January 1, 2014
Dear Friends:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” – Proverbs 13:12.
A friend at breakfast said to me yesterday, “Well, R. T., you have had a pretty good year”. I said, “I can understand why you would say that, but not really; what I hoped for didn’t happen”.
Yes, it has been a good year in many ways. I have my family around me – a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren. Good health (for an old man). Lovely home on Hickory Lake here in Tennessee. I have been kept very busy. Books published, more on the way. Busiest year yet coming up – we will be attached to Kensington Temple in London from February to early July 2014. God continues to use me. What more could one want?
If you read last year’s New Year’s Letter and my new book Holy Fire and turn to the final chapter – Isaac, you might well suspect why I have been personally disappointed with 2013. I actually expected the Great Awakening during the past year. I am talking about the fulfillment of Matthew 25:6: “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’” The translation “midnight” is from two Greek words – mesos and nux – “middle of the night”. I believe the church today is in a deep sleep, that there will be a major wake up call – having the equivalent effect of September 11, 2001. This Cry in the middle of the night according to the Parable of the Ten Virgins precedes the Second Coming.
I was urged by my father nearly 60 years ago not to deal with eschatology – prophecy: “Let the old men deal with that, my son, then they won’t be around to see their mistakes”. Agreed. I have largely avoided eschatology throughout my ministry. But now I am old. So I am prepared to say that we are on the brink of the greatest move of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. There is coming a huge wake up call to the church that will go around the world – when it comes – in hours. In the Egyptian crisis this year nearly one million people flooded the square in Cairo an hour. How? By modern communications that nearly everyone has access to. Wait and see. This tool will do this with regard to a message coming down the road. Get ready for it. It will wake up the church.
I call it Isaac. It is when the Word and Spirit come together – at last. Smith Wigglesworth prophesied the same thing three months before he died in 1947, as I show at the close of my book Holy Fire. It is (in my humble opinion) the next thing on God’s calendar. It will result in the church being awakened, the lifting of the blindness on Israel and millions of Muslims converted. But all this will be paralleled by great persecution. It won’t be all fun. The “wise” virgins – those who have pursued their inheritance – will be right in the middle of this great outpouring. The “foolish” virgins – those who have not pursued their inheritance – will be on the side lines; they will plead for help from those who pursued their inheritance. But it will be too late for them.
Yes, I thought this would have come by now. But I expect it soon. I expect to see it in my lifetime (I am 78). So am I getting wiser or sillier in my old age? You tell me. My book In Pursuit of His Wisdom comes out in the UK this year. Also, please pray that God will use Holy Fire – one of my most important books to come along since Total Forgiveness.
Happy New Year! From Louise and me – and all our family,
Warmest greetings.
R T Kendall John 5:44