Some have said that the terrible outbreak last week has done more damage than Hurricane Katrina, more disaster, more damage. Thankfully, not as many lives were lost, but far too many were lost. “What is going on”? Christians are asking this. Christians were in those tornadoes, good families, good Christians were there. What is going on?
Just a little over a week before that big outbreak, Bob Jones told (Rick Joyner) , he said, “Weather is about to go crazy and it’s not going to get less, it’s going to keep increasing.” And he was. . . grieved, he mourned, he’s praying, as we all should be. Again, we are told in scripture, we can build our house on a rock but when the storms come and beat against our house, the house will stand. And I don’t care how much framing, how much steel framing, or how much else, that won’t make it stand. That’s not what causes us to stand. What will cause us to stand is hearing the words of the Lord and obeying them.
We also have another major event that happened and that we need to understand and that was that Osama Bin Laden was finally caught, finally killed. What I told our Intelligence community, right after 911, I had a number of interviews, and I shared with them something they didn’t want to hear and they didn’t believe. Right after 911, they were going after Osama Bin Laden and I said, “You’re not going to get him. The Lord is going to hide him from you for years.” They didn’t want to hear that at all, they thought, in two months we’ll have this guy. I said, “No, you’re not. Your not going to get him, it’s going to be a long time, the LORD will hide him from you, for years.” And I told them why the Lord was doing this. I said, you’ve got to learn some things on the trail that you don’t know now, you don’t understand, you don’t believe, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But you’ll find him on his trail, and you need this understanding. I said, In due time you’ll get him, but not until you get this understanding.
It was about three years ago an Intelligence officer was sent down to talk to me about this, and they said, we’ve found everything you told us. We now believe. I said, “Well, if you’ve found everything, you will get him (Bin Laden), but I hope you got understanding, and I felt that they had pretty good understanding of what was causing the world terrorism, what was causing the real source of this world terrorism, and the strategy against the United States specifically, to wear us down, to keep us in wars, engaged in wars, until we’re just so worn out we can’t do it anymore and we give up and start turning away from major obligations that we have in the world. We’re the only nation strong enough and wealthy enough to stand against some evil forces in the world now.
I was talking to one of our major military heroes , who still has a top job in the Pentagon, I was talking to him just last week and he was saying, “Our military is so tired, but the military will fight on.” He said, “What’s getting me is the civilians, they’re just getting weary of war, and America is weary of war.”
And there is a danger of America becoming isolationist again. And I think a real danger, because I think, you know what our destiny is? And I know you don’t want to hear this, “We will be in conflict probably almost continuously from now on. We need to get used to it.”
Maybe we need to look at some things from a different perspective, we keep talking about the cost in lives and that’s a terrible, terrible thing. . . the cost in money. And I believe we are often getting engaged in things we shouldn’t be engaged in. We are in some conflicts we should not be in, should have never have gotten in. Some really are the Lord . . . we’re (America) is raised up in these times to stand against certain forces.
Some of the good things that constant conflict does for you and as a Christian you should know this because the Lord uses the title, “The Lord of Hosts,” over ten times more than all of his other titles. He is a Marshal GOD. Lord of Hosts means, Lord of Armies. We’re told to put on the full armor of GOD, do you know anywhere is scripture where it says, take it off?! No, it says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. We’ve been dropped behind enemy lines. In the midst of a war you can’t just say, “I’m tired, I want to take a break, ‘time out’ for a little while. No, you’d get your head shot off. That happens to Christians so often when he gets weary. I’ve been a Christian for forty years now and I don’t remember a time in my life without some tests, some trial. I may go a few weeks, here or there, with relative rest and peace, and some of the trials are so intense it makes the other ones look like they weren’t trials at all. But we’ve had to battle and fight for just about everything.
You know the Lord could have bound Satan and thrown him into the lake of fire immediately after His resurrection if He’d just wanted it to be easy for us. He could have easily done that, He had gained the right. He had the authority to do it. God could flick His little finger and all evil would be destroyed forever. No, He left the devil loose for our sake. The greatest souls are always revealed during the most trying times. The greatest leaders are always revealed, during the times of greatest trial. And He left things like this for our sake. We need to embrace it.
I know some of our greatest leaders in America, business leaders, community leaders, leaders in every area, church leaders and everything, were fashioned in the trials of WWII. They had not only, most of them, gone through the great depression, but WWII was far worse of a hell, than many of us realize for our soldiers, for our military. D-Day, for some of them, was one of their easier days! And they went on through one of the coldest winters in Europe’s history and we could not get winter clothing to them. Our troops would have to fight all day long, throw a grenade to break the ice so they could get to ground where they could dig a foxhole big enough so they could run all night so that they wouldn’t freeze to death. Some of them tell stories about how they went for three or four days in a row before they found a shelter, or a basement somewhere, where they could lay down and get several hours of sleep and not freeze to death. . .they came back so strong, so hardened. Then they were able to stand against the incredible Communist threat in the cold war, and they built one of the greatest, most powerful nations. These were corporate leaders and leaders throughout our society who were strong and they were made strong, and they were made great through the trials of the conflict they had been through. And so they were able to stay the conflict against the cold war. They didn’t bend, they didn’t cave in, they kept on fighting.
America’s just in that place, they cannot get tired. That’s is the devil’s #1 strategy, to wear out the saints. And we’re not warring against flesh and blood, I’m not just looking at the countries that are the source of terrorism, that are trying to wear us out, wear us down. No, it’s bigger than that. We’re not warring against flesh and blood, but we can’t give up and we can’t get tired. Take a little break, if you get a little R&R, take it, then, get back in the fight. Don’t complain, be thankful. We’re here for this purpose. We’re in this life for this purpose.
The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. But the world, and all it contains, belongs to the Lord. We’re not giving it up. We’re not giving up any part of it to him. As long as there is a single soul in bondage, a single soul in darkness, we’ve got to fight on. It’s not that we have to, but we get to. The Lord could have made it easier, He could have made it much easier. This whole church age was training for reigning, for those who were destined to rule and reign with Him. They are proving themselves.
When someone goes through, all that we’re going through, the times, the battles and the conflict on every side, we just labor on. We keep on and we don’t quit. Then we continue to thank the Lord, to worship the Lord, after all that is happening. It becomes a witness to even principalities and powers. The truth is going to win. Light is going to prevail, in the end, when they look at those saints who went through so much.
I had a prophetic experience one time where I was in a realm where I could see different things going on in the earth and one of the things that I was shown was this little country church, it looked like a country church, didn’t seem to have twenty people in it, must have been a prayer meeting and they were worshiping the Lord with all their heart, and they didn’t sound too good. They weren’t in tune, their sound system wasn’t that great, it didn’t sound good. But in this experience, I saw the Lord silence heaven. He silenced heaven, and said, “Listen to this.” And heaven tuned in to that little church. I saw the struggles they had been through. The struggles they were in. The daily fight they were all in, but how they still worshiped, “We’re thankful to the Lord!” and just marching on. When you see that, when the devil sees that, he knows he doesn’t have a chance.
The first Adam had a wife, they lived in perfect conditions, absolute perfect conditions, knew no sin, everything was perfect. But given the choice, they chose evil over good and since then Satan has had a boast! He caused a third of the angels to fall with this one point, he says, “Look, GOD had this crowning creation of GOD that He has made especially to have a personal relationship with, Mankind”. Put them in perfect conditions, and when they were given a choice, to follow GOD, or to follow him (Satan), follow the devil, he said, “Look what they chose!” They chose evil. And that’s the boast he’s had and he still causes many to fall. “It looks like evil is prevailing. It looks like you can get ahead in this world if you’ll do evil, you’ll cheat and do all these things, you’ll do much better”.
But the last Adam, Christ, is going to have a bride that in the worst of times, the worst of conditions, against the greatest opposition, she’s going to choose to obey. She’s going to choose to worship GOD. She’s going to refuse to choose evil and choose good and choose obedience and it will be a witness for all of eternity that good will prevail over evil. GOD is going to prevail over evil.
You are called to be a part of that bride of the last end. Yes, stuff is happening. Stuff happened to good Christian people in Alabama. This can be their finest hour. I had it happen to me, not through a tornado, but where I lost everything I owned and at the time I had a lot to lose. Moved into a tiny little shack, just after finishing our dream house, I had to move into this tiny little shack, lost everything, but I hadn’t felt better in years because the way the Presence of the Lord was with me.
We’ve got to seize these opportunities. We’ve got to fight on. We’ve got to stand and be strong. This whole life is but a vapor. We’ll have plenty of time to rest and have a great time in eternity but here we’ve got a job to do. I believe the fight will go on, certainly, for every Christian and we’re not going to know the kind of peace many want to know, which is the absence of conflict. That’s not where we find our peace. We find peace in the midst of conflict. In the midst of conditions, whatever happens, when we have the peace of GOD, there will be a victory. It’s interesting, even the Lord uses the title, “Lord of Hosts,” more than ten times, more than all of His other titles. He says the GOD of Peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. It’s the GOD of Peace. The peace of GOD is an impregnable fortress and will utterly destroy the works of the devil.
Abide in His peace. That is where Jesus is going to live. He’s only going to live, In the City of Peace, Jerusalem. He is the Prince of Peace. He came to bring peace on the earth. Ultimately, there will be peace because of the conditions and He is going to restore the earth to the paradise that it was created to be, that is an absolute, sure fact. But right now, we have to know His absolute perfect peace in the midst of the conflict, in the midst of the troubles and we’ve got to stand strong. And if we will, we will be that witness to the nations and even to principalities and powers.