Month / July 2015

by In Light Of The Cross

An Open Letter to My Faithful Contributors and Prayer Partners

I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

(A letter has been mailed out to all my contributors, but for those who can’t wait on snail mail here it is.)

Dear Faithful contributors,

I wanted to take a moment and thank each and every one of you, first for believing in me and my ministry, and for your sacrificial giving to enable my ministry to continue both at home and abroad. I would like to share just a little of how your offerings have helped.

Beyond Tampa Bay: After many months of hard work, Mike Rempfer has helped me develop the In Light of the Cross Bible study app! This app is different from all others, as you can, but do not need to connect to Wi Fi to be able to access the study guides. The format is also unique from other apps in that each presentation is presented with questions and supplied verses like the “Bible Readings for the Home” format. Now wherever you are in the world you can download this app, and at any given time and place you have a prepared Bible study presentation you can share with anyone who is interested. You can also access my blog site http://InLightOfTheCross.com and find even more resources at your fingertips on your phone or tablet.  You may find the app in the Google play store by searching inlightofthecross. You may also find it on my blog linked above.

The blog continues to be accessed everyday by over 173 countries. I have received e-mails as far away as Madagascar and Red Deer Canada, north of Calgary telling me how they have used the In Light of the Cross lessons and devotionals in their churches. The blog allows you to download the lessons for free and print them out, which is very valuable in areas where money and resources are scarce. Almost every day there are several downloads from the blog where people are printing out lessons to share in their homes and churches. Pastor Glenn Aguirre of the New Port Richey Florida Seventh-day Adventist  Church, has shared from his pulpit how the In Light of the Cross study guides are the only lessons he uses now.

A church in Florida beyond Tampa Bay, and a church in southeast Oklahoma are arranging for me to conduct soul winning meetings and workshops this fall. I pray this is only the beginning.

Tampa Bay: I have several current small group studies in the Tampa area. On Friday nights I have been studying with 8 to 11 previously unchurched people who have just recently began attending Tampa First SDA Church. Nani Corujo, one of the members, writes:

“Bible studies has been a wonderful God learning experience. We always start with our week’s highs and lows (high good, low bad). Pastor William then asks us a question about a certain experience we have lived and from there he leads us to what the class will read and talk about.  Pastor William has taught my family and iI how to look up verses in the bible  and not just read through what it says but also explain what it means. My kids, nephews, husband, bro-in-law,  sis-in-law and myself have learn and still learning so much from what Pastor William has been teaching us from God’s work and words. Now we attend Saturday Sabbath in search more from our lord and savior. Thank you pastor William for being a awesome teacher and helping us understand more clearly and fully the word of our lord, and our God.”

In one of my other small groups, I am studying with three previously unchurched teenagers who are now wanting to be baptized in the near future. I also have a few personal studies looking at baptism and we even have a date, October 24 for one of them at Tampa First.

As well as giving Bible studies in Tampa, I am also training others to give studies. I recently baptized Cindy Reyes a couple of years ago, and she is now leading out in a Bible study I connected her with near her home.

The teachers at Tampa Adventist Academy are looking forward to me coming back to teach Bible chain referencing classes and baptism and after school Bible study classes. I am also continuing my New Believer’s Sabbath School class at Tampa First.

Plant City: While I love being able to continue being a part of Tampa First, I also love being a member, elder and local Bible Worker of the Plant City SDA Church. While I love Tampa and Florida very much, Plant City also reminds me of smaller towns and areas I have worked in the past, though Plant City actually turns out to be much bigger than I realized and holds so much potential.

We have a Wednesday night youth group where several youth from the community as well as the church enjoy Bible studies, games and fellowship. I have been taking young people door to door in the community where we now have several Bible studies and hopefully more to come.

I have always enjoyed working with several churches together and the Plant City SDA Church enjoys teaming up with the regional SDA and Spanish SDA churches in our town for community and evangelism projects. I also enjoy bringing in people from other area churches to help us in door to door evangelism as well as small Bible study groups. I am currently working with a family who lives in Plant City but attends a larger church in East Pasco County, to have a group Bible study in their home in Plant City. I believe we can all think outside the box and work together for Jesus even while being members of different churches.

I am also preaching twice a month at Plant City as well as other churches far and near.

Thank you for taking the time to let me share just a few of the many things I am excited about this summer and fall. Too keep up with me and my ministry on a day to day basis, please friend me on Facebook!

For years, I would leave a Bible study where someone had just given their heart to Jesus, and would get in my car praying, “Lord I will keep giving Bible studies and leading people to you as long as you keep making it possible.” I thank God He is using you to keep making this possible!

