Thank You All!

As you could expect, the NET meetings over the last month were so intense that I had no time at all to blog. This, I believe, will me my last blog for Pray4NET.

God did marvelous work in our midst in the past few weeks. I keep thinking about the many ways in which we could see His hand at work, and regret too often I can't sit down to write about it, and I'll forget them. The pressure is great, and multiple decisions on a daily basis--many affecting the entire telecast, thousands of viewers, or hundreds of God-hungry people in the local site--are enough to break anyone down. In spite of that, the good Lord preserved my health and my voice. The last few weekends I've preached six times in 24-hr periods. But God was there each time. There were a number of short nights, and a shoulder pain I carry that got worse, but God provided all the way.

I've written and/or given several reports--the last to the NAD Year-End meeting at the GC earlier this week--but I've not shared what I'm about to share now. Halfway through the meetings, the local police got involved, and we had to hire local security to patrol the church premises during the meetings because there were phone and texts evidence of a death threat on my person. Details are irrelevant now, but God provided protection there as well. We traveled almost 3,000 miles that month, and again, the Lord provided.

Lisa and I returned from worshiping at our home church a few minutes ago. Six precious souls were baptized, and more will do so next week. Dwight Nelson, the pastor and my friend for years, told me more will be baptized before Christmas. We heard many reports from churches in Arkansas, California, Ontario, Ohio, Montana, Hawaii, Iowa, New Jersey, Virginia, British Columbia, Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Colorado, and many other parts of the world, such as Jamaica, Australia, Russia, the UK, that baptisms are taking place. In some places as many as 20 or 25, in some others as few as one or two. If we estimate three baptisms for each of the 650 churches participating, that's 2,000 baptisms already. In Nashville, we had 133 decisions for baptism/POF and 58 baptized as of last Sabbath.

Probably even a greater evidence of God's work has been the overwhelmingly positive response by hundreds of our church members from around the country. For many multi-generational, life-long Adventists, these meetings were a concrete renewal to their faith and walk with God. They are now convicted SDAs, ready to reach out neighbor and friend for Jesus, when before the meetings that was the farthest from their minds. Laodiceanism is curable, and the only medicine potent enough to beat such disease is God's word. That word will produce the faith and love--the gold in Rev 3--needed for character, the garments of righteousness to replace our filthy rags, and the Holy Spirit to provide the necessary eye salve needed to see things they way God does. I wish I could share the e-mails and reports with you. They are simply moving. May the Lord be praised!

All this to say THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR FAITHFUL PRAYERS! Without them, we would have had much more trouble and difficulties, and God could not have blessed like He has. Yes, I believe more could have happened--more churches, more people watching, more baptisms--but the Lord takes us little by little. Perhaps the success of this process and these meetings will open doors for similar opportunities where even a more powerful display of God's love and faithfulness can be seen by those who turn their whole faces toward Him.

To God be the Lord!

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, . . .

for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now."

Philippians 1:3, 5

The Lord at Work

Henry Blackaby says Christians should figure out where God is at work and simply join Him there. Well, God is definitely at work at the start of these meetings. And by His grace, we mean to join Him here!

The devil is always ready to distract, derail, and otherwise annoy us when we're in the employ of the Almighty. But God always wins. Last Thursday, for example, we suddenly ended up without Internet for about 16 hours. It was critical for me because my graphic artist and I have to communicate constantly, sending files back and forth, as we prepare for these meetings. In addition, my computer got so bogged down (likely with invisible programs running behind mine courtesy of some virus) that after each click I made it took four eternal seconds to respond! It was nearly impossible to work that way, and the clock was ticking. We were one day away from opening night and found ourselves far behind in preparation. We needed the basic slides, edit them all, make a final copy, and practice it. And all that for each of the 28 presentations! Days of work had to be done in hours (I'm not including in this story all the variables that led to this situation).

And then my computer simply refused to save anything anymore. That Thursday night I went into deep depression and self-pity. It is hard putting into words the darkness that surrounded my soul. Lisa went to the other room and prayed earnestly for Jesus to save me. And the Lord came to my rescue just in time. Mysteriously, the vital program that could not be saved was saved after I came back from a walk on the parking lot with Jesus. I cannot account for what happened because no one touched the computer during that time.

