Note from Les

Dear friends, Once again I can hopefully respond to your letters in this way. How we love every one of them! As I've said before, I say again – thank you, thank you for your faithful giving. Thank you, thank you for your prayers. Iris is doing okay and I'm still on the phone every day but we have decided, in view of our advancing age, to stop the long trips to distant seminars, which means we will not be personally attending the retreat in Wisconsin. But we hope to set up the electronics to speak from down here in Oklahoma for a question answer session. We still try to hold one Bible class per week here in Oklahoma and we also hope to have our Labor Day picnic in September. Waiting for the trumpet!
All our love, Les

What in the World?

If you remember, my program ending the book of John covered the eight signs (semeion) and the point was made that all signs were miracles but not all miracles were signs. The first seven were performed before the cross but the eighth (with eight meaning new beginnings) was after His resurrection. I made the point that it was a prophecy concerning the remnant that would flee Jerusalem at the midpoint of the tribulation and that they would be saved to the last Jew and they would go into the kingdom and become the nation promised to Abraham. At the time the program was taped, I knew that the number 153 had significance but I did not really have a good answer as to what that significance was. That brought response from the television audience and we received many good suggestions but one superseded them all. A listener referred me to a book written by a Canadian mathematician, James Harrison, titled "The Pattern and the Prophecy". He brought out that the number 153 has a quality like no other number in all of mathematics. Harrison calls it the resurrection number. I was especially intrigued because I had just read an article on creation that pointed out that everything rests on mathematics and actually everything rests on God's mathematics, just like scripture. I'm referring especially to the numbers 3, 7, 12, 40 etc. Now, back to our number 153. If you take each digit to the third power and add the total, you get 153. 1x1x1=1, 5X5X5=125, 3x3x3=27. 1+125+27=153. That same process can be accomplished with ANY number divisible by three.

One more example: 666.

Now back to our connection with the remnant of Israel surviving the tribulation, we find that according to Zachariah 13:9, it will be one third of the nation dwelling on earth at that time. Are we close? There are now approximately 15 million Jews total on the planet and approximately 5 million are in Israel.

New product offer

A lot of people have called over the years wondering if we have study guides to accompany the books. We have always had to say no, now we can finally say yes. The study guide covers the Revelation series (books 11– 14, & 59). It ended up being a big book with 230 pages and the size of a regular printer paper (8 1/2x11). Not only does it have questions (approx 20 per lesson, although this does vary), it also has topics for discussion and notes of interest. The front of the book has questions with answers, along with topics for discussion and notes of interest. The back portion of the book has questions that you can run off on a copy machine and use in a class setting. This would be a great resource for a Sunday School or Home Bible Study teacher teaching Revelation, especially if it's your first time, but amazingly, it is actually quite good just to read. Unfortunately, we have had to price it at $12 due to the cost of formatting and printing.

Note from Iris

Since so many of you have asked, I will try to answer your questions. I was born on 1/1/32 and raised in Poteau, Oklahoma. My dad was a carpenter and we were poor as church mice. I had two sisters and one brother and I was the baby. My dad got killed in a truck wreck in 1944 and that meant that my mom and the three older kids had to work to survive. My mom went to work in a grocery store and later on, she was even able to take ownership of a small grocery at 303 Virginia ST Lakeview, a suburb of Poteau. I was saved when I was 14 and never strayed. I was blessed because I got to graduate high school – the only one in my family to do so. I graduated high school in 1950 and even got my R.N. from Saint Joseph Hospital in Hot Springs Arkansas in 1953. PTL. On February 14, 1953, the Lord sent Les to me on a blind date and "'twas love at first sight"! Four and one half months later, as soon as I graduated, we were married. He was in the army and had nine months left to complete his three year hitch so he worked as a lab tech in the army hospital and I worked as a R.N. in St. Joseph Hospital for a nine month honeymoon. Les was born on June 6, 1927, and raised in Buffalo Center, Iowa, which is right in the center of the northern border of Iowa. He was saved in vacation bible school at the age of 10 and never strayed. Les came from a line of farmers and I liked it up there too. We farmed big, raising corn and soybeans, and also had feeder cattle, pigs for a while, and a laying house. We were up there for 22 years and raised three kids--Greg, Laura, and Todd. Les kept busy teaching the Bible, reading, and farming big while I kept busy sewing, enjoying friends, and working as a nurse. Les had one brother who was seven years older than him and one sister who is seven years younger. His folks died in 1977 and 1983. My mom died in 1977 also. They were all believers PTL but sorry to say that some of our siblings were not. Our children and grandchildren are all believers. Greg has one son, who is married with two boys, Laura has two children and they both are married and both have one son each, and Todd has six children, none of whom are married yet. Now, back to us. We moved to Kinta, OK in August 1975. We had home Bible studies in Iowa for 15 years and started teaching soon after moving to Oklahoma and continued teaching another fifteen years, when one of the men from one of the classes thought that Les should be teaching the truth to more people. He sent a video of one of the classes to the Tulsa TV station channel 47 and they wanted Les to start a program...sooooo, October 1990 was the beginning of Genesis as only Les can teach it. Now we are on our third rerun after making 984 programs, finishing up the last one in October 2009. We have been blessed abundantly by our Lord and give Him all the glory!

