The Coming Warring Church

© 2018 Arthur Gast All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN 978-1-54395-515-6 eBook 978-1-54395-516-3

Contents

DEDICATION AND INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

AMERICA—NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN NATION?

CHAPTER 2

SATAN SIFTING

CHAPTER 3

BE A HATER

CHAPTER 4

DECLARATION OF WAR

CHAPTER 5

RATTLE OF THE BONES

CHAPTER 6

THE LORD IS A WARRIOR

CHAPTER 7

CLASH OF TWO KINGDOMS

CHAPTER 8

THE ARMY OF THE LORD

CHAPTER 9

A NEW LEASE

CHAPTER 10

CHECKMATE

THE END

EPILOGUE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NOTES

DEDICATION AND INTRODUCTION

This book is dedicated to Desaree Humphrey from Tampa, Florida. I met Desaree in 1977 at the young age of 18 at the church my family attended. She was also about my age but was very spiritually mature for her young age. When I was introduced to her by my sister, she almost immediately spoke these words to me: The Lord says that your whole life will be about Ezekiel 37. After saying these words to me, she went her way visiting other people and left me by myself.

I quickly found my Bible and sat down. I knew that Ezekiel wasn’t in the New Testament but I still had to use the index to find Ezekiel in the Old Testament. Turning pages through unfamiliar Old Testament books, I finally found Ezekiel. I read Ezekiel chapter 37 for the first time in my life. I was told that the words of the Bible were alive, living words, but the words of Ezekiel chapter 37 were as though they lifted from the page and entered into my heart. They were burned into me. They became alive in me. From that moment on, whenever I read Ezekiel 37, the words would stir inside me.

At the time when Desaree spoke those forever-life-changing words to me, the Nation and the Church were experiencing The Jesus Movement. Young people by the thousands were turning to Christ. It was a spiritual movement that got national attention. During The Jesus Movement, the main theme was that Jesus was returning soon. Christ was going to return and rapture His Church to heaven. Every time I heard this, the words of Ezekiel 37 would rise up within me. I knew that the prophetic words of Ezekiel must first come to pass before Christ’s return. All through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, until this present time, the words of Ezekiel chapter 37 have only become stronger and more alive to me. Ezekiel chapter 37, I believe, is a picture of Christ’s Church maturing and coming to power. The Church, as it comes to maturity, will be unified and completely dedicated to her head—Jesus Christ. She (the Church) will become known as The Warring Church. Like Jesus, The Church will wage war against evil, the Kingdom of Darkness, and it will prevail. The Warring Church will change every aspect of culture, government, education, entertainment, and will bring wholesale changes to nations.

This book is about the ascension of The Warring Church: a new, but very different Jesus Movement. I never saw Desaree Humphrey again after that initial introduction in 1977 until 36 years later. I am very grateful to her.

CHAPTER 1

AMERICA—NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN NATION?

I remember when I first heard in 2008 then President Barak Obama give a speech that stated, America is no longer a Christian Nation. ¹ I remember the emotions I felt, which were many: anger, disbelief, shock, and even fear. Anger and disbelief because I grew up in what my experience was Christian America. I was educated in Christian America and remember my teachers in elementary school who often had Bibles on their desks. We were taught the Ten Commandments and often Bible stories and lessons. I grew up in the northern state of Wisconsin where the majority of my high school friends were either Catholic or Lutheran. There was no denying that Christian lessons and Christian principles were woven into the school curriculum and were reinforced daily through The Pledge of Allegiance. Daily, we spoke consciously or even unconsciously that we are One Nation Under God.

My parents always attended church services, most of the time twice a week. Attending church was not an option. It was expected of me to honor and respect God on the Sabbath by attending church. The majority of people I knew during my teen years attended church. So yes, the first emotion I felt when I heard the then President’s words was anger. Anger because based on my fifty plus years of life here in America, no way was the President’s declaration true. I felt disbelief that a President of the United States would even say such a thing! I was shocked. Then I returned to being angry again. Finally, the emotion of fear surfaced. What if the President’s statement was true? There was no denying that America was not the fervent Christian nation it had been in the past. Upon hearing President Obama’s declaration that sent shockwaves of emotions through me, I knew without knowing the statistics that Americans attended church less than they did in recent decades before. I also knew that the removal of God and Christian values from the public education system had taken its toll. God, the Bible, or the Ten Commandments were no longer introduced or taught to the generations after mine.

Could it be true what President Obama had declared? America was no longer a Christian nation? It is debatable as to what the President’s exact words were or his intent was. The 2008 speech that I heard and made reference to was probably from a clip of a speech he gave in 2006. How I heard the clip, whether from the news on television or radio, I cannot remember. The President’s remarks stating that America is no longer a Christian nation was followed by the comment, At least not just a Christian nation, or not just a Jewish nation, or not just Muslim nation. In my opinion, the latter part of his statement still is a declaration minimizing or marginalizing Christianity in America.

