Epic Battles Of The Last Days Order Printed Copy

Author: Rick Joyner
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About the Book

"Epic Battles of the Last Days" by Rick Joyner is a book that explores the spiritual battles that are said to take place in the end times. Joyner delves into biblical prophecies and presents insights on how believers can effectively engage in these battles through prayer, worship, and spiritual warfare. The book highlights the importance of preparing for the challenges that are to come and offers encouragement for those facing spiritual warfare.

Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer was a pioneer in the field of apologetics and the development of a Christian response to the anti-supernaturalism which dominated western thought in the 20th century. He worked out a biblical and evangelical philosophy which proved to be a challenging alternative to emptiness and despair which characterised secular Europe at that time. Schaeffer also understood that the cultural shift was especially reflected in the arts and was able to help a number of us who were trying to develop a Christian approach to creativity in these influential areas of life. Here, Ray Evans, of Grace Community Church, Bedford, provides us with a brief overview of Schaeffer's contribution to Christian thought and action. Francis Schaeffer became one of the most influential Christian leaders of the twentieth century. He came from a humble working-class background in Philadelphia, studied under Gresham Machen at Westminster Seminary for a while, was the pastor of some small churches in the USA, and then spent most of his life in Europe, to which he had come at the end of World War 2 as a missionary. Never seeking 'fame' or 'a name', God used him to help his church at a time when she faced, and still faces, the massive challenges brought about wherever western culture and 'worldview' have spread. Married to Edith, and blessed with four children of their own, the Schaeffers settled in total obscurity in Switzerland. Initially they lived at Champéry, but the Roman Catholic officials of that canton requested they leave and they moved to what became their home for many years, the tiny village of Huémoz in the canton of Vaud. The thrilling story of how God opened the way for them to move there and start the distinctive ministry called 'L'Abri' (French for 'Shelter') is told in a book of that name. It is a 'must read' book! They were determined to demonstrate several things in the ministry of L'Abri. First there was to be a true outworking of trust and dependence on God in all circumstances - a demonstration that the unseen supernatural world really exists. So, for example, they committed themselves to prayer, asking that God would send the individuals to them that would find their ministry helpful, and that God would provide all necessary resources of money, housing personnel and so on. They saw, and the work continues to see, real and powerful answers because, as he would often say, 'God is there'. Francis' book 'True Spirituality' (again another superbly helpful book) was born out of the desire to show what really living a Christian life looks like when we 'moment by moment rely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who is given to us because of the finished work of Christ on the cross'. Then they wanted to demonstrate that Christianity has true and reasonable answers to the questions of the human heart. He, Edith and the growing family of children (which in time included sons-in-law such as the author Ranald Macaulay) found themselves inundated with young people that 'God sent'; people with dark confusion in their minds and deep hurts and problems in their souls. Too often Schaeffer was written off because others caricatured him as 'an intellectual' and not 'earthed' in real life. Perhaps this was because some of his earliest books that were released to the general public ('The God Who is There', 'Escape from Reason', and 'He is There and He is not Silent') grappled with the 'big ideas' that hugely affect modern Western life. These ideas were not couched in conventional religious terms, or they were ideas that most pastors would avoid. Yet young people in large numbers found someone who could talk their language and could demonstrate that the Bible had answers that made sense, and which met our deepest