A new Harris Poll reveals that Generation Z has a more “positive view of the word ‘socialism’ than previous generations, and—along with Millennials—are more likely to embrace socialistic policies and principles than past generations.”

Should we, after three generations of government-controlled education, even be surprised over Millennial and Gen Z generations leaning toward socialism and paganism? “What’s in the well comes up in the bucket.”

Secular humanists took public education hostage in the early 20th century and show no sign of letting up. Present-day “education programs” include for 13-14-year-old girls include sexual practices that equate to, “I like you” —all deftly packaged under the guise of “health” and “tolerance.”

Before long the National Education Association (NEA) will give preference for eighth-grade field trips to include San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair over sightseeing tours of the nation’s capital and historic Williamsburg.

If America is to survive, secularism will have to be ousted from the marketplace. The death-grip of secular bullies and brawlers on public education, universities and academia has marred and scarred the culture like a spiritual cancer. Its detrimental impact is on display in each and every last one of the cultural mountains of influence: education, academia, newsrooms, sports, the courts, big business, Hollywood and medicine.

With the nullification of the fixed point—a biblically-based culture—that the American Founding Fathers deemed imperative, truth in America has become what five secular U.S. Supreme Court Justices any given day will agree upon. As America retreats “from the fixed boundaries of the moral order consistent with God’s character,” Christianity has been in every practical sense stripped from the culture (Bruce K. Waltke, Proverbs Commentary). The “twisted” now reign, and whatever their outward piety, they in reality scorn God (Michael V. Fox, Proverbs Commentary).

With the Bible as the mainstay and safeguard in early America, the Judeo-Christian character became deeply ingrained into the ideas, values, and collective unity of the people. It was a means to an end, given that character produces conduct. And to those who hold integrity as their rule of personal conduct, they embody and represent an exemplary testimony to genuine Christian life and God. Solomon touched on an additional consequence for those who attain, not possess, biblical wisdom: It equips “kings to reign, and rulers to decree justice” (see Prov. 8:15; Dr. Waltke adds, “[biblical] ‘wisdom’, ‘shrewdness,’ ‘discretion,’ ‘counsel,’ ‘resourcefulness,’ and ‘heroic strength’ enable [kings to reign and] rulers to decree justice.”)

Christian instruction in early America adorned men, women, and youth with exceptional character, Judeo-Christian educational theories shaping the heart and character of the country. American exceptionalism is not passed down in the genes, but evolves as the outcome of Christian culture, augmented by both biblical understanding and wisdom, and infusion with Christian theology. In light of this, we readily understand why the founders put such emphasis on Scripture as the key component of early America’s edification.

As a quick reminder, let’s take a ‘snapshot’ of 18th-century America’s spiritual condition:

1) In 1787, Congress passed the ‘Northwest Ordinance,’ drafted by Thomas Jefferson for the purpose of legislating the method by which new states would be admitted to the Union. Part of the legislation read, “No person, demeaning [conducting] himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested [harassed] on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.”

Of particular interest is Article Three, “Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Current American political leadership compares poorly with the 18th-century Congress of the Confederation’s deportment. Christianity was all-important, they wrote, because morality is the main pillar of the sustainability of freedom.

2) American Founder Fisher Ames [1758-1808], a member of the First United States Congress, pointed out that “Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits … it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.”

3) Then Congressman Fisher Ames, in the course of drawing out the language of the First Amendment on religion in 1789, became concerned with 18th-century education. He wrote, “We’ve become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children containing fables and moral lessons. We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text of our schools.”

Placed alongside Founder Ames’ assessment of 18th-century education, the pompous bombast of the ACLU and its ilk in present-day America—”The First Amendment has made it clear that there can be no teaching of religion, including the Bible, in public education”—is downright ludicrous, a dismal outcome of the secular usurpation of education over the last century.

