“Another American ministry broadcast a message of God’s love in thirty-two languages to an additional quarter of a billion people living in seventy nations. From those broadcasts, fifty-five million people came to faith in Jesus Christ. In five years, from 1990 to 1994, this one American-based ministry led twenty-five times as many people to faith in Christ as it had in its previous thirty years of existence.”

“Pastors, teachers, evangelists, church groups from all over America traveled throughout the world holding meetings, training workers, distributing Bibles, Christian literature, and electronic messages. One well-known evangelist held a crusade in Puerto Rico that was beamed by satellite to over a hundred and thirty halls and stadiums all over the globe.”

“There was another extraordinary movement in 1997. The Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, called on every cardinal, archbishop, bishop, and priest around the world to begin three years of concentrated prayer and evangelistic effort. The Pope wanted to cause every Catholic believer to begin to live a holy life and for every nonbeliever in the world to accept Jesus Christ in faith. He wanted to prepare the church and the world for the new millennium.”

“There has never been anything like it in the history of the world, yet the American press completely ignored what was happening.”

“Jack, I’m astounded,” Carl said. “I’ve never heard a word about any of this. Those of us in Hollywood told each other that Christians were money-grubbing, Bible-thumping, fundamentalist crazies. You’re telling us today about a dedicated army of people following divine direction who went all over the world offering God’s pardon before serious calamity hit the earth.”

“But, Jack,” Lori asked, “what did God show you personally?”

“Lori,” he answered, “I was up to my neck in this very work from 1990 until 1995. In all of my life, I had never seen anything like it. It was as if God had strapped a rocket on my back, then ignited the after-burner. Yet, in 1994, God showed me that I had to accelerate everything that I had been doing, that we had five years to complete the worldwide spiritual harvest.

“Then,” he continued, “I learned that he had placed the same sense of urgency on many of my fellow ministers. Part of it, perhaps, could have been explained by the approaching end of a millennium. But, somehow, this was different.”

Charley interrupted. “What do you mean, it was different?”

“Well, Charley, too many signs of the times were being fulfilled in the world. We all felt that we were moving close to the end of the age.”

“Signs of the times? What are signs of the times?” Carl asked.

“Signs of the times are those conditions or events told about by Jesus Christ that will take place before He returns to earth,” John Ed wards answered.

“And, you think His coming is close?” Lori asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Carl was insistent. “What signs? How did you know?”