Four Critical Issues

The reason it's been so long since my last blog is that I have yet to come up for air. Yet the issues are so pressing right now I cannot afford not to communicate this with you. Please pass on this need for prayer far and wide to people of faith who believe in our mission.

My trip to Australia took 32 hrs each way, from door to door. Quite a trip, huh! For two years the Queensland Conference president had been trying to arrange for this, and the time to go was not working out. Finally, about eight months ago, we agreed on the early August dates because I knew I had to have been long finished with the book on prophecy. Boy, was I wrong.

Talking with one of my readers for this project, a writer and scholar of some note, I realized I should have asked him to ghost-write it or co-write it with me. Too late for that. This process has been a crucible for me. For months I've studied and read, but nothing was coming to the surface about the writing. Finally, two weeks ago, I began writing. I've been working on this 18 hrs a day, and am now, I believe, two chapters away from finishing it. The reason I cannot let up is we need this for the NET meetings, and Pacific Press needs it yesterday!

The meetings overseas were greatly blessed, as all of them seem to be when I speak on the Holy Spirit. But I returned home Thursday night, and hours later I was headed to Sacramento, for the ASI meeting. The Sabbath afternoon interview went well, except for the fact I wasn't aware 3ABN needed the promo DVD and graphics hours ahead of time. I pray the NET announcement may get some of those hard working lay people to sign on for the meetings.

In an hour, Lisa and I will drive to Nashville to begin tonight Decoding Revelation an in-depth study of Revelation's seals, trumpets, and plagues I'll be largely skipping for the big meeting. Our plan was to leave two days ago, but that had to change because of the book. Two chapters were written in the meantime.

Due to all this work, I've not been able to revise the presentations for this weekend. I'll be doing some of that today when Lisa is driving. The bad news is that we've only got two AIM registrations for this series. Normally, we should have gotten 50. Something is definitely not working, and only prayer will turn the tide. These meetings are meant for the church-going evangelical interested in prophecy. Most of them would come over to the main series once they attended this one.

In addition, this poor response problem will be worsened by the fact a miscalculation was made allocating the number of handbills to send for the Nashville site, so that only nearly half of them will be sent over the original number I had planned. This is a real problem because the conference, stretched as they are already financially, couldn't come up with the money for more.

So, I beg you to trouble the Lord on the following issues:

1.  DECODING REVELATION MEETINGS. That begins tonight in Nashville, and ends, after five presentations, on Saturday night. Pray God's Spirit will do extraordinary things to bring people to this meeting, because the handbills, apparently, have failed. We don't want to just use these meetings for various ministry teams to practice for the big one, we want to attract people to meet Jesus in the Revelation. Pray also for me, for I am exhausted, and will need to spend time revising the presentations as we go. Our plan is to tape these and make them available later as a set from NADEI.

2.  LOCAL FUNDRAISING. The NET 11 budget is split into the national and the local one. Both budgets require I raise a total of over $200,000. We've not been able to make any progress on the local fundraising yet, but we have lined up four critical visits for Thursday and Friday. Please pray that the Lord may bring conviction to these folk to contribute generously to the cause. If we had had more money available, we could have covered all of Nashville with the handbills. We need help in this regard.

3.  BOOK ON PROPHECY. This goes without saying. I've been sending various chapters to top-notched readers--scholars, writers, evangelists--quality people who've been giving me excellent feedback. But that's just it, it'll mean more time to make the needed revisions. I wasn't kidding when I said PPPA needed this yesterday. The pressure to finish this NOW is tremendous. I know God is near and He is blessing. More miracles are needed for this. The books needs to be simple to read, yet we're dealing with complex prophetic material. It needs to have enough of a "bite" to draw guests' interest and yet I cannot say too much before first winning their confidence with the live meetings. It is a needed book, but one difficult to pull off.

4.  HANDBILL ADVERTISING. The results so far, have been very disappointing. Much lower than anyone expected. We don't know if demonic push back is strong on this issue or if there is something unusual going on that we have yet to figure out. We simply cannot have this low a response for the upcoming archaeology and the main prophecy meetings. That will be a disaster. We have other advertising planned in addition to handbills--a blimp, highway billboards--but response to the handbills will need to drastically improve. Pray the Lord leads us to understand what we should do differently, if anything.

Thanks for your faithful praying. To the outside, this must sound like a crazy life. But we're doing, frankly, the best we know how, while trusting the Lord and counting on Him all the way. For that we need major prayer support. Yours. Thanks for that.

"I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live."

Psalm 116:1, 2