Unlike America’s Puritan founders, who “accepted conflict as their calling,” the modern church, according to Francis Schaeffer, has become addicted to “peace and personal prosperity.” Modern America has been “submerged and overwhelmed by something much bigger, a dirty, sloppy, wallowing” culture, established by secularists. Her once spiritual beauty has become a “small detail, an insignificant little glint of gold quite lost,” dwarfed by the self-indulgent behavior of secularism.

Yet modern Christendom sleeps on.

Thankfully, Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand.

A number of years ago, there was a character on Saturday Night Live named Debbie Downer.

A depressed-looking, bug-eyed, frumpy woman, Downer had a knack for sharing negative information when others were trying to celebrate. Hang with me for a moment as this commentary starts with a Debbie Downer moment.

• Patrick was not Irish.
• As a young man he had no interest in God.
• He never drove out any snakes because there were none in Ireland.
• His use of a shamrock to teach the Trinity is cute for children, but it’s just a myth.
• There is no such thing as a leprechaun.
• Patrick didn’t drink Guinness beer because it didn’t exist.

Waaaah Waaaah!

Now I’m not a party pooper. I enjoy a celebration, but enjoy it even more when I understand what’s legitimate and what’s legend.

With St. Patrick’s Day and all the green, the parades, parties with Irish stew and toasts to the “luck of the Irish,” let’s get behind the blarney to focus on an incredible man of God who transformed a nation through the proclamation of the gospel and the planting of churches.

The Real Story of St. Patrick

Years ago when I ministered in Ireland, I recall the descent of the plane and how absolutely awestruck I was as I beheld for the first time the Emerald Isle. This deep green countryside is the picture conjured up in the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of Irish celebrants who annually dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day. And in celebrations throughout America, this special feast day is a sign of spring, bringing welcome relief after the cold of winter.

But what’s really behind this day and the man we honor? After all, he died over 1500 years ago on March 17, 461.

Patrick was born in Britain in A.D. 390. He was raised in a Christian family, but his interest in God was almost nonexistent. He also was illiterate.

Teens are often apt to wander, and Patrick sure did, reaping the consequences. At the age of 16, he was kidnapped by thugs and taken hostage on a ship to Ireland.

Imagine the trauma and grief his parents experienced while praying for God’s miraculous intervention and the return of their son.

For six agonizing years, he was trapped as a slave, working as a shepherd on hills where he tended the sheep. He was alone. He was scared. In desperation he began to cry out to God to rescue him from his plight.

Picture your teenage son or daughter on that hillside, trembling and fearful for their very life.

Yet God was at work in Patrick’s soul (just as he is in your wayward son or daughter!). In his classic Confession, he painfully wrote, “I would pray constantly during the daylight hours” until finally God broke through and revealed Himself in a dream and specifically said the following to this young, lost soul, “Your hunger is rewarded. You are going home. Look, your ship is ready.”

Patrick Departs

Risking his life but pierced to the core by the call of God on his life, Patrick journeyed some 200 miles to the Irish coast! He bravely boarded a ship that was going to Britain, and he knew instinctively God was taking him back home.

This young man returned to his family transformed by the grace of God (wouldn’t it be great to see this homecoming captured on video?). In time, he even entered a Christian training center, a monastery, to pursue the calling to full-time vocational ministry as a Catholic priest.

Patrick excelled in his understanding of the Scriptures, and his character impacted his superiors and peers. Eventually, they affirmed him in becoming an overseer/bishop in the church.

Patrick Returns

Three decades after his initial abduction, Patrick sensed God stirring his heart. The Holy Spirit was directing him to go back to the pagan land of Ireland to evangelize the people mired in deception and darkness.

Not only would this be an arduous journey, as there were no 747s to swiftly carry one to a destination, but it meant facing a hostile culture of pagans known for their angry outbursts and violent behavior.

Next time you hear the term, “Paddy Wagon,” think of its origin with the influx of Irish immigrants (nicknamed “Paddies” after Patrick) many of whom became policemen. Some others were routinely picked up in these padded wagons for their drunken brawling.

