One of my favorite quotes is from Peter Lord, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Many people get distracted from the River of Life by little tributaries that feed it. This leads to the overemphasis of teachings, which leads to extremes, as well as the worst deception of all—the pursuit of a doctrine over the Lord Himself.

We need to often hear this as a reminder to help keep us on track. It is much better to know the Lord, and learn to abide in Him every day and not know a thing about...

Last week we briefly addressed a few basic principles needed to understand the biblical prophecies of our times. One principle that we need to address in more depth is the fact that most biblical prophecies are very general in nature. Why didn’t the Lord make them more specific?

Most prophecies in Scripture, including most of the Messianic prophecies, were so ambiguous, couched in the middle of seemingly other unrelated text, that they were not understood by even the most devoted students of prophecy until after they had come to pass. It is because of this that many students of Scripture...

Last week we covered the four cardinal points on the compass that will help us to navigate through these times, and to understand biblical prophecy. These four points are the basis for the paradigm that we construct for understanding the times, and preparing for them. Before we construct this paradigm, we need to understand a few more basic principles about where we are going with this, and what we are trying to accomplish in this study.

If we are going to do this study, we want it to be very serious, and I am going to address some things that...

Revelation is a “revealing.” We need revelation because we know that we cannot understand these things accurately unless the Lord reveals them to us. Understanding prophecy is not a matter of figuring out formulas and patterns. If the Holy Spirit does not give us the understanding, we will not get it.

We need His wisdom to apply this knowledge correctly. We are not given this understanding just to be able to tell people, “I told you so.” If we are given understanding of the times, it is so we can apply the knowledge we are given to be prepared for...

We have established three of the four cardinal points on the compass using the map provided by biblical prophecy, which will help us to navigate through our times. These three points are:

1. Our main goal should be to understand what God is doing, not the devil. (This is our spiritual magnetic north from which all of the other points are determined in relation to biblical prophecy.)
2. The tragedies and destruction that come upon the world are the result of man trying to live without God in rebellion to Him. (Therefore, our goal should be to do all that
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