“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
—Matthew 5:18
UPON PROMOTION to lieutenant colonel, I was assigned to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., as the assignments officer for the chief of chaplains, responsible for placing 1,700 U.S. Army chaplains in their respective places of duty worldwide. This task was incredibly complex and difficult. Sometimes there were more than five hundred assignments to make in just a week.
But I had many highly intelligent chaplains working with me at various Army headquarters around the world who proved a great team, providing me with much needed input. I met with my leaders every six months at a conference during which we made the upcoming chaplain assignments. Our team huddled and came up with a list of more than thirty different factors to help us decide. These factors included things like how long the chaplain had been at the most recent station, last tour of duty, rank, promotability, any additional education needed, and so on.
It was a daunting task; in fact, it was overwhelming. Many people have asked me over the years how I got through this difficult process and survived. Of course, God helped me, as did my other team leaders and predecessors.
But the secret to my success was the checklist. I would not have survived without it. It started out on paper and ended up on my computer. These detailed checklists consisted of what I learned about the numerous assignments, listing what I needed to do to create a first-rate assignment process. Eventually, I used those checklists as the basis for future assignment conferences.
I had learned firsthand, during a six-month tour of Honduras, that checklists were an important part of the military. I was flying around the country on a Black Hawk helicopter to visit soldiers when I noticed the pilots consulting documents in their hands. Speaking to them on a headset, I asked what they were.
The co-pilot looked back at me with a smile. “Chaplain, we fly VFR [Visual Flight Rules] here, and not by navigational beacons, so we have to check everything by hand, including flying by maps and using checklists.”
“Maps, too?” I asked.
“Yeah, we follow roads and rivers visually to navigate where we’re going.”
So I learned from those guys who relied heavily on their handheld maps and checklists. Our brains have only so much memory and bandwidth. Checklists free up some of your cerebral capacity consumed by the details of life, helping you to focus on more significant things. They help you avoid costly mistakes. And they simplify the process of outsourcing specific tasks.
For these reasons, the checklist needs to be among your most essential tools of life. In his book The Checklist Manifesto, author Atul Gawande calls to our attention that “checklists . . . remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They not only offer the possibility of verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.”1
Pre-Combat Checklists
One of the most important military checklists is the pre-combat checklist. It itemizes what a soldier needs to take into combat—weapon, ammunition, cleaning kit for the weapon, sleeping bag, personal hygiene and medical kits, clothing, combat boots, helmet, night-vision goggles, radio and other items.
AskTOP.net, a blog that connects people to a network of military leaders who answer Army leadership questions, notes the following about pre-combat checklists:
When your Soldiers are preparing for a mission of any type, you must be certain that everyone is ready and everything is in order. If a weapon isn’t working, if a radio’s batteries are dead, if you don’t have enough water or rations, the success of your mission and the safety of your platoon are threatened. As a platoon leader, it will be your job, and that of your NCOs, to ensure that your Soldiers have all the necessary clothing and equipment, that the equipment is in working order, that sanitary conditions are met, and that the platoon can operate effectively when called on. You do this through pre-combat checks and inspections.”2
The pre-combat checklist is important for at least two reasons. First, you take only what you need into combat. And second, using the list significantly increases your odds of survival.
People in the military know the importance of having the right gear when it is needed most. The B-17, one of World War II’s strategic bombers and one of the most important weapons the Allies possessed, highlights the importance of checklists.
During the 1930s, a competition was scheduled to determine who could produce the next wave of bombers for the United States—not with two engines but with four, as specified by the government. Boeing planned to demonstrate the flying capabilities of the B-17, also known as the Flying Fortress. But at the competition, in front of leaders of the Army Air Corps, it stalled on takeoff and crashed, killing the pilots. Boeing nearly lost the contract, and the company’s existence hung in the balance.
During a think tank session, someone decided that pilots needed a checklist to fly this complex aircraft. So the B-17 became the first combat aircraft required to have a checklist as part of its takeoff and landing procedures.3 According to Angle of Attack, a flight simulator company:
By implementing the checklists, they flew 1.8 million hours with 18 B-17s without incident, proved to the government they were safe, and eventually nearly 13,000 were built. What is more telling is the images of these four engined, resilient monsters fending off the evil forces of the Axis Powers. And to think that this aircraft could have been eliminated from its place in history because they continued not to use checklists.4
Biblical Checklists
Just as the checklist turned out to be key in helping the Allies win World War II, end-times warriors of God are wise to use checklists as prophetic events continue to speed up and we move closer to the time of Jesus Christ’s return.
The Bible contains countless checklists that are the foundations of our spiritual heritage. Many serve as spiritual barometers. Consider the following.
The Ten Commandments
How do the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20:3–17) work as a checklist? Simple. They are an inventory of what things are important to us.
Take the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Is there any priority higher in your life than God? Perhaps you will realize that work, sports, entertainment or something else rank higher on your list. Are those gods really that important or necessary?
Professional wrestler and actor Hulk Hogan created a post on Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 that went viral, capturing the zeitgeist of that crisis.
In three short months, just like He did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said, “You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down Civic Centers. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theaters. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don’t want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it where you can’t go to church.
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”5
The Tabernacle
Moses received precise instructions in Numbers 26 on how to build the Tabernacle in the desert so the Israelites could worship God properly. These instructions were so detailed that they go on for many chapters in the Bible. God is a God of precision and clarity.