Your Christian Servant,

William

Plant City SDA Church

PO Box 5379

Plant City, FL 33563

(Please mark contributions “Bible Worker Fund” thank you!)

by In Light Of The Cross

The In Light of the Cross Bible Study Guides App

I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

Have you ever been talking to a friend at school, work or play, and been asked a Bible question, but did not have the Bible answer at your fingertips? Well now you can have a prepared Bible study at your fingertips or at least as close as your cell phone or tablet.

Now anyone can share a Bible study with anyone, anytime anywhere with the In Light of the Cross Bible Study Guides App. While many Bible study apps link you to websites, this app actually has the Bible studies downloaded to the app. Instead of just a few reference verses for each topic, you get a verse by verse presentation on several Bible topics, and can choose between the KJV or NLT, as the Bible verses are provided after each question, Bible Readings for the Home style.  And yes, you can also link to the web for additional studies and devotionals.

Pastor Glenn Aguirre was sharing behind his pulpit a few Sabbaths ago at the New Port Richey Seventh-day Adventist Church, that these are his favorite Bible study guides to use in his presentations. Now they are available to everyone to use in group Bible studies or personal Bible studies, anywhere you carry your phone.

While many people chain reference their Bibles some do not like to mark in their Bibles for whatever reason. Now they don’t have to. Now they have a chain referenced Bible study on their In Light of the Cross Bible Study Guide App. 

Many churches are on a budget today and do not have a lot of money to buy Bible study guides, as they can be quite expensive. This app is free, and I have held several Bible studies where we studied the lessons from our phones or tablets so as to save costs and paper. Also, while some forget to bring their Bibles or lessons to class, hardly anyone ever forgets their phone or tablet.

I prayerfully hope this is a blessing to you and those you meet. Be sure and share this with your friends who want to give studies or just learn more about God’s love and the Bible themselves.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_geekoffcall.InLightOfTheCross_release2

by In Light Of The Cross

Is the Sign of Jonah Fuzzy Math?

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.” But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. “The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent. Matthew 12:38-41 NLT

When I am on the campus of our Community Adventist school, and a student walks up to me with their Bible and asks a question, it makes me feel important and needed. When a student walks up to me with their composition paper and asks for me help it makes me feel like my passion for writing is recognized and appreciated. When a student walks up to me with their history book it makes me feel knowledgeable and helpful. But when a 5th grader walks up to me with their math book it makes me feel stupid and useless! Math was never my thing. But I don’t feel alone. I know a lot of parents who have trouble helping their kids with math, and I have met a few teachers who are lost without their answer sheets. Math baffles the best of us, and the math in Matthew 12:38-41 has baffled many.

Because of a misunderstanding of the point Jesus is making here, many have lost faith in the Friday crucifixion and have tried to move it to Wednesday, so they can fit Jesus in the tomb for three full days. Others have lost faith in the Bible completely because they say the math just does not add up here. That is very sad and unfortunate because believe it or not, Jesus’ point and the sign He is giving is really not about math at all.

Okay, some of you are not convinced, so let’s address the math issue first there. I will do so quickly because I want to get to the point, and I am not a math teacher. There are two theories. One theory is that any part of the day counts as a whole part of the day. The same is true for years. If a king became king on December 31 and lost his throne on January 1 the record books would say he ruled for 2 years, even though it wasn’t even a full year or even a full two days. So since Jesus was in the grave part of Friday, all of Sabbath, and part of Sunday, it was three days.

The second theory is that the heart of the earth is not even the grave. Remember how the Millerites thought the sanctuary was the earth that was going to be cleansed by fire in 1844? Turns out they had the time of the prophecy right, but the place wrong. They made an assumption that the earth was the sanctuary with no Biblical confirmation to their assumption. When it says “God so loved the world” inJohn 3:16 it is not saying God loved the rocks and the dirt. He loved the people. So when Jesus says the son of man will be in the heart of the earth, could He have simply been talking about the people and the population? If you take a day for a year in Bible prophecy (See Ezekiel 4:6) you have Jesus preaching in the heart of the earth for three years or three prophetic days. After all Jesus was in a tomb not the earth or ground.

I am not going to recommend which theory to believe here, because like I said, math is not my thing. I will say this. I am sure there was nothing fuzzy about Jesus’ math. He created math! I am also not going to recommend which theory to believe because the math part distracts us from the whole point Jesus was making.

