The Revolution Brigade

Being in the right place at the right time is only useful in a war if you’re the guy with the guns.  Otherwise you won’t be of much use, even if you arrive at a battle in progress.  This is the importance of firepower.  Firepower, as defined in Army field manual 3-0, is the destructive force essential to overcoming the enemy’s will and ability to fight.  For the purpose of spiritual warfare, firepower is the word of God and personal revelation.  We’ll call them divine truths or absolute realities for the purposes of our little task.

Core Competency: Learn the Word of God and internalize it to the point that it is ready to be utilized at a moment’s notice to combat deception, confusion, and inferior realities.

If spiritual warfare  is an endeavor during which a defeated enemy solicits the agreement of the saints in order to empower his schemes, then absolute reality (the truth of the Word) is the bullet that will end his combat effectiveness.   The enemy will spin elaborate tales designed to keep the saints all wrapped up in intellectual nonsense, psychological uncertainties, and self-doubting confession for the sole purpose of getting his target to confess something that will empower him to take dominion over the subjects life.  For instance, a man who’s feeling under the weather confesses, “I’m sick, so I can’t go out tonight.”  The sickness is an inferior reality which points to the divine healing provided by Christ on the cross, but the enemy has successfully trapped the man in his own misery to the point that the confession never progresses beyond saying “I’m sick.”  The man, having confessed his own sickness, empowers the enemy to dominion over his body through his own agreement for a season.

The same man, when presented the absolute reality of God’s word, would never be deceived into confessing his sickness.  Let’s say the friend with whom the man is speaking, upon hearing the man’s confession of “I’m sick,” responds with absolute reality: “No. You’re not sick.  You’re healed by the stripes of Jesus.”  Can you see how the friend possessed the firepower needed to solicit a change of confession and thus stripped the enemy of the power of agreement?

Just having a friend on the phone (as a result of divine inspiration, thus maneuver) would not be enough to keep the man from confessing his own sickness.  The fact that the friend had knowledge of the absolute reality of the word of God (firepower), combined with his presence at the right time, enabled him to affect the outcome of a tactical engagement in the spirit.

Maneuver and firepower compliment one another.  Firepower magnifies the effects of maneuver, and maneuver creates the optimal circumstances in which firepower may have the desired effect.  In order to achieve the maximum battlefield effect of decisive victory, we must have both.  The right Christian with the right word of knowledge or memory verse at the right place at the right time equals certain defeat for the enemy in his little game of soliciting agreement from the saints.

Increasing firepower should be the goal of every believer.  We should endeavor to learn the word of God and internalize it to the point that it is readily available at the first signs of spiritual combat.  Think of scripture memorization as a license to carry a concealed weapon.  The enemy will never see it coming.

More importantly, think of every trial that you encounter as a grenade on your belt.  Why a grenade?  If the enemy ever decides to pull the pin on that situation again, it should blow up right in his face.  Take every trial that comes your way as an opportunity to add ammo to your fighting capability.  Study the word as it applies to every situation that you encounter, and you will begin to learn the absolute reality of God’s word in the context of life.  This is a truly lethal combination for the enemy.

US Army Field Manual 3-0 is the end-all guide to combat operations upon which our National military strategy for ground forces was developed.  It defines in a concise way what is absolutely necessary in order to prosecute a war, and tells us how to achieve it.  Although the Bible must be our end-all standard for the prosecution of spiritual war against our adversary, we can gain some important principles through the undertaking of a study on the principles outlined in the Army field manual.

Field Manual 3-0 outlines five elements of combat power.  I believe that each of them has a clearly discernable spiritual parallel that we can learn from if we are willing to undertake some study of the topic.  Combat power is the ability to fight.  In traditional military endeavors, commanders combine the elements of combat power- maneuver, firepower, leadership, protection, and information- to meet constantly changing requirements and defeat the enemy.  In our spiritual endeavor, we can combine the elements of spiritual combat power in order to maintain our victory, prevent deception, and expand the kingdom in accordance with the orders that we receive from King Jesus.

Maneuver: Maneuver, in carnal warfare, is the process by which forces are moved in order to achieve an advantageous position with respect to the enemy.  Maneuver is the tool that commanders employ in order to ensure that the appropriate troops are in the right place at the right time to deliver bad news to the enemy and achieve victory.

Core Competency: Be in constant communication with the commander, King Jesus, through an intimate relationship and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

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I’ve been exploring the idea of readiness in the prophetic army, and I have to tell you that I’ve been provoked by the Spirit of the Lord lately to get more training.   Now, I’ve been in the military and I have a moderate level of training at hand-to-hand combat, tactics, escape and evasion, and combat medicine.  Frankly, I don’t know if I’ve mastered those disciplines to the extent that I can teach them with confidence.

