“The Case for our Persistent Pursuit of the Vision”

Ricci Johnson-Wilson

5/24/2024

Last week I shared a vision I had of God’s seal-team six rappelling down to the tectonic plates within the nation to anchor truth to those plates and stop the shaking. I encouraged you to find legislation that anchored your states to Christian, Biblical standards, and decree and declare them over your states again. I provided the Connecticut and Massachusetts “That Old Deluder Satan Law” as an example. You can find that audio on our website and in print. The title is “Overcoming National Tribulation with the 3-Cord Strand of the Lord.”

I shared about 3 things:

1)      Tribulation in the nation.

2)      The Overcomers

3)      The 3- strand cord

I mention this because today’s message is an extension of that message.

I spoke about the key things in this vision in detail last week. This message today is for those overcoming intercessors. This will hold great significance to those who have accepted the commission to stand on the wall for our Nation (Ezekiel 22:30) and who understand what it means to retain persistent vision.

Proverbs 29:18 says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish”.

·      The Hebrew word for vision is Chazown – meaning revelation.

·      The Hebrew word for perish is Para – meaning to loosen or to lack restraint.

In other words, where there is no revelation of God, His will, His ways, His plans, His purposes on a personal level, within the Church, and then on a national level, the people lack restraint.

What does that mean? What are the ramifications of this?

Those who are perishing or “lack restraint” focus on their own will, their own way, and their own fleshly desires. Chaos ensues and wide-scale corruption follows. It’s inevitable.

When the people of God begin to lack vision—the revelation of God—it’s a slower decent into chaos and corruption, but if it’s not rectified, it will without fail, impact the Church until the Church falters. When the Church falters, the nation falters.

Contrariwise, the overcomers persistently work to retain the vision of the Lord over their lives, the Church and the nation. In other words, they will stay focused on their purpose.

To be clear, I’m not really addressing unbelievers here. Why? It is the Church’s responsibility to pray for them and share the Gospel with them. However, if they don’t have the Light of God, we cannot expect them to behave righteously. The issue here is the Church. The Church is not only the heart of the nation—we are the heartbeat of the nation. We are supposed to send the message of righteousness throughout the nation with every heartbeat.

There is a direct correlation to the condition of the Church and the moral conditions of the nation. When the Church rises in righteousness, when we behave as beacons of His light, then it impacts and influences unbelievers in a positive way and together, we bring the nation up and into a standard of righteousness.

Alternatively, when the Church falters, it negatively influences the worldly people, and they shrink further and further away from the Light as they lack restraint and perish.

It’s a distinct cycle that we need to recognize so we can intervene when we see it coming. 

So, how does this happen? The truth becomes watered down, and the preserving salt loses its savor. We are the Salt and Light in the earth, if our salt has lost its savor, it’s cast into the dung pile, if our light begins to dim, what good is it in the earth? The enemy lurks in the shadow of those dim regions, and he will devour whomever he can.

If we look at nations with heavy dictatorship, unbelievable control of their people, armed militia on the streets, the majority of the population in abject poverty relying on rodents for their own sustenance, you know the Light in that nation is incredibly dim, so much so, the enemy gained great national power.

Last week I shared the importance of reconnecting our states to the core of what this nation was built upon. I encouraged you to find legislation that was God inspired, Biblical, and decree and declare those over your state to call back the Godly heritage that was sown by the three branches of governments—the executive, judicial and legislative—into our states and nation upon its founding.

Why? Because we are in a time of national tribulation. As I shared last week, that word tribulation means “a time of great pressure with seemingly no way out”. It’s during this exact kind of tribulation that the Lord will step in and pull His people out. We must be willing to engage with Him. I shared in the vision the Lord gave me of Him weeping and sweeping across the land how He plans to shake off the debris and cast it into the sea. However, for it to remain a nation set apart for His plans and purposes, we must come alongside Him in this effort and keep the vision and destiny He had in mind for this country from the beginning. We must recognize the importance of “we the people” partnering with Him in this fight.

This nation was created by God for His plans and purposes. The enemy, of course, weaseled his way in to begin attacking these plans and purposes because contrary to what some believe, he does know and understand them.

Remember, the Destiny (or Purpose) of America is:

A)     To be a Father to the Nations.

B)     To be a place from which the Gospel can pour out unto all the earth.

C)    To be a place of refuge.

D)    To stand with and protect Israel.

