Episode 10, "Spiritual Warfare" Memorial Day Remembrance

This podcast is dedicated to those who sacrificed their lives for our country. We remember them on this Memorial Day. Today, our guest speaker, Apostle Charles G. Wright, celebrates the life of his nephew, Xavier Johnson, who was killed in action in Vietnam. Apostle Charles will also share with us how Memorial Day was established. He will close this podcast with personal accounts of spiritual warfare, serving God while simultaneously serving his country.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello and welcome to episode 10 in our series Stay in His Presence. And today we are going to be talking about spiritual warfare. We are celebrating Memorial Day. and our guest with us is Apostle Charles Wright. We're first going to start out by honoring his nephew who lost his life in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and then we're going to have a little bit of the history of Memorial Day by Apostle Charles and then I have asked Apostle Charles to share with us at least one experience, maybe more, that he had in spiritual warfare as a soldier in actual warfare when he served in Vietnam. So, take it away, Apostle Charles.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

Well, today I'd like to honor my nephew, a fallen soldier at 18 years old who was killed in Vietnam. He found his destiny, which was and is to be with Christ as his Savior. Xavier, while serving in the United States Army in Vietnam as an infantryman of the 25th Infantry Division, which is referred to by some as the Tropic Lightning Division, he received his salvation after having an epiphany with an angelic being on Easter, which we call Resurrection Day, and the angel told him that he was fighting his destiny. Let me explain. An epiphany is described as a manifestation of Christ to Gentiles. Well, Xavier was a Gentile. And like so many of us in this world, most of us are Gentiles. And we need to know what it is to be warriors for God in this world. Now, if you're not an Israeli, then you are a Gentile for whom Christ was crucified, resurrected for you, shed his blood on the cross. Exactly. at Calvary. So Xavier experienced the startup of his destiny to go and be one with Christ. So let's look at a little bit about the startup of what we call Memorial Day. It was in 1865, after the end of the United States Civil War, we should remember the forgotten history of how the Memorial Day holiday started. Yes, There was a 1865 event celebration of freed black soldiers of the Civil War. And this happened in, I believe it was Charleston, South Carolina. What they did was take the buried bodies of black soldiers who fought in the Civil War and had a parade, if you would, because they wanted to rebury those gentlemen. because they had experienced death for freedom and are not to be forgotten. Even today, in our many organizations today celebrate Forget Me Not. And in 1868, three years later, all American military units began to celebrate what is now known as the national holiday called Memorial Day. However, each one of those men and women all had their last supper at some point in time during their lifetime. But it makes me remember what Jesus said at his last supper before he was crucified. He told his disciples to remember him. So, He was a warrior himself, a spiritual warrior, showing us how to live and how to die. But don't forget Jesus and don't forget our military men who themselves died for freedom. Jesus died for freedom so that we could have eternal life and be free from sin and be free from the threats of hell. Yes, there is experiences that we all have experiences in that are not comfortable But we have to learn what it means to be a soldier for Christ. Not only a soldier for our country, but a soldier for Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01: 4:37

Amen. Thank you, Apostle Charles. That's very interesting. You're telling me things that I didn't know about as far as the history of Memorial Day. Thank you very much. Now, I would still like for you to share with our listeners something about spiritual warfare that you experienced When you were in Vietnam, I believe that I guess the juxtaposition of someone who's in the military and they are dealing with being a Christian and having spiritual warfare going on, but yet still having to go through actual warfare. Of course, we've been married for more than 50 years, so I've heard many of the stories that you have shared so just any one of those stories about something that you experienced and it was a real encounter with having to go through spiritual warfare

