Last week I shared how I had built a successful business while running from my calling. When the Lord finally confronted me and asked me to put my business on the altar, it quickly collapsed. This was also an answer to my prayer, though I was not expecting it to work out like that. Because of the business, I had many entanglements and obligations I asked the Lord to deliver me from so I could return to my calling. I just did not expect the answer to come that fast, but it was right. The judgments of the Lord are always right.

          In a biblical worldview, everything begins and ends with God. This is His universe, and His will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Therefore, the supreme devotion of those who serve God should be to know His will.

As more than a million people are trying to cope with being homeless, separated from loved ones, and in many, many cases, the loss of loved ones, the nation must begin to cope with issues that can either tear us apart or enable us to emerge more unified, stronger, and better than ever. To do this we must understand what happened and what did not happen. Every Christian needs to also understand why this happened.

        This week I received one of the most important letters I think I’ve ever received from a member of my own church. It convicted me of a terrible assumption and presumption on my part. I’m sharing it with you because many others may feel the same. This is the letter. I will make some brief comments at the end:

Because the Lord has already spoken to us about the events that are now coming to pass, we have been researching prophetic words previously published by us. I have been amazed, and encouraged by how clearly the Lord has spoken about them, and given us directions on how to be prepared for what is to come. We will be republishing many of these words in future bulletins, and even republishing some of our prophetic books such as The Harvest, and Epic Battles of the Last Days, adding to them the now abundant additional understanding that we have.

          Last week we began to consider the first sentence of “The Great Commission”: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (see Matthew 28:18). This is probably much more than we can even comprehend in this life. Even so, it is the foundation upon which the rest of the mandate is based, so we should seek to not only understand it, but to let it be a guiding principle of our lives.

In Matthew 6:24, the Lord explained, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." As Christians, we should be absolutely committed to using our lives to serve God, not money. However, if we do not use some basic financial principles, we are likely to spend our lives serving money and being too entangled in it to serve God. Our goal should be to make money our servant, instead of spending our lives serving it.

     We continue to cover the period represented by the prophetic church at Thyatira (538 to 1798 AD)—the darkest period in church history. It is crucial to understand this period because the roots of the “great falling away” are common to individuals backsliding or churches and movements departing from the way.