One of the great weaknesses of modern Christianity has been our devotion to making converts rather than disciples. When people are made to believe that all they have to do for salvation is raise their hand while standing in the back of a room, with every eye closed and every head bowed so as not to embarrass those who might slip up their hand, these “converts” are made to think that to be a follower of Christ will require little from them. However, true faith will require everything, including our lives.

     The Book of Revelation is “the revelation of Jesus Christ,” and yet much of it is about the evil of men. The ultimate evil that is to be revealed in men is also a focus of this Book, which is the “antichrist,” or “man of sin” who is a personification of the sin of man. Even so, all of this is a revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the revelation of the depravity of man without Him and the victory that will ultimately be realized by Him.

      As we are now walking through increasingly intense and troubling times, it is more important than ever that we fortify our foundations. As a professional pilot, I was in continuous training to keep my skills sharp, and 90 percent of this training was fortifying the foundations. If my fundamentals were strong, they helped me to do the most important thing in dealing with an emergency in the air—fly the airplane. You have to keep flying the plane while dealing with the problems.

Last week we addressed how some general principles about the operation of the gifts of the Spirit may be common, but they are always joined to the unique way that He relates to every person. Every prophet and apostle in Scripture was different, and every person is unique. So we must learn to balance the general principles that we can learn from others, with the unique way that the Lord wants to relate to us, which can only be gained by our personal relationship to Him.

         This week we continue with Revelation 6:1-2:

         Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living beings saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come."

         I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

It is certainly wonderful to see the celebrations going on in the streets of Baghdad. However, the President and the Pentagon are absolutely right to tone down the celebrations. The easy part of this war was the fighting—the hard part now begins.

How is the church going to be strengthened by the Obama Administration? There are a number of ways, and possibly the main way is already beginning to happen—the church will not continue to rely on the government to do our job, so we should wake up and do what we are in fact called to do.

As stated in our last study, in contrast to the growing lawlessness there is an emerging generation of spiritual leaders who will come forth in the opposite spirit. These are the ones who will preach the gospel of the kingdom with power. They will be trusted with unprecedented power because they will have been found trustworthy. They will be trustworthy because of their deep and genuine respect for authority and the anointing.

More than two decades ago the Lord spoke to me and some of my friends that the cross would become popular again. This will be the time when the church truly crosses over and begins to possess its Promised Land. We have come to that time. Therefore, we can expect the focus of what the Spirit is saying to the churches to become more and more centered on the cross.

The very first test of Solomon’s wisdom concerned the respect for life. This is the fundamental test of all true wisdom. Life, in itself, is the ultimate gift, and is greater than any treasure. This is why the right to life, and euthanasia issues are so crucial. Once doctors who have sworn to protect life, and do all that they can to save life, begin to twist their vows in order to take life, the slide into the most tragic and diabolical forms of injustice has begun.