Patrick recorded his sentiments as he wrote, “I am ready to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved—whatever may come my way!” May his courage ignite something in our hearts to reject silence and cowardice in the face of our cultural attacks today. May this man’s bravery inspire us to speak the truth in love regarding homosexuality, militant Islam, dishonesty, fornication (living together or casual sex), adultery and compromising “Christians” yielding to pornography and a host of carnal indulgences in our day.

“For the sake of Zion I will not keep silent, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns” (Isa. 62:1).

In the face of mockery and physical opposition—history records he was beaten by thugs and harassed by Irish royalty—Patrick persevered in proclaiming the gospel and training converts in their newfound faith. Like John Wesley, who would follow in his footsteps a thousand years later, he also provided for the training of leadership to shepherd the new churches being planted.

Incredible Spiritual Awakening

As Patrick crisscrossed the countryside, God blessed him mightily. Tens of thousands of Irish were converted and hundreds of churches were established! Thomas Cahill writes in his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, through Patrick’s courageous leadership, this warrior populace “laid down the swords of battle, flung away the knives of sacrifice, and cast away their chains of slavery.”

As we look at the moral decline in America today, it is easy to get discouraged. This is why it’s important to reflect on the exploits of this man of God who was instrumental in saving a nation.

From the fall of Rome, culture was disintegrating on the European continent. Patrick, like Paul the apostle, Wesley, Booth, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, Chuck Colson and other fearless Christian activists of whom we read, did not retreat in the midst of overwhelming odds. All of them prayed, preached the gospel, affirmed biblical Christianity and confronted evil fearlessly. Cahill honors Patrick and other champions of the faith who brought transformation to society. Because of him and others who rose to the occasion, “The Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on Western culture.”

One hundred years after Patrick’s death in A.D. 461, multitudes of churches and monasteries remained training future leaders as a testimony to this mighty man of God. His legacy should make us, excuse the expression, “Green with envy.”

Here’s the deal: 1500 years after Patrick lived, let’s follow this world changer in lifestyle evangelism!

“When Irish eyes are smiling/ ’tis like a morn in spring/ In the lift of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing.”

There is only way to describe the cold-blooded massacre of 49 Muslims in New Zealand. It is evil. Fiendishly evil. No condemnation of this heinous, cowardly act can be too strong.

These were Muslim worshipers who were mowed down while performing their Friday prayers in their mosques.

They were not military combatants.

They were not terrorists.

But they were Muslims.

They were foreigners.

Therefore, reasoned their killer, they must be eliminated.

And from what we understand, the shooter was a right-wing extremist, a white supremacist.

But this is where we must not overreact.

This was not the crime of all white people.

This was not the crime of conservatives in general.

This was not the crime of Donald Trump or his supporters.

This was the crime of a sick, demented, evil individual, a man who apparently felt solidarity with others of like mind.

But he is not part of a worldwide, organized, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant conspiracy.

Put another way, if a conservative America thinks we need better border security, that does not make him a partner in this heinous act.

Or if a conservative Swede thinks that Muslims need to become more incorporated into the larger society, that does not mean he wishes for their death, or, God forbid, would try to kill them.

My point is that our response must be reasonable.

We unequivocally condemn this evil act. And we unequivocally condemn the ideology behind it.

There is no possible justification or rationale or excuse that can support this despicable massacre. End of subject.

But let’s not use the blood of these Muslims to score political points. That is, quite frankly, obscene.

In fact, we could honestly ask whether there is real concern for the Muslim victims, including the wounded and the families of the slain, or whether there is a desire to make this about politics.

To explain, according to one website, from Feb. 13 to March 15 of this year, there have been roughly 150 terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims worldwide, many of them against fellow Muslims. An example would be the attack by Sunni Muslims on a political gathering of Shiite Muslims in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 11 and wounding 90.

Why no outcry over this? Or did we even hear about it in the West?

