The biggest open door for tyranny is for God’s people to be passive. If we are Christians, we have a mandate from God to be the salt and light wherever He has placed us. America has been sliding into tyranny for decades but the pace has now accelerated. Even so, it can still be stopped and reversed if God’s people will wake up and get engaged in turning the nation back toward her divinely given purpose. If God’s people do awaken and become engaged, we will not only avoid the abyss we are now so dangerously close to, but our best times could be ahead of us.

All Scripture References are NAS unless indicated

In Revelation 13:11-18, we see a beast coming upon the earth that performs great signs and deceives those who live on the earth. He then makes everyone take a mark on their foreheads and right hands so that they can buy, sell and trade. In 14:9- 10, we see that the wrath of God will come upon all who worship the beast and take his mark.

Nearly twenty years ago, Bob Weiner, John Elliott, and I were doing a radio show together when the Spirit came upon us and we were shown 500,000 small home groups being raised up all over America. These were places where new believers would come for salvation, healing, deliverance, and basic instruction in sound doctrine. These would also be used to raise up some of the great future leaders of the church, who not only discovered their purpose in these small groups, but were trained and equipped to walk in their purpose.

        The Great Commission can only be accomplished if we:

1) make disciples, not just converts, and

2) teach them to observe everything that He commanded.

        Where today is this being accomplished? What have we better to do than give ourselves to seeing His commission fulfilled?

The nation now sits in stunned disbelief at the tragedy that took place on the Virginia Tech campus when a student killed thirty-two fellow students and faculty before taking his own life. Certainly our prayers and any other kind of support or help that we can give should be going out to the families and friends of those touched by this seemingly senseless disaster.

        At the time of this writing, America is struggling with what should be a primary argument against socialism or Marxism—what is popularly known as Obamacare. If you are from another country, please bear with me as we address this, because it does illuminate some of the ultimate issues between capitalism and socialism.

America is now mobilizing for war. We are gathering the necessary resources, positioning them, and making what we believe will be effective plans against our enemy÷terrorism. As we have discussed, the civil government has a different mandate than the church. The church is also now mobilizing for war, but our war is different. Because it is quite obvious that this attack on America was diabolical in nature, this is a spiritual war as well. We must mobilize for the spiritual war. How do we do that? How do we train and prepare? What are our weapons, and how do we use them?

     This week we will continue with some of the most challenging statements of the Lord that involve our discipleship. This is not intended to make it harder than it is, but to make it as hard as it really is. Not to see it as it is can put us in the greatest jeopardy of all. A basic goal I have is to stand at the Judgment Day and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (see Matthew 25:21 NIV) not just for myself but for every one of you as well. 

      Overall, the body of Christ is walking in about 15 percent of the prophetic vision that we are called to have under the New Covenant. As we are told in II Corinthians 3, we are supposed to be experiencing more of the glory of God than Moses did. We are also told in Hebrews 7:22 that we have been given “a better covenant.” The greatest of what was experienced under the Old Covenant should be the floor of what we experience in the New Covenant.