My goal today is to speak truth and restore the vision of God for this land in the heart of the hearer so we can intercede through the next 6-7 months with the passion and fire that God is calling for in this hour. As such, I want to address a reoccurring issue that seems to weaken our pursuit of the vision of the Lord and really, what our Founding Fathers stood for as they risked their own lives to establish this nation. That issue is our tendency to distraction—especially amid tribulations.

Distraction impacting at the personal level:

How does a person who is experiencing tribulation stay the course? Remember the verse I shared at the beginning? Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

First, we must look at one of the major reasons people start to lose the vision. Distraction. What is distraction? Paul addressed this in 1 Corinthians 7:35 “And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”

Paul was addressing marriage verses a single life where you can spend your time and energy devoted to your walk with God. Please give me grace as I expound upon this… I’m not telling anyone they should not be married or that they cannot achieve the higher walk with God when they are married. Peter was married, he entered union. Madam Guyon was married, she entered union. John the Apostle entered union and he lived in a prison camp on the Island of Patmos carving out granite slabs 12+ hours a day. You can indeed pursue and achieve the higher life in God with a family and/or living in great personal tribulations.

Side note, just to clear up the marriage/family issue, we need good Christian families reproducing so we can influence the nation in which we live – so please know, I fully support this next generation!

I’m addressing the ease and simplicity with which Godly people are pulled away from our complete devotion to the Lord. When we are taking care of husbands and children it takes time, our thoughts wander to them, their needs, dinner, laundry, bed routines.

The word Paul uses here in I Cor 7:35 when he calls them to attend upon the Lord without “distraction” means “to be dragged away.” This isn’t even an intentional drifting; the word suggests one who is being pulled away from something they desire against their will. We are dragged away from prayer. We are dragged away from the Word.

So, if we apply this same principle to our walk with God, the protection of our Church in prayer, and of course, the fight for the one nation created by God to be a light and spread that Light unto all the earth. We can be assured the enemy will send distractions to drag us away from our commission. It starts small and increases little by little, like the proverbial frog in the pot of water slowly heating up, until we are consumed by our distractions rather than persisting in the vision of God for us, our Church, and our nation.

We must be diligent to persistently retain the vision, lest the enemy snatch it from us amid our distractions.

Why am I sharing this right now? Why is this so important?

Friends, there’s no other nation like America, none. From its inception, the Church understood this truth. Yet, the last 100 years or so lent us to distraction, dragging us away from our destiny—our Divinely inspired purpose—like no other period in America’s history. Even amid wars, famines, droughts, Presidents and even Congress would draw the people back to the Bible, back to prayer, back to our Divine purpose. Why? So, the people would see through the temporary tribulation and remain in a state of persistent vision.

What happens when our personal pursuit influences the masses negatively?

So, what happened? The enemy, the deluder, entered with a new strategy. He would attack the Word of God, the very heart of the Church, through a deception. (I suppose this isn’t new, this is how he got to Adam and Eve.) That old deluder found someone who would believe a lie that would unravel the Church… that person is Charles Darwin. Darwin lived during the 19th Century. He was studying to become a priest, but he loved science. He took two years off to travel the oceans and study marine life and through this research, he was distracted from the study of the Word, and that ole deluder the Devil, whispered the theory of evolution in his ear. Darwin believed the lie and was given over to the lie. His theory, coming from one who was pursuing the priesthood, seemed to hold even more weight and it swept the earth. This theory infiltrated the Church.

While this was a contradiction of the Genesis account of the Bible, some were deeply challenged in terms of their faith because Darwin’s theory of evolution contradicts Creation. If you can strip the Divine from Creation, it becomes a powerful tool against the people of God if they are not anchored in His Word. This deception infiltrated the realm of Bible scholars and a division occurred. There were those who held to the literal view of the Bible, that the Bible is the Divinely inspired, inherent Word of God and those who moved to a liberal view of the Bible. Liberal theologians do not see the Bible as the inspired Word of God, instead, they now interpret it in a “mythical” way. They now interpret the events of Genesis as children’s stories to inspire or warn, but not the miraculous revelation of the wonder of Creation! They teach that Christ is a character on paper rather than the Son of God. The message of His miraculous, holy life devolved if you will, into pictures and metaphors used to help people understand God’s power rather than revelations from God and actual Divine miracles. They’ve stripped the Divinity from the Word of God.

As a result, personal liberal ideology superseded the inspired Word of God and over the course of the last 130 years, a watered down, seeker-friendly Gospel emerged. Few things have done more damage to diminish the value and effectiveness of the life of a Spirit-filled Believer and ultimately, the Church. And, since the Church is the heart of the nation, it has impacted our nation tremendously.

