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

November, 2005

Dear Prayer Partners,

Acts 20: 1, 7 “And after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”

Isn’t it a great privilege to walk through the pages of Scripture? We are on our fourth journey this year and not surprisingly, as you know, each reading unfolds something fresh. From time to time the daily Scripture reading uncovers truths such as “the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” or passages as heavy as the grapes of Eschol. Occasionally we may leave a passage thinking “…Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all” and then other passages may have us saying “now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb.” In our above passage taken from Acts it is interesting to see that preaching the truth of God’s Word often causes“uproar” and how the early church loved God’s preachers, the preachers loved God’s people and they all loved the preaching of God’s Word. Another note is that the church service, at least then, wasn’t for entertainment but edification. The programme was not designed for the senses but the spiritual. In our years of ministry we have seen a lot of changes, some for good and some not. Over forty years ago A. W. Tozer said that “We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement‑mad, paganized, pseudo‑religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends.” Those words ring as true today as they did in Tozer’s and perhaps even more so.

We continue to seek the lost for the Lord Jesus remembering Romans 10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” We are not seeing many saved or even showing an interest in spiritual matters but as the Confederate soldier said to his comrades when he single‑handedly captured twenty Yankees, “The woods are full of them.” Our “woods” are full as well, of sinners needing to be captured for the Lord. The woods in which God has placed us is set to grow even more in the future numerically and perhaps He will physically move a Bible believing family or two here to help us and those already with us to establish a strong work for God. The local paper carried the article DUBBO SET TO BOOM in the 6th October edition. It said that “Dubbo is all set to boom with its population predicted to hit the 50,000 mark by 2025. Now one of the fastest growing cities in inland Australia, Dubbo City Council has projected the city, which is currently home to 39,077 people, will grow substantially at a rate of one and half per cent for the next 10 years.” We cannot stress too much that this growing city needs, as do all communities, an independent fundamental Bible believing Bible preaching Baptist work that will edify the saint and evangelize the lost! Thank you for sticking by us with prayer and finances. May we realize this before He comes!

Praise the Lord for the box of tracts (HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM WHERE YOU ARE) received from Bearing Precious Seed missionary brother Bob Whatley at the Ottumwa Baptist Temple. We look forward to handing these out but with the drought lasting several years now and the coming of much needed rain, this summer looks like we will be having our share of flies to pester us while distributing them. We do mean pester! They literally cling to your face and crawl up your nose if you aren’t quick and if you have your mouth open for too long or at the wrong time you will, well you know. They are so ubiquitous one is reminded of the “grievous swarm of flies” in the plague on Egypt. The following is from our local paper 27 October. FLIES SWARM CITY AS BUGS BATTLE TO BREED “Visitors to Dubbo might be pleasantly surprised by the number of friendly waves from locals, but they're not actually saying g'day, they're just trying to shoo the flies. Spring has sprung forth a plague of the little black beasts, bringing with them an epidemic of the great Aussie salute and another entry to the list of things to blame on the drought. The dung beetle population has been decimated by the long dry spell, and without these humble waste managers, the flies are breeding in record numbers. According to Primary Industries Department (DPI) insect enquires officer…recent regular rain has made for a perfect fly breeding season. The DPI…said we can expect to have the company of the flies until the end of summer. Which is good news at least for the Great Outdoors Centre in Dubbo, which has sold out of its entire stock of fly‑nets before summer has even officially begun.” We have mentioned Mark before in our letters asking you to pray for his salvation, well, he manages a camping store and we were able to purchase some fly‑net from him. You put the fly net over a hat and pull the net down over your face and Walla! You are free from the bombardment of the flies at least on your face.

It has been good talking with you again via this letter. In closing we would ask that you continue to pray for the people God has given us. Continue to pray for Jim and Margaret. Jim hurt his back again and is waiting to see if he will need surgery. As we said in the October letter Gary and his mother are back home and have been faithful to the services. We recently had them out for evening tea and watched a video on Spurgeon. It was a good time of fellowship. Lastly, remember Jonathan and Lynne. All of these profess to know the Lord and with God’s help we will together “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Thank you again for your continued financial and prayer support. “Finally, brethren,” continue to “pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you” 2Thessalonians 3:1.

David and Pam Bennett