Part I
“It was the best of times. Courage became more contagious than fear. Riots were replaced with righteousness. There was constant awe and wonder at the great things The Lord was doing, and His peace and joy prevailed over the land.” That is what will ultimately be said of these times.
To many it may look like the opposite of the above, but that depends on where you’re looking from. Those who are seated with Him in the heavenly places are seeing the long-awaited Great Awakening getting traction. The revival of faith in America has already begun.
We still have storms to get through and some major navigation changes to make for the nation. However, we’re not witnessing the end of the American Republic, but rather the birth pangs of a new beginning.
All births are bloody, messy, and come with a lot of pain, as will this one. It is not going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it. Like mothers know, giving birth to new life can be the greatest challenge, but it leads to some of the greatest joy we can ever know. For those who live in these times, it will be one of the greatest times of our life and one of the greatest honors to say that we were here.
As that will ultimately be true, getting to the joy of the new birth is going to be one of the most difficult times our nation has experienced. As it was often reported of the storms that ships went through in Scripture, there were times when everyone thought “all is lost.” We can expect to have times like that. Our ship of state has drifted far from its designated course, and it will be the biggest challenge in our history to get back to it. We have many battles and storms ahead, but we can do this.
In ourselves this is way over our heads, but with God all things are possible. He is The Captain of His hosts, and He is The Captain of our ship. When we get through this, we are going to know that it was Him, not our own wisdom or strength, that got us through it. When it is over, we will be like the Shulamite maid in the Song of Solomon that comes out of the wilderness “leaning on her beloved.”
Remember that this is the year that we begin to enter The Lord’s rest. Our rest comes from our trust in Him. Nothing is impossible for Him. There is no problem that He cannot fix or foe He cannot defeat. We are entering some of the biggest struggles, but they are so we can get to the biggest victories.
Don’t let anyone or anything steal your peace. Remember that our main job in this is to trust. We must use everything to grow our trust in Him. Our orders in this battle are to follow Him and obey everything He tells us.
Thanksgiving is the language of faith and is one of our most powerful weapons. We are told to thank Him in all things. This means that we trust Him in all things.
All of the problems in the world began when our first parents did not trust Him in the Garden. They opened their hearts to the accusation that He did not have their best interest in mind and was withholding something from them. The answer that will start to fix all the damage from the fall is for those who face this same temptation, and we all do, to choose to trust Him instead of disobeying Him.
We’re at War
In December 2018 I had a dream that “the Second American Revolutionary/Civil War was inevitable, it was right, and it would be successful.” Up until that dream I knew that we were headed for this if we did not change our direction, but was still convinced we could change our direction and avoid it. After that dream I knew differently, and almost immediately events proved it was coming. Even so, I was still thinking it was likely decades away. Then it started becoming obvious that it was coming much faster than I thought. I am saying for the first time that it is here, now. We are in the Second American Revolutionary/Civil War. We are in the first stage, but we are in it.
I’m not saying this just because of the riots. I grew up during the 1960s when we had much worse than we are experiencing now. We came out of those better, stronger, and more united than ever as a nation, though it took the country several decades to get there. But this time the divisions are deeper. The darkness is deeper and coming from many more directions. Now the hatred and intolerance is much deeper.
There is no ideology more contrary to the core nature and purpose of The American Republic than Marxism or radical Islam. Both of these have made deep inroads into the fabric of our country. Now our enemies are both foreign and domestic, and both are stronger than we have faced before. Much tearing and destruction must be expected, not just in the nation, but in our states, cities, communities, and many of our families.
I was told in 2014: “Patriotism is going to win.” I have no doubt about that, and that we will emerge as a greater and more unified nation than we’ve ever been. I was given the privilege of seeing this. I was also shown this for many other nations. Even so, the enemies of all that we are and all that we are called to be have deeply infiltrated the power and influence centers of our country. They will not easily be rooted out. At the same time, the enemies without are also more powerful than we have faced before, and we are fighting both at the same time.
Though we are now in the biggest fight ever for the survival of our nation, what is really happening is bigger than our nation, or any single nation. We are in the time prophesied in Isaiah 60:1-2:
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. “For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.”
We are now entering the greatest move of God to ever come upon the earth and the greatest time of darkness that has ever come upon the earth. The ultimate battle between light and darkness has begun. However, the next three verses in this text from Isaiah tell of its certain conclusion:
“Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. “Lift up your eyes round about and see; they all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in the arms. “Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you” (Isaiah 60:3-5).
The light is going to win. Don’t ever forget that. It will not look like it at times, even for some long periods, but there is no question about the ultimate victory.
Changing Our Demeanor
I was in the Navy during the Vietnam War. Most of my time in was spent in schools and shore-based duties in the U.S. and Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Then I was transferred to a squadron aboard our newest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy. At the time, this ship was preparing for deployment to the war zone. At first things were pretty laid back, but the closer we got to deployment, the more serious everything became.
As we were in the middle of our last training cruise before heading to Vietnam, the ship got diverted to the Middle East for the Jordanian crisis. This crisis got more intense than if we had been in the Vietnam war zone. For almost thirty days straight we had continuous confrontations with the Soviet Navy, and it seemed every day a war could be ignited. The demeanor of everyone reflected the tension, but also an amazing focus. We are going to see this kind of change coming in the demeanor of the church.
For several years now most of my teaching, preaching, and writing has focused on how to prepare for the battles I had been shown were coming. My book, The Final Quest, was distributed in the millions, and I was told it made the all-time top forty list for all books sold. Now I am again hearing from many people how they are re-reading it, and it seems even more timely for today than it did then. It is.
Now that we have entered the fight, there will be a change of tone and demeanor in my messages. They are going to be more like war chronicles. There will still be some about how to prepare, where to mobilize, etc., but I think we will all find that this intensity will be invigorating and some of the best and most fruitful times of our life.
As Christians we have been at war from the beginning as:
“the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (I John 5:19).
In the military it is different when you are at war, but even in war it is far different when you are stationed at home far from the battles. The Western church has kind of had such a place, but now we are going to be on the front. Christians who do not compromise or fall away will be getting much more serious and focused, and this will be to the great benefit and advancement of the body of Christ.
The coronavirus crisis did much damage to our country, and virtually every other country, but it helped the body of Christ a great deal. As Bob Jones had predicted that we would begin to enter God’s rest in 2020, the stay at home orders gave us weeks of badly needed rest. Almost every Christian I’ve talked to since has almost been born again, again. The focus is back, the priorities are back in order, and we are already in a great revival, but it is just beginning.
In this emerging conflict, there will be almost nowhere that you can go to get away from it. We are all going to be on the front lines, but we should not want to get away from it. We are here for “such a time as this,” and it is time to get in the fight.
