Midnight Cry Messenger

• Main Article: Examine Yourselves, Part 2 by Phil Enlow
  Is everyone who professes Christ ready to meet Him? Are You?
• Thanksgiving Meeting Report by Billy Boyte
• Praise Report on China Trip by a Philippino Brother
• Question About Pornography by Jimmy Robbins
  Reponse to a letter from a Christian sister concerned about her husband's interest in pornography.
• High School Football Prayer
  An inspiring and thought-provoking account of what a High School principal said about prayer before a football game.
• Fish, Gourd, Worm, Wind by Mike McInnis
  God's sovereign purpose expressed in and through Jonah.
• BOOK SAMPLER: Tongues, My Testimony, Chapter 1 by C. Parker Thomas
  Words of wisdom and experience on this controversial subject.
• The Editor's Letter

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Editor's Letter

Beloved in Christ,

This letter leaves us relaxed and simply resting in the Lord. I was thinking of the scripture in Hebrews, Chapter 4, Verse 1, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." That was, I believe, the Apostle Paul warning the New Testament Church and using as a type the Old Testament saints that left Egypt. This rest is simply coming to the place where we quit trying to save ourselves or become righteous and acceptable to God in ourselves. We are not as righteous as Christ nor can we be. This is why in II Cor. 5:21 the scripture says, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." It's just a marvel and the goodness of God that he would let his only begotten Son bear our sins in his body on the cross and let us go free. That's the greatest mystery and act of love that God has ever shown man. When we are walking around in Heaven, we won't be able to boast and say, "I did this or I did that to get here."

It is not what we have done or what we will do but simply what he did. Poor, weak, sin-blinded man, if he could realize this and simply quit trying to save himself but trust Christ, he would find this great rest. It is the one that gets you into heaven without your earning it or working for it. Glory Hallelujah! Sometimes I start thinking about the goodness of God and I want to shout, "Glory Hallelujah!"

May God bless you out there faithful readers of the Midnight Cry Ministry paper. Let's continue to pray and look to the Lord. His coming can't be far away.

Your unworthy friend,
C. Parker Thomas

Thanksgiving Meeting Report

This year's Thanksgiving meeting was preceded by many nights of prayer being offered up on behalf of the churches. We felt led of the Lord to begin having prayer services each night on behalf of the needs we all observed in our churches sometime in September. To our surprise, the Lord began to show us how great the needs were in OUR hearts. The scripture that bears on my mind is Luke 6:42, which tells us to cast out the beam from our own eye so we can see clearly to pull the mote from our brother's eye.

As a result of these things we approached this meeting with an attitude of searching our hearts. We also approached it with a greater measure of unity. As a result of this prevalent attitude among the Lord's people we experienced a very needed time of refreshing in the Lord.

Wednesday Night

The basic theme of this service was on the need for revelation as to who Jesus really is. Phil Enlow began this service from Matthew 16:13, bringing out that in order to serve the Lord we must first know by revelation from the Father who he is. He gave us several examples of how Jesus revealed his power, his nature, his relationship with the Father, and the authority that had been given to him by the Father.

Jim Easterly and Ron Peters confirmed this, noting that if we don't get to know the Lord intimately, then we will certainly not be very effective in serving him.

Thursday Night

Several brethren ministered in this service, bringing out how awesome God is, and how He has extended Himself to men through the prophets and ultimately through His only begotten Son. All of us are doomed if we don't come to a very real, personal relationship with Christ and his people. Phil brought out from Romans 10:13 where it states, "For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved," and that this calling on the Lord must be a desperate cry for help from our hearts. An example he gave was a man swimming on a river destined for a great cliff, death being the end result.

Jim Johnson showed us how God loved us so much He sent His Son for the sole purpose of redeeming us from imminent destruction. An altar call was given with many responding and being set free.

Friday Night

Bro. Jimmy Robbins was the main speaker for this service. He began by expressing a need to share a burden the Lord had laid on his heart. What followed was an inspired message on sex and marriage with many examples given of how to find the wife or husband that God has especially prepared for you, followed by some examples of how not to find the right one. We were then taught how we should conduct ourselves with our spouses, and how to handle many uncomfortable issues, if they should become a factor in our relationship. This was a much needed expression from the heart of God.