Don’t think for one minute that Moses and his workers did not have a checklist of all the things necessary to build the Tabernacle. After all, Hebrews 8:5 says that the Tabernacle was “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven,” an earthly replica of the heavenly version, which is one reason God warned Moses to “make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
The Ark
In the life of Noah, we see a similar pattern of instructions and checklists. In Genesis 6:14–16 God gave Noah the following instructions before the flood:
“Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.”
Not a lot of detailed instructions here, but Noah took what God told him and created a set of blueprints and detailed checklists so nothing would be forgotten or overlooked.
Fighting Battles
David learned how to be a great warrior from the little things he had done every day. (Tending sheep in the rugged Middle East was no easy task.) Notice that he always asked for instructions from the Lord before battle. 2 Samuel 5:23–25 reveals the Lord’s detailed instructions to David:
“Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.” So David did as the LORD commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.
Following God’s Orders
In these Scriptures, an important pattern emerges that we must understand as warriors of God in the last days. Notice in each of the preceding narratives that God spoke and his followers (Moses, Noah, David) obeyed.
It is no different in the New Testament with Jesus and His followers—and it is no different for us today. To know what God intends, we must listen to His instructions. He speaks to our hearts, through His Word, through circumstances, and oftentimes through other people. Checklists are simply a tool to ensure that we don’t forget or overlook anything.
Our friend Sid Roth, host of It’s Supernatural!, broadcast on Christian television networks around the world, says it is “hugely important” to listen to the Lord’s instructions today. “We’re about ready to enter the greatest move of God’s Spirit in history,” he says, “and shortly after that some real serious problems start. Obviously these are life-and-death matters.”
It is so vital to follow God’s orders, says Roth, that unless believers are ready, “we are not going to win, and our Bible says we’re going to win. Historically, every time the Church gets dry and devoid of power, God sends His Spirit. So if there is not a move of His Spirit, I don’t see the current generation standing a chance.”
Since the devil controls much of our political and educational systems, as well as the media and Hollywood, Roth does not “see any chance for this current generation, short of a move of God’s Spirit.” For decades, perhaps longer, millions of people have been asking God to pour out His Spirit on all people, as described in Acts 2:17, which Roth believes is beginning to happen. And he cites the vision of Smith Wigglesworth, famous twentieth-century British evangelist, whose ministry demonstrated the miracles of Jesus. In Wigglesworth’s vision he foresaw the “last great move of God’s glory,” says Roth, “and I happen to believe that this was from God, and I happen to believe it’s already started on planet earth.”
Wigglesworth saw an “outpouring of revival,” Roth says, in which God performed many different types of miracles through “average people.” Roth continues:
I’ve given it a name to distinguish it from other names—the greater glory of God. I see the greater glory of God doing nothing but increasing, not leaving like in the previous moves of God’s Spirit—doing nothing but increasing until the return of Jesus. I further see this happening before we have prophesied end-times events, although they are in transition right now, too. . . . I see whole football stadiums packed with Christians and nonbelievers, especially young people . . . young college students who don’t know their left hand from their right hand. They’re into drugs and sex and pornography and blatant atheism—and I see them coming in, many of them sick, and walking out of those stadiums healed. I see them getting on their faces and repenting.6
Checklists Do’s and Don’t’s
Checklists should be written down and have a limited number of items—no more than ten. Also, it is important to memorize your list. Writing down your checklist is important, but having it in your heart is more important. It will become part of your daily routine.
Some people point out that checklists can lead to legalism, as if your salvation depends on what you accomplish and not on the grace of God. But we in the Church have veered so far into “freedom” and “grace” that we have largely ignored the disciplines of repentance, accountability, prayer, fasting, Bible reading and other spiritual masteries. A checklist is merely a reminder to do the important stuff.
The top priority on your warrior checklist should be spending time with God. Although it may seem a small and insignificant part of your day, you will quickly find that spending time with God via Bible study, meditation on the Word of God and prayer is the secret to walking in supernatural victory in the last days. In fact, there is no other higher priority.
Further, it is important to have both physical and spiritual checklists, given natural disasters and other emergencies, not to mention what the Bible tells us is coming. These checklists should include standard emergency provisions for you and your family—including food, water, shelter and other necessities—as well as security measures to protect your loved ones. Consult the appendix at the end of this book, “Army’s Prioritized Checklist for the End Times,” for more detailed information.
End-Times Checklist
The following is a checklist of end-times events detailed in Scripture:
There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1–5
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’”
Daniel 7:2–5
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Revelation 6:5–6
The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
Revelation 13:5–8
“Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”
Isaiah 66:8
“They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
Luke 21:24
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery: BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
Revelation 17:1–6
Authors’ note: Some Bible prophecy experts believe that the headquarters of the Antichrist, described in Revelation 17–18, could be Neom, the futuristic city mentioned in chapter 1 now being developed in Saudi Arabia.
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand. . . .”
Matthew 24:15
Authors’ note: We believe this will happen in the middle of the seven-year period called the Tribulation, when the Antichrist will enter the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem and proclaim himself to be God.
[The beast] was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
Revelation 13:7
[The second beast] also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
Revelation 13:16–18
Authors’ note: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology make the mark of the Beast possible for the first time in history.
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”
Luke 17:26–27
Authors’ note: We believe this refers to the rise of transhumanism in the lineage of the Nephilim, literally the “sons of God” (Genesis 6:4).
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
2 Thessalonians 2:3
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.”
Matthew 24:9
“Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her.”
Revelation 18:8–9
“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
Matthew 24:7
Following are some of the checklists used in the military:
BELIEVER’S CHECKLIST CATEGORIES
STRATEGIC SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
Here are some practical takeaways involving checklists: