VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
YOUR MISSION - GOD'S ARMY
[music] This is Viewpoint with Attorney and Author Chuck Chris Meyers. Viewpoint is a one-hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Chris Meyers. We used to sing a song "Onward Christian Soldiers." "Onward Christian Soldiers," marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Don't sing that song much anymore. Our young people don't have much of a concept of what it means to be a soldier for Christ. I remember a number of years ago when my father passed away. He had been involved as a pastor for 50 years and another 20 years in hospital chaplaincy. And when he passed away, I asked the Lord, "Who was my father from your viewpoint, Lord? Who was my father?" And his answer immediately to me was he was a soldier of the cross, a soldier of the cross. And as I thought about that, and I thought about how my father pastored in the music that he loved to lead the congregation in, I realized that is indeed who my father was, a soldier of the cross. Lifting high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss. So I have a question for you though. Who are you in the kingdom of God? Do you consider yourself a soldier of the cross? Because in reality, every single one of us is called to that. Jesus said, "If you're not willing to take up your cross daily, you can't even be my disciple." So have you enlisted in God's army? Now, don't answer too quickly, friends, because enlisting in God's army has a lot of things that are implied there, and many Christians, if not most Christians in the West, in the United States of America don't have a real clue. Just don't. And so today on Viewpoint, hopefully some of those clues will be unveiled as Colonel David Giamona joins us here on Viewpoint with his book, "Your Mission in God's Army, Discovering and Completing Your Faithful Assignment Before Christ's Return." Colonel, it's good to have you on the program. Chuck, it's a pleasure to be with you, and I think we're going to have a great conversation today. Well, you know, what's interesting is that on both sides of my family, we have a bit of a soldier idea. Now, get in line, be aware that yours truly here has never been in the military. Never. Although I have very realistically been enlisted in God's army since I was five years of age. And the longer I live, the more I realize that that enlistment has tremendous implications. But going back into my life, my father was an evangelist with the Salvation Army. My mother was playing the piano for this evangelistic crusade. Their eyes met, and the rest is history. So my father grew up in a Salvation Army home, both he and his father and his mother were Salvation Army officers. On my mother's side, both of her parents were Salvation Army officers. And so there's a sense in which I can have at least a little bit of relationship, a camaraderie, with Colonel David Giamona, even though I've never been in any military involvement. Is that possible, David? Oh, absolutely. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you're automatically signed up with the Army and God. And having fellowship and, of course, Salvation Army, I don't know a lot about the organization, but it sounds very, has a lot of discipline, purpose, strategy, and that's what the Army is all about. Yeah, well, it used to have a lot more discipline and purpose in the Kingdom of God in the days of its founding over there in not so jolly old England. But today it's kind of morphed a bit, just like our own Army. Right. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And a lot of these are morphing. And the battle lines are being drawn, Chuck. So you're on one side of the Army or the other. So, yeah, I got you. I understand it. And that's all part of what's going on in these end times before the coming of the Lord. All right. You mentioned the end times. I don't think that you would have put that on the cover of your book before Christ's return if you were not convinced that we're living in those times. Oh, absolutely convinced. And people asked me, well, we've been talking about the end times for 2000 years, which is accurate. That's true. But the key is May 14, 1948, Israel becomes a nation. And I can't take the whole new meaning because no one believed up in that time the Israel would ever become a nation, but the Bible said it would happen. And it had happened. Well, indeed, and those of us who have enlisted, if you have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and are walking with him as Lord, then it's clear you have enlisted in his army for such a time as this. So the words that we get from Queen Esther there having to stand in the times of Haman seeking to destroy Israel. We're the same kind of times today in which there are forces out there that are increasingly seeking to destroy not only the Jewish people, but also Christians. Yeah, absolutely check. I mean, as the everyday progresses, the forces of evil and darkness around the world are tightening its grip against Christians and Jews around the world. And it looks like the whole world with the Bible declares the whole world is really aligned up against Israel in these end times. And so it's almost like watching a movie as it unfolds. It's one thing after another as we progress through to the coming of the Lord. Well, it's high drama at the OK Corral, as they might say, just a week or so ago, we had one of the premier, in