Now what?

God is turning it around; this is why we must diligently pursue the vision/revelation of God. We are His vessels, here to reveal His Kingdom in the earth! It takes persistence! I life lived without distraction. And, we can live a life without distraction—without being dragged away from our persistent pursuit of the vision. It takes diligence and commitment. The enemy will try to bring in deception or detract from the Word, but we simply need to anchor ourselves back to the Word every time!

A simple example: my grandson was telling me that he learned in his science class how rainbows form. The rain or mist falls and the sun hits it and bounces off it like crystals and the result is the rainbow. I then proceeded to tell him the reason for the rainbow, being God’s Covenant to Noah, that he would never destroy the earth through a flood again. It was His Covenant promise to Noah. Science told him the “how” of the rainbow, I shared the “why”, the “purpose” the “Reason for the rainbow”. So simple, yet so effective.

So, regardless of how complex or simple the situations may be, we can hit the distractions – those things that try to drag us away from the fullness of God’s Revelation – with Truth. You should have seen my grandson’s face as truth pierced his ten-year-old heart. He said, “I like it when you tell me things about God and the Bible, it makes me feel really happy inside.”

Darwin was our negative example of how persistent pursuit influences the masses.

Now, let’s look at a positive example of persistent pursuit and its influence on the masses:

The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of how our persistent pursuit of the vision impacts the masses for the Kingdom of Heaven. He is such a great example of one who experienced tribulation and the opportunity for distraction was ever present in his life. Yet, he stayed the course.

1 Corinthians 11:23-28

“Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

“Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the Churches.”

Here Paul tells us just a bit of what he experienced. Through his suffering, the persecution, the life of tribulation, and near-death experiences, Paul tells us the Lord was transforming him into a minister of righteousness. His pursuit was for the high calling of knowing Christ our Lord and he stayed the course.

Through his imprisonment, he wrote his letters to the various Churches which we have the privilege today to clean from. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon were all written from a Roman prison. These prisons were known for their unbelievably harsh conditions, yet these epistles contain some of the most liberating concepts for the believer to grab hold of, and they still hold true today.

Paul did not lose sight of the vision of God over his life.

What vision?

Acts 18:9-10 tells us the Lord told him he was appointed to suffer God did not call us to a cushy life, but the joy of knowing we’ve obeyed the calling will carry us through the difficulties.

“Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. “

And again, in Acts 23 when Paul was imprisoned and questioned by the Council in Jerusalem, they were so enraged by his teachings of Jesus, they placed themselves under a curse saying they would not eat or drink until they’d killed him. The Roman guard feared Paul would be ripped to shreds and placed him under their express protection. Paul and was not sure if he would survive.

Acts 23:11“ And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.”

Through this vision, the Lord comforted his heart, his destiny was still intact, and he knew he would indeed fulfill what the Lord had commissioned him to do, to spread the Gospel into the known Gentile world. Sounds like our nation’s call, doesn’t it?

Now, for the case of our Persistent Pursuit of the Vision:

After Darwin and liberal Bible scholars watered down the Word of God, we entered a season of sharp moral decline in our nation. Then, we began to pursue worldly things instead of the Kingdom of Heaven and the nation declined further.

When our vision remained steadfast, God sent Revival, powerful revivalists that preached throughout the country to keep people engaged with His plans and purposes. When State Constitutions were written or certain pieces of legislation was passed, they were righteous because the heart of the nation, the Church, remained persistent with the vision of the Lord for this nation. Our light, our influence here kept the vision alive because it was persistently pursued.

You will often hear news commentators declare that this “nation is not a Christian nation” it’s “just that white Christian Nationalists believe God has given them this country” and “that’s what makes them so dangerous.” They will accuse us of being deceived, and uneducated because if we were, we’d know the importance of “Separation of Church and State.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, and we must reject their insinuations and accusations.

David Josiah Brewer understood the Case for Persistent Vision. He was a Justice of the United State Supreme Court, and gave the court’s opinion in the 1892 case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States. The Church hired a pastor from England. They were accused of breaking a law passed by congress which forbade the hiring of foreign labor. The law itself was passed to stop the flow of cheap unskilled labor to replace American workers. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Why? Because God’s vision for America is higher than man’s and bringing in a man who would serve the Church served a higher purpose than unskilled labor.

This Justice understood the importance of persistent pursuit of God’s vision for the nation. Below is his opinion in the case. The Church won by the way.

