Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord!  This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again!  I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’  Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord.  I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!” (Ezekiel 37: 4-6, 10-14 NLT)

Never in history has their been such a concerted effort to prophesy negativity over a generation.  From financial crisis to political turmoil, the world is raising up prophets at lightning speed to prophesy doom over the people of our nation.  They have said that the church is washed up, worn out, and without hope.  They look at us and see a valley full of dry bones.  The Lord sees an army of spirit-filled warriors just waiting to carry out His justice on the Earth.

Even now, God is beginning to stir the hearts of those who will carry the modern day Ezekiel anointing, to speak to the bones prophetically and cause them to rise by the power of the Lord.  All over our nation men and women, boys and girls, young and old are beginning to have dreams, visions, and angelic visitations.  The Lord is stirring the hearts of the fathers towards the sons, and the hearts of the sons towards the fathers.  The prophetic message is gaining spiritual synergy as more and more voices become active in prophesying to this generation: “Awake you sleeper!  Rise and be counted!  Stand up, and let the Lord add flesh to your bones!  You have a war to fight!”

Lord, release the prophetic destiny of the church!  Release the warrior anointing of the intercessor!  Loose your spirit to flow over our nation, and cause the four winds to blow on us once again!  This generation is ready to give birth to a prophetic end-time army that will fear no fear but the fear of the Lord.

…This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful. (Revelation 13:10 NLT)

This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently, obeying his commands and maintaining their faith in Jesus.  (Revelation 14:12 NLT)

I spy another end time theme emerging from my reading of the book of Revelation.  On several occasions, the writer uses the exact same words to describe the appropriate posture of the church toward persecution: that of patient obedience and endurance.  Paul calls it “suffering hardship,” but any soldier who has ever suffered hardship in the natural understands the parallel.

I spent time sleeping in holes dug in the ground in the cold of winter.  It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t fun.  But it was part of being a soldier.  My commander had instructed me to remain at my position, and my posture towards his instruction was one of patient obedience.  I know in the back of my mind that the commander would not have asked me to remain in the hole if it wasn’t necessary for the mission or for my development as a soldier.  I had a benevolent commander whom I could trust explicitly to lead me.

How much more can we trust the leadership of Jesus?

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  (James 1:2-4 NLT)

You’ve probably heard the term “training for reigning” before, but I’d like to evoke the idea in the context of suffering.  In the last days, the Lord will pour out his judgement on the Antichrist government and religion, and the beast will rage with anger towards the praying church.  For a season, it will have power to kill the saints, to put them in jail, and to starve them.  We must learn to endure hardship now of our own free will so that we will be prepared to lead when that day comes.

This is not a doom and gloom message, but rather an invitation to come to know Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.  We are asking Him to finish a work within us and prepare us for that day.   We are saying that any hardship is worth enduring for the sake of knowing Him more.

1Now it came about that when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews.

²He spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?”

³Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said, “Even what they are building–if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”  (Nehemiah 4:1-3)

We’ve already examined strategies one through three in a previous post.  For now, I’d like to pick up in verse 2 with the fourth enemy strategy:

Strategy #4:  Discourage the believer by showing him how far he has left to go. In verse 2, Sanballat says, “can they rebuild it in a day?”  The idea behind this statement is to call into question the ability of the believer to withstand the period of time between the present and the conclusion of the work of the Holy Spirit by pointing out how much work is left to do.  Perhaps some of you can relate, as can I, to the sentiment of being a perpetual work in progress.  I have so much growth and development left to undertake in the Lord that it would overwhelming if I were to focus on it.

I’ve often found that it’s more beneficial to focus on the finished work of the cross than it is to focus on my state.  Lifting up your eyes to the Lord means that you can no longer look at yourself.  Remind yourself that you are being transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that it is a process that takes an entire life.  Nevertheless, Christ is being formed in you, and your enemy is not happy about it.  Any attempt to get you to focus on how far you have left to go is an attempt to get  you to forget how far you’ve come by the grace of the Lord.

