Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Greetings from Charlotte, NC! Within a few days after most of you read this, a very important anniversary will occur. It will be the 65th anniversary of “Little Boy”—the first atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. Although it almost immediately obliterated a major city and the lives of tens of thousands of human beings, it may have saved the lives of millions by helping bring World War II to a swift conclusion. Have you seen the footage of the utter devastation of Hiroshima? Miles and miles of totally demolished buildings. At the edge of the city, still more buildings destroyed or badly damaged and a few thousand survivors wandering through the rubble—often with sad, empty-looking eyes and shreds of skin hanging from their burned bodies. Elsewhere, huge piles of human corpses.
After the bomb was unleashed, the sky above Hiroshima grew bright with a violent flash. “My God, what have we done?” wrote co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis in his flight log. Nearly 70,000 are estimated to have died almost instantly as a result of the bomb, with another 70,000 suffering serious injury. After the lingering effects of the blast are considered—cancer and poisoning from radioactive fallout, etc.—as many as 200,000 Japanese died as a result of that one bomb. Afterward, the pilot, co-pilot and bombardier must have realized the enormity of what had happened. For a huge city was suddenly “gone.” Entire families suddenly disappeared. And the entire “world around” of those who lived on would never be the same again. Indeed, the entire world had undergone a dramatic pivotal point in human experience—for millions now realized the absolute possibility of cosmocide—the total annihilation of the human race which Jesus clearly described in Matthew 24:21-22.
My dear friends and brethren, I tell you sincerely, we in the United States, Canada, Britain, etc., are swiftly drawing closer to another such turning point in human history. For our “world”—almost everything around us—is going to swiftly change over the next very few years! Yet most of those around us “just don’t get it.” They think that “all is well,” and that America and Britain have always “pulled through” every crisis. And they tell themselves, “Not to worry!” Meanwhile, the “prosperity gospel” preachers with their flamboyant clothes and fancy hairdos proclaim, “Just think positively about what you want, and reach out for it. Then God will give it to you!”
Soon, however, reality will set in.
One of the most respected and non-political historians of our time, Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson, opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival last Monday. In his opening address, Dr. Ferguson gave a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level. “‘I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,’ Ferguson said. ‘In that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of chaos. And we’ve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond market loses faith in your fiscal policy.’ Ferguson said empires—such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman empire—can collapse quite quickly and the tipping point is often when the cost of servicing an empire’s debt is larger than the cost of its defense budget. ‘That has not been the case I think at any point in U.S. history,’ Ferguson said. ‘It will be the case in the next five years’” (Aspen Daily News Online, July 6, 2010).
Although the collapse of America within the next five or ten years could take place within Ferguson’s time frame, frankly that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that each of us contemplates carefully and honestly our very purpose in life. Why were you born? Why are you drawing breath? If there is a real God as the Bible clearly indicates, what is His purpose for you? And are you truly fulfilling that supreme purpose?
Each of us needs to ask that question honestly and thoughtfully—and not “kid” ourselves about it in any way whatever. For our lives now—and our lives throughout eternity—will depend upon our willingness to face reality and ultimately to face these questions and answer the way our Creator wants us to. Somewhere on this earth, God has always had a “Work” through which He proclaimed His purpose in that particular age. We read that Enoch was a “preacher of righteousness.” We see that Abraham instructed his family and a group of hundreds of followers in the way of God. We see that Moses was used to teach people, and even the nations around, through what God did—that the Lord God of Israel was real. And that His laws were “right.” Later, Elijah cried out, then Elisha and then later John the Baptist cried out “in the wilderness.” Then came Jesus Christ, the apostles and the early Church. Today, we in this Work are truly “reaching out” to increasing millions of people through our expanded television coverage around the world, our powerful use of the Internet, our Tomorrow’s World magazine and many other ways. We will—with God’s help—reach this world as “a witness” with the true message of Jesus Christ regarding the “Kingdom of God”—the great Government which He is now preparing and which will soon be set up on this earth.
Just the other day, I was given the results of my latest television program which was aired this past weekend. We received more than 5,200 responses—even during this normally “slow” summer season. So we are very thankful for the results that God is giving us. A few days ago, my wife and I returned from Dallas, TX, where we had nearly 300 people attend a Tomorrow’s World Special Presentation—a public campaign proclaiming the message of Christ to those interested in following through and giving their lives to God. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Ames will return tonight from Trinidad where he conducted a similar campaign—this time with more than 300 people in attendance, and a wonderful response. Around the world and around the country, the Work of God is increasing in power. We also have a great deal of unity and loyalty because we practice the “way of God”—including the correct form of Church Government which Jesus Christ and the apostles clearly taught and practiced continually. So we are blessed. God has been good to us in spite of our human faults and errors. So we have much to be thankful for.
However, dear friends and brethren, one of the most powerful warnings God gives all of us at the end of this age is the clear warning not to be “Laodicean.” What does God condemn the Laodiceans for, primarily? He does not condemn them for wrong doctrine. He does not condemn them for big personal sins. He states in His inspired Word, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).
So the last Church Era of this age is Laodicea. And this age is therefore dominated by the “Laodicean spirit”—a spirit of apathy and lukewarmness. Often, even God’s people reflect the attitude or spirit of those around them. This must be even more so now because of the pervasive influence of television and the Internet. People in most of the world are becoming more and more “worldly” in many ways. They are distracted by their focus on wealth, prosperity and “things.” God seems “far off” to them. So they are apathetic. They do not get excited and truly zealous about serving the Creator who gives them life and breath.
Yet, throughout God’s Word, He tells us over and over that absolute zeal and total commitment to serving Him are some of the characteristics He most looks for in His true servants.
God told ancient Judah that it would have to go into a “Babylonian captivity” because of its terrible sins. He then said that “after 70 years” He would bring Judah back to the land of Israel (Jeremiah 29:10). “Then,” God said, “you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you” (vv. 12-14). As God’s Word clearly states here, He will listen when you “search for Me with all your heart.”
In a foundational prophecy given for all of us in the English-speaking nations—plus the peace loving nations of Northwestern Europe—God describes a time when the modern descendants of the House of Israel would become wealthy and turn aside from God and finally be taken into slavery. God then states, “But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice” (Deuteronomy 4:29-30). Again, the emphasis is on the fact that we need to “seek” God “with all your heart and with all your soul!” This is a warning to us in the “latter days” (v. 30).
May God help every one of us understand the times we are living in. As America and our British-descended peoples come down, and the awesome blessings God has given us are slowly but surely taken away, we need to realize why we who are called by God need to awaken ourselves and seek God “with all our hearts!” We need to do God’s Work with all our hearts. We need to show God that we have an intense interest in truly serving Him and being on the “team” Jesus Christ is using to finish His Work in our day now.
May God help every one of us get “involved” with what Jesus Christ is doing right now. May God inspire you to do your very best in backing His Work “with all your heart” and with a renewed zeal for serving your Creator and His people while you have the opportunity.
With Christian love,
Roderick C. Meredith