Today we officially kick-off our week long celebration of the establishment of our Bibles Behind Bars program that delivers King James Bibles, New Testaments and scripture portions to inmates in jails, prisons and migrant detention centers all across America. It is completely free to the institutions we send them to, they don’t even pay for the shipping. Jesus had such a heart for the prisoner trapped in sin, so what better way to begin this Bibles Behind Bars celebratory Sunday Service than by seeing how Jesus started His earthly ministry?

“And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:17-19 (KJB)

Jesus came for the prisoner, the ones in physical prisons and for the ones trapped in the prison of sin with no Saviour to set them free, and lead them out of darkness and into the glorious light of God. When Jesus commissioned Saul in Acts 9, the Lord gave him a charge to “open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” Think about it. Jesus, though innocent, was crucified between two prisoners on the cross, Paul was in jail so often that he was called the “ambassador in bonds”, with the Lord having him get arrested so he could preach to the Philippian jailer who gets saved right there in jail! At the Judgment of Nations in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says “Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” On this NTEB Sunday Service, join us as we celebrate one year of sending the glorious light of the gospel of the kingdom of God into the jails, behind the bars, to set the captives free. We will also be observing the Lord’s Supper at the conclusion of the preaching, so have your grape juice and matzoh’s handy!