As we are begin the third year in which I have written this Word for the Week for our Internet friends, I want to do a brief review of its purpose. When given the visions that I wrote about in The Final Quest, I climbed a mountain with different levels, which represented different biblical truths. Climbing that spiritual mountain has been the quest of my life ever since. It is also the purpose of this Word for the Week. My prayer is that all who read this would be encouraged, helped, and continually go higher in the Lord.

    Now that we have the vision for moderation, and being a moderate person, we need to deal with the many prophecies that we’ll be given which will be anything but that. If we speak the true word of God, we are likely to make a lot of people mad. We will likely be called false prophets as well as other colorful adjectives. Then, when your prophecies come true, it will seem like no one noticed. You don’t get into this job for the approval rating.

     We have been covering the great falling away from the faith—the slide that took place in the Middle Ages and began when the church married the Roman Empire. After about a thousand years it reached its ultimate depravity around 1400. During this period, many great souls arose to challenge the darkness of their times, and multitudes were tortured and killed for this.

As we studied yesterday, the "Great Commission is not just making converts, but making disciples. The word disciple means "student." It also means "disciplined one." Both apply to our lives in Christ.

Maria Woodworth-Etter
(1844–1924)

    I recently had the unexpected experience of leaving Washington, D.C. encouraged. I saw change, and in the right direction. I have never given up hope on the prevailing of the American Republic or the ultimate preservation of the Constitution, but I admit I had begun to lose hope that any fundamental solutions would come from Washington. For decades, every visit I made to Washington left me more concerned about our Federal Government. So to leave Washington encouraged was a new experience for me. How did it happen? 

      The response to our announcement that Todd had begun a restoration process was even greater than expected. It seems that not only is Todd’s restoration of great interest, but restoration in general is too. That is encouraging. This Special Bulletin is about much more than Todd, and it touches on some issues that may be the most important for Christians to examine in these times.