Dear Fellow Servant,  

 

Greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  (Eph. 6:12 )

None of this ought to surprise us as we know that the natural world is at enmity against God and in, and of itself will never, nor could it do anything to please a Righteous God. As we celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln we also mark the birth of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution and the man who did perhaps more than anyone else to undermine the work of the Lord. And yet his life is celebrated, not only by society, but by the church around the world. God help us all.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, and without faith I'm not sure any of us could look at what is going on and see any reason to continue. What is the future of the Church, of missions, of para-church organizations? I believe that God has given to His Church a great responsibility, a great task to be His ambassadors of reconciliation and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery. As we look at what is taking place today we must ask ourselves how will we continue to be able to carry out that mission, and yet if we are faithful to Him, He will make a way.

As you know we have scheduled our Grace Revival for Evangelism 8 conference for September of 2009. Much prayer has already gone into the planning of this conference, as well as its results. It is our prayerful desire that the Lord would bless and use this conference to challenge the saints to more faithfully serve Him in the area of evangelism.

Friend, I believe that Satan is doing all he can to thwart the work of the Lord through this conference, as well as through the ministries of all those who are truly standing for the truth. As you are aware we ended 2008 in an extremely dire financial situation. We honestly didn't know if we would make it. But PRAISE THE LORD  He provided and we were able to move ahead under a fresh head of steam. We prayed about canceling the conference, and even made the call to do so, but in the end decided that we weren't ready to give in as yet. We have pressed forward and the ministry of BDTLB is continuing. But not without opposition. Today we made the first deposit on the rooms for the conference according to our contract. Our next BIG hurdle will come at the end of May. Ta that time was must make our final decision as to whether or not to press ahead with the conference. If we go past that date and decide to cancel we would owe the conference center over $30,000.00. Needless to say we cannot, we will not allow that to happen.

We need your fervent prayers for this conference. Like I said, Satan is attacking in an attempt, I believe to silence the ministry of BDTLB and silence our conference. Over the past several years we have seen many people, young and old alike come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. This ministry has been "successful" from a Spiritual point of view in bringing lost souls to Christ and Satan hates that, and works to stop that.

Would you pray with us? Pray that the Lord will continue to bless this ministry in the face of attack. Pray that He will give us souls for our hire. Pray that we will remain focused upon Him and not allow the ills of society, the ways of the world, financial difficulties to weigh us down and cause us to become discouraged.We serve a great big wonderful God who is able to do far more than we are able to think. If you have a prayer chain in your church put BDTLB and the conference on it.
 
In Christ

 

Joel R McGarvey