Our text for this week is Ephesians 5:5-8:

Our New Year’s Conference each year is devoted to discerning the times and receiving guidance from the Lord for the coming year, both for the body of Christ and for all the individuals who attend. The Lord promises that if we will seek Him, we will find Him (see Matthew 7:7). At this conference, we have received some of the most important words to come from our ministry. Many have had their lives radically impacted by them.

This will be a year of gathering together for the mobilization of the army of God. Many Christians who have slipped away from fellowship in the body of Christ will be gathered back into fellowship. Many churches will be joined to larger movements, which will help give them more definition, focus, and a greater sense of their purpose. Many movements will join with other movements, and even denominations will begin to develop relationships with other denominations.

Last week we discussed the attitude that will keep us moving, growing, and pressing on to maturity in Christ, as the Apostle Paul expressed it in Philippians 3. If Paul, who had one of the most powerful, fruitful ministries of all time had the attitude near the end of his life that he had not yet attained, but needed to press on and not look back, how much more should we have this attitude?

As one friend of mine recently pointed out, history must be very important or every evil dictator would not be so determined to change it. This is an interesting point, as there does seem to be a drive in every evil leader to rewrite and change history. This should compel those who love the truth to be even more determined to protect and maintain an accurate history, regardless of whether it makes Christians look good or bad. Truth is our most important commodity, and those who love the truth will be defenders of the truth.

A few years ago I had a dream in which I was mountain climbing with many thousands of people. Hundreds were all connected together by the lifelines that mountain climbers use; many were falling off of the mountain and being lost because some were not driving their stakes deep enough into the ground. If one gave way, often many were lost. I knew in the dream that those stakes were truth. For that reason, in every study I do, and in all of my writings, I try to drive the stakes of truth as deep as I can into the ground.

Last week we discussed the basis of all true spiritual discernment. This week, as we begin our study of the most famous of all of the biblical prophecies concerning the end of this age in Matthew 24, we immediately begin to see why having discernment is so critical.

         Continuing our study of the Lord’s word to the church at Pergamos, the Lord acknowledged that this church dwelt at the place of “Satan’s throne.” Pergamos had a literal altar to the god Baal called “Satan’s throne.” In the 1930s, German archeologists excavated this altar and moved it to Berlin where it still resides in the Pergamon Museum. Interestingly, the Nazis came to power in Germany the same year this altar was moved to Berlin, and many Christians there do not consider this a coincidence.