I had ordered a new computer two weeks ago because I saw these problems coming, but something happened and the order was never placed. They finally shipped one overnight, and I received it about four hours before my first NET session. The new computer has been working well, and we praise the Lord for His intervention!

We had a very good opening weekend at the live site in Madison Campus, in Nashville. We estimate about 900 people came to the two meetings, and between 350 and 400 of them are guests. We have some beautiful people coming: some who'd come to previous meetings such as archaeology, or creation, or the Easter series last April. A lady cut short her attendance to a funeral last night and drove 90 miles to be with us. We have a number of young adults, post-modern people, very interested in the subjects. We heard from my home church that they had to keep adding more and more chairs to an otherwise packed house. We've received a number of notes from life-long SDAs who are very encouraged from what they've heard, telling us they now understand things they had never quite understood from the Bible before. The people's courage is high. There is a spring in their step. And many of our guests have sensed this is really worth coming to.

So, please keep praying. I tell my evangelism students that when we do these meetings "every day counts." Not one of them can be spared. If we miss visiting, or connecting, or praying for them, that might be the day they make decisions contrary to the loving will of the Lord. The success of meetings number one and two do not in any way imply success for any of the rest. Every day counts. Every day we must lift our petitions before the throne of grace.

Here are our most urgent needs:

1.  PRAY FOR THE 640 CHURCHES. A number of these are small. If they have 20 coming and 4 are guests, any attendance drop by Monday will be very significant. Pray their courage remains high and their members continue to pray for their meetings. Pray for good attendance in every church come Monday night and the rest of the weeknights.

2.  PRAY FOR THE MEMBERS. Some members always criticize or boycott any efforts made to evangelize with the gospel. This is a sad reflection on their priorities and lack of love for others and for God. Pray that their hearts be changed, and that if they won't be changed shortly, for Satan not to use them as his tools to dishearten or annoy. Pray, in fact, pray that many members may actually come closer to Jesus as a result of these meetings!

3.  PRAY FOR THE PASTORS. Pastors sometimes get distracted with "minor matters," as Ellen White puts it. Pray that they remain extremely focused on the soul winning opportunities available to them over these next few weeks.

4.  PRAY FOR THE GUESTS. Many long for answers. Pray that they'd be given every opportunity to obtain them from the Bible, as they attend meetings, as they visit with members and pastors. May they be thoroughly impressed this is the church of God today, and the one Jesus is calling all to join before He comes.

5.  PRAY FOR THE MESSAGES. I have spent many hours on these messages, but with new graphics and editing, I need to spent 15-20 hours on each message still, along with leading, teaching a seminary class, writing, and preaching twice each night. Pray the my schedule will allow it. Pray for my graphics team to be wise, and expedient, as they help me with these presentations. Pray that the Holy Spirit be in total control, especially when I preach, so God may be heard in the hearts of people.

Thank you, thank you for praying. Let's press on on our knees!

"And let us not grow weary while doing good,

for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."

Galatians 6:9

THE TIME IS NOW

Admittedly, I feel we’re at the stage of the journey that reminds me of when Jesus moved His ministry to Galilee. For about a year and a half, He worked mostly in Judea, with little to show for His efforts. People there were heavily influenced by the religious leaders of the day, none of whom would acknowledge Him as the Messiah. But when John the Baptist was taken prisoner, Jesus understood it was time to take it to the next level.

The Lord decided to work in the coastal cities of Capernaum and Bethsaida, and as He did, His message was “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Yes, Daniel 9 had now come true, and the end of the age was at hand.

Similarly, after working hard and praying harder for so many months, “the time is at hand to believe in the gospel.” The new development with Direct TV carrying the meetings is a huge question mark full of possibilities. We’ve implemented and continue to work on ways to reach those untold thousands that would watch without us knowing.