fact, the premier broadcasting voice in English from Jerusalem on this program. Tamara Yona, and she said, Chuck, if your listeners don't get it, what we're experiencing here in Israel, the battle that we're experiencing here is going to metastasize to you first with the Saturday people and then with the Sunday people don't think that you're exempted. And that's exactly where we are, isn't it, Colonel? Oh, absolutely. The persecution of the church has been going on for a long time around the world, and it's just only increasing. So there's persecution going on in many countries and a form of persecution is going on right here in America, as you can see. It's growing dramatically. I would say every day I have at least two or three more instances of clear persecution that are coming in this country against Christians. It comes in different ways. It doesn't come with lapping off your head. It comes with lapping off your career and other instances like that. So your book, your mission in God's army, the word mission, I think oftentimes it's used quite a bit in American churches today, but I think oftentimes the very essence of it is missed. This is a hard core calling that God has given to us in our lives, and we must continually salute the Lord as the captain of our salvation and of our faith. And if we don't, we're going to fall into a dangerous territory, and the territory is exceedingly dangerous, and we'll gobble up those who are not totally commit. We'll be right back for us. Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divourses were practically unknown as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Chris Mar and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues, touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org. Your mission in God's army. That's what we're talking about here today with our special guest, Colonel David Giamona, and it's such a delight to have him here on the program. I want to make his book available to you. For $19, it's on our website, saveus.org, saveus.org. You can give us a call at 1-800-SAVE-USA, 1-800-SAVE-USA, or write to us at Save America Ministries. P. O. Monk 7, 08 7 9, Richmond, Virginia 2, 3, 2, 5, 5, running a check at $5 for postage and handling. You want to discover your mission in God's army? Oftentimes, when you sign up, when you enlist, you thought you were going to get into one aspect, but the army says not so fast. I've got another idea for you. It could be that God has that for you, and we can't tell you exactly what that is, but quite frankly, he will. He will, if you have an ear to hear, understand his timing and are willing to obey his voice. Colonel, tell us a little bit about your background. We don't want to make it the focus of the program here, but how over you when you enter the military? I was in my late 20s, when I entered the military check, I was preparing for the army chaplaincy, and I graduated from the Masters with a Masters Divinity, and went into the army chaplaincy and did it for 32 years. Wow, okay, so you were 29 years old when you entered, but you had been preparing for this even before you went in. Oh, there's a great amount of preparation that goes into the army chaplain. Basically, it takes about 10 years. You get four years of calls, three years of seminary, and then a couple of years of experience as a pastor or minister or missionary, and then you're ready to go through the gates of the military. So, yeah, it takes quite a while to get prepared for it, absolutely. So what was your mindset, your heart set, when you actually did the signing up, so to speak? Well, it was a process. You know, I started, God spoke to me early on, I said, I was going to the military, and then I spoke to a chaplain recruiter in San Francisco, California. The package was, you know, like a foot fix. You have six weeks to fill out the documentation paper or get it in, so we can look at you to become a second lieutenant United States Army. So, it's quite a process, but you have to go to a physical fitness, you have to go to a military entrance processing station, lots of different gates and windows to go through before you actually, you know, go through and put on the uniform and serving in the US Army. Now, wait a minute, you had to go through all kinds of rigors, physical rigors, you have to have to be ready to, what, be with a regular Army folk? Right, and the chaplain corps has its own basic training, so once you're accepted onto active duty or into the chaplain fees, you go right now, you go to Fort Jackson, which is the chaplain school, and then you go through nine weeks of training, and then you get accessioned onto a unit after that. So, there are a lot of gates, they don't throw anybody in there and say, "Okay, you're ready to go," because it takes a lot. And rightfully so, because you're going to be with the front lines of the unit, so you'd be physically fit, spiritually fit, emotionally ready, and always be ready for the assignment. Well, I'm not convinced that most pastors these days are ready to be out there in the rough and tumble world with the people there's purporting to pastor. Oh, absolutely, they're not. Most churches are failing because, you know, even in seminary, they're not really teaching. So, you know, what it really needs to be a pastor and how to pastor, and the rigors of pastoring, you know, teaching a lot of theology, which is good, got that. But there's a lot of things that are left out that really should be in the process before you become a pastor. Well, I'll bet you had all this training and so on, and then when you got your first assignment, you said, "Okay, now what?" Am I right? Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what happened to me. When I graduated from law school, I went into a law office and he said, "Okay, here, this," and I said, "Now what?" And that's an important question, now what? Because once they assign you into a unit, you know, you don't ever stop training in the military. So, they keep training you throughout your whole. I did training for 32 years, but it's a continued process of becoming, you know, a great staff officer, a great spiritual person, a counselor, a mentor, and a physically fit. You took a test twice a year to be physically fit, so there are quite a few things, and then the now what comes, you get your own office in a unit, and then you really start working with these soldiers. It's quite an ordeal, really is. Did the soldiers that you are originally working with have respect for you, or do they just put off a colonel salute, or a lieutenant, colonel salute, or whatever you were second lieutenant? Yeah, I think in any situation you go into, and I'm no exception, you have to earn your respect, and you have to earn your credentials, even though I was an officer. You don't get automatic entry into everything, but once they've been supposed to see that you're with them, and you're training with them, and you're part of them, you care about them, you do earn their respect after time. David, have you noticed that so many people, I would say probably more than half of those who profess the name of Christ today in America, had this idea that, okay, well, I enlisted. Well, I'm born again. Well, I confess Christ is my savior, and now I'm on cruise mentality, and I'm in, and that's it. I'm going on with my life. Is that the attitude of a Christian? Yeah, no, it's not. You know, when Peter was called by Christ, that followed me, and I believe we've left that vocabulary out of our doctrine, because follow me means you've got to follow him every moment of every day, and you have to understand, obey his word, and follow him, and it's not just a Sunday morning, "Hey, I've got one hour with the Lord." It's an everyday, moment-by-moment relationship, born out of being born again. Now, the army has rules and regulations, does it not? Oh, yes, absolutely. Many. Many, yeah. Now, what happens if you decide to dis one of those rules and regulations, because you just don't like it? Well, you know, it just depends on the flagrancy of that violation, but if you decided, for example, that I've actually seen this happen to a chaplain, he couldn't take the war anymore, he got on a plane in Afghanistan, went back to Europe and flew home to the home base. It didn't go over well for a lot of reasons, but you can't just do your own thing in the army. You are under the commanding authority of the commander of that unit, and under the president's orders and under many different disciplines, you can't just do your own thing. There's leeway, there's, you know, freedom, but there's also strictness and discipline in the military. If there was, then we would remain war. Well, exactly. And isn't this the reason why so many professing Christians are collapsing in their Christian lives? They don't realize they were at war. They don't realize they've actually enlisted in God's army that they're a soldier of the cross. And so they're just doing their own thing. I made it. I'm in. I got the first stripe on my shoulder, and that's all I need. How do you respond to that, Colonel? Yeah, his, I respond. I think we've done a poor job in the church of training and discipling those who are being, we've made converts, lots and lots of converts. But we really haven't made true disciples. And that means mentoring somebody and helping them get into the Word of God, helping them in their walk, helping them find out who Christ really is, and what they've really signed up for. That's what Billy Graham said. I heard him on Billy, Billy, Larry King live, Larry King live a number of years ago, and Larry King asked Billy Graham. He said, now, you're so famous and you've been so successful. Obviously, there's nothing that you lament about your life and your ministry, and Billy Graham said, no, that's not true. He said, I lament that I put so much focus on evangelism and did not put the proper focus on discipleship. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, that's absolutely true. I've had some discussions with their folks over there at the Coe, Billy Graham's, the food station. That's exactly the conversation we've had with them, converts, but not making disciples. All right, so here you're a hospital. I'm not a hospital chaplain. That was my father. You're a chaplain in the United States Army, and you've gone through all this preparation. You've got the stripes on your shoulder, wherever you put those stripes. And now, what are you going to do? What is your role? What is your purpose? Help us to understand that a little more deeply. Yeah, so the role of an army chaplain is to bring soldiers to God and God to soldiers, and especially happens in war, where there's a great deal of uncertainty, fear. They want to know about their soul. We really excel in the very difficult trenches of warfare, and it's always my privilege to go to war a number of times