The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

1 Corinthians 16:8-9, “But I shall remain in Ephesus until Pentecost;

9 for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.”

Why you will remember is one of the great philosophical questions of all time. Tennyson wrote the answer in The Charge of the Light Brigade: “Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die.”

I’ve thought a lot about the set-back we’ve had recently. Rose Marie has been alarmingly close to death only to be snatched from its awesome jaws in “the nick of time.” But, why?

I won’t bore you with the scores of possible answers that have swirled through my mind. I’ll simply say, I think I know why. Paul was en route to Jerusalem and he was about to pass through Macedonia. He stated that he had considered spending the winter with the church there. Just had’t made up his mind about that. What he had determined was to remain at

Ephesus until Pentecost. But why?

“…for a wide door for effective service had opened to (him), and there are many

adversaries.”

When you a serious fisherman, you fish where the fish are. Opportunites abounded in

Ephesus! It was a lost city with lost people; and that’s what Paul was all about! He wasn’t called to merely sail the oceans and enjoy restful days aboard a ship. He was called to

preach the Word to lost people and to call them to faith in the LORD Jesus Christ. The opportunities in Ephesus were Paul’s “wide door for effective service.”

Do you get it yet? Had Rose Marie not encountered multiple health issues, we would never have had the scores of opportunities to share Jesus with a multitude of lost people! Oh, I know the adversaries! Satan’s crowd double-timed their attacks on me! Not people, angry at what she and I were saying to them about the Savior. No! It was the terribel anxieties that knotted my stomach each time I had to call 911 — and knotted it even more until the EMTs arrived. Those anxieties were the adversaries. And when the situations relented, and I thought we had escaped the storm, it all took action against us again, and again!

But the glories of sharing with the lost. The light in their eyes that said, “Someone cares for my soul!” It has been worth it all. What’s more, we have been drawn closer to Him through the process. If you’re not in the “battle,” you just don’t know the joy there is. Oh, there’s an Ephesus for you somewhere, too. You signed up; let’s reach out to people before the Final Trumpet sounds!

We love you and rejoice in our prayers,

Nana & Dado III

(Rose Marie & Gene)

P. S. Every doctor (and there are many!) for the last two or three days has been positive with

respect to Rose Marie’s physical process. The LORD has used them to help us, and us to

help them. God bless you! And may He always be praised!

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”