Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots
Dec 20, 2011
Just before Christmas, the Lord spoke this to me that in this season of harvest and fulfillment, there will be a lot of people who get taken out by the enemy, who desert the ranks, before their harvest can come.
We’ve gone through a year of strong transition, the year of 11’s. We’ve come into a time where the clock has struck 12, and over these next years, we’re going to see some real harvesting, Harvesting of prophetic words and promises that people have been standing for and believing for. Many of them people ave been contending for for a long time. We’re also going to see rapid harvests during this anointed Season where the normal laws of time involved in sowing and reaping will be suspended. People getting words from the Lord, believing, and seeing them coming to pass quickly.
Even though there was a lot of warfare surrounding the year of transition, as we move towards this season that begins in 2012, (actually began on 12/11/11) the warfare is not going to diminish now that we’re in this time, it’s going to increase, at least it’s going to feel like it increases at times, because the devil doesn’t want you to experience the fulfillment of promises. He wants you to waiver in faith and abandon your stand so that you cannot receive what God has for you.
In 1776, the American colonial army was in very bad shape; Washington had lost several battles and he had wintered his forces, and the morale was low. During the season he had just come through, 11,000 troupes had abandoned the colonial army to go back home. Thomas Paine, who had been used before to stir up a passion for independence, wrote a pamphlet around Dec 20 called “Crisis in America”. To this day, it’s still considered in history classes as one of the greatest patriotic writings. It’s the one that starts off “These are times that try men’s souls…”. The day after the pamphlet was published, Washington had it read to all of his troupes. He sent couriers around to make sure all the troupes would read the pamphlet or have it read to them. In this pamphlet, Paine refers to those soldiers who had abandoned the army as “sunshine patriots and summer soldiers”. it was a pretty common thing for soldiers to sign up in the spring, when their crops were planted, and to serve during the summer, then abandon the troupes and the army during the Fall to help with the harvest at home. Also, there were many who would leave when the weather got really bad and it became difficult and painful to continue to camp with the soldiers. So Paine referred to these soldiers as “sunshine patriots and summer soldiers”, and the situation of soldiers leaving the Battlefield got worse in 1776. I believe that we’re in that particular season in the Body of Christ, and I spoke the word last summer about the heat being on and the heat wasn’t going to be turned down.
It’s going to feel at times like the heat’s been turned down, because there’s going to be such glorious victory in harvest, and fulfillment, in this season that we’re in, but the heat will be turned up and the purpose of the heat is to get people to abandon their stand. The Lord works in our lives according to our faith, and there are promises God has put in our hearts, and things that God has spoken to us prophetically that we’ve been standing in faith for. During this time, we’re going to harvest the purposes of God and the glory of God. We’re going to harvest the prophetic destines of God that he’s planted in our hearts, We’re going to harvest the things of God. What the enemy desires is to get you to not persevere. To leave the field of battle. To abandon the fight. Hebrews 6:12 says “By faith and patience, we inherit the promises” and what the enemy wants to do is to get people in the heat of the battle, when the conditions are the most severe, instead of standing and believing till they see in their hand what they believed for, to abandon the fight and not receive or hold in their hand the things that God has placed in their heart and that they’re believing him for. It is so important for you to understand that if this warfare has increased, it is because you are so close to a breakthrough, It must mean that you are very close to a crop, that you’re very close, just around the corner, from receiving the fulfillment of the promises that will be destiny altering, and life changing. Your destiny in the spirit realm is tied up in this. It is so significant that you don’t allow the enemy to cause you to run, to desert, to abandon the battle. Again, this is a really important word for you to hear. If the heat has gotten turned up, it’s because the glorious victory must be just beyond you. Thomas Paine said in his pamphlet, “tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, but the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph; what we attain too cheap, we esteem too lightly”.
If the conflict has gotten very difficult, become very hard, if hell seems to be resisting, then you must stand, and keep standing, because you are just on the verge of obtaining the glorious triumph that God has promised you. Harvest time is an incarnation time. Faith starts with us receiving things in our heart; faith finishes when we hold those things in our hand. That’s incarnation.
The scripture says,“The word became flesh.” That is incarnation. Harvest is when what you’ve received in your heart is now a crop that you can touch with your hands.As a result of Paine’s pamphlet “Crisis in America”, a few days later, on Christmas Day, (the day of Incarnation) at 11 o’clock at night, George Washington crossed the Delaware and when he did, he defeated the Hessian army at Trenton, NJ. He crossed back over the next day, and then on Jan 2nd crossed over it again and confronted Cornwallis’ troupes and eventually, defeated them at Princeton on Jan 3rd. The result of all this is that the morale of the colonial army was greatly emboldened and in some ways, was a real turning point in the war. What the Lord was showing me was if people will stand and not run from the battle, by giving into unbelief, or fatigue,they will have victory, they will have their Incarnation day. These truly are times that will test men, and women’s souls, and faith. Glorious victories are at hand. Don’t be a Summer Soldier, or a Sunshine Patriot.