with our soldiers, but we counsel them, we pray with them, we speak to them. We talk about the Bible to them, help them understand their spiritual needs and wants and desires. So, yeah, it's a great privilege to serve along our U.S. soldiers. Why is it then that the United States government and the Pentagon seems to have such antipathy toward chaplains, toward the Kingdom of God, toward righteousness, toward the authority of Christ in people's lives today? Now, good question. I worked in the Pentagon for four years, and there's some really great people in there, but the leadership of outside the army, the political leadership, especially civilian leadership, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, they have an agenda for sure. Their agenda's not always corresponding with the chaplains or with spirituality, or with even some of their commanders who are pretty conservative people, so there's a great deal of conflict about that all along the way. Yeah, and it's not just in the army, it's in the Air Force, it's in every branch of the military, and we've seen that, I watch it happen, it's very painful to watch that. And one wonders, if that is the attitude of those who are leading our military, then how can God possibly bless and ordain what we do? Well, God is not blessing and ordaining much of what we do. I, you know, people ask God's want to judge America, I think the judgments are already evident. Exactly. We're falling apart at the scenes, we're morally bankrupt. This is one of the most darkest times in American history, probably the history of the world, as far as spirituality. Even darker than the eclipse that you experienced in Dallas yesterday? Much so. I think that eclipse really just pointed toward the fact that God knows what's going on and the darkness is evident all around us. All right, friends, the book, Your Mission in God's Army. This is very important. The more we talk about it, the more I've looked at David's book, the more important this is for every single one of us. Do you have children? Do you have grandchildren? Do you have those that are relying and trusting you for spiritual leadership? We need to have a perspective. We need to have a viewpoint that we are in God's army. His mission is what we're about. This is not a lolligagant around Sunday, go to meet and kind of churchy and we're talking about. We're talking about real life following Jesus with a whole heart in every aspect of our life. So the question is, have you found that place in God's army? We want to talk about that in the second half of the program. Have you found your place in God's army? Why not? Are you even willing? Are you open to that? Are you afraid of it? Are you afraid you might be called into the trenches with the rest of God's people? Answer, you will. That's exactly the point. We're in the army now. Your gift of $19 a more to save America Ministries is going to put this tremendous book in your hands, your mission in God's army. And I hope you'll give us a call at 1-800-SAVE USA, 1-800-SAVE USA, right to us in save America Ministries, and $5 for close to you. [Music] There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meier and Save America Ministries on our website, SaveUS.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on his mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage, and morals. SaveUS.org. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at SaveUS.org. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea Project, saveUS.org. And many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website, saveUS.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's viewpoint broadcast live and archived, save America Ministries website at saveUS.org. [Music] Always a delight, a special privilege to be able to join you here daily, day after day, week after week for 29 years now. In front of the deepest issues of America's heart and home from God's eternal perspective, today we're talking about what it really means to be a soldier of the cross, to be part of God's army. You see, in the army, there are many different positions. I couldn't begin to list them for you because I don't know all that they are. But Colonel Geomono, our guest today, Dr. David, excuse me, Colonel David Geomono, could possibly give us some idea. Give us some idea as to what people might be looking at if they were to enlist in the army today. Just a handful. Yeah, there's a great amount of jobs. The big jobs, we call them trigger pullers, are the infantry, the army, artillery, air defense artillery, armor, which I was in a lot of these different units. And then there's the cooks and the support teams and medical teams. I mean, on and on it goes. There's really hundreds of military occupational specialties in the army and all for one thing. The port, those are pulling those triggers, firing those weapons so we can win the nation's wars. Yeah, and if we don't realize that we're in a battle, there's not going to be any victory. You can't have victory in Jesus without a battle, can you? No, and you know, this battle has been going since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve fell in the garden even. Oh, yeah. The warfare has gone on for thousands of years. It's just intensifying now. And there's no middle ground. You're in the kingdom of God or you're in a kingdom, Satan's light or darkness, but there is no middle ground. So you can't dance back and forth between