Col. David Giammona, a retired U.S. Army chaplain, and Troy Anderson co-wrote The Military Guide to Armageddon, which will be available in January. Written from an evangelical perspective, the book details how to prepare mentally, spiritually and physically for the period that Biblical prophecy calls the “end times.”

Col. Giammona, an Assemblies of God minister, served in the Army for 32 years and saw combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. His military decorations include the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit.

Anderson’s journalism career spans nearly three decades and includes a Pulitzer Prize nomination, as well as bylines in Reuters, Newsmax and Townhall. Formerly an editor at the Los Angeles Daily News, Anderson works as the senior editor at Godspeed Magazine.

My interview with both men follows.

JH: What motivated you to write this book, especially now?

DG: When I came back, I saw how our soldiers were devastated, especially our Christian Soldiers. I knew the church was in a weak position. They weren’t expecting the end times to come upon us so quickly. When I came back, I saw that in our churches and I saw what it did to our soldiers. So I thought, “We’ve really got to wake the church up, and actually the rest of the United States, to what is actually happening.” Right now, we’re beating the drum loudly. I’ve got a lot of pastors who are very interested in the book and in training their congregations and what it really means to be battle ready.

TA: As he told me how he felt it was important to prepare America for the dangers its facing, two things came to mind. First, I knew of Gallup polls that show the public greatly respects members of the military, far more than other professions. Second, I also knew of polls revealing about 80 percent of evangelical Christians believe we’re now living in the biblical end times. So, I thought if America would listen to anyone about the dangers we’re facing – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, the international Deep State, and now the global elite’s “Great Reset” plan – they would listen to a U.S. Army Chaplain and Colonel.  

JH: How do you view the Covid-19 pandemic, the presidential election scandal and the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” in the context of your work?

TA: In my interviews with faith leaders, the overwhelming consensus is that we are beginning to witness the end-time events that Jesus Christ and the prophets predicted thousands of years ago.

But even more surprising, secular experts at existential risk institutes at Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say humanity is approaching the end of human civilization unless drastic actions are taken to reverse the calamitous course the world is on.  

While only time will tell if the COVID-19 pandemic is part of end-time prophecies, the timing of the pandemic, President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and other recent developments raise many questions.  

DG: All these things are coming together at the same time. They’re indications of the signs of the Lord’s coming. In 2012, I graduated from the Army War College, and even our military was saying that the answer to the problems of mankind is having a one-world government so there will not be all these individual militaries fighting each other. If we can have one government that controls everything, we can have the end of war and the beginning of peace for mankind. There’s now time for governments, especially the Democrats, to get in power and to put their policies in place in order to control the destinies of the world.

I don’t really believe Covid-19 was an accident. I think China is testing the world and testing the United States to see if it can become the world’s hegemon. They’ve wanted to dominate the United States for many years.

JH: “Christians today are powerless and weaponless,” you wrote. How so, how did this happen, and how can this course be reversed?

DG: Over the years like many other of our institutions, churches lost their way. They got their eyes off of God and got their eyes on man. The church is looking for answers in the world. They’re looking at governments. They’re looking at educational institutions. They’re looking at other things but they’re not looking through the Word of God to get their answers.

You can look at any denomination. Once you institutionalized religion, it becomes powerless. Once you really institutionalize anything, it doesn’t really have the guts and the power that it used to have.

TA: This last year, a time in which the coronavirus pandemic changed the world in profound ways, has revealed just how unprepared the Church is for the realities of our increasingly dangerous world.  

For the first time in American history, the Church has largely been shuttered by the government, and religious freedom has come under attack unlike any other time in our nation’s history.

Except for a smattering of courageous pastors across the land, the vast majority of the Church has accepted this situation with nary a protest, blindly accepting the Establishment and mainstream media’s narrative, hardly questioning how closing the Church will impact the spiritual condition of America and the destinies of millions of souls.

This lack of courage has only emboldened the enemies of God to double down on the persecution of believers now intensifying in America.  

JH: Your book takes military concepts and tactics, and translates them into spiritual ones in each chapter. Please elaborate on one chapter, “The Fog of War,” because it seems so appropriate right now.

DG: I really love that chapter. It really goes back to my own personal experiences, as I write in the book. You get into war and a lot of times, you really don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know what the enemy is doing. You don’t know what your own people are doing, sometimes, because it’s so complex, so convoluted. You have to get clarity on what’s really going on, and that takes time.

I think the church in America, especially — and the whole United States — is in a fog right now. We have to seek God. We have to hear His voice and listen to what He’s trying to tell us in order to go forward. You can make some deadly mistakes in the fog of war if you’re not careful and don’t know what you’re doing. You could go over a cliff. You could run into the enemy. You could lose the war.

JH: How can anybody hear God’s voice?

DG: First and foremost, leaders in the church really have to start going back to the basics of the Bible. We’re ignoring it. Many in the church believe the Bible is out of step with culture and Society. But it actually is the Word of God and it’s very much in step with what God wants for our country and our world.

We’re trying to get people to look at the Word of God and listen to the Holy Spirit. God is constantly speaking to us but we’re so busy with our everyday activities. We don’t give time to God to just really meditate and listen to what He has to say. He has a lot to say to our hearts.

JH: What are the biggest takeaways or points you want readers to understand most?

TA: This battle involves an all-out political and spiritual war for the heart, soul, and future of America, as well as the lives and destinies of our children and grandchildren.

During one of our recent Battle Ready Ministries calls, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, whose parents are still alive and recall what happened in Poland prior to the rise of Adolf Hitler, told us that his parents said they are witnessing the same thing happening today in America that happened in Europe prior to World War II and the Holocaust.   

Unless we rise to the occasion, as many of our courageous forefathers did, we will witness the rise of a global dictatorship, one armed with fearsome technological and surveillance capabilities and weapons of unimaginable power, that will make what happened in Nazi Germany pale in comparison.      

DG: When get a recruit off the street, you don’t handle a rifle and tell him, “Hey, now it’s time for you to go to war.” He doesn’t understand what he’s going to do with that weapon. He doesn’t understand the doctrine behind the training for that weapon. He doesn’t understand anything until he goes through a long process of training, discipline and understanding how to use that weapon in conjunction with your team, the rest of your unit and the rest of the Army.

It’s a great parallel to what’s going on today. I want you to read through the book and I want you to be challenged in your face. I want you to get training in the weapons of your warfare. Understand what prayer is, what fasting is, what the disciplines of the church really are, and how they’re going to help you in these end times overcome all the obstacles in front of you.