⁵When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come ” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.

⁶And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” (Revelation 6:5-7)

I had a prophetic experience with the Lord a couple of days ago.  This message may very well be just for me, but I thought I might share it with you anyway.

I was praying about what I needed to get settled in my life in order to be ready for the events of the end times.  I asked the Lord to reveal to me what I needed to deal with, and He replied, “Hunger.”

I said, “Lord, I’m pretty hungry for your presence.  I’m hungry for your revelation,” and He said, “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Now I’m really listening because I’m reminded of when the disciples were on the boat fretting about not having any bread, and Jesus started talking about leaven.  The disciples were puzzled, but Jesus wasn’t talking about bread.  Likewise, He’s not talking about hunger in the spiritual sense.  It’s scary how I over-spiritualized the voice of the Lord on that point, but that’s another sermon for another day.

The Lord began to reveal to me that he was talking about dealing with physical hunger.  He brought to my mind the scripture above from Revelation 6, and I began to understand.  In the last days, there will be a very literal, very physical food shortage on the Earth.  The Lord said to me, “If you want to be used in those days as a leader, you have better conquer hunger now.”

I’ve heard it said that “in a world of darkness, the blind man is King.”  Likewise, in a world of famine, the man who is not controlled by his appetite is positioned to be a leader.  The man who does not rely on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is positioned for supernatural advancement.  God is showing me that if I afflict myself with hunger now, I will be more prepared to operate within the context of world-wide hunger in the last days.

What does it mean?  It means I have to fast more than I have been fasting.  I have to loose the control that my appetite has over my spirit by any means necessary, and bring my carnal body into subjection to my spirit.  Like Paul said, I must beat my body and make it my slave.   If I can’t go a week without food and stay in the spirit, I’m not ready.  Like I said, that may just be for me, but it may be for you also.

“Today, March 5th, one of the most significant court cases in America’s history will take place. The California Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding the overturning of the vote of the people last year to pass Proposition 8, which defines marriage between a man and a woman. If this vote is overturned, not only will it set a major precedent of the court’s power over the will of the people, but it will likely be the flash point that will determine the future of America as liberal and homosexual agendas will disseminate throughout the educational systems and into the very fiber of American culture. The California State Senate just ruled against the peoples’ vote and asked the court to overthrow the defining of marriage as between a man and a woman. Senator Leno likened the people who voted for Prop 8 to the Germans who voted for the Nazi Regime.”

During these past three months since President Obama’s election, the voices of rage against Judeo-Christian values and against the church have been emboldened to use inflammatory language and pass bills and laws that are anti-Christian in their very nature. When senators use such language, persecution is close at hand. We are in a desperate moment in American history. Everyone is pointing to the severe crisis of our economy, but I am convinced it is only an indicator of a massive moral decline America has slid into. It is time to pray, humble ourselves, and rid ourselves of moral compromise in the Church. If the salt loses its savor, it is only good for being thrown out and trampled under the foot of man.

Today we are calling for the church to pray!

Take this moment and hear His call to humility, fasting and repentance. If we do this, God can deal with kings and judges like He haunted Nebuchadnezzar with dreams and removed Herod by the angel of the Lord. This hearing today will be followed by a 90-day period in which the court must make a decision. Pray for these judges that the hand of God will influence their minds and hearts, that the fear of the Lord would fall upon them, and that dreams would invade their world, their wives, their children, and their innermost thoughts.

Pray that God would restrain principalities and powers that have mustered their forces of demons to seize this nation through this door in California. Pray for an unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit in California and America. Pray that God would raise up righteous leaders and bring down the unrighteous ones. Pray for the cleansing of sexual compromise and divorce in the church so that she can reclaim spiritual authority. Finally, pray that the love of God would be poured out on those struggling with homosexuality across this nation. Oh that the power of God, the power of the gospel, would be released again to free the captives!

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.

Isaiah: Your holy cities are destroyed.  Zion is a wilderness;  yes, Jerusalem is a desolate ruin.  The holy and beautiful Temple where our ancestors praised you has been burned down, and all the things of beauty are destroyed. After all this,  Lord,  must you still refuse to help us? Will you continue to be silent and punish us? (Isaiah 64:10-11)

The Lord Replies: I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.  I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, “Here I am, Here I am!” to a nation that did not call on my name. All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people.  But they followed their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes. All day long they insult me to my face by worshipping idols in their sacred gardens.  (Isaiah 65:1-3)

This description that the Lord gives of the nation of Israel moves my heart to compassion because I recognize that it’s a description of our country in this hour.  The United States is now a post-Christian nation.  Our people attend to their own schemes and ignore the paths of God.  Our culture is consumed with idolatry (stuff), Baal worship (abortion, baby sacrifice) , and the Asherah religion (the culture of sex).

Importantly, I don’t believe God is turning a blind eye to the wicked in this hour.  I believe that He is waiting on a righteous remnant of intercessory warriors to rise up and pray in His justice.   Let it not be said of us that we never asked for help from the Lord, that we never looked for His glory and mercy.

