I have sought to lay a foundation for our study of the book of Revelation which we will continue in depth in 2025. However, it is customary to use the Words for the Week at the end of the year to recap the past year and look into the coming year.

      As has been the case of every year since 2014, I have found 2024 to be my best year yet. (Since a personal encounter I had with the Lord in 2014, each year has become better!) The reason for this is, since that year, my main devotion...

      In the book of Revelation, there is a prophetic outline of God’s plan to restore the world to the paradise it was originally created to be. We also see God taking leadership over the earth and mankind being restored to a special place of fellowship with Him. So, as we seek understanding of the Revelation, we must keep in mind how the end of this age will unfold and prepare for God Himself to come to the earth and dwell among men. We are preparing a home for Him.

      As we unite with Him in this great purpose,...

      We have been talking about the Lord restoring mankind and the earth. In Revelation, mankind falls to its deepest depravity before the Lord comes to rule and restore. He said it would be like “the days of Noah,” which saw the worst corruption and evil the world would experience until the end of this age. In His parable about the wheat and the tares, Jesus said, “the end of the age is the harvest” (see Matthew 13:39).

      In this parable, Jesus was speaking of how the wheat and tares would grow up together. The harvest is when all...

      God created man in His image so that man can have a special relationship with Him. Man is His greatest interest on the earth, but the earth itself is a great interest of His, too. We are even told in Revelation 11:18 that He will “destroy those who destroy the earth.”

      The first commandment to the first man was to cultivate and keep, or watch over, the garden where God had put him. Cultivating is much more than just sowing seed and waiting for a crop. It is preparing the land, sowing at the proper time, then keeping...

      Jesus did not come just to redeem man, but the whole world. He may love mankind more than other parts of His creation, but He loves all He created and will restore the earth to the paradise it was originally created to be, as the biblical prophecies declare. He may give most of His attention to man, to whom He gave dominion over the earth, and it is through man that He will restore the earth. This will begin with restoring man’s reign over the earth through those whom He has chosen to rule with Him in the age...