Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Warm greetings to you all from Charlotte, North Carolina! Dr. Meredith has asked me to write this month’s co-worker letter so he could have some additional time to spend with his wife Sheryl—who, as you know, has been battling stage-four cancer. We are grateful for recent reports of improvements in Mrs. Meredith’s health, and I hope we are all continuing to pray for her complete healing, and indeed for the healing of all the brethren who are facing serious health trials.
I know Dr. Meredith is very appreciative of your continuing and consistent support of God’s Work. In his January 17, 2012 co-worker letter, Dr. Meredith gave an encouraging report of the Work’s increasing effectiveness throughout 2011 in preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God through television and magazines, radio, the Internet, and our extensive domestic and international mailings. Additionally, Living University will soon complete its fifth year of offering distance-learning courses to students around the world. I know that many of you brethren and co-workers have profited from the courses LU has offered, and from the ability it has given students to come into contact with other distance-learning students from many countries. Enclosed with this letter is a colorful and informative LU brochure that you may want to share with family and friends.
You may be interested to know that, just as the Living Church of God voluntarily submits to a professional outside audit every year, so too is LU audited. We want all who are supporting the Work to have confidence in the responsible stewardship that we are diligently striving to apply in handling the tithes and offerings of thousands of brethren and co-workers.
Dear brethren and co-workers, through your donations, tithes and offerings, our 2011 income in the United States increased by 7.0 percent over 2010. In spite of global financial turmoil, God is blessing His people to be able to give generously to help the Work move forward more powerfully than ever in carrying out the dual commission given by Jesus Christ, to preach the gospel of the soon-coming Kingdom of God, and to feed the flock whom He calls.
Yes, God is using your tithes and offerings to give the world a powerful warning message that it especially needs in these troubled times! We know that 2012 promises more uncertainty and portends new troubles ahead in the growing global financial crisis. In Europe, European Union leaders have continued to press financially strapped Greece to institute painful austerity measures. German leaders have even pressed for the right to manage Greece’s national budget, evoking cries of protest that Greek sovereignty was at risk. We all need to realize, individually and nationally, that “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). As the EU struggles, the U.S. continues to print more and more currency without any material backing. Our Tomorrow’s World magazine cover article, “The Debt Bomb”—written by Mr. Dexter Wakefield, our Director of Business Operations—warned: “Estimates suggest that the total federal budget deficit in 2011 will reach $1.6 trillion! Along with this sobering news, the International Monetary Fund projects that total U.S. debt will exceed the nation's annual output of goods and services sometime in 2012!” (July-August, 2011). In fact, as of February 2012, the Congressional Budget Office was reporting the U.S. federal budget deficit for 2011 as having reached 1.6 trillion, while by the end of 2011 the total federal debt had already exceeded 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product! Unless our Western nations repent of their serious financial irresponsibility, these dangerous trends will continue and intensify!
In its Winter 2012 issue, The Wilson Quarterly featured a series of eye-opening articles titled “Lessons of the Great Depression.” The cover photo, from 1930, shows an unemployed man in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC, selling an apple to a congressman for five cents. How serious are Western financial troubles? “The recession of 2008-09 and its aftermath more closely resemble the Great Depression than any of the other Post-World War II recessions. Indeed, this episode might aptly be called the Mini-Depression of 2008-2009. Both economic declines involved the interplay among the collapse of real estate values, the decline of banks’ capital and their willingness to lend, and the desire of households to rebuild financial wealth” (“Great Recession or Mini-Depression?,” Robert Z. Aliber, p. 56).
What were the causes? “In both the 1920s and the mid-2000s, economic euphoria was pervasive as bubbles in asset prices led to surges in spending—and those spending increases further inflated the bubbles that had fostered them in the first place. Then asset prices imploded, household wealth shrank, and banks suffered large losses when borrowers were unable to repay their loans” (ibid.).
Will we individually and nationally learn our lesson? The Creator and Governor of the universe gave ancient Israel a prophetic warning that also applies to us today, “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever” (Deuteronomy 28:43-46).
Unless the Western nations repent of their increasing transgressions and rebellion against God, we will not see a reversal of the dangerous downward financial trends we have been experiencing! The U.S., once the world’s greatest creditor, seems bent in solidifying its status as the world’s greatest debtor nation! The nation of China alone currently holds about $1.1 trillion of U.S. national debt, followed by Japan with $1.0 trillion—each overshadowing the third-place creditor nation, the United Kingdom, which holds $429 billion.