Strategy #5: Tell the believer that he can’t be used by God because He’s too messed up. Sanballat says, “Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble, even the burned ones?”  The enemy would have you to believe that the pieces of your life, broken and burned and neglected as they have been, can never be formed again into any semblance of an existence.  This flies in the face of the redemptive work of the cross.  The same Son of God who turned water into wine and multiplied fishes is more than capable of doing a creative miracle in your life.  He can, will, and is using you for the purpose of the Kingdom.

The entire point of this argument is to get you to disengage from the prosecution of God’s will by having you believe that you are an unworthy vessel, or that you are somehow incomplete because of your past.  If he can cause you to be introspective about how you’ve been hurt, who you have been, and how undeserving you are, he can get you to lose sight of the work of the Lord in your life.  Don’t fall for it.

Strategy #6:  Call into question the strength of the finished work. Tobiah the Ammonite is another one of the devil’s minions in this story.  He said, “Even what they are building–if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”  Once you have had some success in allowing the Holy Spirit to build the proverbial walls of your life, you will find that the enemy is always trying to get you to believe that you are weak and frail, and that you can’t stand against him.  Folks, you are covenant sons of the most high God.  You’ve been grafted into the branch, given spiritual title and authority in the Kingdom, and reconciled to the Creator of heaven and Earth.  You are more than able to stand.

It’s all about the topic of agreement.  Your mouth is a covenant making machine.  If the enemy can get you to articulate your weakness, discouragement, or unworthiness, he has effectively gained jurisdictional authority to torment you.  Don’t fall for the school yard tricks of a defeated foe.

Sanballat, Gesham, and Tobiah represent the enemy of our soul, the world, the unbelievers, and Satan, etc.  These folks obviously have a profound interest in preventing the work of the Lord being done in the church (the building of the wall).  I’m going to handle this scenario with kid gloves over two or three posts to attempt to extract as much meaning as I can.

1Now it came about that when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews.

²He spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?”

³Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said, “Even what they are building–if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”  (Nehemiah 4:1-3)

I wanted to point out six enemy strategies employed to undermine the work of the Lord in building the church.  Since it would be too long for the web 2.0 folks if I tried to do all six in one post, I’ll break it into two posts.  Here goes:

Strategy #1:  Attack the identity of the church. Sanballat’s first response to the work of the Lord was to issue the statement, “What are these feeble Jews doing?”  The statement is designed to attack the identity of the believer by questioning who he is in God, and who God is in him.  His assessment that the Jews were ‘feeble’ is a negative prophetic declaration that their God is powerless to work through them.  How many times have you heard this attack in your personal walk with the Lord?

Strategy #2:  Question the people’s motives. “Are they going to restore it for themselves,” asked Sanballat.  The enemy will always question our motives when we get into the center of God’s will for our lives in an attempt to envoke false humility, fear, or pause.  The building of the wall most certainly would benefit the children of Israel, but this was not their primary reason for building it.  They were doing the work of God.  Have you ever noticed that every time you fast, you’ll have the thought that ‘you’re just doing this so men will think you’re holy.’  Oldest trick in the book.  Don’t fall for it.

Strategy #3: Question their relationship with God. “Can they offer sacrifices?”  It’s a shallow stab at the relationship of the people of Judah to their God.  If the enemy can get us to focus on our religious practices, or lack thereof, he stands a reasonable chance of getting us to stop building the wall.  It’s not about us anyway.  God has commissioned us for this work, and he knew us before the foundations of the Earth.  He is not impressed with our holiness, and not discouraged by our lack of holiness.  He accepts us as we are and challenges us to go higher in His love without condemnation.

Tune in next time for the next three enemy strategies to undermine the work of the Lord.

This movie is pending release, and the name has been changed from “The Underground” to “Justice Waiting.  I can’t wait for the release, and you can get more info as it becomes available at the website.

⁵ “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. ⁶ He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)

Much has been written about the spirit of Elijah and the raising of a generation of prophetic warriors in the last days.  We have been faithful to prophesy to the bones about their destiny, and they are beginning to rise throughout the land.