We need young people who have special skills, or are willing to acquire them, who will devote themselves to the cause of evangelizing the world.  We need MMA fighters who are in love with Jesus who can teach us hand to hand combat.  We need paramedics who are tired of busing heart attack victims to the hospital who can teach us how to care for ourselves in the jungle if we’re injured.

I’m actually crazy enough to believe that God can raise up engineers who will develop water purification systems for remote villages in Africa.  We need to know how to fix trucks, build buildings, hide and escape if we’re being followed and hunted, rig a broken radio to function, and rappel off of a cliff. 

Do you know how to move and escape if you come under machine gun fire?  That might come in handy if you’re attempting to preach the word in Mogadishu. Let’s get a vision for this thing.

I had another dream last night.  This one was extremely detailed, but I never woke during the process of receiving this vision.  I always like to tell the circumstances of my dreams and visions, just so people have a reference for the level of prophetic surety that I’m dealing with.

During the dream, I saw a unit of soldiers walking down a road.  The soldiers were dressed in battle fatigues and had red horses painted on their helmets.  The soldiers reached a mountainous region where there was no road, and they took out explosives and began blasting a road.  Then, they reached a river.  Within minutes they had built a bridge over the river and were moving on to the next objective.  They were extremely competent combat engineers and they were building a highway through the wilderness.

All around these soldiers there were enemies shooting, setting ambushes and booby traps, and causing as much chaos as possible.  This didn’t effect the engineers at all, and they simply kept building the road despite the conflict around them.

I don’t know if the Lord showed me the red horse as some sort of symbollic gesture, or just to illustrate the point that these were combat engineers.  In the Air Force, we have a unit called the “Red Horse.”  They are amazing engineers.  We landed in Afghanistan and slept in the dirt for months.  When the Red Horse Squadron showed up, they had a small city built within hours, complete with showers, chow halls, quarters, the whole nine yards.  It was the most amazing feat of engineering I had ever seen.

The Lord quickened the scripture from Isaiah 62:10-11 in my heart after the dream:

Go through, go through the gates,
Clear the way for the people;
Build up, build up the highway,
Remove the stones, lift up a standard over the peoples.
¹¹Behold, the LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth,
Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes;
Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”

Again, the reference to building highways and removing obstacles.  I’m open to some interpretation and feedback.

I was trying to sleep last night and the Lord awakened me with a vision.  I’ve heard His voice on this subject before, and have some understanding of the concept, but apparently I didn’t take it seriously enough.  This was an open vision.  I was awake, but I was…ehm, “transported”….maybe a bad word, it’s hard to describe.  Anyway, my eyes were open but I wasn’t seeing my bedroom.  I was seeing this vision.  I wanted to share it here because it definitely bears relevance to what the Lord has called us to do:

I saw an Army dressed in dark clothing moving across America.  They had in their possession flaming swords, and when they opened their mouths locusts flew out.  Everywhere this army went, they left a wide path of total destruction.  Houses were burned.  Crops were consumed.  People were left in the wreckage and looked totally miserable and destitute.  It seemed as if this army had power to destroy everything: Houses, families, economies, nations, hope, and the future.

The Lord spoke to me and said, “this is the Total War that the enemy is waging against your nation.”

Then I saw another army rise up, beginning on the coasts in California and in Florida, Georgia, and all the way up through Virginia.  At first the numbers of soldiers were small in comparison to the soldiers of the evil army, but they were not afraid.  These soldiers eventually began to move from the coasts into the Midwest where they joined together to form a huge army.

This Army began to follow the path of the evil army, and the destruction and chaos that it had left behind.  Everywhere that the army went, the destruction and chaos stopped.  There was restoration of all things.  Economies began to flourish.  People were restored.  Families were brought together.  Righteousness was established in the land.

Finally, the righteous army caught up to the evil army and began to consume them.  It looked as if they righteous army walked right over the evil army and simply kept going.

The Lord said, “This is the Total War that you are called to wage.”

A few observations:

Again, the age of the average soldier in the righteous army was very, very young.  Some as young as ten years old, maybe younger.  They had no faces except for blazing eyes that looked like fire.

The army seemed very, very coordinated with officers calling cadences enabling every soldier to be in step as the army advanced.  I believe this indicates that the Lord will raise up coordinators who will help to train and facilitate the cohesiveness of the army.

I welcome thoughts and comments.

I was just doing some research for a book that I’m working on, and I came across the following statistical bullet points:

Compiled by Teen Mania Ministries:

1 out of 11 teenagers attempt suicide every year.

1 out of 10 have suffered through divorce.

58% have been involved in objectionable content on the web.

