The Revolution Brigade

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3 NASB)

…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.

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.

Sorry about the title, I couldn’t help myself.  Now, down to business:

And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them.

And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” (Mark 8:14-15)

He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.” (Matthew 13:33)

The bible mentions three specific types of leavens:

• The Leaven of Herod
• The Leaven of the Pharisees
• The Leaven of the Kingdom

Leaven, in the natural sense, is a permeating agent that causes transformation.  In the case of bread, when introduced in small amounts, it causes a batch of dough many times the size of the amount of leaven to rise.  For the purposes of the parables that Jesus taught, leaven is an outside influence on thought patterns that affects our world view and how we think.

Jesus was attempting to communicate the danger of allowing outside influences, even in small amounts, to affect our thought patterns because the result would be an infection of our entire lives.  Just as leaven mixed with dough causes the dough to rise, ungodly thoughts in small measure affect our lives.  Jesus specifically warned us about two trains of ungodly thought:

The Leaven of Herod: The leaven of Herod is an athiestic thought life.  When I say athiest, you think of somebody who doesn’t know or believe in God.  For our purposes, functional athiesm is just as bad.  What do I mean by “functional athiesm?”

Functional athiesm is a condition that befalls followers of Christ in which we live our lives as though God does not exist.  If there is a problem, we try to fix it separate from the power of God in our lives.  It is the logic that says, “God helps those who help themselves.”  When you’re on the boat with no bread, the functional athiest says, “You don’t have any bread because you forgot to bring bread.  Next time bring bread.”  Nevermind the fact that the creator of all heaven and Earth is on the boat with you, and has proclaimed that you are going to the other side.  Nevermind the fact that you have already seen Him multiply loaves and fishes to feed multitudes.  Functional athiesm.  It’s an ugly business that is more prevalent than we might think.

The Leaven of the Pharisees: The leaven of the pharisees is a religious mentality.  It has God in form but without power.  Phariseeism offers explanations but not solutions.  When a pharisee is on the boat with no bread, he says things like, “God, in His sovereignty, has arranged for you to have no bread so you can better identify with others who have no bread in this hour.”

A religious spirit is one in which principle trumps presence.  We tend to want to reduce the persuit of God to a formula that always produces the intended result.  The bible is full of godly principles that mean nothing apart from the person of Jesus.  The new covenant was never about religious practice, but rather about a restoration of the relationship between God and His creation that was damaged in the garden.

The reference to the leaven of the kindom is obvious.  A “kingdom” is the “dominion of the king.”  If we allow Jesus to reign supreme in our hearts, even in small measure, the effect will be a rising of our entire life.

I strongly recommend the teaching entitled Three Leavens of the Mind by Pastor Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, CA as an expanded resource to further clarify the writings here.  Most of this is influenced heavily by his material, and he is a world class teacher who explains it better than me.

We took a look in the last post at the some strategies that the enemy will use to attempt to undermine the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.  I believe that the rebuilding of the crushed, destitute, smoldering walls of the city of Jerusalem by Nehemiah is akin to the work of the Holy Spirit in taking the believer from the state in which they were saved to the victorious, sanctified, spirit-filled life to which we are called.  Let’s look at that scripture again:

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.

The book of Nehemiah is a prophetic picture of the building of the church in these last days.  Nehemiah, whose name means ‘comforter,’ is a typeology of the Holy Spirit and His work in the church.  In the book, the people of Judah were released from captivity in Babylon and permitted to return to the promised land (prophetic metaphor for our salvation) and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (prophetic metaphor for the church).

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.

Righteousness is the most central issue of our day.  If you haven’t already noticed, most of the problems that our nation faces today are as a result of moral bankruptcy in the land.  The economy, the state of the church, and the political turmoil in the nation are all related to spiritual compromise.

In Nehemiah chapter 13, we see a dialogue about mixed marriages between the people of Judah (people of praise) and and the people of Ashdod (a Philistine city), Ammon, and Moab (all enemies of Judah).  Nehemiah, whose name means “comforter,” and who is a prophetic picture of the work of the Holy Spirit in the modern church, begins to address the situation:

²³In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. ²⁴As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people.

The result of an unsanctioned union between the church and the world will always be offspring who cannot speak the language of the Lord.  We wonder why our young people are so far gone, so morally bankrupt, so apathetic and disinterested, yet we fail to consider that they are the offspring of generations of compromise between the church and the world.

The church at large continues to sacrifice at the alter of Baal (the god of prosperity) even in this hour, when the world financial systems have been shaken.  Have we not yet considered that the failing financials of our nation have everything to do with a lack of purity and separation between the church and the world?  Are we not selling our children into slavery for the purpose of getting grain (See Nehemiah chapter 5)?

²⁵So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

We must bear in mind that the Holy Spirit will do violence in order to cause us to separate ourselves from the world.  He will not allow us to prostitute our geneology and remain untouched.  We are to be pure and holy before the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will jealously protect us from defiling ourselves by any means necessary, even if He must shake everything that can be shaken.

