From Me to You: November 2024

It’s hard to believe that we’re talking about November, but here it is. Thanksgiving is coming up, and, if you have the Lord Jesus Christ in your life, then there is every reason in the world to be thankful. I’m also thankful for you holding us up before the Lord. Your prayers for this evangelist mean more than I have words to say. I am improving daily—maybe a little slower than I’d like, which is a real test of patience—but I feel good in my spirit, and I believe the Lord is going to do some great and mighty things, that I want you to know.

ELECTION

The way the mailing is set up, this magazine will reach many of you before November 5, which gives me one more opportunity to implore you to vote in an election that will, I believe, determine the future of this nation. To be sure, every single vote will count, which is why it is so critical for Christians to get out there and vote according to what the Bible says on the issues. So please, make sure you vote as it is very, very important.

BIBLE-THON

Even as I write this, we have Bible-thon going on, and Loren just got done relaying a story told years back by a missionary who visited our Bible college. It’s a good story, which I will attempt to retell here.

The missionary in question told of a large family living in Central America, I think it was, in a mining community. The father was, of course, a miner, but when his wife died, the responsibility of tending to the children fell to the oldest daughter Maria. It happened that this young lady somehow came across our missionary friend, heard the gospel, and gave her heart to Christ. While Maria’s brothers and sisters were somewhat open to her sharing the gospel, her dad, hardened by his circumstances, was not. With her mother gone, it was also Maria’s job to pack her dad’s sack lunch. So, determined to share the gospel with him, every day on one side of that sack, Maria would write out a Bible verse. Her father told her to stop doing that, but she didn’t stop; she kept writing the verses. One day, long after he had left for work, the bells in that mining town started ringing—an alarm that something was wrong. There had been a collapse, and ten men working down deep were trapped. Maria’s father was one of those men. Rescue attempts failed, and a day and a half later, the sad news came that all ten men had died. When their bodies were brought up, somehow, the dad’s sack lunch also made it to the surface. One side of the crumpled bag, written in Maria’s hand said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” On the other side of the paper sack were the signatures of all ten miners who had been trapped, along with a note that said, “Dear Maria, thank you for writing the verses on my lunch every day. We realize that our lives will soon be over, but all ten of us have decided to believe in the Jesus that you preached. All ten of us accepted Christ.”

Praise God. If the Lord can do all of this through one missionary and a daily Bible verse, whichHe did, then just think of what He can do through thousands of pastors equipped with The Expositor’s Study Bible in a communist country like Cuba, which is where the next shipment of Bibles is headed. That’s why I keep saying it—our monthly Bible-thon is the greatest missionary outreach taking place in the world today, and we thank all of you who take part in it.

FAMILY COMING TO CHRIST

With the holidays drawing near, it’s on my mind that there is nothing in the world like a family coming to Christ, giving their hearts to the Lord. There’s just nothing like it. I can remember before my parents were saved, they were fussing all the time. There were problems constantly. I was just a child, maybe four years old, and I loved both of them, as any child does, and it hurt me to hear them fuss at each other and say things that were hard and harsh. Around that time, my mother and Dad left our little town and went into South Texas. My dad was going to go into business. But what they were really doing was running from God. Ladies and gentlemen, you can’t outrun the Lord, understand that; you just can’t do it. 

My parents took with them my baby brother, but they would not bring him back. He would die from pneumonia. And my dad knew the reason why. Like I said, he was running from God. I can still see that little graveyard. I can see my dad, even though I was only four or five years old, I can see him standing at the head of that grave. My mother was still in the hospital, too sickherself to come to the funeral. As a small child, I didn’t understand when my dad said to my baby brother, “Son, I promise you, I’ll meet you in heaven.”

Just a few weeks after that, my parents came back to our home, and I remember the night that they walked down that aisle at church and said yes to Jesus Christ. It was the happiest day of my life. I saw them as they made their commitment to the Lord and said yes to Jesus Christ. I can still see my mother and my dad standing in the middle of the aisle. I can see others around them. I can see people coming up and thanking God for the commitment they had just made. Our world changed; I mean it literally changed. There was no more fighting, no more bickering, no more backbiting, no more anger, no more wrath—none of that. It was all gone because my mother and dad had come to Jesus Christ. And I’m praying that it will be the same thing for scores of others reading this, that there will be families who will come to Christ. That’s what I want to see,because it really is the greatest thing that can happen to any individual—the very, very greatest. I want to see families saved like mine was saved.

In the Master’s service, yours,
Jimmy Swaggart