Grace and peace be to all of the precious Saints of O’Fallon Apostolic assembly. It is indeed a blessing to commune with you once more by way of the monthly bulletin.

The Lord has impressed me of late with the idea for our next year’s visions conference. As you know the Lord gives us a word to share with our church family and the body of Christ at large, Next year’s theme will be “Visions of Love in the Last Days.” The theme scripture is from Matthew 24 verse 12 which says “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of Many show wax cold.”

I believe that there is a twofold message here for the saints. This is our Lord’s final message before his crucifixion. It is part of the description of the last days just before the coming of the Tribulation. In the first part He tells us that there will be an increase in the sinfulness in the world in general. Iniquity is sin on steroids. The Greek word, hamartia, speaks of gross wickedness. It describes a condition in which the general attitude that surrounds us is given over wholesale to conduct unbecoming good people, and more so, the children of God. We are indeed experiencing that today. We are in a time of great rebellion on every hand. We are witnessing men and women, boys and girls, doing only that which is right in their own eyes. Gone is even the pretext of proper behavior.

Because of this truth, the second thing comes into play. That is that the “love” that people might have ordinarily had, has now become chilled or in the language of this text, waxes cold. We have recently seen atrocities being perpetrated against family members by other family members. Murder seems to be on a rampage in our streets. People who are in authority seem to take pleasure in abusing other people just because they can. Our governmental leaders seem to demonstrate daily that they are not worthy of admiration or honor. We see that vulgarity and crass behavior has become the norm rather than the rare exception. There is much more to be said about this, as we will endeavor to do in the coming weeks and months. We will investigate this cultural lack of love that exists in the world, and unfortunately, in the church as well. I’m hoping that OAA will lead the charge in demonstrating the love of Christ, first to each other and then to all who are in our sphere of influence. We like to say that our church represents the end of anyone’s search for a friendly church, meaning that we are a people that loves God and knows how to love each other. Let us go forward, OAA, and show the world that the love of Jesus is genuine, powerful and current.

Maranatha,
Bishop Gregory Wells, Sr. D.D.