secular and following the Lord? No, you cannot dance back and forth. Some people say, well, I'm on defense. No, you're not on defense. If you say you're on the fence, you're in the camp of the enemy, not in the camp of the Lord. Well, not only that, but it's a very dangerous thing, particularly if you're a man to be on the fence. It's very dangerous, friends. Believe me, it's very dangerous. You don't want to be on the fence. So choose you this day whom you're going to serve. Are you in the army of the Lord or not? No messing around. What happens if a person is in the army but doesn't act like they're in the army? Then what, Colonel? Well, I've seen that in the chapel and I've helped process out many people's soldiers that were not fit to be in the army. And it happened. And so they went through the basic training. They got through a certain level and then we had to process them out because they couldn't make it, couldn't cut it. They couldn't act right. They didn't have the discipline. There's so many reasons why to be thrown out of the army. But the army is looking for those reasons. They don't want soldiers there without the discipline. And Jesus doesn't want any in his army either that aren't with him. He said, "If you're not with me, you're against me, didn't he?" That's exactly right. Well, that sounds like pretty tough talk for these troubled times when all we've done since 1970s is preach God is love. Well, the army loves their soldiers, but they still want them to be soldiers. No, that's right. And you know, Jesus said two things that are really important that we forget about. He said the road to destruction, the road to hell, tradition is wide and many go that way. But the road to heaven is very narrow and you find that road. You have to be really cognitive of that. Indeed, we do. Now, one of the things I suspect that you've run across over and over again is soldiers that are struggling with their marriages. They've left a spouse back in the States or wherever they are. And it's a tough thing. It's a tough thing. And the soldiers are tempted, tested and tempted. They get involved, where they should not be involved. The problem also is temptation for wives or husbands that are on the shores here. How do you deal with that? How great a problem is that? Well, the army sent me to get a master's of science and counseling and marriage and family therapy. And I was a marriage and family therapist as a family life chap for three years, but over 3000 hours of that. So I understand completely one of the jobs is to train our soldiers. How did he marry? And what to expect these difficult times? And I did lots and lots of counseling with that. But the stresses of the military are enormous. Yeah, enormous. You have to move. You have to deploy the war. You have to leave it, go train. And so family members have to be strengthened. So there's a great deal emphasis in the military on strengthening our families because of the stressors of war. Well, the same is true, I think, when you're a soldier in God's army. One of the things that I find is that having been grown up in a pastor's home and then having taught school for nine years in California and then practice law for 20 years with 80% of my clientele comes in for the broader body of Christ and then pastoring in so many different ways since then. What I've discovered is that parents and grandparents who give you the sense that they are in Christ, they're just not preparing their children to live a disciplined life. They just are not preparing them to be in God's army. What say you? Well, that's one of the reasons we wrote the book because we wanted to put it in the hands of young people and parents that would study together. What does this mean? You can't tell your children you can be anything you want. That's not the way the King of God works. God has a divine purpose in the assignment for each one of us. He has created us in our DNA. And so what I would tell parents, get the book and children read and all the things about what is God needs you to be? How is He put you together? What are your passions? What God created in you to be an assignment in the Kingdom? Many things to talk about here. Absolutely. In fact, you have a quote. There is no such thing as chance and what seems to us nearest accident springs from the deepest sorts of destiny. And I think oftentimes when people say, well, you know, I want to follow the Lord. I want to do something. I want to be a doer of the word. And so they aspire to become a pastor or a missionary or something like that. But the army does not have a lot of generals. The army doesn't have a lot of lieutenant colonels. The army has a lot of soldiers and they're all necessary to accomplish the mission, aren't they? So that's right. There's a hierarchy of command and, of course, in the Christian world, Christian Church, the Lord is the commander of the heavenly host. And we're to follow his orders. None of us really are. He is the general. You know, we're enlisted to follow him and we teach soldiers this all the time. You got to follow the doctrines of the army and the soldiers we follow the doctrines of God and the Bible. So there's a lot of parallels here that we're talking about. And if you don't, if you diss what the army says, if you diss what your superior says, you are in serious danger of being considered a rebel in the army. Is the army welcoming rebels? No, I mean, actually, they're always looking