SPEAKER_00: 5:40

well when i first arrived in vietnam in january of 1967 one of the first things that i noticed was that i was fearful initially fearful and afraid because i didn't know really what to expect I remember when I landed in Pleiku, which is in the Mountain Arts Mountains area in Central Highlands, I believe it's called, they call it. And the day before I arrived there, There had been an attack on the campus and there was a threat of being overrun. So that night, that very night, I decided to sleep with my clothes on and my boots on and everything. I wasn't going to get undressed because I was afraid that anything happened. I wanted to be ready to run and find some hole or ditch or something to get into instead of grabbing clothes. But anyway, it was an awful feeling to have fear. However, I think my strength began on the day immediately following that we had an officer to tell us that all of us are not going home, that some of us wouldn't leave the country alive. It bothered me to the point where I thought to myself, no way, I'm not accepting that. Because then I had a memory to take place. I remember praying before going to Vietnam and telling God I wanted to live. I wanted to come back home with all of my extremities. I told him I didn't want to come back with anything missing in my body. And that's the way I stood. I said I wanted to be married. I wanted to have children. I had a lot of things I placed before him in prayer. And of course he did answer my prayers. However, I had to experience many trials like so many other young soldiers. At that time I was 19 years old. And when I got wounded the first time, which once is enough, I remember helping to save the lives of other men who were in combat at that day, April the 2nd, 1965. And most of the guys, many of us got injured, hurt, But here's the glory that I find in being a person of spiritual warfare. If you are owned by God and God is your father, your spiritual father, your heavenly father, you have been born again by his spirit. That in itself is a spiritual warfare because you have to surrender and give up some things. Now, can you imagine a soldier giving up some things? Yes. Sometimes you have to give up some things in order to be a soldier. I had to leave my family and go to Vietnam like the rest of the guys who went there. But I went there by faith. Nevertheless, I did I did experience combat numerous times. I don't care to mention how many times because I can't remember them all. But I experienced also the spirit of God's presence. Anytime that we were going to be in combat, the Holy Spirit would always reveal it to me in dreams. I would know the day or the moment immediately upon awakening that we were going to be sent into an area for search and destroy, to seek out the enemy, flush them out, find weapons, and so forth. But I dreamed a dream that let me know that we were going to be in combat. So what had happened is I told my friends, I told them, I said, hey, fellas, today I had a dream. And they said, no, man, we don't want to know. Don't tell us anything. So in other words, God prepared me to be ready for the combat that we had. And yes, that's when I was injured myself in that particular combat, along with a whole lot of guys. But no, the glory of it all is this. no one that i was responsible for as a medic or corpsman no one died we got injured we got broken bones some got what we call the million dollar wound you're going to be sent home but you have your life you're still alive and uh it's glorious i must say that how god stayed with me that whole time now i'll leapfrog all the way to the very end of my tour of duty in that we were sent outside of our base camp in order to do yes at night a search and destroy mission because it was reported that the enemy was in the area Upon going out several kilometers away from our barriers of that compound, suddenly we came under attack and the enemy was behind us and we went and stooped down to avoid being shot. And at the same time, our soldiers who were in the perimeter, on the perimeter of the base camp, they start firing also. So we were in a crossfire position. So the bullets were flying over us and while bullets were flying over for five or ten minutes things got quiet and then we began to make moves again to continue our search and destroy to find these guys who were out there but I heard a voice speak to me and said this is your last patrol now I didn't pay attention to that because I was intensely paying attention to what was going on around me and what we could possibly run into and then the voice said it again this is your last patrol and I did hear it, but I didn't, and I wasn't paying attention. And then it said it a third time. That voice said, this is your last patrol. And when it heard that voice the third time, I said to myself and said what that voice said, which was the Spirit of God. And I said it in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. I said, this is my last patrol. Little did I know that, yes, it was my last patrol. I had no more nighttime patrols or daytime patrols except in convoys. Now, the beauty of it is this. There is very little potential for anybody who's an experienced warring soldier to be sent back home before his tour of duty in the, we call it, in the jungle or whatever, was over. And that usually didn't happen until approximately maybe a week or two before you'd go back to the States. In other words, you're fighting on the battlefield until a week or two before it's time for you to go back to the United States. So... I was taken off of the duty to be in combat and put on, uh, convoy patrol during the daytime approximately two months before I was supposed to be sent back to the United States and I knew that was a miracle oh yes I had some other things to take place in my life as well but I'll just stop at those two we need to learn to listen to the voice of God even if it means to read his word which is logos and hear the spirit of God which we call rhema the rhema word of God who speaks into our hearts our souls our minds our spirit and causes us to have faith and believe in him during times of spiritual warfare Whether it's in your heart or your mind, your soul, whether it's in fear or darkness or unexpected things that can happen and do happen, we can always trust in God because he did it for my nephew. He did it for some other friends. He did it for so many guys in my unit. They didn't get killed, but they did get wounded and they did have some awful experiences that they live with today. And I thank God for the organizations like the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars. And we also thank God for those who are the wounded warriors as well, because they gave part of their freedom to serve this country so that you can be free and celebrate Memorial Day.

SPEAKER_01: 13:03

Well, thank you, Apostle Charles, for sharing those experiences with us on this. You're in Vietnam and speaking of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit spoke to you and how God covered and protected you during that time. And thank you again for the history of Memorial Day. Thank you for joining us today. And now we are going to go back to Apostle Charles and he's going to close us out and let you know how you may contact us. See you next time.

SPEAKER_00: 13:37

If you want to contact us or comment on this podcast, please visit our website at cgmissions.com forward slash podcast, where all episodes are available by category and series

SPEAKER_01: 13:53

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