Statement for 2001
On December 3, 2001, twenty-eight Christian leaders with national and international ministries gathered for three days to seek the Lord for clarity and direction concerning the critical issues of our times. This is a statement of the consensus of this meeting that was drafted by Rick Joyner.
Part: I
On the Authority Of Governments
I am going to begin a series of bulletins on "The Worst That Can Happen," and "The Best That Can Happen," but first I need to address the following important issue.
Because the Lord has already spoken to us about the events that are now coming to pass, we have been researching prophetic words previously published by us. I have been amazed, and encouraged by how clearly the Lord has spoken about them, and given us directions on how to be prepared for what is to come. We will be republishing many of these words in future bulletins, and even republishing some of our prophetic books such as The Harvest, and Epic Battles of the Last Days, adding to them the now abundant additional understanding that we have.
I confess that I personally have a problem hearing people say that Islam is a peaceful religion. Any religion that has a doctrine which states that if someone leaves that religion they should be killed cannot be considered peaceful. That is terrorism in its most basic, and oppressive, form. However, there is more than one face to Islam, just as there are presently many faces to Christianity. It is wrong for us to judge any person or group by their most extreme elements.
The real battle we are fighting is against fear. Evil people want to control the world through fear. As one of our great President of war once said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." To the degree that fear controls our actions, that is the degree to which fear has become our lord.
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?
As covered in a previous bulletin, there is a different mandate given to the government than to the church.
The United States Army has a doctrine that has been called "The Three Critical Questions," which should be asked in any situation that requires action, and certainly in this present crisis. These questions are:
1) What is happening?
2) What is not happening?
3) What can we do about it?
Though some of the principles I am about to address can be applied on a wider basis, I am directing them to Christians as a spiritual perspective in relation to how the church should respond to them.
There are events in history that are defining moments by which we can judge the true nature of many people, organizations, and governments. The terrorists attacks last Tuesday were one of those events in which the true nature of many will be revealed.
Isaiah 30:25-33 seems to address directly the World Trade Center tragedy:
