 Jim at the whiteboard defining Greek words.
Over
25 years
ago, while in my early 40’s and being active in
a church seeking the Lord to some degree while pursuing a career in
real estate, God crushed me by sending me in and out of the hospital
over a 3 year period. I was familiar with those "hard" truths
ever since I was in my early 20's and had always been blunt and
unafraid to get straight with people. However, I was afraid
to preach completely with great plainness ( II Corinthians
3:12). To this point , which was in the mid 1980's, I was
afraid that preaching the total picture of predestination would affect
my livelihood and bring about definite starvation, because I knew
preaching this truth would make enemies.
God
dealt with me
starting in 1980, bringing me to what I believed to
be my deathbed in 1985. In the hospital, near death, I cried
out to God, "Lord, you are going to kill me if I don't quit living for
myself and say all the truth in my power!" I began to say
these blunt plain words that have appealed to you elect
sheep. I began to make more enemies than I could have ever
imagined, but the wonderful surprise was that God had a predestinated
elect family and he had written these words in their hearts, and they
began to gravitate toward this ministry.
At
first, it was
very slow and gradual, and I became sick and tired of
the “mush” gospel that churches were
preaching. My family was confused. On the way home
from church, my wife would say, "he said such-and-such last week and he
said so-and-so this week contradicting what he said last week." I began
to tell my wife Mary, "Don't listen to the preacher. He
doesn't know what he’s talking about." Finally I
said, " this is a waste of time. We are going home and we are
not going to these churches anymore. I will teach you at
home."
Twenty
years ago,
Grace and Truth Ministries was started including my
wife, son and one other young man. I started recording the
sermons to tape shortly thereafter. About 3 months later, I
started buying local radio time. We were meeting in my
basement in those days. Now, there are regular capacity crowds in
attendance on Sunday mornings and we reach millions on TV and radio in
nearly 50 cities across the country. We are sending out
approximately 2,000 DVDs/mo. free-of-charge in all of these
areas. God is blessing us by leading us
to His elect family.
Since
April 2003,
Grace and Truth Ministries has been meeting in a
building located in Hendersonville, TN. We gave away over
25,000 DVDs, Audiocassettes and Mp3s last year free-of-charge and are
airing the messages via public- and leased-access television, radio and
the internet (Sermonaudio, Google video, Youtube, et al) to get the
truth out to reach the sheep who have ears to hear.
Though
Jim is extremely busy studying to prepare for 6 hours of teaching each
week, he continues to take phone calls from the elect seeking answers. Stay
in contact by leaving phone messages, writing letters or email to let
Jim and Mary know how the messages are helping you.
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