to get you out of the army. They're always looking to refining the process because they cannot afford. And that's why they don't want to draft, by the way, a draft in Vietnam was a disaster because there are a lot of people there that want to be in the military and what the generals want are people that want to be here and volunteer to be here. They want to fight for the country. So let's just do that and get rebels and try to discipline them. Well, God doesn't draft anybody into his army. He has a arm that's reached out to you, but you have to choose. Choose you this day whom you will serve. And quite frankly, that choice has to be made daily. Even though you say you're committed, what do we call it when a soldier decides, you know what? Yeah, I signed up, but today I want to be at the beach. We call that a wall absent without leave, don't we? That's correct. You don't get to choose where you're going to be and how you're going to do it. That choice is already made when you signed up to be on in the army. And same as in the Christian world. A lot of people say, well, I want to do this and I want to do that. Well, God knows you better than yourself. He knows exactly where you fit into what you should be doing. He has a lot more wisdom than us. So we have to trust him that he knows what he's doing when we're following him. I happen to believe in the convinced that God will give us the desires of our heart if we're truly following him, truly trusting him. But we don't necessarily know fully what the desires of our heart really are because the heart of man is desperately wicked who could know it. So that has to be defined and refined by the Holy Spirit over time, doesn't it? Yes, I think it's not a one time commitment. Well, I'm in the army and now I just can do whatever I want. It's every day we have to get up and make a decision. I'd like it to Adam and Eve, you know, they chose at one point to eat of the fruit that God said not to eat of. That was the choice they made on a particular occasion and everybody gets mad at them. But I say this, every day we've got to make choices whether we're going to follow Christ or not. And so I want to choose that every day. I want to be a follower of Jesus. It's not a one time thing. It's a over time process of learning to be a disciple and follower of Christ. I want to share a few things with you concerning my own life and see if this would match any estimation that you would think that God was guiding the on mission. I went to a Christian college, graduated number one in my class, then taught school for nine years during the Vietnam War. After that went to law school in the evening for four years, practice law for 20 years, and shortly before I, well, actually right after I began to practice law, I felt the Lord calling me to run for office. So I ran for office in Southern California. In fact, I ran twice. And then in 1993, the Lord spoke to my heart again, said, son, you've been pleading the cause of men long enough. I want you to plead my cause to the land as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation. We formed Save America Ministries. We started this radio program 30 years ago. Did I miss it? Are all those things out of the order? Or is that how God works to help us to discover the things that he wants us to do? We'll be right back. Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore first century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, I'll build my church. Is Christ by His Spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family, and it was said by all who observed, behold how they loved one another. Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click sell church. We can revive first century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's saveus.org. Click sell church. The plans and purposes of God are often revealed not all at once, but unfurled like a flag over time. Colonel, those are your words in the chapter called plans and purposes. Sounds an awful lot like my life. What say you? Yeah, listen to your life. And that's exactly right. God doesn't give everything to us at once. In fact, when He called me into the army, the first thing He said to me, he said, I want you in the military, and I didn't know what that meant. What's military branch? What is it going to do? But as I just followed God slowly, every day, He would make a claim, okay, this is where you go, and this is what you do. And so it doesn't give us everything you want. It's unfurled like a flag. It unfolds like a flower, fragrant. So every moment, we're just seeking God and either preparing for a minister or doing the ministry of whatever God has called us. Whether it's a janitor or a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever it is. God leads us. He guides us. It's not always clear. It's not always perfect. Sometimes it's messy, but we're just developing that relationship more than anything else, and that's the divine purpose in our lives. In other words, we have to walk with God, and we have to hear His voice. We walk and we listen. We walk and we listen. We walk and we listen. And then He speaks with a still small voice, and that's what's happened to me numerous times in my wife and I have reiterated so much of our journey over the years. Why did I have to go through certain things? Why did we have to go through certain things? Then we discovered we had to do those things as difficult as they were or