January 2001

Dear Prayer Partners,

"I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." --1 Corinthians 9:22

Commenting on the above verse Charles Spurgeon wrote, "Paul's great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great point? Then let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it be at the last great day to have taught and moralized men if they appear before God unsaved? Blood-red will our skirts be if through life we have sought inferior objects, and forgotten that men needed to be saved. Paul knew the ruin of man's natural state, and did not try to educate him, but to save him; he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of refining them, but of saving from the wrath to come." Spurgeon continued "Jesus died for sinners, cannot we live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where our love to Christ, if we seek not His honour in the salvation of men? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men."

With the above verse and statement in mind pray with us for Malcolm, Jo, Bruce, Mark, Bob, Elizabeth, Anne, Adrian, and Carol. Carol is a lady Pam met through Anne. Carol has problems to say the least. She and her husband recently divorced and their two children spend time with both parents. These problems built to where she tried suicide by taking an overdose of medicine. She has done this before. We don't know all the details but she was found by a neighbour and spent Christmas in intensive care in Dubbo base hospital. She is now out of hospital and will be taking secular counselling. Carol says she knows the Lord and has been involved with the charismatics in the past. Pray for her as God brings her to your mind. We mentioned Malcolm and Jo in our last letter. He is Jim and Margaret Ogden's youngest son and Jo is his fiancé. It is a long story but both Malcolm and Jo have been using heroin for sometime. They told Jim and Margaret they were clean and last month they moved to Dubbo with the promise they would look for work. Jim and Margaret found them a flat and paid the bond and deposit. Well, Malcolm and Jo arrived into Dubbo and it soon became apparent they weren't clean and couldn't begin to think of getting a job. After two days they flew back to Sydney with the promise they would begin the Methadone programme. Their story was it was easier to get on the programme in Sydney. They promised Jim and Margaret that once they began the programme they would return to Dubbo. Two days after they were in Sydney they called Jim and Margaret and said they had started the Methadone programme. December 11 they returned to Dubbo. The day after they arrived back Malcolm telephoned his parents and told them they had not started the Methadone programme and were still on heroin. That same day they went back to Sydney and the story is still unfolding. Malcolm has since telephoned and he is on the Methadone programme but Jo isn't. Please continue to pray for Malcolm and Jo's salvation and Jim and Margaret as they go through this as well.

David made contact with Andy Thompson again. They have moved houses and he is waiting to get into hospital in Sydney for bypass surgery. It will be several months before surgery can be performed due to a backlog. Social medicine is not the answer. Right now he is having a lot of angina attacks but he said after the surgery they would begin coming to the services. We took him a couple of audio tapes, one on creation by Kent Hovind and Eternity preached by now in glory Australian evangelist John Ridley. The 15th January we are having a one-day kid's club in the Country Women's Association hall in Gilgandra. It will be from 9am to 5pm to accommodate those mothers who work. Pray we will see some children attend and some will come to faith in Christ. We trust this will also open some doors to homes and parents.

Some have asked about the locust plague we were expecting. We didn't get as many locusts here in our part of the state as they expected. We did have about two hundred (our count when we vacuumed them up) get into the house and die. Fortunately David found the opening where they were entering before they completely took over. In closing we once again quote the prince of preachers. "To be a soul-winner is the happiest thing in the world. With every soul you bring to Christ, you get a new heaven upon earth. But who can conceive the bliss which awaits us above! Oh, how sweet is that sentence, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" Do you know what the joy of Christ is over a saved sinner? This is the very joy which we are to possess in heaven. Yes, when He mounts the throne, you shall mount with Him. When the heavens ring with "Well done, well done," you shall partake in the reward; you have toiled with Him, you have suffered with Him, you shall now reign with Him; you have sown with Him, you shall reap with Him; your face was covered with sweat like His, and your soul was grieved for the sins of men as His soul was, now shall your face be bright with heaven's splendour as is His countenance, and now shall your soul be filled with beatific joys even as His soul is." May we together seek the lost in His power and for His glory. Thank you for your continued financial and prayer support.

Your Missionaries to Australia,

David and Pam Bennett