The Great Commission was to make disciples of all nations, not just individuals. The Lord said that when He returned He would divide the nations into “sheep” or “goats.” The sheep are good and the goats are bad. We have come to a time when nations are determining ultimate issues that will result in them being a sheep or goat nation. In this series, I will continue to unpack the dramatic dream I had about the American Republic that deals with ultimate issues of our purpose from heaven’s perspective. Regardless of what country you are from, there will be a level of civil conflict coming in your nation too. Many will be similar to what is unfolding here. Therefore, even though this is American-centric, in many ways it addresses the same basic issues all nations will be facing, as these are all connected to what The Lord said would come at the end of this age.
As covered previously, the first two Great Awakenings in America each preceded wars, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. As we study the primary messages that came from those two Great Awakenings, we can see a direct link from the Awakenings to the wars. So did these great spiritual awakenings cause the wars? In some basic ways they did. The light from these Awakenings exposed the darkness, and this required that it be confronted until it was driven from the land.
Could the darkness have been driven from the land by spiritual warfare so that the physical conflicts would not have been necessary? Perhaps. That certainly would have been desirable. However, what I saw in my dream included physical conflict. I saw the nature of this, which I will share later in this study. Even so, it is my conviction that to the degree that evil strongholds in our land are destroyed spiritually, the degree of the physical conflict will lessen.
As we enter the Third Great Awakening in America, we can expect the same kind of light to expose the great darkness in our time. When powers of darkness are exposed, they rage. When they are cast out of their high positions they come to the earth with great wrath, as we see in Revelation 12. God’s provision is to send us great champions of the truth to face specific evil strongholds in our time. They are being sent to completely destroy these strongholds, not just defeat them and push them back. What is happening in the Spirit will be reflected in the natural with rage and conflict.
It is always a tragedy when our differences degenerate into violence. It has been a great hope of Western Civilization to rise above war, to eradicate it completely from the earth. That is a noble hope, however, as we see up to the end of the Book of Revelation, there will be increasing war right to the end of the age. As we see in Revelation 7, for a brief time the winds of war (winds of the earth) are held back so that The Lord’s bondservants can be sealed, but this is a short time and the winds are released again. To be prepared for the times we must understand that violence has already begun, and it will get worse for a time. Again, this may be reduced by spiritual victories, but there is now a level of violence that we will not be able to avoid and we must be prepared for—spiritually and physically.
A major reason we can expect increasing violence is because of a contingent that not only does not want open debate, but cannot tolerate it. This is the fruit of an education system that no longer educates, but rather indoctrinates. A generation has been conditioned so that if you disagree with them they will be offended, and being offended has been elevated to the level of being considered almost worse than a physical assault. That many are so easily offended is a major cause that will make the physical violence unavoidable. As we are told in Proverbs 18:19, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.”
One of the most important things we can do to prepare for the coming conflict is to refuse to be offended. This is basic Christianity and is called “forgiveness.” Jesus forgave the ones who had Him crucified and even those who nailed Him to the cross. Learning to be quick to forgive is basic discipleship and basic to following Christ. To stay on the right side in what is unfolding, we must not engage in the rage and bitterness that is fueled by unforgiveness. We must learn not to react to personal offense, but take the actions that we do because they are the right thing to do.
To make it through what is coming upon the world will require all Christians to follow Christ more closely and be more like Him than we ever have. We must guard our hearts, especially from the evil stronghold of unforgiveness and offense. The Lord will help us get ready by allowing opportunities to learn to forgive quickly and totally. Don’t waste these trials. Embrace them as the opportunities they are, especially when you are persecuted for doing what is right. The Lord promised a special blessing for this. See these as an opportunity to get closer to The Lord by bearing your cross to identify with Him, and getting closer to Him will be the greatest blessing of all.