even dangerous potentially. We had to do those things in order to be prepared. I think of four years of rock climbing and mountaineering in my early 20s. Why? What was that moment? Well, it was to teach me endurance and discipline. If I had not had that, I'm not sure I could have persisted over 30 years to do this radio program. We just never know how God is going to use certain things, do we? No, and interesting enough, I was telling this to another show. After going through the process, I was in basic training for Japanese, and I was in a night infiltration course. I was low-falling through the mud, the water, real machine gun, both reflowing over our heads, flying over our heads, and bombs bursting. And I'm thinking right there in the middle of all things, why did I sign up for this? Why did you? You didn't know at the time, did you? No, I didn't know at the time, and I was doubting yet, but if you keep persevering, you keep progressing, God's never said our assignment was going to be easy, Chuck. Why is everybody just talking about the blessing and they're not talking about the burden that goes with the blessing? Yeah, well, that's a good question, and we pastors don't do our people, they do us a great disservice by saying everything's going to be rosy. It's not always rosy, life is not rosy, but it's rewarding if we're just following the Lord and keep doing the assignment that God's given us. Well, you've indicated several times now that we're in the end times, Christ's return is around the corner, we don't know which corner it is, but it's around some corner here shortly, and we're entering a time of a more dangerous mission, and a lot of that involves persecution. We're told Jesus said, if they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you, why do you think you should be different than your Lord? I mean, here he was the commander in chief, and he went through persecution, and then the Apostle Paul said in this life you're going to have persecution, so get ready, don't think it's a strange thing, Peter said the same thing. So I wrote in my new book, when persecution comes, three chapters dealing with parents. Three chapters dealing with parents, one, how parents deal with persecution, preparing their children for this time of, shall we say, spiritual warfare? A whole chapter on fathers, and how fathers need to prepare, and what happens when you have, well, you have some rebellion in the ranks, even in your own family. Now what are you going to do? And this is real life stuff. The Bible tells us about these things, but we're in America, we're so Pollyanna about life that we just don't quite understand the nature of the spiritual warfare that we're about to be engaged in, do we? No, millions of our brothers and sisters around the world are already engaged in persecution. Absolutely. Yeah, and don't think for one moment we're going to escape back because we live in the United States. Those days are coming to a fast close, and we must prepare. That's what we're all about, the Lord told me two things, prepare the church, and warn the world of my coming. Love that, love that, say it again. Yeah, the Lord spoke to me clearly in your vision, he said, I want you to prepare the church and warn the world of my coming. And that's coming from a colonel in the United States Army. Wow, 32 years in the Army, right? That is correct. And you still haven't resigned from God's Army and there's no retirement, is there? There is no retirement, retirement's a farce, it's a fallacy. If you're in God's Army, until you graduate the heaven, you get to work until the very last moment. It may be different, it may be a different type of mission, but even if you're 95 years old, God still has a work for you to do until he takes you home. One of the things that attracted me about your book in the title was you didn't just say something like Christians on mission, or were on mission. That's a very common phrase. You said your mission in God's Army, that's what caught my attention, because there just doesn't seem to be a sense of that kind of loyalty, that kind of allegiance, and if you don't have that depth of commitment and allegiance, you are going to be destroyed in the face of enemy fire, aren't you? Yeah, it takes a real commitment to be in the United States Army, and even more commitment to be in God's Army. But there is a commitment that we have to be challenged with, and like I said, it's an everyday commitment, it's a mission that God has for us, not just for one day, but for our entire lives, and the Bible clearly says a lot of the things God has placed us in us and through us, it helps us with endurance and preparation, and to keep going in the matter, because the enemy is out there, the enemy gets a vote check, depression, anxiety, fear, all those things, so that's what we've got to do, we've got to face that. Well, that's why Jesus said, "He that adures to the end shall be saved." Exactly, you got to press on, maybe friends, you have not been acting like you were in God's Army, and the Spirit of the Lord is speaking to you even now, it'll be just very much like the Apostle Paul, you see, who he thought he was doing the right thing, but he was actually persecuting Christians. Then God had to knock him off his high horse to get his attention, and then Paul says, "Now, forgetting those things which are behind, I can't repeat those things, I can't undo them, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." And