But I must give you a brief report on the just-finished Astonishing Discoveries in the Land of the Bible archaeology series. If you tuned in eight days ago, you might have panicked just like we did. The production team at the Media Center always does a test an hour before they air something live. When they noticed our team in Nashville was not calling, they called at 6:05 inquiring about it. The person that answered misread the clock, thinking it was 5:05 and simply said it’s not for another hour. That was interpreted by the person in California to mean the entire broadcast was an hour later, so he set the server for 7:30 CDT instead of 6:30 CDT. When 6:30 came, we started and thought we were live—625 churches had opened their doors to this event!

Lo and behold, no archaeology program was on. So, the churches started to call us, frantically. Nashville called California to get us on satellite, but it took an extra six minutes because of the new server. So, 16 minutes into the program, we were finally on. As you can imagine, a number of guests and members had left by that time, which is extremely unfortunate yet understandable.

How does one analyze such a far-reaching human error, something these professional people just don’t do? Our leadership team believes perhaps the Lord does want to surprise us with unexpected good, because we’ve met our share of difficulties and discouraging mishaps. I’d like to think that God’s power will be perceived as even greater when compared with so many things going array (many of which I did not write about in this blog).

The truth is that at in Nashville at least, people responded to the meetings very well. We had over 200 guests come, although we wished for more. But many told us how they are planning to be back for the main series next week. The meetings were an encouragement to the members as well. And one evidence that things went well in spite of that first night disaster is the fact that we had a major spike in the order of Bibles and other resources for the meetings, in addition to new churches signing up.

So, here are the matters that urge earnest prayer by everyone who loves God and His mission:

1.       Pray for the Blimp. A large blimp is circulating over the Nashville freeways with a 74-foot long banner written in bold letters: PROPHECIESDECODED.COM. This is unusual advertising and a bit costly, but our hope is that a number of the 100 to 200,000 people that will see it decide to register and show up. Pray for good weather, and perhaps the opportunity for the city press to notice and write about it, thus giving us more exposure.

2.       Pray for the Handbills. The handbills will begin to arrive in people’s homes as early as tomorrow (Friday). There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pieces all over the country we pray angels go with to impress people to respond. Pray that those most ready to receive the Three Angels’ Messages will be deeply impressed to attend. Pray that all the participating churches may have encouraging numbers on opening night.

3.       Pray for the Church Members. Here is our greatest need for prayer. Evangelism is hard work, no matter how you slice it. And enemies do not only come from the outside, but, sadly, often from the inside. Pray that the Spirit of Jesus may overpower selfish and worldly interests by members in every church that wants to do evangelism. Pray that the devil be not allowed to take advantage of members’ lack of love to others. Pray also for the strength and courage of the often few dedicated members who are and will be involved in NET outreach. And pray for neutral members to get off the fence and decide to help other members, even if love for the lost is something they have yet to experience.

4.       Pray for the Music. We have secured the musical ministry of a number of good people, such as Committed, Charles Haugabrooks, Jennifer LaMountain, and Steve Darmody, among other artists from the Nashville area. Our prayer is that each song will be something the angels would sing along, and that the Spirit may use music for salvation. Pray for Gale Murphy as she coordinates all this.

5.       Pray for the Social Media Efforts. Facebook, You Tube, Vimeo, and other social media outlets is what we’re using to try to get the word out, especially to millennials (young adults). Please pray that a number of them can respond to the invitation to come to the church, not only to watch it at home. When young people look to God to fill their empty hearts, God’s miracles in their lives are nearly instant and often explosive.

6.       Pray for the Nation. I have asked the Lord to move in our division in some way that people may perceive searching Bible prophecies may have answers for them. Remember that Adventist meetings for the weeks following 9/11 a decade ago were full of searching people. I’m interested more in people seeking for lasting solutions than in curiosity seekers, but the Word sown in always better than the Word not sown.

7.       Pray for Me. As Paul plead before the Ephesians, “pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,” (Eph 6:19) I ask you the same. A number have told me they are doing so. We knew a year ago that this would be an all-consuming project. Yet, I still planned to have some of August and some of September to work and revise my messages. Well, that time has come and gone, used with even more urgent matters. But Jesus can still help me. May His message and His love shine through and through.

