Friday dawned bright and sunny in the metro and people excitedly trooped to CCF St. Francis for the whole day Signs of the Times Epicenter Asia Conference. I barely slept the night before working on the previous blog entry. I learned Joel and his wife, amongst others, read the daily updates. What a blessing! Hi Mrs. Rosenberg! I hope you enjoy reading the posts and looking at the pictures!

Anyway, the event started off in a high note with the high energy songs that the praise and worship team sang and the exciting introduction that Pastor Peter gave. Imagine being in a jam-packed place with 3,300 other people all eager to hear what Joel and his team had to say. And that’s just the main hall! Other rooms in St. Francis were also utilized to accommodate the overflow of people who attended the event. All told, there were about upwards of 4,500 people who went to the whole day conference.

Suffice to say, the whole conference tied in beautifully together as all the topics found it’s way around each other and all somehow pointed to one thing, that we have a God who desires to be known by us… I will try to encapsulate the day through my take-aways per speaker…

At 9am we started the program with Joel talking to us about seeking to answer the question, “Are we in the Last Days?”.

• Joel believes (as do I) that we are in the last days, primarily because of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy pertaining to the resurrection of the state of Israel.
• The Philippines is instrumental in that prophecy being fulfilled, being the decisive vote when the Philippines voted yes to the Partition Plan.
• Whatever may be happening around the world, it’s always about our personal decision on what we’re going to do with our life. The best decision we could make that would last ‘til eternity, is to accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Pastor Ortiz, our special guest speaker spoke about “How can we strengthen the Church in Israel today?”…

• It is our calling not only to pray for Israel but also to share the Gospel to them because ultimately the reason why the message of salvation reached us is because they rejected it but now that we have it we need to spread the Good News to the Jews as well and have them accept Jesus because Jews need Christ too.
• Hold on to God’s promises no matter what!
• With everything that happens to us, we can always have victory with God. Even though there are times that we may become victims of cruelty and evil we can always give it back to God so that He can use it for His glory and the situation becomes His story. Victory= Victim+Story (of God’s glory)

Pastor Hormoz Shariat, shared his testimony and taught on “How can we strengthen the Church in Iran and the Muslim World Today?” Pastor Hormoz believes that for us to be able to strengthen and reach the Iranians today, we must:

• Change our Mind about them. Instead of hating and fearing them or even not caring about them, we should know that Iranians are open to the Gospel, and that the most influential factor for them accepting Christ as Lord and Savior is the behavior that they see in us Christians.
• Change our Heart about them. We should start praying for the Iranians because they need Christ as much as we need Him. If we ask God to let us feel for them then there’s no reason why God would not answer that prayer.
• Change our Action. Changing our action for me means we should allow God to be the one to dictate our actions. In the context of strengthening the church in Iran, it might mean becoming a missionary to reach out to them and minister to them, or it could be something like praying for the church there, or even supporting the work of God by offering our resources.

Pastor Ray Bentley talked about “How should we pray for the people of the Epicenter?” He encouraged everyone to:

• Support Israel and bless the country by praying for the people to be saved.
• As we bless Israel then God’s promise to Abraham that “He (God) will bless those who bless Israel” would allow God to bless our country.
• Take the time to wrestle to God in the same way that the Prophet Daniel did, not outlining other people’s faults but being the ones to stand in the gap for the sins of our country.

A lot of other lessons and insights were given by the speakers throughout the whole day conference. Attendees were also encouraged to attend the training for the 6 week follow-up studies on the Signs of the Times Conference but through all that’s happened, the whole point that we do this is because we understand the need for people to be prepared now in the Final days and we don’t want to be a church who sees a storm coming but doesn’t do anything to prepare people for it.

Day 07 of Joel’s visit and Day 02 of the conference finished, Facilitator’s Training and Youth Conference tomorrow!!! Let’s all continue to pray for Joel and his team

P.S. I have to give props to Joel for attempting to conquer the world record for most number of book signings in less than 3 hours. Joel must’ve signed more than 2,000 books after the conference… To Joel, thank you so much for accommodating your Filipino fans