CHURCH PLANTING IN AUSTRALIA

DR. & MRS. DAVID C. BENNETT

PO BOX 1241, DUBBO, NSW 2830 - PHONE/FAX - 011- 61- 2 – 6884 – 2846

EMAIL – Bennett@BibleForToday.org

Sending Church

 Bible For Today Baptist Church – 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108

January, 2006

Dear Prayer Partners,

In the beginning of this New Year may we together declare with the Apostle "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" Philippians 3:14.

We send a big thank you to each church and individual who has sent a special financial gift for Christmas; THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Your generosity is truly appreciated.

It doesn’t seem possible but this February we will have been in Australia twenty seven years. Your prayers and financial support have truly been an encouragement during our ministry here. You have unquestionably been our Aaron and Hur during these 27 years!

The last two weeks of 2005 was a financial drain as we had to purchase a new water heater for the house, a new battery for the car, and a new printer. The water heater was an experience. It is a gas heater and had been acting up but we thought it was just the wind that had been putting out the pilot. Then, Monday 12 December, David went to light it and it blew back in his face. The heater has a chimney inside and it had collapsed. He went to the GP and received a prescription for Silvazine. The burns are almost completely healed now.

December 2005 was the hottest on record and the temp has continually been in the low 100’s. As soon as the weather is a little more temperate we will again do letter box tract distribution. We have another 2,500 tracts to go along with the HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM WHERE YOU ARE tract. This new tract is THE MAN & THE STORY BEHIND AMAZING GRACE. Pray the Lord will bless the distribution of these tracts. Remember, a tract goes on preaching the gospel long after the seeker of souls has left the scene.

Proverbs 22: 2 says "The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all." Matthew Henry commenting on this verse says the "Rich and poor meet together at the bar of God's justice, all guilty before God, concluded under sin, and shapen in iniquity, the rich as much as the poor; and they meet at the throne of God's grace; the poor are as welcome there as the rich. There is the same Christ, the same scripture, the same Spirit, the same covenant of promises, for them both. There is the same heaven for poor saints that there is for rich: Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. And there is the same hell for rich sinners that there is for poor. All stand upon the same level before God, as they do also in the grave. The small and great are there." We say all this because the day after Christmas Australia’s richest man died. In reading about this man it is said that "…in October 1990, when he suffered a cardiac arrhythmia while playing polo and his heart stopped beating for seven or eight minutes. Thanks to a 1000-1 chance, an intensive care ambulance was passing by and the big man was resuscitated. His near-death experience, however, didn't make him a mystic. He remarked that he had been to the other side and ‘Let me tell you, son, there's (profanity used) nothing there’." As this man closed his eyes for the last time to this world the Scriptures say as an unbeliever that "…in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" Luke 16: 23. May this prompt each of us to be about our Father’s business in getting out the gospel to both rich and poor!

In closing we again thank you for your support and ask you to "…pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course…" 2Thessalonians 3:1.

Serving the Risen and Soon Coming Saviour,