What I was shown in my dream was specifically for “The American Republic,” but I was also shown that many of the same battles we will be fighting will also be common to many nations. Basically, these battles in the nations are for determining whether they will be a “sheep” or a “goat” nation. The Great Commission was to disciple nations, not just individuals, not just teaching them to believe all that He commanded, but also to obey all that He commanded.
The Reformation was a major step forward in recovering biblical truth, but its emphasis was more on believing the right things than actually doing them. All nations have fallen short of their purpose, including Israel, as the Scriptures make clear. One reason the nations have fallen short is because there is so little demonstration of what actual obedience to the truth looks like by the church. This is why “judgment begins with the household of God” (see I Peter 4:17).
As heaven’s perspective on history and current events can be very different from ours, our basic devotion must be to see with The Lord’s eyes, hear with His ears, and understand with His heart. This was what The Holy Spirit was given for, and this is how we are led into “all truth.”
Most of us have witnessed spiritual battles that resulted in everything from church splits to divorces, and God was on both sides. God hates divorce, and He hates war. He usually has sons and daughters on both sides, and in many ways He can be on both sides. He’s not confused about the issues, but He is for people more than politics.
God is not a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative. We can be right in our political beliefs, but be wrong in spirit. We can likewise be wrong in our politics but have a right spirit of love, faith, and humility that pleases The Lord more than those who have right politics. This is why, to the confusion of many historians, there can be evidence of divine favor on both sides during a war. Abraham Lincoln discerned that our Civil War was God’s judgment on both sides. This might explain why the Union was obviously on the right side of some of the crucial issues being fought over, but the Southern armies experienced some of the greatest revivals in American history during the war.
Perhaps The Lord moved so mightily upon the Southern armies because “where sin abounds grace does that much more abound” (see Romans 5:20), and He was seeking to change their hearts on the issues. Perhaps it was because it is often true that those who can be right on issues are wrong in spirit, and God will always resist the proud and give His grace to the humble. It was likely a combination of both. The point is that we like to have all issues neatly in black and white, but human issues are far more complicated than that. We are in desperate need of heaven’s perspective. The higher the place that we can see from, the more sense it all makes.
In the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, both sides were fighting for parts of the divine mandate. It was the arrogance of the victors in both of these wars that blinded them to just and righteous issues for which the other side was fighting. Neither side was totally right or wrong, but the victors disregarded the consideration that the losers might have been right about some of the issues. Such is human politics. Since the victors always write the histories of such conflicts, the just issues on the losing side are often buried after the war. We can bury them as deep as we want, but when they are a divine mandate they will not go away. Rather, they will rise again and be in our face until they are resolved by our obeying them.
It is also easy to see how these same principles might apply to all human relationships. We can win an argument because we are mostly right, but be wrong about some of it. Those issues will very likely surface again later, and often as a bigger problem. The revelation of the great conflict of our times includes principles that may illuminate the basis for our conflict in other more personal relationships, such as our families, jobs, or neighborhoods. We cannot expect to resolve the great national and international conflicts if we cannot solve them in ourselves, our families, or in the church.
When I spoke to a number of senators and congressmen in Washington a few years ago, entreating them to show courage, one of them took me aside and said, “You would see a lot more courage in Washington if we saw any in the church.” He was right.
It’s been said that “Courage is the first principle of leadership, because without it nothing else will stand.” We have come to a time when courage is rare, and that makes it even more valuable. Perhaps this is why the cowards are the first to get thrown into the lake of fire at the end of the Book of Revelation. We may think that love and faith are more important, and they are, but courage is the evidence that one has love and faith.
As we are told in I Corinthians 13:8, “Love never fails.” This could have been interpreted as “Love never quits.” We will quit for any other reason but love. This is why the foundation of those who will be on the winning side will be love for their country and for their countrymen. However, most of all it will be love for God who has given us something so wonderful, even if it yet has flaws.
