Has it ever dawned on you that every one of us has an expiration date on our life? We are not going to live forever. The statistics on death are solid and show 100% of us will die. It may come sooner, it may come later, but it will come.
Now why such happy thoughts to start this letter? It’s because in my busy schedule of taping TV programs, I went to two funerals of dear friends. It made me realize that what I was watching would someday happen to me.
Now, every one of us who are Christians God will take to heaven. There is no doubt about that. But the Bible talks about the judgment seat of Christ for Christians; that we will stand before God and give an account of how we served Jesus while we lived. If we lived for Him, He will reward us greatly. If we didn’t live for Him, we won’t receive the rewards we could have had, and we will have to tell Jesus why.
I am so proud of many of you that have obeyed Jesus’ command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” and “make disciples of all the nations.” How? By giving Audio Bibles in the languages of the people that have never heard the gospel.
Like me, you realized there are people around the world that have never even heard about Jesus, never had a Bible in their own language, and have no idea of Jesus dying on the cross for their sins. Then, because millions are illiterate, they too have no idea of what the Bible says.
You get the fact that millions of people need an audio recording of the Word of God if they are ever going to learn about Jesus, learn that God sent Him to die for their sins, and that God wants them to become one of His children. If they believe on Christ and receive Him into their life as their Savior, they will look back to you and say, “Thank you for giving me an Audio Bible.”
This month Christians will gather to celebrate Easter, when we remember the incredible gift God gave us when He “gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
So far, 13,085,909 people listening in 253 different languages and 83 countries have learned about God’s gift and have come to know the Lord because of the Audio Bibles you have given.
But the job is not done yet. As you will hear in our program this month with Morgan Jackson, our goal is to translate and record the remaining 2,000 languages and provide audio Proclaimers to the 1.5 billion people in the world who have no knowledge of Jesus.
Those of you who are over 40 will most certainly be familiar with Billy Graham. Coming up in a few weeks, his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, will be with us on our program to talk about the Holy Spirit and her book, Jesus In Me.
Why should you want to watch these programs. It’s because many non-Christians hear their believing friends talking about how accepting Jesus brought real change into their lives, but they don’t understand how that can happen.
They are not aware of Jesus’ promise that when you receive His gift of salvation, He will send the Holy Spirit to live in you and to change you, giving you new desires, and new strength and power to live as Jesus wants you to live.
Anne Graham Lotz will tell you all about the Holy Spirit. You won’t want to miss these programs coming up in just a few weeks.
Now, did you know that we have recently added our program to new Fox stations in New York City, Houston, Dallas and Orlando, and the NBC station in Jacksonville?
For those of you in Canada, we have learned that Daystar is acquiring new networks, and that our program will soon be available to you on that network. We’ll give you details as we get them.
So why would we take on new station in the US and in Canada? It’s because both countries need the Lord. Both countries are experiencing big problems! And university students in both countries have told us that they have learned things from our program that they were never taught in church.
For example, Dr. Hugh Ross just explained to us how the scientific evidence in the universe brought him to believe in God. The same thing is happening among many atheistic scientists as they are confronted by new information from their study of our universe. In fact, we may do a future program just focusing on that particular trend.
We want to continue to add new stations in both the US and in Canada so that the gospel message will be available to even more people. But many Christians mistakenly believe Christian programing is aired free of charge. That’s not true, and especially not true on secular stations like ABC, NBC, and FOX. Granted, we are not charged as much as it costs to air a commercial during the Superbowl, but we do have to pay for airtime.
Would you please pray about supporting us as we buy airtime for new markets across the US and Canada? In this way, you will have a part in fulfilling the Great Commission as we “preach the gospel to every creature.”
What brings me the most joy is winning new people to Jesus, telling new people about His marvelous gift, and bringing them into God’s kingdom.
I’m especially grateful to you as you partner with us. We could not do ministry without you.
Until all hear the good news,
John and Darlene
P.S. Don’t forget! Last month we invited you to submit questions for an upcoming conversation with Dr. Hugh Ross. If you have questions about astronomy, the beginning of the universe, the stars, our galaxy, the sun, our earth, the fossil record, God, the biblical record of earth, human life, and science, just ask, and we’ll ask Dr. Ross to address as many as possible.
Please keep your questions to under 70 words, and e-mail them to [email protected], with the subject line: Question for Dr. Ross. Be sure to submit your question no later than April 30.