Dear friends:

Grace, or righteousness and salvation by grace through faith, was first verbalized by God to Abraham in Genesis 15:6: "He (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." Paul repeats that wonderful truth in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6 and James 2:23.

Therefore, you could say that man's understanding of grace originated with Abraham.

When God changed Abram's name to Abraham (Genesis 17:5), He did it by adding the Hebrew letter hey to Abram's name.  The letter hey added in verse 5 happens to also have a numerical value of 5.  The number 5 is thought to represent grace.

The church age on God's timetable is often referred to as "the age of grace."  "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"(John 1:17). 

The beginning of grace was associated with the number 5, so will the end of the age of grace also be associated with the number 5?

Could the age of grace end when there is a very unusual convergence of the number 5, which is May 5, 2005, or 5-5-05, which "just happens" to be on a Thursday, the 5th day of the week?  Many see this possibility.

This year, May 5, 2005 (Cinco de Mayo) also happens to be Ascension Day, the day Jesus disappeared into the clouds and when the angels said that He would come back the same way -- as recorded in the 5th book of the New Testament!

May 5, 2005 is also exactly 5 years to the day from that sign in the sky when the earth plus 5 planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, were in a rare alignment.

Recently I received a surprise e-mail from a pastor in Australia whom I do not know.  He just "accidentally" stumbled on to my Web site.  To my surprise, he expressed belief in a May 5, 2005 rapture date.  He said that in his church he had an actual, vivid vision of the rapture, to which, he said, were 5 witnesses!  While I do not know him, his vision, with the 5 witnesses, had a great ring of credibility.

Jim