• Idolatry
• Immorality

All four of these were present in this Sex for Guns issue.

• Broken Covenants:  The whole understanding of marriage being a covenant for life based on love and faithfulness to one partner, was undermined by the temporary marriage arrangement, an arrangement rooted in lust, immorality, greed, pride, shame and deception; a treaty made in bed.  The musket trade helped keep peace between the races.  If Europeans mistreated Maori they would be killed.  If Maori mistreated Europeans the vital trade would stop.  NZ’s first “agreement for peace” was not dealt with spiritually before the Treaty of Waitangi, our founding covenant.
• Bloodshed:  As virgins lost their virginity, sex was forced on women, babies were killed and people killed with guns, blood was shed upon the ground of NZ.
• Idolatry:  Guns and sex were more important than God and trust was placed in these rather than in the Prince of Peace, to maintain peace.  The first two commandments were broken.
• Immorality:  In the Bible sexual immorality was connected with idolatry and often the result of idolatry. (e.g. Ezek 16:20)  There was plenty of immorality.

Three Levels of Marriage Perverted.

1. Marriage between a man and a woman.  The thousands of temporary marriages between a sailor and a Maori woman, and the basis on which each was created, established the moral tone for our nation.  That “contract” excused, overlooked the adultery and fornication and all the other sins attached to it.
2. Marriage between two peoples – Maori and Pakeha.  It seems the Treaty of Waitangi was to be God’s way of joining the two people groups.  But Satan intercepted it, derailed it and perverted it through Sex for Guns contracts/treaties/promises/covenants made during the 40 years preceding it.
3. Marriage between the Bride (the Church) and the Heavenly Bridegroom (Jesus).  We as Christians could have a warped understanding of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and the way we are to live out our covenant with our Bridegroom Jesus, if we fail to properly understand, support, stand for and live the first two levels of marriage.

Monte:  “Lawlessness in NZ is on the increase, the principalities and powers have gained a lot of power.  One of the reasons why Satan is having his way in parliament is because issues like this are not being dealt with.  Dealing with this issue will not be the end of sexual sin, but it will have a huge impact on Wellington.”

Doug:  “The whole nation is scratching its head, asking ‘why is it we can’t defeat the Govt actions for licensed immorality?’  Sociologically, if not spiritually, people are saying what’s the cause of our inability?

Warren:  Most of this needs to be dealt with in the secret place of prayer so further offence is avoided.

Through a series of events Kororareka burnt down March 1945.  Missionaries in particular saw this as the judgment of God.  Originally I thought this issue may be prayed about at Russell in March 2005, the 160^th anniversary of the burning.  But that didn’t happen.

I drafted a 40 day prayer and fasting focus on Sexual Sin which began 1^st Feb, 2005.  The aim of this was to weaken the root system from early history, and to purify the Bride.

During 2005 the media reported on several issues e.g. sexual abuse of cadets at Waiouru, police investigation into pornographic images being stored and passed around police computers, Clint Rickards and friends’ group sex court cases. 

I believe God was uncovering these situations as a result of prayer.  I was becoming more aware.

PRAYER POINTS:

Where applicable please pray at 3 levels:

1. For yourself and your family – personal.
2. For the Body, the Bride, of Christ – corporate.
3. For NZ – national.

v      We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:23)  We have all sinned in the 4 categories, and added our brick, however small, to the altar of offence:

      Broken covenants – we have broken agreements, promises;

      Bloodshed – we have argued and fought and our thoughts have been murderous;

      Immorality – we have watched, thought and done things we shouldn’t have;

      Idolatry – we have put things or people above God and allowed them to rule us.

      Come honestly and in humility before God, allow Him to search your heart, and acknowledge

      and repent of any sins in the above list.  See 1 Peter 5:5-6.  Pray for roots to be pulled out. 

      Pray for sin coming down the family line to stop.

      Like Daniel “resolve not to defile yourself”. (Dan 1:8)  Like Job be “blameless, upright; fear God

      and shun evil…make a covenant with your eyes not to look lustfully…” (Job 1:1, 31:1)

v      Covenant means “to fetter or chain together”.  Francis Frangipane: “It is the highest form of commitment that two individuals could share.  When the Lord initiated His covenant with a man, He did so as an extension of His eternal purpose; the man was a component in a series of divine initiatives.  Contained within the Lord’s covenant was His divine intervention, His supernatural wisdom and strategies, and His provisions.  We are saved and sustained through life’s battles by Christ’s covenant with the Father, of which the cross was the consummate and most glorious act of our redemption.  By picking up our own cross (Matt 16:24) we are called to extend the redemptive power of Christ’s cross into our world.  The Lord calls us to follow Him in personal covenants for our homes, cities and nation.”  See Gen 9:9, 17:2.

Ask God what covenant He is requiring of you to help see Sex for Guns-sexual sin-abortion dealt with in NZ.  Pray the quote above and take courage from God’s help for us. Pray Heb 8.

v      Pray regarding the information on the first two pages; for God to prepare the way for dealing with these issues at deeper levels in our nation, for those key people who need to be involved, for His timing.

v      Pray for redemption for our nation, for The Redeemer to heal our national wounds, to redeem Russell, to redeem the peoples; for NZ’s redemptive purpose to be outworked.

      “Redemptive purpose is the long-term plan of God for any part of creation.  In the redeemed  

      Maori is revealed the redemptive purpose for the nation as a whole: a nation generous in

      hospitality, eloquent in prophetic insight, with the vigour, strength and boldness of the warrior

      and the protective gentleness of a mother with a child.” (John Dawson) 

      How we need these qualities to be released in Maori and not be aborted just as they begin to

      flourish.  Titus 2:11-14, 3:3-7; Ps 19; Isaiah 48:16-22

Satan derailed hospitality through Sex for Guns, and the warrior was outworked in the musket and later wars, rather than through spiritual warfare.

v      Pray for the church to understand all these issues; to understand the power of repentance – no repentance, no deliverance; to deal with its own sin; to rise up in spiritual power and engage with the issues, to move into the plans God has for NZ which involves two peoples walking together in integrity.  We must get marriage right in NZ and the church has the truth and the governmental authority.  Eph 4:12-16

v      We must get this right!