spiritual needs. He wrote several books and preached many messages (these are still available through the L'Abri tape ministry), that are great examples of Biblical exposition. One of my favourites is 'Joshua and the Flow of Biblical History' which gives a flavour of what it must have been like to sit under his clear thinking mind and pastorally warm heart. The answers that he showed the Bible gives have stood several generations of evangelical Christians in good stead as they in turn seek to help modern people understand the gospel and feel its power. The Schaeffers also wanted to show that Christianity is not 'dehumanising' but makes us what we should be - 'whole' people in true 'community' with one another. This community life will never be perfect (he used to say "If it's perfection or nothing, it will always be nothing in this life"), but there can be real and substantial 'healing' - in our innermost being, in our relationships with one another, with the wider world, and with the environment. L'Abri and each local church/community of Christians should be like a 'pilot plant' which shows what life could be like when the primary relationship - that with our Maker - is restored on the basis of 'the finished work of Christ plus nothing'. Too often the church has ended up being nothing more than a conventional institution where religiosity, and not vibrant Christianity, is dominant. His was a clarion call to true reformation and genuine spirituality. Later in life, Schaeffer turned in his speaking and writing to some of the big moral challenges of our age. Years before others woke up to the problems, he could see where dominant secularism was taking whole cultures: to the devaluing of human life both at its beginning and at its end; to a proud and defiant declaration of 'autonomy' in our sexuality; to a creeping compromise in the church about God's authoritative and trustworthy revelation (what he called 'true truth' [true in all that it affirms about history and science and not just in the 'spiritual ideas']); and to a general malaise in the population as a whole where the majority would settle for 'personal peace and affluence'. He predicted that most would put up with any amount of moral change and evil as long as it was 'Not In My Back Yard' and as long as there was ongoing material prosperity to keep filling the dull ache of the soul. The 'Christian base' which for so long had informed Western thinking and public life would become only a folk memory as secularism gradually became dominant. The ruling elites, who are in place in all areas of the culture - politics and the bureaucracy of the modern state, the judiciary, the universities, the arts and media - have their thinking and action informed by a 'worldview' where the God of the Bible and our Lord and Saviour are relegated to 'personal prejudice only'. He is not allowed to influence anything significant according to this outlook. Indeed that 'tolerance of a belief in God' can soon become an antipathy to any mention of his claims on us, and that can get enshrined in public law and attitudes. All this sounds familiar now doesn't it, but it was almost unthinkable when he spoke about it in the 60s and 70s. Tragically we are now living with many of the consequences he so powerfully preached and wrote about. Though some of his writings now feel a bit dated (he used lots of contemporary illustrations to show his main points were anchored in 'real life'), many of them are still enormously helpful. They are biblical, sane, wise and insightful. They are passionate, heartfelt and godly. They are full of lament at sin, and sorrow at 'lostness'; they are deeply imbued with love for God and Christ, and tender towards needy people. They are still a timely and necessary cry we should listen to. Too many others who have written on similar 'cultural analysis themes' lack Schaeffer's all round spiritual credibility. In a short life where one cannot hope to 'read everything' that Francis and Edith have written would repay the one who takes the trouble to delve into them handsomely. God greatly blessed this 'man and wife team', and they have put many of us in their debt as they shared those blessings in a life of gracious Christian self-giving. May you go on to prove that in your experience too as you learn from these faithful servants of their risen Lord. From Grace Maggazine,