It’s not judgement!  It’s the principle of seed time and harvest. You can’t sew immorality, nominal committment, and moral compromise and reap prosperity, wholeness, signs, and wonders.  It simply doesn’t work that way.  We must learn to be ‘in’ the world without being ‘of’ it.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. (2 Corinthians 6:17)

We must be spiritually developed enough to discern the great harm that is done when the church becomes ‘married’ to the world.  We must repent and fall upon the mercy of the Lord.  This is the only course of action that will result in a restored nation. You might not be part of the cause, but you must be part of the solution! Perhaps this is why 2 Chronicles 7:14 ties the healing of the land with the willingness of the people to be broken and humbled before the Lord:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

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Carnal warfare is a dangerous proposition.  Casualties can be expected, but must be balanced with the burden of accomplishing tactical and strategic objectives.  In short, people are valuable but everybody is expendable.

This is one scenario in which spiritual warfare differs greatly from carnal warfare.  Just as the nature of our victory in Christ is absolute, the nature of our protection in Christ from the dangers of warfare is also absolute.  Not one Christian needs to ever experience defeat or suffer a wound in the prosecution of the warfare to which we are called.  In the natural, armies consolidate their resources into “forts” or “bases” where they can be protected en masse. In spiritual warfare, the phenomenon is known as “rest.”

9) So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

10) For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

11) Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

12) For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  (Hebrews 4: 9-12)

Think of the place of rest outlined in the scripture above as a fort.  We’ll call it “Fort Rest.”  It’s surrounded by huge walls that are made of the word of God.  The enemy, despite his best efforts, can’t get past these walls to attack you.  So long as you remain within the walls of Fort Rest, you have absolutely no chance of being harmed, defeated, or psychologically effected by battle.

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them. (Psalm 34:7)

In an earlier post, I briefly discussed that spiritual warfare was a cleverly crafted deception that the enemy has been force feeding the church for centuries.  I said that there is no force-on-force combat routinely taking place as if the battle had not yet been decided, but that the enemy is attempting to subvert the church into open agreement with his wiles in order to attain a portion of the power delegated to the church by God.   If that’s true, then why do we constantly see “casualties” of war in our congregations: those who are frustrated to the point of leaving the church, those who are sick and broken-hearted, and those who are defeated to the point of depression?

The answer is that the enemy, unable to reach the saints who dwell in Fort Rest, focuses his attacks on those caught “outside the wire.”  The enemy actually lies in wait outside of Fort Rest and springs his trap upon the first unsuspecting soldier to wander outside of the safety of the Fort.

When a soldier proceeds out of the safety of the Fort without specific orders from the commanding general to do so, he leaves behind his provision, his access to timely intelligence, his ability to communicate, his reinforcements, and his comrades. Similarly, when a Christian chooses to engage the enemy outside of the place of rest, he chooses to fight behind enemy lines.  The Christian enters into “striving” outside of his divine provision in an attempt to “advance” upon the enemy, and actually opens himself up to attack and potential defeat.

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

This scripture effectively illustrates the point that I’m trying to make.  The enemy “prowls around” the outside of the walls of Fort Rest seeking someone to devour.  Who can he devour except those who venture outside of the safety of the fort?  Here’s the same scripture in the King James Version:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

I quite like this translation of the verse because it emphasizes the permissive nature of the enemies search:   “seeking whom he may devour.”  In this case, the victory of the enemy requires the permission of the prey.  How can we agree with being devoured?  By simply agreeing to venture alone outside of the place of rest we inadvertently empower the enemy to devour us.

This is a good place to talk about a phenomenon which I feel is as dangerous as any currently faced by the Church in this age.  We have, among our ranks, certain preachers and teachers who don’t possess a level of knowledge on the topic of spiritual warfare equal to their zeal for the Kingdom.  These well-meaning generals often encourage the rabid, emotional lines of thought on the topic that promote “taking the fight to the enemy.”  With lines such as the ones in the famous song, “I went to the enemy’s camp and I took back what he stole from me,” we form a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of spiritual conflict that causes our brothers and sisters to make themselves vulnerable to the wiles of the devil.

Simply stated, we have no reason to go to the enemy’s camp to retrieve what has been “stolen” from us.  The restoration of the saints is a redemptive work of the cross, and not some crusade for the saints to embark upon consequent to their salvation.  The truth of the matter is that preaching of this nature encourages believers to charge forward of their provision, to leave their place of rest, and subsequently to venture outside of the provision of the absolute protection of the Lord.

There is a time and a place for offensive operations in our spiritual conflict, but it is important to note that these operations will always be coordinated en masse by the commander in chief.   Those who are to participate will be given specific orders for their mission, and will be provided with the intelligence support (prophetic), provisions (equipping), and reinforcements (the angelic host, etc) required to accomplish the mission.  There is a big difference between wandering outside of Fort Rest on a whim and being ordered to advance by the commander and chief (King Jesus).

One of the primary objectives of the enemy is to, through the use of propaganda and “siege weapons,” lure the saints from their place of rest.

“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Ephesians 6:16)

Throughout the warfare of antiquity, fire has always been employed as a siege-breaking technology.  The idea is to provoke an army to leave a fortified structure and cause them to be vulnerable to counterattack.  It works primarily on a psychological level, since fire does very little to damage stone walls.  The idea is to use archers, shoot flaming arrows over the walls, and cause the wooden structures within the fortification to catch fire.  Fire makes people panic, and panic causes them to come out from the protection of their fort.

Likewise, the fiery darts of the enemy are designed to move us from our place of rest.  The fire has no effect whatsoever on the stone walls which protect us (God’s word), but may have an extremely profound psychological effect upon those who are exposed to it.  We must avoid, at all cost, the temptation to run from the protection of the walls of our rest.< >< ><–>