We’re coining the term “Combat Intercession” here at the Revolution Brigade because we believe that it will take spiritual acts of violence to bring this nation into repentance before God.   It will require a lifestyle of absolute consecration and purity.  Prayer and fasting will be minimums.  It will require praying for a nation that largely doesn’t want to hear what we have to say.  In some cases, the church will even speak out against the radicals who will become the watchmen for a generation.  Even against the prevailing odds, these young people will stand in the gap, holding back the darkness from consuming our nation completely.

There’s a quote from George Orwell that seems appropriate:  “Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”  It’s a nod to our military forces, but it has application in the spirit as well.  Where is the generation that stands ready to do violence on behalf of our nation?

Our the United States, our Special Forces Soldiers go through some of the toughest training known to man.  They are physically challenged, mentally challenged, and emotionally challenged.  They are deprived of sleep, denied food, and pushed to the limits of human endurance.  The result is one of the toughest, most devoted fighting forces known to man.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where I’m going with this one.

We have conceptualized an indoctrination course for our SAPPER program.  We’re calling it “Boot Camp.”  It will be physically tough.  It will be spiritually tough.  We will deny ourselves food and comfort for the sake of the Kingdom.  We’ll do several weeks of intense discipleship training, topped off my an expeditionary CAPSTONE to a foreign country where we’ll engage in intercession and spiritual combat on a live deployment.

Many people will not have the commitment and devotion to duty that it takes to complete this course.  It will be the most demanding thing many of us have ever undertaken.  The only thing I can promise is that it will be an adventure.

If you’re interested in something this radical, sound off!

1) To draw near to the Lord.  We love prayer and fasting here at the Revolution Brigade.  We pray for revival.  We fast for the Lord to raise up an army of young people who will be totally sold out for the cause.  But, the revival is not the reward for prayer and fasting.  The movement is not the reward.  The reward is the intimacy with Jesus that we get from removing the barriers of the flesh from between us and Him.   Revival and the Militant Faith Movement are just nice byproducts of our awesome relationship with Jesus.  Radical Christianity is more about the King than it is about the Kingdom.

2) Raise a Prophetic Army. We believe that it is the Lord’s desire to raise an end-time prophetic army that will burn with a pure passion and devotion to His cause.  We believe that this army of prayer warriors will be instrumental in ushering in the coming of Christ because of their fanatical devotion to the bridegroom God.  We exist to recruit, train, and equip the forward-most elements of this army.  Radical Christianity is about strapping on your combat boots and doing something for God.

3) Expeditionary Love. We eat, sleep, and breathe a love for the nations.  We desire to see the knowledge of God’s glory fill the whole Earth, as the water covers the seas.  We will get “expeditionary” in our love for the nations.  In other words, we’ll go places and do things that will cause the nations to turn to Christ.  We’re raising an Army.  Armies fight.  We will contend for the nations through crack squads of intercessory masters, raised up and equipped through the anointing of the Holy Spirit for world-changing prayer.  Radical Christianity is about exporting God’s love to the entire world.

4) Awaken a sleeping generation.  If the Revolution Brigade is the “spiritual special forces” of the coming Nazarite Army, then the rest of the generation will be the general infantry.  We believe that this generation is the “valley of bones” spoken of in Ezekiel chapter 37, and we are prophesying to them to wake up, stand up, and receive flesh.  The world sees dry bones, but we see an army.  Radical Christianity is about seeing with the Lord’s eyes and believing in people.

You don’t know who you’re messing with.  This thing is for real.  The Militant Faith Movement is on the scene.

I believe that we have arrived at a pivotal moment in history.  The stage is set for the rise of the Lord’s end-time prophetic army.  Never has a generation of young people been so apathetic, so calloused, and so disinterested in the things of God.  My belief is that this generation IS a valley of dry bones, wasting away beneath the hot sun of the status quo and waiting for a prophet to speak life into them.

“I’m just radical enough to believe that God can use me as the prophet.”

Radical Christianity was intended for every single believer who ever accepted Jesus into their heart.  The very nature of the gospel is radical.  Radical love.  Radical sacrifice.  Radical power.  Jesus revolutionized a culture in the space of three years of public ministry because of the uncompromising, in-your-face nature of the truth that He spoke.   He was a revolutionary.

We tend to think of radical Christians as fringe dwellers, way out on the edge of faith and purity with their fasting and devotion, their love and belief in the Word of God.   In truth, every single human being was intended to go off the deep end in their journey with the God who created us all.  Radical faith is not an innovation.  It’s the way life was intended to be by the giver of life.

You’re looking at prayer and fasting as a major imposition and interruption to your life, but the truth is that if you’re not praying and fasting you’re not yet living life the way that it was intended to be lived.  You’re not sold out yet because you’ve not yet experienced Jesus as the center of your being.  He was never intended to be “fit in” to your schedule, marginalized by your endless to-do list.

Radical Christianity is for YOU.  It’s for all of you.  Every one of you.  Period.

radical: thoroughgoing or extreme, esp. as regards change from accepted or traditional forms: a radical change in the policy of a company.