Without a doubt, it is bigger news for a mass slaughter to take place in two mosques in otherwise peaceful New Zealand. As has been widely reported, more people were killed in this massacre than are murdered in an entire year in New Zealand.

And the fact that the killer livestreamed the shooting gave it instant exposure and greater shock value.

But this is a brutal, tragic, horrific act, not a political football. Let us not use the blood of the slain to grease our personal agenda.

And let’s also remember that, worldwide, Christians, not Muslims, are the most persecuted religious group.

Just within the last few weeks in Nigeria, 32 Christians were killed in Maro and 46 Christians were killed in Anguwan Gamu, both times by Muslim terrorists. And in Shuwa, Nigeria, a girl [was] injured when two suicide bombers detonate[d] prematurely during an attempt to kill church-goers.”

And using very conservative figures, which do not include casualties in the midst of war, Open Doors estimates that 11 Christians are killed every day for their faith.

As for worldwide terror attacks, a 2016 study indicated that “450 of 452 suicide attacks in 2015 were by Muslim extremists.”

My point, again, is simple.

The horrific slaughter of these Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand is despicable in every way, leaving in its trail an almost unimaginable amount of suffering and trauma.

That’s what should get our attention.

This is not about Islam in general. Or about immigration, per se. Or about conservative values. Or about Trump.

It is about the evil of a fanatical ideology.

It is about the murderous hatred of a racist, white supremacist.

That is more than enough.

Thousands of “Hearties”—fans of the popular Hallmark series When Calls the Heart—waited and wondered this week. Series star Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were among those arrested for alleged participation in a college admissions bribery scheme. Rumors swirled, especially after Hallmark later announced that the network had severed ties with Loughlin.

What would happen to the series? What about Loughlin’s popular character, Abigail Stanton? Did dropping Loughlin mean canceling When Calls the Heart as well?

Final decisions have yet to be announced, but series producers sought to quell some of the controversy with the following statement, released this afternoon:

Charisma will keep you posted as we learn more about the future of Hallmark’s highest-rated (and family-friendly) original series.

Thousands of “Hearties”—fans of the popular Hallmark series When Calls the Heart—waited and wondered this week. Series star Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were among those arrested for alleged participation in a college admissions bribery scheme. Rumors swirled, especially after Hallmark later announced that the network had severed ties with Loughlin.

What would happen to the series? What about Loughlin’s popular character, Abigail Stanton? Did dropping Loughlin mean canceling When Calls the Heart as well?

Final decisions have yet to be announced, but series producers sought to quell some of the controversy with the following statement, released this afternoon:

Charisma will keep you posted as we learn more about the future of Hallmark’s highest-rated (and family-friendly) original series.

We are postured at yet another major crossroads in the body of Christ, which includes a strategic “changing of the guard.” In the last five years, we have had five major seer prophets all ascend to their heavenly reward. On Feb. 14, 2014, the heavenly minded seer prophet Bob Jones passed into glory. The following year, in the same time frame, the seer prophet John Paul Jackson suddenly departed from this world. In the next two years, we had yet two more very anointed seer prophets graduate from this world to their true eternal one: Kim Clement and John Sandford. Just a few days ago on Feb. 12, 2019, the boy prophet who became an elderly seer, Paul Cain, also shed his earthly tabernacle and ascended on high.

I attended the memorial services for all three of these former Kansas City Prophets: Bob Jones, John Paul Jackson and Paul Cain. As I pondered and reflected upon their homegoings, I became aware of some intriguing and profound details. Bob Jones was lowered into the earth on Feb. 22, 2014, in Moravian Falls, the day after his memorial service on Feb. 21. John Paul Jackson was also buried as a seed into the ground on Feb. 22, 2015. John Paul’s burial was exactly one year after our mutual friend, Bob Jones. Paul Cain departed on Feb. 12, 2019, the anniversary date of the beginning of the latter rain movement. But not only that, Paul Cain was another seer seed lowered into the earth on Feb. 22, 2019. That is exactly five years to the date of the burial of Bob Jones. You cannot make up this timeline!

