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THE HARVEST IS RIPE
The Harvest is ripe -- Here's proof:
Wycliffe: Vision 2025
Translation projects started in every language on the planet by 2025.
Worldwide evangelism:
In "The Faith Equation," Dr. Marvin Bittinger, Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University and author of over 175 college math textbooks, claims that by 2033 every person on the planet capable of understanding the gospel will have been presented the gospel, according to modern evangelism trends.
34,000 converts each day in South America
28-37,000 Chinese converts daily
23-25,000 African converts daily
16,000 Muslims come to Christ daily - the following stories are all quoted.
"In December 2001, Sheikh Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared on a live interview on Aljazeera satellite television to confirm that, sure enough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. "In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity," Al Qataani warned. "Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. "Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?" Al Qataani repeated his assertion. "Every year," the cleric confirmed, adding, "a tragedy has happened."
Stories from Muslim countries: Iraq -- thousands of new Christians since Saddam was overthrown, many new churches started, Egypt -- some reports say 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over the past decade or so. The Egyptian Bible Society used to sell about 3,000 copies of the JESUS film a year in the early 1990s. But last year they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (in Arabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament. The largest Christian congregation in the Middle East, meets in an enormous cave on the outskirts of Cairo. Some 10,000 believers worship there every weekend. A prayer conference the church held in May 2005 drew some 20,000 believers, Afghanistan -- only 17 Muslim converts to Christianity before 9/11/01, but now more than 10,000, Kazakstan -- only 3 known Christians in 1990, but now more than 15,000, Sudan -- more than 1 million Sudanese have converted to Christianity just since 2000, and some 5 million have become Christians since the early 1990s, despite a radical Islamic regime and an on-going genocide that has killed more than 200,000.
Seminaries are being held in caves to train pastors to shepherd the huge numbers of people coming to Christ. Why such a dramatic spiritual awakening? "People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead," one Sudanese evangelical leader said, Iran -- in 1979, there were only 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity, but today Iranian pastors and evangelical leaders say there are more than 1 million Iranian believers in Jesus Christ, most of whom meet in underground house churches. One of the most dramatic developments is that many Muslims are seeing dreams and visions of Jesus and thus coming into churches explaining that they have already converted and now need a Bible and guidance on how to follow Jesus."
Worldwide: 174,000 converts daily -- David B. Barret and Todd M. Johnson of the Global Evangelism Movement.
This is truly the most exciting time in all of history to be alive and a part of His Great Commission. The opportunity has never been more dramatic and the need has never been so huge:
All of history has built up to this point.
Global impact in your hometown.
Multiplication opportunities.
Transportation and communication impacts.
Globalization
English
Current end time events.
Israel, wars and other events.
The 4th qtr., bottom of the 9th, the end-game.
(From a sermon by Nate Herbst, The Great Commision -- Discussion, 11/21/2009)
CHILD SLAVES
Over two hundred million children around the world, some as young as four and five years old, are slaves. A majority of the children work in Asia, especially in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia--slaving away to make goods for us to buy in K-Mart and Wal-Mart... "Child slave labor [is] used to produce chocolate in the Ivory Coast. It produces 43 percent of the world’s cocoa beans ... harvested and processed by captive children between the ages of 12 and 14, and sometimes younger."
[Immaculata High School Child Slave Labor News]
PEOPLE WITHOUT CHRIST
One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Jer 8:20 KJV. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Question? What is 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day?
Answer: The line of people who are without Christ.
According to a recent poll of American young adult men, 48% believe that most of the problems in the world today are a result of man himself. Only 41% indicated agreement that Jesus has provided the way to know God personally. Only 29% could correctly state how one becomes a Christian. But 67% were interested in kn...
Paul Fritz
(India)--Elsewhere, Christian Aid Mission reports that a ministry
based in Tamil Nadu is seeing a rich harvest of souls. Missionaries of the outreach say over the last year, there were more than 12-thousand professions of faith that eventually grouped into nearly 300 small churches. The ministry also added to its existing missionaries on the field among more than 20 people groups throughout India. Please pray for continued growth for these new believers, and that persecution would not discourage them.
Private Help: A yearlong study finds that more Americans now depend on private food kitchens and pantries than use the federal food stamp program. The survey, paid for by America’s Second Harvest, a network of food banks, shows food pantries, kitchens and emergency shelters provided for more than 23 million people last year – 5 million more than used food stamps. The survey also showed that the faith community provided more than one million volunteers, each averaging 51 hours a week helping others. Most of these food kitchens operate with small budgets made up of private donations. (PWB 11/30/01)
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License To Kill: British scientist , Ian Wilmut, famous for cloning Dolly the sheep in ’96, has been granted a cloning license by British regulators to clone human embryos and extract stem cells for medical research. Though he calls this “therapeutic cloning” and claims it does not result in a baby, advocates for the preborn oppose such science because it creates human life, which is then destroyed when stem cells are harvested. (Pastors Weekly Briefing 2/11/05)
Decorate To Celebrate: Consumer purchases of Christmas and seasonal decorations have risen sharply since ‘00, according to a new research report from Unity Marketing, Gifts & Decorative Accents Report, 2003:The Market, The Competitors, The Future Trends. Over 60% percent of consumers bought Christmas or seasonal decorations in ‘02, up from 50% of U.S. households in ‘00. Pam Danziger, Unity Marketing says, “After 9-11 we saw how powerful decorations can be in communicating personal values and feelings. For example, Halloween decorating has shifted from the ghostly and ghoulish to life-affirming harvest-home themes, which also extends the decorating season right through Thanksgiving. Then Christmas and Chanukah decorating begins.” While Christmas accounts for nearly two-thirds of consumer spending, harvest-home and Thanksgiving decorations are the fastest growing categories in seasonal decorations. (Unity Marketing 10/1/03)
Best Christian Workplaces among Christian publishers according to the 2007 Best Christian Places to Work are Harvest House Publishers and Tyndale House Publishers in the Media and Publishing companies with 100-500 employees and Howard Books and InterVarsity Press were winners in up to 100 employees category. Other publisher finalists in the Media and Publishing categories were Zondervan, Multnomah, Group and Warner Press. (CMA 3/15/07)
In '06, American consumers spent $3.2 billion buying Halloween decorations, up over 21% from '05. This makes Halloween second only to Christmas for holiday decorating. It's not just Halloween. In '06 about $5 billion of the industry’s $19.2 billion in retail sales were generated from fall decorations, including back-to-school, Halloween, Thanksgiving and harvest home seasonal decorations. Double-digit growth is expected again in '07. (SOURCE: Unity Marketing 9/24/07)
