Jonathan Edwards
1703 - 1758

The first mention of fear in the Bible is in the above verse. There is a pure and holy fear of God, and there is an unholy fear. This is the unholy fear of God that leads to further corruption of the soul, and causes us to run from Him instead of to Him.

        I am writing to those who I think will be among the greatest Christians to ever live—those who have lived in the last days of this age. As the Lord said, “the last shall be first” (see Mark 9:35), He has again saved His best wine for last—for those who live at the end of this age will be the best of all time. They will walk in the greatest glory and do the greatest works. There is no reason why any who are reading this cannot be part of the greatest spiritual force the world has ever seen.

An extraordinary move of God is now breaking out in America. The breakout in Lakeland has been spectacular and is growing fast. We are experiencing a breakout at our base at Heritage, which in some ways has already surpassed anything we have experienced before. It, too, seems to be growing in intensity, and people are starting to come from far distances to experience it. News about other moves of God is also beginning to show up on the spiritual radar.

       We now understand that having koinonia is essential for the true New Covenant life and for fulfilling The Great Commission. In the New Testament when someone believed in Christ, they were made disciples, not just converts, and their discipleship began with being “added to the church.” This was far more than just being added to the membership roll. Every part of the New Testament body of Christ is called to be a functioning part of the body to which they are connected. They have a role to play in the life of the body.

On Sunday, December 5, 2004, MorningStar Fellowship Church will meet for the first time in its newly acquired facilities at Heritage International Ministries (formerly Heritage USA or PTL). As was discovered this week, our opening services will be exactly seven years from the day that the facilities were closed on December 5, 1997. Services will be held in the lobby of the Grand Hotel at our regular Sunday service times of 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

          Last week we discussed how the Orthodox Jewish community has one of the lowest divorce rates of any people group. Because divorce is one of the greatest curses and most destructive forces in any society, I wanted to understand why this community was doing so much better than even the most devout Christian denominations and movements. The reason was easy to see, but it was surprising.

Since the theme for the Word for the Week is mobilizing, and we have many current examples of how this works, I would like to examine one in particular because of its obvious and powerful lessons—that is how the Republican Party mobilized when Governor Sarah Palin was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. This may be an unprecedented example of what we are seeking to understand here so we would be missing a great opportunity not to examine it.

          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.