Does this really mean anything? Is there any major significance we can derive from our loss and heaven’s gain? Is there an inheritance we are to receive? How do we posture ourselves to receive the baton from these and other heroes of the faith?

The Nature of the Prophetic

After being in prophetic ministry 40 years, I have observed some key issues concerning the nature of a prophetic word. Often, a word is bigger than the person who carries it. I have stated for years, that one way you can know if you have heard God, is that what you have heard requires His help to fulfill it. God does not speak into the realms of man’s possibilities, but God speaks into the realm that requires His divine assistance to see the word come to pass.

Another key component I have learned could be expressed as “living in the until clause.” A promise is revealed and then a promise is fulfilled. A revelation is released and then later, a revelation is manifested. In between the two, there is a gap called the “until clause.” What comprises this “until clause?”

Foundational to the prophetic is the three-stage process of: revelation, interpretation and application. If you get the wrong interpretation to the revelation, you will surely end up with a misapplication. So properly discerning and interpreting a word is paramount. It is also vital to meet the conditions of a word, whether spoken or unspoken, to help unlock a prophetic promise. We must learn to pray the promise back to God, walk in faith adding corresponding actions, at times wage spiritual warfare and wait upon God’s strategic timing. All these ingredients are important components of unlocking the prophetic promise of God!

What Promises Are We to Inherit?

Here are some of the prophetic promises the Lord gave these five seer prophets.

Bob Jones released the prophetic promise of a last-days “billion soul harvest” especially among the youth of the earth. Papa Bob also challenged us with the piercing statement, “Did you learn to love?” In the 1980s and 1990s, I spent hundreds of hours at this man’s side. During that time, I was one of the few people he would allow to lay hands on him and pray in the Holy Spirit as he ministered to others into the wee hours of the night.

John Paul Jackson labored for greater purity in the prophetic stream and a depth of accountability for the words spoken by the clay lips of revelatory vessels. John Paul was a true seer of seers and was noted for his precise predictions of the coming “perfect storm.” JP and I had a high mutual esteem for each other’s capacity to equip the saints to hear God for themselves. We were very different but cut from the same sensitive cloth.

Kim Clement was a musical seer like King David in the Bible. He contended for new creative inventions to release kingdom wealth and that Jerusalem would be a united city in the midst of a time of great chaos. Often Kim’s highly potent prophetic nuggets were somewhat veiled and required the skill to dig for the hidden gold of the promise of God.

John Sandford was noted for his expertise in uniting the prophetic with counseling, inner healing and deliverance. He composed the landmark book, The Elijah Task. Uncle John, as I fondly referred to him, contended for wholeness among the prophetic community and modeled honor to the First Nations people as a needed tool to “heal the land.” This man truly walked in the character needed to carry the promise.

Paul Cain prophesied the “new breed of a nameless and faceless generation” who would only lift up the name of the one man Christ Jesus. Though controversial at times in his life, to my knowledge, Paul finished well. He declared with ferocity that the “stadiums will be filled with a new move of the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders.” I was present multiple times when Paul Cain would step into a zone and declare a new era of stadium Christianity.

While mentioning these five highly gifted seer prophets, I would be amiss to not mention the man who preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as an evangelist to more people than any other person in all church history. Dr. Billy Graham also departed from this world one year ago.

Are we in a kairos time where the mantles of the prophetic and evangelism are converging? As this changing of the guard occurs, are we properly postured to inherit the revelatory promises released by these forerunners? I simply say, “Yes and Amen!” to these promises of a great global harvest for Jesus Christ’s sake.

Unless a Seed

Let me close with the words of Jesus, the one we love and the one we serve. John 12:24 states, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” What a profound truth! What a stunning eternal reality!