my times are in your hand - learning to trust the speed of god

Did you know your head ages faster than your feet? Scientists have confirmed this, proving again that Albert Einstein was spot-on in his theories of relativity: the speed of time is relative to a particular frame of reference. For us terrestrials, that frame of reference is earth’s gravitational force. The higher up from the earth something is, the weaker the gravitational pull and the faster time moves. An implication of this is that we frequently put our trust in a frame of reference on time different from the one we experience. For instance, the Global Positioning System (GPS) we rely on to accurately and safely guide us as we pilot our cars, ships, planes, and spaceships only works because it’s programmed, based on Einstein’s theories of relativity, to compensate for the distance between earth and space. Without those formulas, our computers and smartphones would soon get disastrously out of sync with the GPS satellites, which orbit in a different time. Stick with me; I am going somewhere with this. How we experience time depends on our frame of reference. And our particular frame of reference is not always the one we should trust. In fact, sometimes it’s critically important that we trust another framing more than our own. One Day with the Lord For Christians, this concept is nothing new. Over three millennia ago, Moses wrote, A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4) And some two millennia ago, Peter wrote, Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8) In other words, time in God’s eyes moves at different speeds from time in our ours. And in the life of faith, it’s critically important that we learn to rely on God’s timing more than our own — to learn to trust the speed of God. How Long, O Lord? Learning to trust God’s timing is not easy, to say the least. This is partly due to our sin and unbelief. But it’s also because trusting a frame of reference different from ours is, by definition, counterintuitive. Since we can’t calculate God’s time, his timing often doesn’t make sense to us. That’s why after Peter described one God-day as being like a thousand years for us, he went on to say, “The Lord is not slow . . . as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9). The “some” he referred to were “scoffers” who mocked Christians’ hope in the return of Christ (2 Peter 3:3–4). But the truth is that all of us fit into the “some” category at times. I don’t mean as scoffers, but as children of God painfully perplexed by our heavenly Father’s apparent slowness. We cry out, “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1), wondering when he will finally fulfill some promise to which we’re clinging. So, Peter exhorts us, the “beloved” of God, not to “overlook” the fact that God-time is not man-time; therefore, God “is not slow” as man counts slowness (2 Peter 3:8–9) — as I sometimes count slowness. Indeed, he is not. God Is Not Slow Someone who has created such a thing as light speed, and who knows what’s happening in every part of a universe spanning some 93 billion light-years across, is clearly not slow. “It’s critically important that we learn to rely on God’s timing more than our own.” It’s also clear, however, that such a being as God operates on a very different timeline than we do — if timeline is even the right word. For God is not constrained by time. He is the Father of time (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16). He is “the Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:9), existing “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2). God is not in time ; time is in God (Acts 17:28; Colossians 1:17). The “thousand years” of Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 is just a metaphor, using a timeframe we can somewhat comprehend to communicate a reality we can’t. So, when the speed of God seems slow to us, or when his timing doesn’t make sense, we must “not overlook this one fact”: God-time is different from man-time. God-time is relative to his purposes, which is his frame of reference. And God, according to his wise purposes, makes everything beautiful in its time — the time he purposefully chooses for it. Time for Everything Everything beautiful in its time . I get that from Ecclesiastes 3:11: [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. This verse captures like no other both the mysterious nature of our experience of time, and the pointers God has placed within our frame of reference to help us trust the wisdom of his timing. In designing us with eternity in our hearts, the “eternal God” made us to know him (Deuteronomy 33:27). But in limiting the scope of our perspective and comprehension, he also made us to fundamentally trust him and not ourselves (Proverbs 3:5–6). This is how he means for us to know him: I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” (Isaiah 46:9–10) He is “the everlasting God” (Isaiah 40:28), “who works all things,” including all time everywhere, “according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). One clear way he reveals the wisdom of his purposes is how he has created, in our frame of reference, “a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1): a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3:2–4) God “made everything beautiful in its time.” The Hebrew word translated “beautiful” means appropriate , fitting , right . God’s “invisible attributes” can be “clearly perceived” in the created order we observe and experience (Romans 1:20). They reveal the wisdom of his purposes — a wisdom far beyond ours. And God intends them to teach us that his “beautiful” timing can be trusted, even when we don’t understand it. In the Fullness of Time God did not merely leave us to deduce his character and wisdom from nature. For “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4). In Jesus, the Creator of all stepped into terrestrial time, into our frame of reference (John 1:2). In fully human form, he “dwelt among us,” directly revealing the divine attributes with a “glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “Time in God’s eyes moves at different speeds than time in our ours.” While here, he performed many signs and wonders and proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14–15). As he did so, he displayed the marvelous wisdom of the timing of God, often in ways that surprised and confused his followers (John 4:1–42; 11:1–44). Then, when his time had come (John 12:23), Jesus obeyed his Father to the point of death on a cross, “offer[ing] for all time a single sacrifice for sins.” And then he was raised from the dead and “sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Hebrews 10:12–14). As his followers, we also wait. We wait for the Father to “send the Christ appointed for [us], Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:20–21). Trust the Speed of God As we wait, two thousand years later (or two God-days), we help each other remember, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward [us], not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) Yes, we must frequently help each other remember: God-time moves at different speeds than ours. God works all things, at all times, in all places, in all dimensions, after the counsel of his will to accomplish all his purpose. God has a purposeful time for everything, and he makes everything beautiful in its time. However God chooses to use our times, it’s critically important that we learn to trust his timing over the relative and unreliable earthbound perspective that shapes our expectations. Our times, like all times, are in God’s hand (Psalm 31:15). This is what it means to live by faith in relation to time. In choosing to trust the speed of God, we humble ourselves under his mighty, time-holding hand. According to 1 Peter 5:6–7, the amazing reward of choosing to embrace such joyful, peaceful, childlike trust in God is that he will exalt us at the proper time.