that's what our calling is today, isn't it, Colonel? Oh, that's exactly right, and it's every day pressing in, you know, the Apostle Paul, if you look at his life, you know, early on Jesus told that person there in Book of Acts, Ananias, he said, "I must show Paul how much he must suffer from my name's sake." Well, that doesn't sound like a very sexy mission, or glorious kitchen, it sounds like a lot of pain, and Paul was in shipwreck, he was beaten, he was stoned to death. I mean, on a novel Paul went, but that was the mission God had for him, and, you know, he did it. You have a co-author Troy Anderson, he tried to join us here, we weren't able to bring you on, tell us about Troy. Troy is just a wonderful person, we met in 2018 for our first book, the military died to Armageddon, and God had given him that vision about preparing the church, and then God, you know, put us together, he's a great co-author, he does a lot of investigations, and interviews, and editing alongside myself, and just a great co-worker in the Kingdom of God. Nice to have somebody like that, we need somebody to encourage us to be alongside, speaking of being alongside, you have kids? Absolutely. How many? I have three children and seven grandchildren. Wow, and are any of them in the military? My son was eight years in the U.S. Army infantry from the State of Georgia, and deployed to war, absolutely, yes. Wow. And then Katarina, my daughter is a captain in the United States Army, as a counselor, a social worker. Wow, so they've caught some of the vision that their dad had. What are you doing to invest your understanding of being in the Army with your grandchildren? Well, you know, I'm hoping that some of them are now a few years old, and I have one that's 18. The 18-year-old graduating from high school, and he is going into training in leadership and spiritual leadership. So I think they've all, you know, really caught the vision, and I've had great talks and times of prayer, and, you know, just being with them to coax them along. Yeah. And they have the books, and those children can read it, and I think they're very much appreciative of what we've been doing over the years. Well, that's wonderful. Our greatest mission is right up close and personal, isn't it? Yeah, it's a family. I mean, if I do all these things, and I lose my family, what good is that? Yeah. So we have cognizant of ministries, not only to other people, but to our own people as well. And your wife traveled with you during your chaplaincy? Oh, my wife is the reason I'm here. Oh, I bet. In fact, she's in the room right here with me and listening in, but over those 32 years, she kept the home fires. She did the disciplining. She, you know, when I deployed the war, it was a team effort, and God called her because of her strength and her independence and their fierceness, you know, to survive and thrive. Well, if it weren't for my wife and her faithfulness over these years, she's had to go through many dangers, toils and snares with the things that God has led me through. And so it's a wonderful thing, and we go back and we think about those things, and we think, you know, what a minor effort that was, well, it wasn't minor at the time. They were major efforts, and the dangers are increasing as we move increasingly toward the coming of the Lord, aren't they? Oh, yeah, every day we can see, you know, the world unraveling in the United States, and around the world, the persecution of the Jews, and the persecution of the Christians. So it's happening, and it's going to continue to increase day by day. All right, I want you to reiterate your calling. It is so important. Restate it again. Well, you know, at the end of my years of service in the Army in 2018, I had a vision in Kerberville, Texas, and the Lord appeared to me. He said, "I want you to prepare the church, and I want you to warn the world of my coming." Prepare the church and warn the world. It doesn't get clearer than that. It doesn't get clearer than that. It sounds an awful lot like what God spoke to my heart in 1992. Son, I want you to speak to my church, whether they will hear or whether they're for bear. I want you to prepare the way of the Lord for history's final hour on the near edge of the Second Coming. That's what we're doing, and it sounds to me like we are linked together, my dear brother. I don't have any labels like Colonel or General or anything like that, but I do have a sense of calling and purpose. And it's so great to make your acquaintance and fellowship here. I'm giving you a holy hug over the airlines here, airways here. Friends, the book, Your Mission in God's Army, discovering and completing your faith-filled assignment before Christ's return. $15. On our website, saveus.org, call us 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us at Save America Ministries, PO Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255, writing a check, and $5 for postage and handling. Come on board, friends. Let's link arms together. Be a partner with us. If you haven't done so up till now, let's get on board. Remember, we're in the Lord's Army now. You, me, Colonel David G. Amona, and all who name the name of Christ. God bless and be a blessing. You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chrismeyer. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the Church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home. [Music] [Music]