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GODSPEED MAGAZINE PRESENTS
A SNEAK PREVIEW FROM THE REMNANT ISSUE
For immediate access to more than 22 issues of GODSPEED Magazine, 132 original films, and more go to www.Godspeedmag.com and click "subscribe."
THE MILITARY GUIDE TO
ARMAGEDDON
By David Aikman
GSM Editor in Chief
ABOVE Colonel Giammona and Esther, his wife of 39 years
PREPARED? Many Christians consider that they are either already in the end times or in a season just before them. Is there a book that prepares followers of Jesus to live in the increasingly chaotic conditions of today?
As it happens, GODSPEED Magazine senior editor Troy Anderson is the co-author with chaplain and retired U.S. Army Colonel David J. Giammona of a forthcoming book, The Military Guide to Armageddon: BattleTested Strategies to Prepare Your Life and Soul for the End Times (forthcoming from Chosen Books/Baker Publishing Group, January 2021). GODSPEED MAGAZINE | 01
SNEAK PEEK
ABOVE Colonel Giammona and Esther, his wife of 39 years
GODSPEED MAGAZINE | 02
THE INTERVIEW GODSPEED Magazine editor in chief David Aikman recently interviewed Giammona and Anderson to allow readers to have a foretaste of what the book is about. The answers to the questions are from Chaplain Giammona, unless otherwise indicated.
ABOVE Colonel Giammona and Esther, his wife of 39 years
BELOW from left to right - Troy Anderson, Colonel Giamonna, David Aikman
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AIKMAN
Do most evangelical pastors you have spoken to believe we are already in the end times? GIAMMONA
A recent Lifeway Research poll found that nine in 10 pastors see signs of Jesus's return and end-time events. You have the COVID-19 19 pandemic, 30 percent unemployment, and recently demonstrations by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, with widespread violence and use of the National Guard to maintain law and order.
By spaztacular from Germany - Antifa GODSPEED MAGAZINE | 04
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AIKMAN
...GIAMMONA CONTINUED
Do you think most of these pastors who do believe that we're at the end times are actually prepared to train their flocks to be ready for the specific events likely to occur in the near future?
So, we're preparing the church and by writing this book and putting training conferences together, we are helping to get everyone prepared. I'll be speaking to about 300 pastors in September in North Georgia at Pastor Todd Smith’s Christ Fellowship Church. Other than pastors of evangelical churches, most mainstream church pastors right now do not understand the theological terms eschatology in its broader context. Eschatology as good theology
GIAMMONA
I would say that the majority of people, including pastors, are not prepared and have not prepared their people. And so, one of the reasons we wrote this book is that the Lord gave me a specific mission to prepare the church and warn the world.
Pastors Todd and Karen Smith
means the study of the last things or end-time things, the study of our final place in heaven, and the Second Coming that is incorporated into that theology. I have not heard very many pastors really broach the subject with their congregations. And I think their pastors are not prepared through training to speak about what is actually happening in the end times at this point.
AIKMAN
...GIAMMONA CONTINUED
Did you experience as a chaplain in combat situations things in which you learned essential things?
their friends were killed or they themselves were wounded. So, as you can see, we really need to do a better job of preparing soldiers for those kinds of things. And in parallel, church members and church pastors have not prepared themselves for
GIAMMONA
Well, the combat training and the combat that I have seen, especially in the Middle East, has really done a lot to help prepare me to write about these kinds of things. And even our soldiers that went into combat, as I would tell people in training, were really not prepared to see what they were going to see when
this kind of thing. Although there are churches around the world where believers are right now experiencing persecution, bloodshed, and seeing their families tortured and killed, most of the American church is not prepared for this.
Giammona - training his chaplains and assistants on top of the Ziggeraut in Southern Iraq 2005
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AIKMAN
...GIAMMONA CONTINUED
The Chinese writer Sun Tzu, credited with being the author of The Art of War, said that in war you need to know two things, the nature of the enemy, and your own condition and situation. Do you think Christian leaders in general really understand what the nature of the enemy is?
there is a personal devil, or satan or lucifer, but they also believe he may be a myth or an ideology or something of that sort. What we have to do is understand
GIAMMONA
Some mainstream Christian communities in the United States do not even believe there is a real devil. They sometimes believe in general that
that we are fighting against a real enemy who is raising up, you know, the dark forces in the end times. As the Apostle Paul said (Ephesians 6:12),
“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
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AIKMAN
So, a lack of preparedness really boils down to a lack of understanding of the nature of the enemy we're up against? GIAMMONA
Absolutely. AIKMAN
Do you think Christian leaders, particularly evangelicals in the United States, have a realistic understanding of who they actually are and who the body of Christ is?
GIAMMONA
I think if they did, I don't think we'd be in the predicament we are in today. I don't believe they understand the weapons of our warfare. They don't understand what Christ said. Pick up your cross and follow me and what that really entails is following The King.
BY DAVID AIKMAN
GODSPEED MAGAZINE | 09
THIS HAS BEEN
A SNEAK PREVIEW FROM THE REMNANT ISSUE OF GODSPEED MAGAZINE
For immediate access to more than 22 issues of GODSPEED Magazine, 132 original films, and more go to www.Godspeedmag.com and click "subscribe."