Last week we began addressing some of the basic military strategies and how they relate to where the church is headed in our times. Again, much of what I am sharing is a generalization, and generalizations are never true in all cases. That being said, the church has tried to fight too many battles at once, resulting in little or no success in spite of a huge expenditure of effort and resources. We have also, at times, taken ground that we were not able to hold, ending up ultimately in a worse defeat. 

It is no small matter to mobilize people for a campaign. They will only respond to the call because they believe in it. Then they must stay encouraged, which means to have courage, which comes from believing you can win. Any army will lose courage after it has suffered repeated defeats. In recent times, the body of Christ has not had many victories, and much of it is in automatic retreat mode. Much of the church even has an eschatology (study of the biblical prophecies about the end of the age) which is basically to get ready to abandon ship. Even so, an encouraging trend has been for much of the church to begin to embrace a much more victorious eschatology.

I have studied many different views of eschatology and found some merit in almost all of them. However, there are many ways that they conflict with each other, and some even have basic conflicts with themselves. That does not concern me as much as when they have basic conflicts with Scripture, which some of them do. This is usually the result of making bold, overly specific conclusions about something the Scripture is quite ambiguous about, and then neglecting the other biblical prophecies that might give a different perspective. It is true that almost every heresy is the result of someone trying to take to a logical conclusion what God has only revealed in part. Then they start to use believing in their revelation as a litmus test for the “faithful.” When this begins to happen, we would do well to get far away from that group—they are headed into deception.

I am addressing this here because it is hard to promote a teaching about being prepared for the times without addressing some of the issues of eschatology. What the Scriptures are clear about, we should all embrace, but the rest of the theories we need to hold very lightly and be fine with others disagreeing with us about them.

I am also not claiming to have perfect knowledge of this matter of eschatology, but what I am presenting here I think is clearly biblical and is not in basic conflict with any of the popular views of eschatology. One basic issue I think we can all agree with is the Lord’s own statement in Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.” This is clear and is the basic mission that the army of God is going to mobilize for, and will accomplish.

We must also understand that the gospel of the kingdom is not the same as the gospel of salvation. The gospel of our redemption and salvation is the foundation of the gospel of the kingdom, but it is far from the complete gospel. The gospel of the kingdom is not about our salvation as much as it is about the King returning, His kingdom coming to the earth, and His will being done on the earth as it is in heaven. The gospel of the kingdom is therefore about the salvation of the whole earth, not just personal salvation.

As we covered this in some depth the last two years, I am not going to belabor more here other than to keep it as our objective, occasionally review aspects of what this means, or how it will be carried out, and add insights we have not yet discussed.

The first characteristic of this army that is gathering is that it is an army of the kingdom of God, not any earthly kingdom. It will not be used to promote the interests of any nation on earth, though almost every nation on earth will try to use it for its own purposes. This does not mean that Christians should not be involved in politics, business, or the affairs of this world, or even mobilize to aid them, but there is an army that will be gathered that cannot be distracted from its purpose—preaching the gospel of the kingdom and preparing the way for the Lord. The Lord is not coming as a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative, a socialist or a capitalist—He is coming as King!

 The basis of every kingdom is that the king’s authority is recognized. Obedience to King Jesus is the most basic principle of living in the kingdom, preparing the way for the kingdom, and preaching the kingdom. Knowing His voice and obeying, are the most basic characteristics of those who would mobilize to be a part of the army of God.

I shared before that in boot camp or basic training the first thing you are taught to do is to march together with others. This is true whether you are in the Army, Navy, or Air Force. The reason for this is basic to any military force: teaching recruits to listen to commands and obey them. A Scripture for this is what the Lord said about the Good Shepherd in John 10:4, “When he puts forth all of his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

All of God’s people need to know His voice, not just prophets, pastors, or church leaders. When in basic training, every person had to be keen to hear the commands when marching, or they would quickly be out of step, turn the wrong way, or not turn when the rest of the company did, to their great embarrassment. At first the punishment was the embarrassment. After there had been training for a while and the company should know better, the punishment became more and more severe. This was about far more than just messing up the cadence of a troop, but in a field, fleet, or in the air, not hearing and responding correctly to a command could put the whole troop, ship, or flight in jeopardy.

In general, the church is right now more like a mob than a disciplined army. Not many can even hear the commands of the Lord. Many who know He is speaking cannot understand what He is saying and fewer still obey Him. The ability to know His voice and obey Him is fundamental. As the army mobilizes and starts its training, those who do not know the voice of the Lord will stand out more and more. If this does not compel them to get to know His voice, and always be listening for it in order to obey Him, ultimately they will be removed as they will be a danger to all. The times that we are entering will be such that it will be a life and death matter to know His voice and obey Him.  

This is one reason why we have spent two decades at MorningStar, seeking to know His voice better, and have hosted prophetic equipping conferences to help others to recognize His voice. That is the main goal of these conferences, not just to prophesy to people, but for everyone who comes, to leave knowing His voice better. We have helped train thousands from all over the world to know His voice, and many of these have gone on to train others. These include many pastors, leaders of movements, countless home group leaders, as well as many Christians who are not leading anything now, but will.

Again, knowing the voice of the Lord is not just for prophets or the super spiritual, but for all believers. Every private in God’s army will have to know His voice and respond to it. Those who grow in this are usually promoted, and at times may be used as His voice. The more we grow, the more we may be able to help lead in this way, but the foundation is the same for all—His sheep know His voice, and they follow Him because they know His voice.