What the prophetic army needs now more than ever is the Godly wisdom of spiritual fathers.  Zeal is a wonderful thing, but needs to be balanced with wisdom in order to attain the desired result.  Youth is an advantage that should be pressed on the battlefield, but it must be done under the watchful guidance of the fathers of the faith.

There exists a wide canyon between the youth of this generation and the elders of the church.  By comparison, there is such a cultural difference that our young people might as well be from a foreign culture.  For all intents and purposes, the youth of our nation communicate differently, dress differently, and relate differently than their spiritual elders.  They are a unique tribe just as surely as if they lived in Kenya and spoke Swahili.

It will most likely require extra work for the elders of the church to learn to relate to these young people, but it is a vital neccessity to the work of the kingdom.  Our seasoned men and women of the faith must learn to communicate via text message, blog, and twitter.  They must learn to speak the dialect of the youth of the nation.  They must learn to speak knowledge and wisdom into a generation while allowing their cultural expression of praise to continue to develop.

Likewise, the youth of the Elijah generation must learn to seek counsel from their spiritual elders.  Much has been learned, discerned, and revealed through the years of battle experience in the pews of the local church, and young people must learn to engage spiritual fathers and become spiritual sons.

Rebellion will not get us where we need to go.  We must have spiritual fathers.  Outcasting a weird and eccentric generation because they refuse to conform to your expression of worship will not have the desired effect either.  We must have spiritual sons.

Many contentions that lead to “railing against the machine” are probably valid, but the time has come to present solutions and actions that will lead to kingdom transformations. Many of the institutions that promised something that could not be delivered are crumbling (from politics to certain faith systems). Paradigms that were relied upon to sustain a particular way of life are proving to be false foundations that have left us empty and unfulfilled (consumerism, materialism, greed).

The hour we are in gives us no room for complaining and retreating into our fantasy world of virtual realities. It is time for a clear trumpet call! It is time for voices with answers to stand up and declare truth to their generation. It is time for prophets and evangelists to be released with a message of hope and enough anointing to back it up. It is a time to put it all on the line and prove what we have only given mental assent to in the past.

Young leaders, this is your hour! If you can be bold enough to come out of your place of obscurity and carry the burden of your generation, the stage is set and the world is waiting for you! Never in history has there been a moment like this. There may never be another one like it.

Previous generations have labored for their day. Many leaders are weary and ready to pass the baton and open doors that you could not open for yourself. In many cases there is no one to hand the baton to and no one ready to walk through the open door.

Let’s work together to see the greatest advancement of the kingdom that the world has ever witnessed in a generation. There are “opportunities of a lifetime” but there is a lifetime to every opportunity.

Leadership:

In the military, leaders are charges with instilling values in their soldiers, ensuring their technical and tactical proficiency, and reinforcing their motivation.  It seems obvious that these duties easily transfer into spiritual parallels meant to be observed by God’s leaders.

Ephesians 4:11-13 says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,

12) for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

13) until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

From this scripture, we can see that God has equipped leaders with specific gifts which are to contribute to the overall readiness of His army.  Verse twelve indicates that the overall purpose of these gifts is to “equip the saints for the work of service,” or, in my personal opinion, to equip the army of God for war.

These special ministers of God’s grace who possess special gifts, known commonly as the five-fold ministry gifts or the ascention gifts, are commissioned as leaders in the Army of God.  The authority to lead comes along with the ability to preach, prophecy, and evangelize, although it may take special effort to develop the gift to the level of proficiency required to effectively command in combat.

It is important to remember that verse thirteen above, referring to the “maturing” of the saints, also applies to the ministers of the five-fold graces.  One can expect a young person who is in the process of developing a five-fold anointing to be inexperienced and in need of training, much the same way as a Lieutenant would require professional development before he could perform at the level of a Colonel.  The common mistake is for senior officers, such as Pastors or Apostles, to refuse to allow young officers to partake in combat because of their inexperience, effectively forgetting that it is combat that helps to develop experience.

2) Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

3) knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

4) And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  (James 1:2-4)

For the purpose of this writing, the “combat” to which I am referring is the opportunity to practice the anointing with which these young ministers have been equipped by the Holy Spirit.  In the military, young officers are given many, many hours of instruction on the principles of war.  Then, in the event of an actual war, the young officers bear the brunt of performing those combat tasks which they have studied in actual combat.  The reason is two-fold:  first, the young officer is in need of practical application to cement their understanding of tactics and principles.  Second, and perhaps most importantly, the time of the senior officer is much better used to focus upon strategic objectives.

Case-in-point: a senior Pastor of a local church operates in an Apostolic anointing.  He has been charged with the development of several young people with five-fold giftings. In addition, the Pastor is developing a network of ministers who will engage in the work of the gospel internationally.  The pastor teaches several times per week in his local church and spends countless hours in preparation for those teaching engagements.

The most effective use of the Pastor’s time in this scenario would be to actively engage in the development of the young ministers, and to pour himself into the development of his international sphere of influence.  In this way, his Apostolic anointing becomes a force-multiplier which enables the Gospel to be spread farther and wider than would have been possible before.

The opportunity cost for this shift of focus is the ability to preach in every service that takes place in his church.  Fortunately, the Pastor has available several young preachers who are capable of administering the teaching and preaching in his absence.  In delegating some of the responsibility for teaching and preaching, the Pastor is able to achieve a two-fold objective:  to free up time in order to pursue the greater, strategic objective of Apostolic alignment for his international sphere of influence, and to partake in the development of his subordinates.   This is the essence of combat leadership.

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.

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.

The most important factor involved in ensuring that maneuver is achieved on the battlefield is, without question, communication between the commander and the troops.  Soldiers must know where to go, how to best get there, and which direction to face when they arrive.  Many people forget that the common foot soldier doesn’t possess the “big picture” knowledge that his commander has, and that he needs to be given instructions in order to function according to the overall tactical plan.

In our spiritual army, our commander in chief,  Jesus,  possesses the only fully outlined battle plan.  As a result, we must each approach him directly and be available to receive combat orders at a moments notice.  We know the phenomenon of superiority of maneuver as “divine appointment.”

I once heard a Pastor talk about a restaurant that he really disliked.  In fact, he hated to eat at this restaurant so much that he would never consider driving to the establishment of his own free will.  One day, while praying, the Pastor felt an unction from the Lord to go to the restaurant.  The Pastor, fully engulfed in disgust, nearly disobeyed the Lord and refused to dine at the restaurant, but after a few moments of grumbling relented and climbed into his truck.

When he arrived at the restaurant, the Pastor was surprised to meet a woman who he had worked with in a past job.  The woman was crying, and the Pastor offered her comfort.  The two dined together, and the Pastor had the opportunity to lead the woman to the Lord.  Had he refused his assignment, or had he not been available to receive an assignment at all, he would have missed this divine appointment.

Or, if you prefer biblical examples, take the story of Philip:

“But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)

So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship,

and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.”

Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this:
“HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER;
AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT,
SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH.
“IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY;
WHO WILL RELATE HIS GENERATION?
FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH.”

The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?”

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.” (Acts 8:26-35)

Philip, in this awesome biblical story, heard from the angel of the Lord that he was supposed to get up and go to an abandoned desert road.  Although it may have seemed absurd at the time, Philip was obedient to the voice of the angel of the Lord. You can clearly see that his obedience resulted in an opportunity for a man to be added to the kingdom.

Obedience, as important as it may be, is only part of the equation required to establish superior maneuver in spiritual warfare.  The aspiring warrior must have something to be obedient to.  He must be able to receive the direction of the Lord for the moment.  This can manifest in several ways: through personal communication with God, by receiving prophetic revelation from other sources, or through interpreting circumstances, etc.

“The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:3-4)

Knowing the voice of the Lord will allow us to be in the right place at the right time provided we respond to His voice without delay.  To the extent that maneuver is dependent upon hearing the Lord, the enemy will devote resources to obscuring the Lord’s voice in an attempt to confound our deployments.  We can rest assured that if we can tune in the voice of the Lord and tune out the attempts of the enemy to distract us, we can walk in foreknowledge of the events to come.  It’s our destiny as a prophetic people.

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:13)