Christian: literally, little Christ; of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings.

Radical Christianity is not a tool for terrorizing the nation.  It’s an extreme application of the basic biblical teachings of Jesus.  Prayer, fasting, extreme worship, and total consecration.  Radical Christianity is a commitment to live above the influence of “religion” and pursue relationship with Jesus.

Matthew 11:12 tells us that, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.”  The violence mentioned here is fervency of spirit, devotion to apprehending the fullness of God’s glory on Earth, and commitment to the calling of the bride of Christ.  Prayer and fasting has the same effect on the spiritual realm that a bomb has on the physical realm.

When I think of a radical christian, I think of somebody who loves the Kingdom more than he loves himself.   I think of somebody who’s willing to do anything to draw nearer to Jesus.   I think of a person who will stop at nothing to see the nations discipled.  I think of somebody who is willing to devote their time, money, and blood to the cause of the kingdom.

Radical Christians believe that when the Word says it, that settles it.  It’s amazing, but I sometimes think that most Christians don’t think the bible is true.

Radical Christians pray reckless prayers like “God, give us the nations.”  They are also willing to go out and reap the harvest.

Radical Christians spend more time in prayer than on the Xbox.

Radical Christians devour God’s word.  They can’t get enough.

Radical Christians love radically.  Jesus loved the world with perfect compassion, and gave himself for it.

Radical Christians would rather save money for a missions trip than buy a new pair of shoes.

You get the point.

I’m going to revive an old principle here, and most of you will blatantly reject it.  I’m fine with that.  I already know that you think you know best about your life, and that’s probably the attitude that has resulted in the situation in which you currently find yourself.  I pray that you will find peace.  But, for some of you, you’ll hear what I have to say here today and it will change your life.

You’ve asked yourself, “Why do my relationships never seem to work out?  Why can’t I find that special someone?  Am I supposed to be alone?”

My answer is not the kind that people talk about at parties.  The conciliatory response of, “Don’t worry, you’ll find somebody eventually” will not be uttered here today.  My belief, and the belief of many who associate with me, is that some people are not supposed to be married, have kids, and live happily ever after.

Some people are called to be eunuchs for the Kingdom of God.

I submit that the reason you’ve never been able to find a partner who lives up to your standard is because you’ve been fearfully and wonderfully made by a creator who set his own perfection in your heart as your default standard for love.  You were created to transcend the limits of “worship” and find romance with your creator.  You’re called to be a warrior, totally devoted to nothing but your King, who will also become your husband in the last days.

I’ve actually heard a gay man tell me, “I’m gay.  I just never liked girls, you know?”  That doesn’t mean you’re gay!  It means that you were intended to devote your life to something else besides the status quo of a wife, a dog, and 2.5 children.  You were supposed to engage the globe with the Gospel of Christ.  Did the thought ever occur to you that God didn’t want you to have a wife so that you could be free to travel to Zimbabwe on a moment’s notice for the Kingdom?  Come on!

I swear to you, if these words are registering with you today, you will never find happiness outside of Jesus.  You have a God-shaped hole in your being, and no man or woman will ever fill it.  You might as well surrender now and live loved.

God loves you with a perfect love, and you will begin to grasp the extent of that love when you totally devote your life to worshipping Him.  Prayer, fasting, and late nights of fervent worship will replace myspace, facebook, and the bar and club scene.  Why?  Because true love causes you to change things.  Mark my words.

If this is you, ask me how it works.

What’s interesting to me is that these people live this sort of uncompromising life with relatively little higher purpose, other than brotherhood and good music.  I tell you the truth, if I could get my hands on some Christian teens who are willing to dedicate themselves to this type of purity and devotion, mix in a little prayer and fasting, we could raise up an army that would totally revolutionize the culture of our country.

In my opinion, the straight edgers have several character traits that are in high demand in the kingdom.  They display a tenacity, energy, and focused devotion that put most of us to shame.   They obviously have no problem living according to a moral code.  They live more righteously than most christians I know. They major in brotherly love, at least towards other straight edgers.  Two thousand years later, the church is still working on that one.

My question has always been, “Why aren’t these people part of the kingdom?”  I think it’s a natural progression for people of such radical purity to wonder about God.  If straight edgers ever got ahold of the kingdom message, their radically pure and devoted lifestyle would yeild to them power to perform signs, wonders, miracles, and to do exploits for the Kingdom.  So, how have we failed to bring them in?

Simple.  The church has offered a pre-packaged form of godliness totally lacking in power and relevance to these people, and straight edgers have seen right through the facade.  We can’t expect to conform them to our version of “church.”  They simply will not wear shirt and tie to church on Sunday morning and coexist.  They are radical, and they need a radical expression of worship.

I’ve been weeping in prayer for these young people all night.  I see such potential in them, and yet they live in a counterfeit form of righteousness.  I pray that the Lord would draw them to this post, and that those who come here would have the courage to ask the question, “Is there something more beyond self-discipline?”