In a speech President Obama delivered in the Muslim nation of Turkey in April of 2009, he again asserted, We have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation, or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens.² This speech, in my opinion, clearly unveils the President’s belief and intent—that even though America may indeed still have a majority of Christian population, the nation is not really a Christian nation or does not consider itself a Christian nation. Again it is my opinion that the President’s intent was to diminish the influence of Christians and the church in the American society and culture.

The Stats

The statistics on Christian America in 2008 are not what they were, say, in the 1960s. However, they are nowhere near total minority status either. A 2008 poll conducted by Trinity College, called the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008), states that 76% of American adults claimed to be Christians; only 3.9% of American adults claim to belong to other religions.³

In other polls, the findings are that 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, while only 36% of them attend church services once a week. Even worse, only 9% of Christians in 2008 said that their religion was the most important thing in their lives. We are left to conclude that if the poll is somewhat accurate, then 91% of Christians in America regard other things to be more important than their faith.

If we look at our past, we can examine why the President’s remarks were so shocking to me and my generation. According to a Gallup poll taken in 1965, the year I was in the second grade, 95% of the American population identified themselves as Christians. In 1976, the year I graduated from high school, 90% of Americans were still of the Christian faith according to Gallup.⁴ The 1965 and 1976 Gallup poll statistics can easily prove my previous premise that the public education system during my education years was heavily influenced by Christianity and Christian values. With the 2008 ARIS poll showing that Christians in America had declined to 76% of the population, one can see how that decline might have emboldened the previous President to declare America’s non-Christian status.

This book is not an argument to disprove President Obama’s painful proclamation. This book is not a book of statistics that can be interpreted according to one’s prejudices. This book is not about what polls say or even what Presidents say. This book is about what I believe is the most important—what God says. This book is about personal prophetic experiences and dreams that I believe may be relevant to what the Lord is doing in His Church. I believe that polls and statistics are not very important to God. He has a plan. He has a will. God has always had a plan or agenda that He executes regardless what polls, Presidents, or other world leaders say. The experiences and dreams in this book are not written in fictional allegory. I have written them exactly as how I received them. I am writing them as accurately as I can.

I believe the Lord speaks to His people in many different ways. The most common way God communicates with us is through His written word. The word of God is spirit, living words that will speak to our hearts. When we read the Bible, God’s word, oftentimes a passage will come alive to us. Jesus in Revelations 19:13 is actually called THE WORD OF GOD. Jesus also said:

My sheep (my people) hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

Jesus is the living Word of God and that Word has a voice, our Lord’s voice. When we read God’s word, when we pray, when we worship the resurrected Christ, it is common that we will hear His voice, because He is alive.

Other ways in which the Lord speaks to us is by Biblical prophetic experiences. Dreams, visions, and even trances are all documented in the Bible. These experiences are increasingly becoming more common in Christians’ lives. The Book of Acts states:

And it shall be in the last days, says God, that I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. (Acts 2:17, New International Version)

In this book, I do share some of the prophetic experiences that I have had. I also share what I believe some of the experiences and dreams mean. I would like to also disclose that I do not have all the understanding of what God is saying in these prophetic experiences. The Bible states we know in part (I Corinthians 13:9). I know that I do not have the full interpretation of the dreams that I have had and share in this book. In fact, others reading this book may actually have more understanding or revelation of the dreams and experiences that I have had.

This book is about what I see coming on the horizon for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. A coming change that is so tremendous that it will transition the Church from obscurity to the most powerful entity on Earth. The transformation of the Church will totally transform the world. The change shall be historic. The Church will change cultures, economies, educational systems, and governments in every nation on Earth. The transformational change of the Church is just as astounding as the transformational change the Israelites made when they were slaves in Egypt. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for 400 years but made a 40 year transitional and transformational change from slaves to soldiers. This book is about the transition of the Church as we have known it. I am uncertain of the timeline, the time of the transition. But I am certain of the inevitable transformation that God will bring. For 400 years, Israel was only known as a slave nation. Easily controlled, contained, having no influence upon the world. Then scriptures say, and God came down to deliver them (Exodus 3:8). It was the intervention of God that transformed Israel from slaves to soldiers. It will be the Lord’s intervention that will transform His Church that now is easily controlled, easily contained: a church without much influence. Today’s Church has been declared a dying institution by today’s heads of state. The Lord will transition and transform His present-day Church from its slave-like condition into THE WARRING CHURCH. The coming Warring Church will not only change history, it will change everything.

CHAPTER 2

SATAN SIFTING

W hy is this happening to me? What is going on? These two questions would run continuously through my mind. I would wake up each morning and these two questions were my first thoughts. Why is this happening to me? What is going on? would be my primary thoughts during the day. At each painful concluding day, when I laid down to go