Community Connection

Go Time!

DONAVON KACK is an It Is Written evangelist. Formerly an Alaskan fisherman, Donavon has been preaching Bible prophecy for over 20 years.

“I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.” John 9:4

We are living in the time to work. Last year was a real reminder of how true the words of Jesus are: work “while it is day.” One day soon we will all realize just how serious Jesus was that “the night is coming when no one can work.” My last prophecy seminar of 2020 was in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Night after night God filled the hall with people hungry to know what the Bible had to say about the times in which we live. Earlier in the year, a devastating tornado had ripped through the area causing severe damage very close to the church. Many of the visitors who came each night said, “If you had been here a year ago, we never would have come, but after everything that has happened this year, there is no way we would miss these meetings.” After 27 years in pastoral and evangelistic ministry, I can say that I have never seen people so open and hungry and ready to seek for truth as I have these past six months. This is the opportunity that we as a church have been praying for—hearts opening to the truth right in our backyard. One young man began attending our meetings and then brought his parents to the meetings as well. At the end of the series he was baptized, and a month later he was on his way to Mexico on a mission trip. Lives are being changed— rapidly. Another young man kept seeing a book, The Great Controversy, and finally decided to read If this isn’t the beginning it. Then he received a flier for our meetings, and of the latter rain, I don’t he and his girlfriend came every single night. Now, months later, he is bringing other people know what is. to church. If this isn’t the beginning of the latter rain, I don’t know what is. Despite the pandemic, I have kept a full schedule of evangelistic meetings. My family and I were recently in Chadron, Nebraska, a fairly small town with a population of around 5,800. We opened meetings there with 35 visitors and about the same number of church members. The church is very excited about what God is doing. One of the attending families showed up on opening night wondering how in the world one of our advertising brochures ended up in their bathroom! They attended regularly and were thrilled with what they learned. At the end of the meetings, 20 visitors came forward to surrender their lives to Christ, and several of the guests who did not come forward indicated on their decision cards that they wished they had! God is really pouring out His Spirit. There is no question that this is the best time for evangelism I have ever seen. This is the final push. This is go time! Whatever God is calling you to do for Him, go for it. You will never regret it. The best is just around the corner.

Feature

The River

Usain Bolt could have run the distance from my bedroom window to the banks of the river near my childhood home in about 16 seconds. It was in that river that I learned to swim. It was like a magnet to me and my friends. We canoed and rowed and fished and climbed trees and explored the river, one of two rivers in my hometown. It provided drinking water for our 5,000 residents, attracted wildlife, and beautified our town. But the same river that fosters life can also take life. People occasionally drowned in the river and others were injured.

Rivers loom large in the Bible. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, Babylon sat on the Euphrates, and Revelation 22 speaks of the river of life in the earth made new. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a river in Ezekiel 47, describing it as “flowing from under the threshold of the temple” (Ezekiel 47:1). When the waters of this river reached the sea, the sea was healed (Ezekiel 47:8). The river brought life, the prophet stating that “everything will live wherever the river goes” (Ezekiel 47:9). While the swamps and marshes would not be healed, the trees growing on the banks of the river flourished, and their leaves—like those on the tree of life in Revelation 22:2—were used for medicine (Ezekiel 47:12).

The river seen in Ezekiel’s vision represents the church, which in the earth’s last days has been commissioned by God to proclaim the good news. The picture of a deep river giving health and life is an accurate portrayal of a Spirit-filled church taking the gospel to the world. However, just as all rivers are not healthy, the church does not always mirror God’s ideal. Like a river, the church is to "Everything will live wherever the river goes." be a place that causes people to grow in God’s grace. But sadly some people are harmed in the church. Instead of finding healing, they are damaged and hurt. Some people lose their way spiritually because of mistreatment at the hands of the church or church members.

While the rivers in my hometown were clean enough to swim in, other rivers are polluted beyond recognition. As recently as 1969, the industrial waste-filled Cuyahoga River caught fire as it flowed through Cleveland, Ohio. The River Thames, in London, England, was once so polluted as to be declared biologically dead. In the same way, instead of being healthy, a church can be toxic. Some churches can barely sustain spiritual life. Today, both the Thames and the Cuyahoga are healthy. Just as polluted rivers can be cleaned up, so can polluted churches.

Water that stops flowing may become stagnant. Not only does it become unattractive, but it begins to smell and becomes a breeding ground for disease. Stagnant churches inevitably end up the same. Like a river, churches must flow in order to be healthy. The Great Commission begins with the word “go” (Matthew 28:19). When the church “goes”, it will give life to the world. A stagnant church can neither experience good health nor share life with its community. It is too late in the history of the world to allow congregations to be sidetracked by unimportant or inconsequential issues.

The three angels in Revelation 14 are portrayed as taking God’s final message of mercy to the world, symbolic of the work of God before the closing scenes of earth’s history conclude. As a river flows to the sea, let the church rise up and take the gospel to earth’s remotest bounds. We haven’t a moment to lose.

BY JOHN BRADSHAW, president