In the story of Jonah you had a prophet who was more worried about his status and reputation as a prophet than he was about the salvation of souls. When his prediction of Ninevah being destroyed did not come true Jonah says,

Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.” Jonah 4:3 NLT

Say what?! Jonah cared more about his status and reputation than he did about the salvation of 120,000 souls! If he wasn’t going to look good he did not want any part of it. Sadly this is how the religious leaders in Jesus’ day thought too! This is why Jesus used the sign of Jonah. In the story of Jonah you had the wicked Ninevites humbling themselves so they could be saved, and you even had the pagan sailors praying to God when they had throw Jonah overboard. In the story of Jonah everyone humbled themselves except the prophet who should have known better and been the first to humble himself! The sign of Jonah is that while Jesus was walking the earth Samaritans and gentile kings humbly worshiped Jesus but the proud Jewish leaders were not about to humble themselves and do so. This is the point Jesus was making. Don’t let the math distract you either way. Don’t let your pride get in the way of accepting Jesus as your Savior and don’t let your pride get in the way of leading others to Jesus. Pride was the downfall of Jonah and the religious rulers of Jesus’ day.

Is pride and arrogance still an issue in our church today? Are there some who are more worried about their status and reputation than the salvation of souls? Like I said before, I am no mathematician. A few times when I have had to sub for the entire today at our church school I have problems with the math part. A 5th grade girl brought a math problem to me one day, and I had to confess I was just as stumped as she was. Then I thought to myself, why are you telling a kid how dumb you are? Then I told myself, hey, if me looking stupid made the little girl not feel better about herself for not understanding then I did my job! Sometimes we can help people by humbling ourselves and not looking so high and mighty.

Unlike Jonah and the rulers of Jesus’ day, Jesus had no pride. Jonah would rather the whole world perish than for him to look like a fool. On the other hand, Jesus chose to look like a fool on the cross rather than let the world perish. Are you more like Jonah or more like Jesus?

You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here. 

by In Light Of The Cross

“That’s Why I’m Here!”

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

The late evangelist Ron Halverson tells a story where he was knocking on a door one night in Harlem New York. A young woman answered the door who grew up a pastor’s daughter, but had become a prostitute. The woman looked at the Bible in Halverson’s hand and said, “I’m not interested!” Quick witted Halverson responded as she tried to slam the door, “I know you’re not interested! That’s why I’m here!”

Granted, such an approach would not normally work, but this time it woke the young lady up to a need she had been neglecting. Sometimes we look at our mission field and think the grass is greener in other mission fields. Fact is, the green mission fields don’t need us as much as the parched fields do. The young lady, who answered the door to Pastor Halverson, may not have looked promising, but she actually needed his message more than anyone else in Harlem that night.

Once I was working in a church that seemed just as worldly as the….well, world! The youth teachers openly confessed to me, that they entertained the kids instead of teaching them, because they themselves did not know anything about the Bible. When I held evangelistic meetings the greeters were never around to hand out lesson outlines, because they went home when the meetings started! The musicians would come in and play before my presentation, and everyone would watch as they walked out and went home as soon as they were through playing. An elder in the church told me his neighbor wanted to come to the meetings and would I please give him a ride. I asked the elder why he could not just bring his neighbor to the meetings himself, since after all, they lived right next door. The elder told me he would not be coming to the meetings since he already heard it all before. It was very discouraging! I asked God why he sent me to such a spiritually parched church. God told me, because the church was my mission field just as much as the community. This changed my attitude, and instead of getting upset because the youth leaders did not know their Bibles, I took advantage of the opportunity to teach them about the Bible and Jesus. The leaders in the church became my mission field. Before long God sent other missionaries more skilled than myself, to help turn the church around. When I left, the church was not at all like I first found it. Thanks to God, and the other missionaries He sent, the youth leaders grew (and sadly some left) and there was a totally different spiritual climate among the entire church family.

I would rather have been in a church where the youth teachers knew their Bibles and the members were are on fire to do evangelism, but you know what? A church like that would not have needed me as much as this one did. While it may be easier and a lot more fun to work with people who are spiritually mature and on fire for the Lord, Pastor Halverson realized he was needed where people did not seem interested. I learned the same lesson.

When I was 11, I started piano lessons but quit after just a few weeks. A couple years ago, at the age of 48 I started taking lessons again. So I don’t like to say I actually quit when I was 11. I just took a 37 year sabbatical. When I started back up, my teacher just happened to be a college musician who I actually met a few years ago when she was only 11. She is more than young enough to be my daughter. Fact is, if I had stayed with my piano lessons when I was 11, I may have been able to teach her instead of her teaching me. Instead, at the age of 48 I began taking piano lessons from a 19 year old. She’s never said anything like, “You are almost 50 you should know all this by now.” She never said, “Look at how old you are. You should be teaching me but instead I am teaching you.” Instead she enthusiastically seized the opportunity to teach me in the here and now.

