The Lord Jesus said that we could not be trusted with the true riches of the kingdom until we learned to handle earthly riches. It has been estimated that from one-third to one-half of the biblical teachings on righteousness have to do with stewardship.

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.

The last two decades have witnessed the greatest advance of the gospel in history. It has been estimated that more people have become Christians in just the last two decades than have from the first century until this time. This is partly due to more people being alive now than have lived during the previous two thousand years. Without question, Christianity has made its greatest advances in recent years on a worldwide basis than ever before in its history.

The verse for this week’s study is Ephesians 4:15:

As we see throughout the Scriptures, the Lord does not always speak in our native language, but most of the time He uses a spiritual language through dreams and visions, which includes symbolism. Why? Because His language is about much more than just conveying concepts—His language speaks to the heart and soul, not just the mind. This is stated by Jesus in John 6:63, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” It is basic to prophetic ministry to discern the spiritual purpose and nature of a message.

    The church is moving toward unity like I have not seen before in my lifetime. What is happening is more than a reaction to the elections, though that may have contributed to it. The economic shaking is a factor also. Even so, just as the Apostle Paul rejoiced that the gospel was being preached regardless of what the motives were for those doing it, we can rejoice in this tremendous thrust toward unity. There is an increasing revelation that we simply cannot make it in these times without each other.

This is the day that the Lord has made—so don’t mess it up!

Really, we can mess it up or enjoy it. We can dwell in the presence of the Lord today if we choose. All we have to do is comply with the simple, easy, exhortation of Psalm 100:

As we see in the Book of Hebrews and other places in the Bible, many things in Scripture are a prophetic type of other, greater things. The Promised Land of Israel was to be a prophetic type of the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth. Joshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus, the Messiah who will return to set up His kingdom on the earth. If we are to understand this rightly, we must begin by understanding that no prophetic type is a perfect model of what is to come, but is a "shadow." The shadow is usually just the barest hint of what it is a shadow of.

       As The Great Commission specifies that disciples are taught “all that He has commanded,” we must understand there are New Testament commandments. They are simple and basic, but they are commandments nonetheless. The most basic commandment the Lord gave us is recorded in John 13:34-35:

       “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.