Saturday Night

Several brethren ministered in this service on the need for Jesus to become our personal Savior, taking the deed to our life and leading us as he sees fit, not as we direct. He must become Lord of all our life. Many came forward and were delivered.

As I said before, we experienced a very needed time of refreshing from our Lord. To Him be the glory.

Praise Report on China Trip

Dear Praying Partners,

Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus be with you! I thank God for giving me the opportunity to serve Him by ministering to the Filipino in Hongkong (HK) and to the Chinese in China even in a short period of time (8 days). God has a purpose in everything that is happening to us.

Thank you so much for all your prayers! I really appreciate so much your willingness to help me in any way you can as the Lord leads you to do so. I would like to share with you some of the ministry highlights and challenges that I received from the Lord and what responses and plans that I should need to do to continually participating in advancing God's kingdom.

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS

1) Discipled the Chinese new believers in ____ and ____;

2) Baptized a young Chinese lady lawyer in a bathtub;

3) Ministered a Filipino church in Hongkong (HK);

4) Met the Filipino key leaders in HK to expand our working relationships and to establish long-term networks with them;

5) Appointed ____ as an HK Coordinator for our House Church Movement Ministry;

6) Appointed an HK Coordinator to set up TESOL Center for the would-be missionary-tentmakers to reach the university students in China as English teachers;

7) Helped a Filipino couple who are starting a church planting work in HK;

8) Ministered to a team of Filipino missionaries in ____ through different ways.

CHALLENGES

1) While seeing and praying for the Chinese in our home-base in ____, I felt the heart of the Lord Jesus for these people. I felt the warmth of His love, His deep longings and big desire to save them, to heal, to forgive, to redeem and to set them free from the bondage of sin, Satan, darkness and evil desires; to transform their lives to become Christ-likeness and to attain the fullness of His plan for these lost, hungry, blind, weary and dying people. Even though I'm already here in the Philippines, every time I am praying for them, tears are flowing freely from my eyes with agonizing in my heart and travailing in my spirit. How I long to see them coming and surrendering their lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and living according to His will! There is a great need of workers in China. The field is ready and the harvests are ripe! If God is willing, I would like to give my life for these people. I don't know yet if this is His will for me and for my family to stay there on a long-term basis. If you have a word from the Lord regarding this matter please free to share it with me.

2) There is also a big need in Hong Kong to reach my co-Filipino. In fact my friends who started a work there are requesting me with urgency in their voices to return early next year and to stay there from 3 to 6 months to do the church planting, discipling the believers and training the leaders and future missionaries. Aside from this invitation, our team of Filipino missionaries is also encouraging me to help them to hasten the house church planting movement in different key cities of China.

MY RESPONSE AND PLANS

How can we involve ourselves to transform Hong Kong and China for God's glory in a more tangible ways?

1. First of all, I will continue to pray for them regularly and fervently including the missionaries and rally the house churches to pray for them too. I strongly believe that "PRAYER WORKS; PRAYER IS WORK; PRAYER LEADS TO WORK!"

2. I will continue my ministry of equipping future missionaries by encouraging them to undergo TESOL Training and to apply as English teachers in the universities of China to reach the students for Christ. By the way, ACES (Asian Center for English Studies), Philippines has appointed me to establish and to supervise centers in key cities and provinces in the Philippines. Last October, we have had our first batch graduated from ACES-Laguna. They were all 9 students and the 2 of them are now in China and some are still preparing to go there.

3. We will be the Coordinating Center for HK and China to facilitate the schedules of flight of all missionaries who will go there for the first time. We will also give them orientation and teach basic Mandarin.

4. We would like to start seed money to finance our ministry in the Philippines, HK and China. There are more work to be done, more people to reach with the saving gospel of the Lord Jesus and more countries to pray for. We do believe that God will touch His faithful people to sustain the needs of His obedient servants to advance His kingdom especially to those places and nations where Jesus Christ is not yet known!

I urge you to continue to pray for us and for the ministries that I have mentioned to you. Let us join our hands and God's resources to finish the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus in our generation! God's glorious blessings be with you always!

Your Partner in Christ's Vineyard,
E.

P.S. God has not allowed me to stay there for a month and to start a church planting work in ____. Maybe because it is not the right time for me yet to go there. Lord willing if the pictures will be developed, I will send it to you next week.

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