Sometimes we get discouraged when we see people in the church who we think should know more by now. Maybe they should, but instead of getting discouraged let’s seize the opportunity to teach. I need a good teacher like my piano teacher, because I don’t have it all together. I struggle with my timing among other things, so I need a good teacher. If I was a polished musician I would not need her. If everyone in the church already knew their Bibles and had it all together they would not need me. There may be more gifted musicians in the world that are easier to teach than I am, but it is because I am not a gifted musician that I need my piano teacher so much.

So if your mission field looks parched and pitiful, and you are tempted to think the grass would be greener in another mission field, remember, a greener mission filed would not need you, like the parched pitiful mission field does. If you look around your mission field and don’t see much potential or interest just remember what Pastor Halverson remembered, that’s why you’re here!

You may study this week’s SS lesson on missions here. 

by In Light Of The Cross

Everyday Missionaries

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

Ever wished you could be a missionary but never felt like you had the opportunity? Opportunities are everywhere! Just ask Jesus. He has a place for everyone to do missionary work. He uses everyday people like you and me in everyday life.

A few years ago, one morning I was checking in on an elderly, physically handi-capped man who is housebound. As always we had prayer before I left. In his prayer the man asked for God to lead us to people who we could share our faith with that day. I mused to myself, why did he say “we’? I’m the only one of us who will have an opportunity to meet people today. He will be bound to his chair at home all day. He won’t be meeting anyone.

later that evening, after my last Bible study, I checked my voice mail messages and there was a message from my elderly friend I had visited that morning. I called him back and he told me some exciting news. He told me that the cable repairman had come by to fix the TV and saw some Sabbath tracts on the end table by the door. He picked them up and told my friend that He was searching for a church. My friend invited him to church and gave him an enrollment card for Bible studies!

It wasn’t till after I hung up the phone (If you can even hang up a cell phone!) that I remembered what my friend prayed that morning. I thought it was a futile prayer given my friend’s condition, but God answered His prayer! Even though my friend could not get out of his chair in his home, God sent someone for him to minister to.

I have learned to never underestimate the opportunities God can provide for all of us to be missionaries.

After serving as a full time Bible Worker for 11 years at one church, I have recently become a part time Bible Worker for the Plant City Florida Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is only part time so I have picked up another job working part time, two days a week in a sandwich shop at an Adventist Hospital. Last Monday the full time sandwich shop worker was on vacation so I had to fill in for her. Sure I would rather have been doing my Bible Worker job that day, but I prayed and decided to make the best of it.

A lady came in and ordered a breakfast sandwich and sat down to eat. While I continued waiting on customers I noticed her watching me. After the line went away, she came up to me and asked, “Why are you so happy and cheerful? You are beaming.” I told her I am just a happy person. She looked at me like she expected more, so I said a little prayer, not wanting to sound preachy, and told her my relationship with Jesus makes me very happy. Her eyes lit up. “That’s what I thought!” She exclaimed. She said that she used to be very happy walking with Jesus but after a while Satan started attacking her more the closer she got to God, and it discouraged her away from God. I told her that if her relationship with God was making Satan upset that was a good thing and she should not relent. God was blessing her and it was making Satan mad. She told me she lives in Chicago and was here to help a friend having surgery. Since she was out of town I followed up by giving her the address to my In Light of the Cross Website and told her there were some articles and studies that may encourage her. I then went to wait on another customer.

After waiting on the customer I returned to the lady’s table and found she was already reading one of the studies on her phone. Then something interesting happened. Around 10:30 every morning that I work, the hospital cafeteria sends someone to cover for me so I can take a short break. Well, it was only 9:30 when someone happened to come to give me a break. This freed me up to talk more with the lady without being interrupted by customers. I shared with her how Jesus tells the church of Philadelphia that He opens a door that no one can shut, but yet He tells the Laodiceans that He knocks at their heart’s door. Heaven’s doors are always open. Its only our doors that close. I invited her to ask Jesus in her heart again. We prayed together right there in the sandwich shop. When we finished praying I still had some time left on my break, but I quickly and politely excused myself so I could go get some supplies from the store room. By quickly disappearing after our prayer it left our prayer and her decision resonating in her mind instead of some idle chit chat killing time.

On my way to the store room I realized that filling in at my temporal job that day did not prevent me from also doing my job as a Bible Worker missionary. Just like being bound to a chair in his house did not keep my elderly friend from being a missionary.

You can study about Biblical Missionaries here.