My friends, in what can we have confidence in these difficult times? In our wealth? No! We need to draw closer than ever to God as the end of this present age comes ever nearer. God has given His people many comforting promises, such as Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Jesus Himself promised us the gift of faith, as well as our physical needs, if we commit ourselves to the greatest goal ever given to human beings: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
We can have faith as we zealously strive to fulfill the Great Commission to preach the gospel to the whole world. Jesus stated, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). In the previous verses, He gave us prophetic warning signs leading up to the Great Tribulation. As Dr. Meredith reported in last month’s co-worker letter, “The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic gauge of nuclear danger, has moved one minute closer to midnight because of ‘inadequate progress’ on nuclear and climate issues. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced the move—to five minutes before midnight—on Tuesday. The clock last moved one minute back in 2010.”
Yes, it is symbolically only five minutes to midnight! Will we soon experience the “midnight” doomsday? The Bulletin announcement concluded with this sobering warning: “The clock is ticking.” Yes, the time is growing shorter and shorter. But God promises protection for His spiritually alert people in the dangerous times ahead. Jesus exhorts us, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).
Some financial planners recognize that the clock is ticking. Barron’s: The Dow Jones Business and Financial Weekly assembled a “2012 Roundtable” consisting of ten investment experts, and asked them to analyze and discuss the financial “big picture.” How can investors profit in the unpredictable and unstable world financial condition? One analyst, Mark Faber, stated: “On another optimistic note, World War III will occur in the next five years. That means the Middle East will blow up. New regimes there will be less Western-friendly. The West has also figured out it can’t contain China, which is rising rapidly and will have more military and naval power in Southeast Asia. The only way for the West to contain China is to control the oil tap in the Middle East” (January 16, 2012, p. 35).
Faber also commented on the price of oil: “Oil is around $100 a barrel now. How high it goes depends on how much [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernanke prints. If there is a disturbance in the Middle East, the sky is the limit” (ibid., p. 36). These factors affect the profit of cagey speculative investors. By the way, if you have not read our insightful booklet, The Middle East in Prophecy, be sure to request your free copy.
Many economists and financial experts know the challenges of our changing global economic realities. They are focused on how to profit from times of crisis. But what they do not know is that Bible prophecy reveals not only the amazing sequence of world events actually leading up to World War III and Armageddon, but also how God’s most faithful people will be protected through these difficult times, and will receive God’s blessings far beyond what today’s financial planners can begin to understand. Our Tomorrow’s World magazine and our weekly telecasts document these vital truths of Bible prophecy. Watch for my upcoming Tomorrow’s World program, currently scheduled for April 12-18, titled “2012 and the Apocalypse.” And do not miss Dr. Meredith’s powerful program, “How to Watch World Events,” scheduled to air April 5-11.
Even though “the clock is ticking,” God does not want us to be fearful. Our Father in heaven expects His servants not only to do their part in supporting His Work, but also to grow personally in the grace and knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 3:18). One way we grow is through earnest Bible study and seeking God’s precious truth. As I mentioned earlier, Living University will soon, as of this May, complete its fifth year of offering biblically based distance-learning courses teaching true values to students around the world. This very month marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of Living University. On February 13, 2007, Dr. Meredith announced the plan to start the University, stating his “deep desire to educate our young people and members and give them the opportunity to participate in the proper type of educational setting in a truly Christian environment.”
On August 15, 2007, LU began its first classes, enrolling more than 150 online students. It now enrolls about 200 students in online and on-site programs. The on-site students are unique assets in the daily affairs of the Living Church of God headquarters here in Charlotte. Through the student work program, the headquarters office receives vital student help in areas ranging from electronic media and editorial support, to reception, secretarial, mailing and other office support duties.
Up to now, LU students have resided in apartments and private homes near Headquarters. What we plan to do soon is to make available University-operated housing to provide a student living environment specifically created to support academic and spiritual success. We would then like to expand this annually as God blesses the University with additional students and the funding to make it a reality. University-operated housing increases safety, permits more privacy and promotes student camaraderie and cohesiveness.
As we are able to do this, we will be helping these students receive the most vital education available today, in the most appropriate environment, while at the same time providing additional hands to do the Work of our great and loving God. But, to make this happen, LU needs your help! Any amount you would like to give, apart from and beyond your regular tithes and offerings to God’s Work, will be deeply appreciated. You can even donate online; just go to www.livinguniv.com and click on “Make a Gift Online.” Thank you for supporting this important educational program, a significant part of God’s Work!
Brethren and co-workers, in order to meet the many challenges of these end-times in which we now live, we must go forward in faith in completing the Great Commission, and we must continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave this encouraging truth: “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (Luke 12:43). Let us all work while it is day in preparing the world, the Church and ourselves for the coming of the King of kings. Jesus said, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4).
May God bless you all as we individually and collectively serve our Lord and Savior in completing His Work while it is day!
With love, in Jesus' name,
Richard F. Ames