Thank you for your faithfulness in praying for NET 11. The time is now. Let’s storm heaven so God may open its windows and pour out a blessing beyond our expectations.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel”

(Mark 1:15)

The Power of Prayer

It is time to honor the Lord by recognizing some answers to prayer. Here we go.

1. Protection in Italy. Lisa and I spent two weeks there on a research "vacation." We did rest, not much, but some. But I drove nearly 1,000 miles in a little car in Italy! That means narrow highways, dangerous drivers, mountain roads, etc. We did have a couple of scratches which, amazingly, didn't seem to bother the car rental. One of the highlights was visiting the Waldensian valleys where so long ago faithful, Bible-loving people gave their all for Jesus. God was good to us.
   
2. Book Publishing on Time. Yesterday, I got a note from Pacific Press saying they won't be sending the blue line for the author's read for Decoding Bible Prophecy because they have to print the book over this weekend, in order to make it! Well, I trust there won't be too many mistakes, and I'm very grateful we'll have this book in time for the NET meetings, and for churches to use. God answered our prayers. Just over three weeks ago it seemed impossible to pull this off!
   
3. The Madison Campus Leadership. Putting on something like NET 11 in one's church is enough to cause a revolution, or a revolt, whichever may be the case. With so many training events, and changes needed at the live site, it takes great patience and grace to accommodate for the sake of a national audience. The pastors at Madison Campus and a number of the lay leaders have been very gracious working with us. May the Lord repay their sacrifice with many new souls for the kingdom!
   
4. Russell Burrill. Russell has been our NET manager since nearly the start, and he has been a God-sent to me. NET management involves a myriad of details, contacts, phone calls, and follow-throughs. It was a God-inspired thought to ask him to help us. Thank you Russ.
   
5. NET on Direct-TV. Yes, this was confirmed a few days ago. As you know, Hope TV had decided months ago to forgo showing the NET meetings on its premier channel because of plans for different programing, now that Direct TV is involved. The entire series would only be shown on the Hope Church Channel instead. I was disappointed, but we accepted it. In addition, we weren't able to convince 3ABN to carry the NET this year. It's a complex issue. Anyway, we kept praying. God seems to have bigger plans than originally imagined because the NET on Hope TV (Direct TV) will have a potential viewership of millions! We praise God for this development.

So, two major items for prayer now.

1. THE ARCHAEOLOGY MEETINGS. They start this Wednesday, for the next five nights. I believe there is a high level of expectancy for these meetings. The handbills went out two days ago. Please pray that many of those getting the handbills will be impressed by the Holy Spirit to attend. Pray that the 625 or so churches showing it will have a wonderful experience getting to know their guests. Pray for Michael Hasel and I as we present, and for the media people and the equipment so things will go without a hitch. My sincere hope is that 25 to 33% of the guests coming to these meetings will transfer to the prophecy series two weeks later. This is a great series to bring people to your church. May God's people be mobilized for outreach!
   
2. THE NATIONWIDE STRATEGY. Due to this new development of having NET on Hope TV/Direct TV, we decided we needed a nationwide strategy, even if that was not in the budget. Somehow, we need to give the thousands that may be watching totally disconnected from a local church the opportunity to respond to what is being said, or to what the Holy Spirit is prompting them to do. We're creating a nationwide registration process which should really benefit the churches. Through an AIM 800 number, we'll give people the chance to call in and talk with a counselor that will help them spiritually, pray with them, and steer them to a local SDA church. We'll be making three book offers at different times during the series. This is the first time in SDA history that we have such large viewership potential for a NET series. Pray that Jesus may be in total control of me as the speaker, of the musicians, of the MCs, and any other person who comes before those cameras.

And even though I'm not adding it in the list, oh, how I wished a few more churches would choose to air these meetings and take advantage of all these resources! May God's loving will be done in all of our lives!

"Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save;

nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear."