I’m reading this to you because it speaks to the destiny of America and the purpose of the Church as well as the Christians within our land. Our impact on a national level matters friends, we need to remember this truth.

Justice Brewer states the following in the

“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.

“No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.

“The commission to Christopher Columbus…[recited] that it is hoped that by God’s assistance some of the continents and islands in the ocean will be discovered…

“The first colonial grant made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584. and the grant authorizing him to enact statutes for the government of the proposed colony provided that they be not against the true Christian faith…

“The first charter of Virginia, granted by King James I in 1606…commenced the grant in these words: “Christian Religion to such People as yet live in Darkness…”

“Language of similar import may be found in the subsequent charters of that colony… in 1609 and 1611; and the same is true of the various charters granted to the other colonies. In language more or less emphatic is the establishment of the Christian religion declared to be one of the purposes of the grant. The celebrated compact made by the Pilgrims in the Mayflower, 1620, recites: “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith….a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia…”

“The fundamental orders of Connecticut, under which a provisional government was instituted in 1638-1639, commence with this declaration: “…And well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union…. there should be an orderly and decent government established according to God….to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess….of the said gospel [which] is now practiced amongst us.”

“In the charter of privileges granted by William Penn to the province of Pennsylvania, in 1701, it is recited: “…no people can be truly happy, though under the greatest enjoyment of civil liberties, if abridged of…. their religious profession and worship…

“Coming nearer to the present time, the Declaration of Independence recognizes the presence of the Divine in human affairs in these words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

“…We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth…because of a general recognition of this truth [that we are a Christian nation], the question has seldom been presented to the courts…

“There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people.

“While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, it was decided that, Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law… not Christianity with an established Church…..but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.

“And in The People v. Ruggles, Chancellor Kent, the great commentator on American law, speaking as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, said:

“The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice…We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors [other religions].

“And in the famous case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, this Court…observed:

“It is also said, and truly, that the Christian religion is a part of the common law…

“If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters note the following: The form of oath universally prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, “In the name of God, amen”; the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath, with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day; the Churches and Church organizations which abound in every city, town and hamlet; the multitude of charitable organizations existing everywhere under Christian auspices; the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and aiming to establish Christian missions in every quarter of the globe. (This really speaks to the destiny of this Nation)

“These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation…. We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. 

“The happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality. 

“Religion and morality, and knowledge [are] necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind. 

Then, the Justice added his personal views:

“I Believe in Jesus Christ as the great Helper, Comforter and Saviour of humanity, and the Holy Bible as bearing to us the story of his mission, the rules of duty, the revelation of Eternal Life, and also the conditions under which the attainment of that life are possible.

“No Book contains more truths, or is more worthy of confidence than the Bible; none brings more joy to the sorrowing, more strength to the weak, or more stimulus to the nobly ambitious; none makes life sweeter, or death easier or less sad.”

(David Josiah Brewer 1897) taken from “America’s God and Country” by Federer

Yes, Justice Brewer understood the case for a Persistent Pursuit of the Vision at the Judicial Branch of Government and how critical it is that we maintain this Pursuit as a priority in every facet of our lives.

The Fruit of our Persistent Pursuit of the Vision:

As the heart of the nation, “the church” must keep the heart pumping smoothly, address the corruption head on, and thwart reoccurrences of deception. We the people must reject the enemy’s efforts to distract us and persistently hold to the vision of God for us, the Church and the Nation as we remain on the wall as intercessors. 

In our Seattle GOE 2024, I had a vision of the nation. It was dry and barren. Hidden beneath the mountain of debris, I could see the skeletal system of the nation.

Within the chest of the skeletal system, at its core, was the heart.

Suddenly, the skeletal system began to shake violently, the debris began to fall off the land and into the sea. The bones shook so violently, I felt certain they would shatter. Then, the heart began to beat, and that skeletal system came to life. Muscle, tendons, sinew, tissue… all formed around the bones until it was a living, breathing nation once again.

The nation was reborn, it arose and went forth, restoring other nations as it had been restored. Awakening nations, as it had been awakened!

The heart of the nation is the Church, if the Church will return to our first love, and begin to beat for Him, His plans, His purposes, it will indeed change the course of our nation. If we the intercessors, will remain persistent in the vision of the Lord for us, the Church and our land, we will be partnering with the Lord as He weeps and sweeps across the nation so she can fulfill the destiny of God.

Will you stand with us? Remember, this is the year of Reclamation, it’s time we reclaim the vision of God for our nation and bring t back to Him!

Blessings & love,

Ricci Johnson-Wilson