40% have experimented with self-injury (are “cutters”)

By graduation from High School, the average teen will have watched 19,000 hours of television, including 200,000 sexual acts, and 1 million acts of violence.

1 in 10 high school females report having been raped.

Fear of violence in high schools is now the leading cause of “worry” for teens.

48% of high school seniors are sexually active (have had sexual intercourse within the previous 3 months).

91% of teenagers say that there is no “absolute truth.”

75% of teenagers believe that the central message of the bible is that “God helps those who help themselves.”

53% of teenagers believe that Jesus committed sin (40% of “saved” teenagers believe this)

This is staggering and shocking information.  This is a generation in crisis.  The more of these statistics that I read, the more I believe the prophetic words that we have received about being a catalyst to raise up the “dry bones” that this generation has become.

The Lord has been clear in insisting that the generation that we are dealing with is NOT the same as the one discussed in Ezekiel 37, but that it will be awakened in the same way, by prophetic messengers raised up to prophesy to the bones and the wind.   The army that is being formed is NOT an army bent on destruction such as the one raised up by Ezekiel’s prophecy, but it is an army none the less. 

It’s purpose will be total war.  Not the worldly typeology of total war that paints a picture of total distruction of economies and land, but the redeemed version of total war that restores everything in its path; economies, land, and people through the grace of the Lord and the power of combat intercession.

I refuse to “label” this generation with a negative description and watch it become a self-fulfilling prophecy the way the letter “X” did to my generation.  I intend to prophesy to the bones and watch them turn into an army!

The Lord has been giving me visions for some time about a unit of combat intercessors, spiritual special forces troops dedicated to foreign missions and warfare intercession on a global scale.  The unit, called SAPPER SQUAD, is a prophetically enabled team of intercessors who will use the tools of worship, prayer, fasting, and radical consecration to engage enemy spiritual forces and open the heavens over a particular LZ (landing zone). 

My heart is to marry the 24/7 prayer and worship movement with the missions movement to create a world-changing unit of combat intercessors who will break down strongholds and open the gates for the advancing church abroad.  The mandate is found in Isaiah 62: 10-

Go through, go through the gates,
         Clear the way for the people;
         Build up, build up the highway,
         Remove the stones, lift up a standard over the peoples.

For instance, a squad of SAPPERS would attach themselves to an international apostolic ministry.  Let’s say Pastor Greg was going to Haiti for a week.  The SAPPERS would deploy the week before, spend a week in country in prayer and fasting, tear down the strongholds over the area and bind any principalities that are causing trouble.  When the man of God arrives a week later, he finds an open heaven and no spiritual barriers to effective ministry.  This is world changing stuff, folks.

I’m asking every intercessory network to pray about their involvement with this movement, and at the very least cover it in prayer.  This is combat intercession, behind enemy lines, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

I remember very clearly as a member of the military preparing to go to war in Afghanistan that one of the most important aspects of our pre-deployment preparations was to “set our affairs in order.”  Taking the time to prepare a will, have the appropriate “power of attorney” papers drawn up for your spouse, and arranging for somebody to drive your vehicle occasionally so the battery doesn’t die, etc.

Preparing in this way is essential.  It allows you to feel a sense of comfort knowing that everything is taken care of.  It’s impossible to fight a war if you’re worried that your wife isn’t taken care of if you die.  To me, this sort of worry is the type of entanglement to which Paul is alluding.  As spiritual warriors, we need to have our “affairs” in order as well.

Financial order: Many of us have a heart for the nations and debt up to our eyeballs.  We couldn’t go if we wanted to because our financial house is not in order.  It’s time for the body of Christ to begin to accept the responsibility of the call to disciple nations, which includes eliminating debt and utilizing our resources for the Kingdom.   I’m as guilty as the next guy about spending my money on stuff I don’t need.  I really want this new distortion pedal for my guitar, but it doesn’t help me meet my goals of going to the nations.  You get the point.

Last Will and Testament: If you’ve read the end of The Book, then you know that some of us are not coming back from the missions field.  I don’t mean to be morbid, but it’s foolishness not to be prepared for the possibility of martyrdom.  Execute a will.  Make sure your family is taken care of before you take off on the great adventure.  You’ll feel a lot better later for having done this now.

Shot Records and Passports: It’s an extremely practical thing, but we need to be ready to get on a plane at a moments  notice and travel the globe for the Gospel.  I’ve already missed one good opportunity to go to the Nations by not having my passport ready to go.  It can sometimes take weeks to get an appointment to get immunizations for the various diseases found in Africa, so you’ll probably want to go ahead and get it taken care of.

This stuff sounds easy, but it’s a major pain if you don’t have a plan to have it taken care of by the time your opportunity arrives.  Get it done, soldier.