Isaiah 59:1

Roman Holiday

Lisa and I boarded a plane for Rome last Tuesday. I'd sent the book manuscript in on Monday, and had what may prove to be the last NET 11 Planning Committee meeting. Exausted, we went on a badly needed vacation thanks to frequent miles.

Vacation is actually not the right word, since I'm still answering key e-mails, making NET decisions, and will have some work to do that cannot wait. But it is as much of one as we've had in a long time.

Over the years, I've been to over 50 countries and just about every major city in the world, except Rome, curiously enough. My several trips to and through Italy never included the Eternal City, but I wanted to check this out before the prophecy meetings got going.

It is very hot here at this time, and there are kazillion tourists from all over the world. The closest thing I remember is the number of tourists at the Grand Canyon.

One thing really strikes the well-informed visitor about this city: the total unity between the pagan and the religious. You see it in the architecture, the historical details, the landscape. So many times a pagan site from imperial Rome was converted into a house of worship by a pope years later. The tour guides say it with certainty: When imperial Rome collapsed, the city was ruled by the popes until the start of the republic. Do you know when that is? The 19th century. It all coincides with the biblical view of the conflict between good and evil.

St. Peter's Basilica is something to behold. Inside is that famous sculpture of Peter which is probably the god Jupiter, and many other items of interest. Peter himself called this city Babylon (2 Pet 3:15). So, I'm taking mental as well as real notes of what I'm seeing; plus as many suitable pictures as I can.

This morning, Lisa and I traveled from our hotel to worship in the largest Italian church in Rome. It is the one at the Union office, and for those coming from America, it is striking to see how small it is. Maybe 75 people were worshiping there today, and the church was full. We have yet so much work to do!

We look forward to traveling along the Waldensian Valleys next.

So, where are we in terms of prayer needs?

1.  Pray for More NET Churches. We believe this will be a very good series, and wish more churches would take advantage of this opportunity. There is a lot of supporting material to conduct a successful meeting, and churches can use as much or as little of it as they wish. Let's pray that even though it's only a month away, more churches would choose to use this as part of their evangelistic initiative.

2.  Pray for the Promotion.  This includes the social media approaches we're engaging in, the handbills a number of churches will use, and the various other forms of advertising. Of course, the key piece of advertising will always be the personal invitation by a caring church member.

3.  Pray for Church Revival.  Oh, how much we need the churches to fall in love with Jesus! A key to that objective is the commitment and heart of the pastor him/herself. If the leadership is focused on Christ and His mission to the world, it'll be easier for the congregation to follow. So, please pray for the pastors involved in the NET series, and for the congregations to develop an earnest desire to reach out to others as Jesus has reached out to us.

4.  Pray for the Archaeology Meetings. Dr. Hasel and I are looking forward to these meetings starting Sept 14. We hope and pray that many may come to them, and that many guests may choose to come to the prophecy meetings because of their experience with Astonishing Discoveries in the Land of the Bible. A new website about it should be up any time now. This is a great mini-series to invite friends, neighbors, family, and co-workers.

5.  Pray for the Equipment. My personal computer may be on its last dregs, and that makes me think of the various bad things that can happen when equipment you rely on suddenly stops working the way you expect. We have a lot riding on this.

6.  Pray for the Broadcast on HOPE. We weren't able to convince 3ABN to carry this NET series, which was a personal disappointment for me. However, there is a good chance now that Hope will carry the series on Hope TV, not just on Hope Church Channel. This means that for the first time ever evangelistic meetings may be before a potentially large secular audience across the country. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit for every word we say, every song we sing, and every Bible explanation we give. God must be in control of everything, for His glory!

7.  Pray for the NET Music. Due to a limited music budget, it has been more challenging to get well-known Adventist artists to give their time to the NET meetings. They want to do it but they live off their music ministries, and that's understandable. We have a lot of excellent local talent (after all Nashville is Music City USA), but some are untested when it comes to performing for live television. Pray Jesus will guide our music coordinator, Gale Murphy, to bring on those who'd most clearly honor God and be a blessing to those coming to the meetings.

