See also Part 1, and Part 2 of our 2018 Year in Review. The following are the Top 10 stories written in 2018 by like-minded ministries (most of whom are also authors Lighthouse Trails represents). In order of date posted (oldest to newest):
1. Biometrics and Big Brother by Roger Oakland – A trend is sweeping the world that has the potential of impacting every person on the planet. It will mandate the way we buy or sell consumer products or identify our location as we move from place to place. Rarely a day goes by without news explaining how citizens around the world are being processed for the purpose of global personal identification. In order to understand what is happening, you need to know what is meant by the term biometrics.
2. Transgenderism and Our Children by Maria Kneas and Lois Putnam – In the Bible, God makes clear distinctions between light and darkness, good and evil, male and female, adults and children, animals and humans, plants and animals, living and inanimate. These distinctions or separations are clearly important to God, and anything that attempts to destroy these distinctions is trying to undermine foundational principles that God established.
3. Is Francis Chan Right That God Will Destroy Those Who Challenge Christian Leaders? by Mike Oppenheimer – Recently, Francis Chan spoke to a group at Bethel Church, and using Bible verses, he warned that God will destroy (kill) anyone who questions or opposes the teachings of Christian leaders. He proceeded to name some of those leaders (e.g., Rick Warren, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, etc.) who should not be spoken against.
4. Spiritual Discernment What It Is and How to Get It by Dr. Shelton Smith -You cannot get a graduate degree in spiritual discernment. I don’t know how much of it you have, but you need to keep working at it so you’ll be sure to have it on any given day. If you don’t have it, you’ll fall back into carnality and begin doing things the way the world does and that’s always a mistake! Spiritual discernment: seeing what God sees, counting it the way God counts it, understanding it as God reveals it, and accepting it as God declares it. Get it and don’t let go of it!
5. Satan’s War on Children by Bill Randles – The world I was born into was already undergoing a moral and social transition which probably alarmed my elders, but it is all but gone now. The only thing my children, grandchildren, and their generation can know of it is the anecdotes we who once lived in it pass on to them.
6. “God’s Dream”—Satan’s Ultimate Scheme by Warren B. Smith – Google the term “God’s Dream,” and you will immediately find countless references on Christian websites to this popular spiritual term. An ever-increasing number of Christian authors, pastors, youth leaders, evangelists, bloggers, musicians, and everyday believers are using the term “God’s Dream” as if it has some sound scriptural basis. It doesn’t.
7. The Emergent Church’s War on the Word by Gregory Reid – It was, of course, inevitable that the Emergent Church would begin to have babies that were even more unbiblical than itself. Andy Stanley is one of those spiritual offspring of a departure from biblical faith and adoption by experiential religious deception. In 2016, he told a group of pastors at the Southern Baptist Convention that they needed to get the spotlight off the Bible (August 2016 “Onward” conference). Now his spiritual “children” are following suit.
8. “Anger, Vitriol and Venom” From the Parliament of the World’s Religions by Carl Teichrib – Yesterday was the first day of the Parliament of Worlds Religions in Toronto, which was primarily comprised of opening ceremonies. Speakers included the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, our federal minister of immigration, a video message from the Dalai Lama, various Parliament leaders (including one who is an executive with the World Federalist Movement), and a talk by Jim Wallis (was openly hostile to Republicans and conservatives).