Yes, these things remain constant in this life: seedtime and harvest. There is a season for everything. Could we be crossing the Jordan River that separates promise revealed from promise fulfilled? I for one firmly believe so. I am posturing myself, along with thousands of other desperate lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ, to see the greatest youth awakening the world has ever known.

For the Sake of the Lamb

Let us be among those who “give honor to whom honor is due.” Let us consecrate ourselves to be part of a new breed of Jesus People around the world. Let’s welcome an upgrade in our gifts and callings and to see a grand convergence of the prophetic and evangelism. Let’s echo the vision statement of the Moravian believers of old, “To win for the Lamb the rewards of His sufferings.”

Personally, I do not labor for the mantle of a man. But much more than that, we who remain are here to declare, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Why? Because God has the harvest on His mind!

Be sure to tune in to my podcast, “God Encounters Today,” on the Charisma Podcast Network. Click here to subscribe!

As a prosecutor against human trafficking for the Georgia attorney general’s office, Camila Zolfaghari saw firsthand what happens when evil goes unchecked.

“You have to rely on God for strength,” Zolfaghari tells Charisma News in “The Truth About Human Trafficking” podcast series. “If He has called you into a job or profession that means you see the dark side of the world constantly, you have to really rely on His grace to get you through and to teach you how to set your mind on whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is noble and of good report.”

Zolfaghari is the vice president of policy at Street Grace, a faith-based organization mobilizing faith, business and community leaders to end the sexual trafficking of children throughout the U.S. through awareness, education and action.

“Our trafficking victims tend to be some of the most horrific situations and stories because traffickers purposely prey on the most vulnerable, and that means they are normally recruiting, enticing, preying upon those who have already been abused as children when they were still in their homes,” Zolfaghari says.

How are traffickers recruiting children? Could your teen be in danger because of the apps they use? What about all these social media campaigns; do they actually work? Zolfaghari answers these questions and more in the podcast. Take a listen.

Read more from “The Truth About Human Trafficking”:

She Was Abused as a Child; Now She’s an Ordained Minister Who Runs a Haven for Prostitutes, Addicts and Trafficking Victims”

Trafficking Survivor Shares What Holy Spirit Told Her While Buyer Negotiated Price for Her Virginity

You can also click here for other episodes.

As a prosecutor against human trafficking for the Georgia attorney general’s office, Camila Zolfaghari saw firsthand what happens when evil goes unchecked.

“You have to rely on God for strength,” Zolfaghari tells Charisma News in “The Truth About Human Trafficking” podcast series. “If He has called you into a job or profession that means you see the dark side of the world constantly, you have to really rely on His grace to get you through and to teach you how to set your mind on whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is noble and of good report.”

Zolfaghari is the vice president of policy at Street Grace, a faith-based organization mobilizing faith, business and community leaders to end the sexual trafficking of children throughout the U.S. through awareness, education and action.

“Our trafficking victims tend to be some of the most horrific situations and stories because traffickers purposely prey on the most vulnerable, and that means they are normally recruiting, enticing, preying upon those who have already been abused as children when they were still in their homes,” Zolfaghari says.

How are traffickers recruiting children? Could your teen be in danger because of the apps they use? What about all these social media campaigns; do they actually work? Zolfaghari answers these questions and more in the podcast. Take a listen.

Read more from “The Truth About Human Trafficking”:

She Was Abused as a Child; Now She’s an Ordained Minister Who Runs a Haven for Prostitutes, Addicts and Trafficking Victims”

Trafficking Survivor Shares What Holy Spirit Told Her While Buyer Negotiated Price for Her Virginity

You can also click here for other episodes.

As a pastor’s son, Rich Wilkerson Sr., cousin of famed evangelist David Wilkerson, was raised with a particular value. And as he traveled through life, he learned more about its importance.

That life-changing value, Wilkerson tells Dr. Steve Greene on the “Greenelines” podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, is the biblical concept of honoring others. “When you bless others, you get blessed. When you honor others, you’re honored.”