Beloved Fellow Heir of the Grace of God,
We begin by thanking you for your faithful contributions towards this work of faith of Today the Bible and You.
We appreciate your support in these times of uncertainty.
We thank you for praying with us each day as we together pray that God will bless His work of faith through this ministry and those He is using throughout the world.
Thank you for being an answer to many of those prayers. It is always encouraging to know that God has called us together to fulfill His divine purpose for our lives. God has been pleased to use us to make a difference in many lives around the world and in our beloved country.
Is anybody paying attention that God is about to appear the Second Time?
We are promised in Hebrews 9:28, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
It appears as if we are witnessing the final rehearsal of a live show, in which everything is done as it would be in a real performance.
A rehearsal is an event that occurs as preparation for a performance. It is undertaken as a form of practicing, to ensure that all details of the subsequent performance are adequately prepared and coordinated.
Most commonly employed in the performing arts as preparation for a public presentation, rehearsals are nevertheless used in other contexts, as well, to prepare for the performance of any anticipated activity.
There is, in fact, a rehearsal of sorts that just took place in Jerusalem:
On Monday, May 27, 2015, on a mountain ridge overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem and the ancient Temple Mount, Jewish Ancestral priests otherwise known as Kohanim, performed a dry run of the Temple Service for the Shavuot (Pentecost) holiday.
All three of the major components of the holiday service – bringing of the first fruits, preparation of two loaves of bread using the season’s new wheat, and a special holiday offering – were conducted to as great a level of detail as is possible at this point in time.
This ceremony is a joyous one, as the people are able to celebrate God’s abundant provision of food. In fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy of Jews returning to the God-given land of Israel and the rebuilding of the Holy Jewish Temple, this reenactment is one step forward to the completion when all the nations will gather at the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.
However, of paramount importance is the following fact:
THE SHAVUOT HOLIDAY HAS NOT BEEN CELEBRATED IN THIS MANNER FOR NEARLY 2,000 YEARS!!!!!
God has been bringing His people back to Israel as He promised He would, after returning Israel back to her land after 1,900 years of dispersion. God promised His chosen people of the Land in Ezekiel 20:34-42,
“And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.”
It is a surety that even today God is making it possible for Israel to re-establish the Old Testament Covenant, of which ceremonies like this are critical.
Of course, Christians who know their Bible need to warn all Jews that this activity, including the rebuilding of the Temple, are preparations for the man of deceit, the Antichrist.
Most Jews will not listen, but the seed needs to be planted in their minds that the first man on the world scene, claiming to be Jesus Christ, will be the false Christ who will turn to deceive them.
He will be followed after 7 years by the real Jesus Christ, Who will come to Earth at the Mount of Olives.
It is clear that the Age of Grace is rapidly coming to a close and that the stage is being set for the rebuilding of the temple and the beginning of the tribulation period.
The Church Age is near its end as the stage is being set for Israel to once again take center stage in Bible Prophecy.
Friend, God is looking for His people to pray from the heart — to understand the urgency of their situation.
- Have you prayed fervently for your marriage?
- For your family?
- For your children?
- For your husband?
- For your wife?
- Have you prayed earnestly for your church?
- Have you prayed like this for your nation?
If we don’t put any heart into our prayers, God won’t put a lot of heart into answering them.
“And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord…” (Jeremiah 29:13-14a)
God promised that his people will find him when they search for him with ALL their hearts.
This is why fervent prayer is so important in these last days.
The days are getting short
Are some of you getting ready to live a long life? It may be that time!
According to biologist Aubrey de Grey, the person that will live to be 150 years old has already been born. Moreover, he says, the person that will live one thousand years will probably be born sometime in the next couple of decades.
Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist at the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) in (where else?) California.
He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.
“The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic,”
Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear.
An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.
To date, the world’s longest-living person on record lived to 122 and in Japan alone there were more than 44,000 centenarians in 2010.
Some researchers say, however, that the trend towards a longer lifespan may falter due to an epidemic of obesity now spilling over from rich nations into the developing world.
Jeanne Calumet died the world’s oldest person in 1997 at the age of 122 years, 164 days old.
But prophecy is the ONE miracle no human being can recreate with technology.
It is what makes the Bible unique among all other sacred writings. No one knows the exact day and hour, but we can know when His return is near.
The unbelievers of Noah’s day were taken unawares, but Noah was not surprised. Noah knew one hundred and twenty years beforehand that the flood was coming.
Noah did not know the exact day of the flood; but when Noah finished building the ark, he knew the flood was near.
We are witnessing the construction process for the last day’s ark coming to an end.
Prophecy is not given to remain a secret forever, but at the proper time, God gives understanding to those who will take notice and believe.
Sir Isaac Newton, in addition to being one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, was also a devout believer who was a careful student of Bible prophecy.
He made a sort of prophecy of his own that he extrapolated from the Scriptures.
According to Newton, “About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up, who will turn their attention to the prophecies, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.”
One can tell a storm is coming by watching the gathering clouds. You needn’t wait for the rain if you can read the signs.
BIBLES — BIBLES — IN DESPERATE NEED OF BIBLES
God sent us to Burma almost 25 years ago with the Word of God.
Most of the denominations and seminaries established there many years ago by godly men had fallen away, as none of the professors believed in the Bible and many professors even claimed to be atheists.
But by the grace of God, these seminaries and churches today have come to understand God’s Word, with key professors being born-again, and denominations turning back once again to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Word.
Praise God!
Back when we originally went to Burma, the Bibles available to the people were worthless, terrible translations.
A friend of mine, Taithul, who translated the Bible for the Bible Society of India, admitted to me that they forced him to only translate the Bible from The Good News for Modern Man which is a horrible translation of the Bible in English … and even worse when translated into the other languages.
Taithul came to America to translate the Bible from the Textus Receptus into the native languages of India and Burma. We completed the New Testament and thousands of Bibles were printed.
Recently, I was teaching a group of these people from Burma and all were using the perverted Bibles.
The Bibles that we had printed were now all gone!
When my friend explained to me what the other versions said, it was nothing close to the original text.
When I was helping my friend Taithul translate the Bible into his native language, he would cry saying,
“Pu John, I cannot believe how many times I even left the name of the Lord Jesus out of the Bible.”
We need to print SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND Bibles so Burmese believers can grow in their faith. These people are literally starving for the Word of God.
CAN YOU HELP?
The Bible is food for the soul. God gave us His inspired Word to equip, train and teach us.
He expects us to read it and apply it. As the body needs food on a daily basis, so we too must take in God’s Word for life and health.
At Today, the Bible & You, we want to see people accept Jesus as their Savior and grow in their relationship with Him — making sure they are ready to stand before God.
But we also want to see people from every nation, tribe, and tongue put their faith into practice — walking in the center of His will and being His faithful representatives to everyone they meet.
I am so excited about all the new avenues of ministry that the Lord has laid before us, and I am grateful for your partnership. I pray you are blessed by our efforts.
I also hope that you will continue to join with us as we change the world by proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth, teaching others to obey all that Jesus commanded.
Please continue to pray about this avenue of ministry
Thank you for remembering us before God and for your unwavering partnership with Today, the Bible and You.
Without the faithfulness of God’s people, we could never do the work that we are doing in Burma, India, Peru and around the world.
We continually thank God for His faithfulness in the work He is doing through us.
Our Lord Jesus never commanded the entire world to go to the church, but He did command His church to go to the whole world.
This is what you and I have been doing . . . and we can not do it without YOU.
May the Lord richly bless you as you faithfully serve Him.
Your Fellow Servant in Christ,