8.  Pray for the Local Fundraising. Fund-raising has depended on me, and we haven't had but one chance to do this work in the Nashville area. We need to raise at least $45,000 to cover our basic budget. Play pray the Holy Spirit may convict men and women of good will to invest financially in the work of the Lord.

Thank you so much for your prayers on behalf of the prophecy book. The title of it is Decoding Bible Prophecy and will be published by Pacific Press. It will be made available to the churches at a very low price. Our plan is to give the book to everyone coming to the prophecy meetings at least six nights. It'll be our incentive for first-week attendance. We now plan to give the Andrews Study Bible to them after attending twelve nights.

Let us not grow weary in doing good. The Lord will sustain us. Thanks for much for your prayers!

"Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy,

and keep those things which are written in it;

for the time is near."

Revelation 1:3

Lord, I Give You My Heart

I'm listening to that song, "Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my soul..." It's Sabbath morning, and that is what I've done. That's all I really want to do. My sense is that this will soon come to an end, and I want all to be in the hands of Jesus.

The NET journey has been long and challenging. On Monday, we will likely have one of our last planning committee meetings. On Tuesday I leave for Rome. Once back, I'll be in the Northwest, after which the archaeology meetings begin (Sept 14). A week later is the Consecration Weekend with the Nashville churches and Prophecies Decoded starts.

We have done our best. We produced the extensive evangelistic/empowering DVD, wrote the detailed manual, offered training for Bible studies, small groups, youth evangelism. We developed ways to use the social media, and selected many resources for churches to use during the meetings. We edited archaeology and creation mini-series and created guidelines for home use. We have done fundraising. We have done all the accounting and distributing necessary. We encouraged revival and reformation in the churches, and wrote a book on the Holy Spirit to complement such focus. All this while teaching full loads and traveling 120,000 miles so far this year.

The book on prophetic interpretation (the actual title hasn't been decided yet) is almost finished. I wrote what I think will be the last chapter earlier this week, and have been doing some re-write and editing since. With the help of God, that will be finished tomorrow. Thanks for the many of you who have been praying.

What now? It's all in God's hands. Sometimes I think other institutions or organizations, and other speakers, are much better equipped to do what we are doing and will yet be doing for these NET meetings. But God has entrusted us that awesome responsibility this year. And all we can do is our best unto the Lord. He will do His part, which will make forget our best and forgive our worst.

1. Pray for the Prompt Publishing of the Book. Pacific Press will have to do an extraordinary effort to get this out in time for the churches to use. We've decided to make a change in our live site. Instead of giving the book on opening night, we will give it after they've attended six nights. Pray that the book will be a great blessing to people reading it, so they can get a better handle on how to study God's word, and why some of the things they've believed so far are not from the Lord. 
2. Pray for the Efficient Use of Social Media. We've had a couple of young adults working on this, and have put adds on Facebook, links to the website, the promo DVD on YouTube, etc. Oh, how I wish this, somehow, went viral. That it would stir the interest of many young people, especially, to call the 800 number, or go to the website and seek to register to attend a nearby church.
3. Pray for More Churches to Join. We have about 640 churches signed up (we thought we had more, but after an audit, we realized a number of duplications). While a very respectable number, how I wish we had 1,000 of them! It is still possible, but it would call for a miracle at this point. It is so much better for people to go to a church than even to someone else's home to watch Prophecies Decoded. We realize there will be perhaps thousands who will be watching this at home, by themselves. But the best opportunities to respond to the Spirit of God will be while people attend church.
4. Pray for the Churches Involved. At this point, pastors are getting anxious to be ready, to find all the volunteers needed to do this work well. Churches are sometimes stretched financially and lack people resources. Pray that they may have enough laborers to do the work, and enough financial resources to advertise and promote and resource guests well. Pray that the Spirit of God may be fully in control of their setting and bless each church abundantly. That they may find great joy and a bountiful harvest of souls.

Thank you for your faithfulness. It's been a great source of encouragement to know a number of you have been lifting me and the NET meetings before the Lord.

Lord, I give you my heart.

"Give me your heart, my son, and let your eyes delight in my ways."

Prov. 23:26

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