Interesting Tidbits

* Interesting: Evil spelled backwards is live. The opposite of live is die.

* The three parts of salvation: justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification is that which people identify the word salvation with, sanctification is simply the growth process, and glorification is when we will be made perfect in heaven.

* The three primary places in Scripture supporting the teaching of the rapture: 1st Corinthians 15:51 -58, 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 2nd Thessalonians 2:1-12

* There are over 300 references to the Lords first advent, but over 8 times that many with regards to his second advent.

Item of Interest

If any of you have family or friends that are incarcerated either in jail or prison, there is an excellent Grace correspondence Bible study available free of charge from "Prison Mission Association". Lessons are available in both English and Spanish. The teaching is right in line with "Through the Bible" regarding salvation as faith plus nothing as well as right division. You may contact them via email at dwight@prisonmission.org or by phone at 612-423-3457.

Trivia

What Old Testament prophet/book did not refer to Israel?

Answer: Jonah

Laura's note

As I write this, I wonder how much longer we are going to be on this old sinful corrupt earth and, as for me, I am more than ready to hear the trumpet sound. It seems as though so very many are suffering in one way or the other and I (along with many) am just so ready for that place of perfection. And yet while we are here, I will continue to do what I've been doing for about eight years now, which is look for clues to the rapture – and they are everywhere! The clues that get me the most excited never hit the mainstream media and I am thankful for Internet access, which gives such a more realistic picture. Dad (Les) has been saying that the stage is being set (for the last 20 years) and I am thinking that there is not room for much more so surely we must be getting close!

One of the things that I believe is an end time deception,and one that many "Christians" are being pulled into is meditation. If you have the Internet and have become involved in any kind of meditation or you know another person who has, go to your search engine and type in "dangers of meditation".

Lecto Divina is one type of meditation that is creeping into churches and even many "religious" Internet sites so beware. Even though it may sound good, that is not the meditation that God's word speaks of. The type of meditation that instructs you to concentrate on one word or one phrase over and over and over derives from eastern mysticism. In God's word, when it speaks of meditation, it means that we are to keep the whole of Gods Word in our hearts and minds. If you are memorizing, obviously you are going to say/think about a verse or passage repeatedly but that is different than focusing in on it in hopes that it will give you some sort of emotional feeling. A gentleman by the name of David Helm wrote: "Lecto Divina advocates a method that is spiritual as opposed to systematically studious. It substitutes intuition for investigation. It prefers mood and emotion to methodological and reasoned inquiry. It equates your spirit with the Holy Spirit." Unfortunately, Satan is so sly and uses something that sounds like a good thing to work towards his advantage. The closer we get to the rapture, the more we need the whole armor of God. (Ephesians 6:10–18)

I don't know much about Calvinism other than the five points known as – tulip. I am definitely not an expert.

Although I can to some extent agree with the depravity of man – after all, God's word tells us that the heart is desperately wicked – and yet, John tells us that the light is within all men. I believe it is that light that enables us all to have equal opportunity to exercise free will in either heeding that small still voice of the Holy Spirit or ignoring it and/or denying it. From what I understand, Calvin taught that we are so depraved that none of us would choose God given the chance and that is why God does the choosing. Personally I believe it takes the Holy Spirit working and the human spirit being open to it pretty much simultaneously. It's like chocolate milk – it takes both milk and chocolate at the same time. Unconditional choosing is so totally unscriptural it is mind-boggling. It is an absolute ignoring of all the scriptures that point out we have a say in the decision of our eternity. The door of the ark was even left open for seven days after God called Noah and his family in – my question to the Calvinist would be to ask why? Also, why is Satan released at the end of the millennial reign? This doesn't count all the places in Scripture that say “whosoever Believeth” or to “all that Believeth” etc. Likewise, limited atonement is such a ridiculous conclusion. The verses that Calvinist use to try to make this argument holds no water. Once again, all the verses that use inclusive words such as all or whosoever are totally neglected. Irresistible grace is also totally non scriptural. We see for the 6000 years of man's history covered in God's word that there is choice involved. There is the free will to choose God or not to choose God and it is evident from Genesis to Revelation. The only thing I can agree with John Calvin 100% on is the perseverance of the Saints. I do believe that once we are saved, we are sealed and we become children of God who are in Christ, in God and nothing can separate us from that love.

As a ninth grader, I had to take an algebra test. I will never forget a complicated problem I had to do and it took the whole page. I thought I had it right and then the teacher came along with his red pen and checked a big red mark on my paper... I was so surprised and dismayed. I thought sure I had it right so I asked him what I did wrong and he took his pen and he circled a positive sign about two steps up from the bottom. I had put a positive and added rather than a negative and subtracted, so it made my answer totally wrong. I often think how that is so much like salvation – when people add or subtract from God's plan of salvation (simply believing in the death, burial, and resurrection) their bottom line is wrong and it doesn't matter about all the work that was put into their efforts. They will still stand before Christ at the great white throne judgment and He is going to say that they got it wrong. How sad.

Les Feldick Ministries 30706 W. Lona Valley Rd., Kinta, OK 74552
1-800-369-7856 or (918) 768-3218