Happy
New Year to all and many blessings,
A
special welcome to all the new recipients for
2003! We are glad you are here. Just in case you
might still be wondering how you got this, here
is the invitation letter sent out early this
year, click
here.
US
Last
year July, this ministry sprung back to life
and, in the last 6 months, we have had over one
million hits to our website; making us one of
the leading apostolic sites proclaiming the
truth about salvation. In addition, hundreds of
thousands more unsaved souls were touched. An
Newspaper has even done an article on the site.
There is a lot more that could be said on the
impact this ministry has had last year, but time
would not allow, so if you’re interested, here
is a short praise worthy document, click
here.
At present this
newsletter is one of the most widely circulated
yet, among apostolic born again believers, with
tens of thousands recipients. In fact, they are
well over 5000 Apostolic Bishops on this list
and two times more Pastors. This newsletter has
been read and sanctioned by many in UPC, PAW,
ALJC, AAFJC, COOLJC, AOH, A.P.C. of J.C, CECC,
IAF, ICOF, LOJACI, ACOP, AFF, AFMA, AWCF, ABC,
BAO, BWCWW, JCAC, PCAF and other Apostolic
Ministries world wide, plus by many more
independent ministries. Here is just one of the
many appreciations heralded by a pastor who
receives our newsletter:
“Thank
you for your newsletter. I really appreciate
your stand for Truth and for God's Word. Keep up
the good work that the Lord Jesus has blessed
you with. May the Lord give you divine direction
in all your endeavors for Him” (Pastor G.R.
Charles)
APOSTOLICS
AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BODIES
According to
one research, there are approximately 500
different organizations holding to the Apostolic
message. It concluded that the numbers have
already surpassed 15 million Oneness believers
worldwide and might be as high as 18 million.
UPC alone has 2.3 million but, as the researcher
concluded, there is no way to accurately number
the believers in any denomination. These numbers
might sounds startling, but look at the top 10
Religious bodies out of 120 largest Religious
bodies in the world:
Catholic Church
1,050,000,000
Sunni Islam
900,000,000
Eastern Orthodox Church
225,000,000
Jinja Honcho
83,000,000
Anglican 73,000,000
Ethiopian
Orthodox Church 35,000,000
Assemblies of God
32,000,000
Evan gelische Kirche in
Deutschland (EKD) 27,400,000
Sikhism
23,000,000
Juche (North Korea)
19,000,000
The
two largest religious bodies on this list
(Catholics and Sunni Muslims) account for about
33% of the world's population.
The
sum membership of the "world's largest religious
bodies" account for about 47.4% of the world's
population. This means that nearly half of the
world's population can be counted as members of
a relatively small number of essentially
organized religious bodies (if one counts Sunni
Islam as a single organization).
Most
of the other half of the world’s population is
adherent to various religions, who are not
members of the 120 largest religious bodies on
the list on this page. (Adherents.com lists
over 4,000 different religious/faith/tribal
groups, most of which are either not larger than
1 million or are not classified as "religious
bodies"; the two criteria for this list.)
The
sum membership of all of these religious bodies
minus the largest five -- i.e. out all 120
largest religious bodies with one million or
more but less than 50 million members, adds up
to about 8.5% of the world's population.
One of
the larger churches (religious bodies) that you
probably hear the least about (least fame per
capita) is perhaps the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church. Although political and social
instability in Ethiopia make accurately
estimating the size of this church difficult, it
is nevertheless probably one of the world's
largest churches. But because it is so
regionally concentrated, and because its members
are so poor and have little access to media and
the Internet, they are relatively unknown. The
Ethiopian Orthodox Church is also one of the
oldest religious bodies on this list.
Until
the 1960s, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was in
full communion with the Coptic Church in Egypt,
and together the two factions were known as one
Coptic Church.
The
largest religious bodies based in the United
States (in terms of worldwide membership) are
the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist
Convention, United Methodist Church, Jehovah's
Witnesses, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, and Seventh-day Adventists.
If one
were to compare religious bodies to the national
populations of countries, the world's largest
organization would be China, with about 1.2
billion residents. But after that would be the
Catholic Church, with over one billion members.
Third would be India, followed by Sunni Islam,
the United States, and the Eastern Orthodox
Church.
China
1,221,591,778
Catholic Church
1,050,000,000
India 966,783,171
Sunni
Islam 900,000,000
United States
267,954,764
Eastern Orthodox Church
225,000,000
Along
these same lines, there are about as many
members of the Assemblies of God as there are
residents of Australia. The membership of the
United Methodist Church is roughly the same as
the population of Ecuador.
Interestingly
enough, the world's largest religious body, the
Catholic Church, is outlawed in the world's most
populous country, China. Although there are
millions of Catholics in China, the only legal
Catholic Church in the country is the Catholic
Patriotic Church, the government-sponsored body
which is not in communion with Rome.
The
largest voluntary high-participation
organizations in the world are religious
bodies.
WHAT
DOES THIS MEANS TO YOU?
It
means that you are greatly in need!
If
more than half the world’s population (6 billion
people) is hungry for something spiritual and
act upon that desire to join a religious body,
it means that they are very serious about
satisfying that spiritual void in their life. It
also means then that you are more than needed in
this day and age to proclaim the truth about
salvation. Because if half the world’s
population is in a religious body that doesn’t
preach what Christ ordained for salvation (Acts
2:38), then half the world’s population is lost
while trying to reach out. Can you think of a
sadder picture?
Therefore, it
means then that in 2003 you, and every born
again believer you know, shouldn’t allow the
devil to make you waste time chasing ungodly
dreams, fighting over church positions,
gallivanting at the mall and unnecessary
socials, competing in outward appearance, wooing
after a friend, lusting after a bigger house,
car or bank account and giving heed to other
distractions while the world goes to hell’s fire
in a hand basket, when they were saying, “Here I
am, I want God.”
I wish
I had a remedy to motivate saints to witness or
evangelize, but honestly I don’t and it saddens
me to go to church and watch the Holy Ghost
filled believers sit in the pews warming the
benches day after day. Not giving a thought to
whether someone else might want what they have.
And even sadder, given what we have today, it is
much easier than former years. Pastors it’s time
to think outside the box and use who is
available and Spirit-filled to get the job
done.
Saints, leaders
and friends do you see the startling numbers of
persons wanting God, yet remain unsaved?
Honestly, how do you feel? I don’t know but I’m
going “hay wire” at the amount of souls that can
be reached, while we celebrate a few million
believers and verbally slaughter the ones who
did the most work. Yes, many of our brethrens
within our own apostolic organizations often hit
on the other ones. Some of the persons in my
circle criticize the UPC, yet the UPC brings in
the most genuine born again apostolic believers.
I could care less about policies and procedures!
Look how many souls out there need to be saved.
Some have even written to me with their
testimonies of how the UPC church was abusive to
them, because it told them not to do this and
not to do that. Here is what God said to me when
I went to him with similar complaint, “Do you
think he beareth the sword in vain,’ ‘For he is
the minister of God to thee for good’ (Rom
13:4).” I’ve never been a member of a UPC church
but I’ve visited. The last one I visited for the
first time. After going to the altar for prayer,
this lady flew out of the crowd and started to
grab me, spit in my face and give me instruction
for “tarrying” for the Holy Ghost, though I was
already saved. Amongst the commotion, I managed
to get a word to her ear and I told her that I
was already saved. Instead of calming down when
she realized that she was wrong, she looked
through the corner of her eyes to see if anyone
was looking, then further draped me up, spit in
my mouth and said you then need the anointing a
few times. Persons who knew me were present and
one tried to console me with words, but I
shrugged it off. Why? Right there and then I
said within myself, “I’d rather be here going
through this than be somewhere else where the
saints are not gathered.” Moreover, things like
these are common in every Pentecostal
church.
Saints
of the most High God, let us put off the little
isms and schisms, both at your church,
personally and between organizations and let us
do what Christ commissioned us to do. If you
haven’t realized it yet, you are more than
needed today. The devil’s intention is to get
you so caught up that you neither see nor go
after the souls that are crying by their
actions, “Here I am. I want God.”
THIS
YEAR
I have
never done this before and leaders that do it
say it works, "for it is the spoken word." I
want to make a declaration for this year and
hope to God that many will run with it; there is
no other time that it is needed. Let this year
be a year not just of Evangelism, but more
precisely coined, “Building the Kingdom of
God!”
The
last six months of last year, through the
leading of the Holy Spirit, I was able to
present the gospel to approximately a million
souls via the internet and I’m just one person.
Imagine if the other 17.99 million souls was
graced to do what was done by the Lord through
me, last year. (17.99… million times one million
divided by 6 billion) The gospel and doctrine
would be preached to the entire human population
3000 times over. Are you listening? Are you
ready for this year? Do you want what God wants?
Do you want souls?
Christ
proclaimed that “I will build my church…” but
the vessels have to want it and want it his way,
unless you would have scattered rather than
gathered (Luke 11:23). That was hard for me last
year, amiss the ridicules and embarrassments,
but his mercies endureth forever!
Last
year when the Lord took me out from among my
family and familiar friends, he spoke to me
clearly “it is given unto you to understand the
mysteries of the kingdom.” In a few months, his
hands didn’t leave off me until I finished
reading the entire Bible on Jan 1, 2003 straight
through, rather than “here a book there a book.”
I’ve never complained to God so much in my life,
everything was stripped away and I kept
saying,
“God,
I understand! I won’t stop witnessing, praying,
fasting or reading my Bible as often or be too
lazy for witnessing. Enough! Please God not
that, not her, not him; I paid too much for
this!”
Nevertheless,
amidst it all, he always gives me peace and
ushers me into praises and reveals his Word unto
me; his mercies endureth forever! Then he
reminded me of the time I was 16 on my bed, just
having given my life to God, and he said to me,
“I desire a teaching priest,” then left. That
night I was in the scriptures until day break,
until my mother was asking “if I’m not going to
school?” I had forgotten, I had allowed the
cares of this world to choke his desires of
me.
Saints
of the most high, God is not asking too much for
you to witness. He has done the world a great
favor in giving his life and he did a bigger
favor by causing you to inherit it. It is not
too much to ask to give up the T.V, wooing,
extra-curricular activities, food, pleasure,
unnecessary ministries and other distractions to
save a soul from hell’s fire. You might have
started, but there is much more that can be
done. You might have thought about it but felt
intimidated, it will be God that “works in you,
both to will and do his good pleasure,” after
you yield those fears to him.
I’ve
said enough. I don’t know what else to do to
encourage the saints to do what God says do.
Lord, please send Laborers into the harvest in
Jesus’ name! In all sincerity and truth, let us
lay aside every weight this year and “build the
Kingdom God!”
This
letter from the 2002’s archive will help,
“Evangelism is life, Do or Dead!”
Oneil.
www.ThreeQ.com
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