Dear Brethren and Friends,
An absolute wave of enthusiasm and joy was palpable during our recent Family Weekend here in Charlotte, North Carolina. More than 800 people were in physical attendance here, plus another 7,000 or more who heard the Sabbath sermon online. We have had positive and encouraging responses from practically all over the world—from Africa, Asia, Australia, Britain and Europe. So we are very grateful! We hope that this special Internet service will do a lot of good and help people get a closer personal “feeling” for what we are doing in the Living Church of God.
Let us all pray fervently that this will help many people around the world! The entire weekend was inspiring and brethren were very vocal about how much the outstanding seminars helped them, along with the special Bible Studies held on Friday night and Sabbath morning, and then the final sermon on Sabbath afternoon. So we have much to be thankful for, but we certainly need to ask God’s direct blessing on the “follow through” of this presentation so that people around the world may be moved to act on the Truth—not just hear about it and enjoy it.
However, brethren, a very real Satan the Devil is fully aware of what we have been doing. More than most humans, of course, Satan knows where God’s Work is being done in a powerful way and where the greatest impact is being felt in His Work around the world. I am sure that he was not pleased at what we were doing at the special weekend event. He is not pleased that we have been growing through our increasing impact on the Internet, our outstanding television programs, our large circulation of Tomorrow’s World magazine, etc. In his time, Satan will react and try to “bring us down” if he possibly can. He always tries to divide and conquer. We know that. So we should all be praying fervently for God’s protection and deliverance from his vengeful attacks against God’s people and God’s Work.
For, as I said in my Internet-broadcasted sermon for the Family Weekend, we all must realize that we are in a spiritual war. We are actually fighting, not humans, but “wicked spirits in high places.” As the Apostle Paul was inspired to write: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:12–13).
Through the decades I served in God’s Work under Mr. Armstrong—and ever since, as well—I have often noticed how Satan is able to confuse people and somehow divide them if he possibly can. He will cause many to become upset about basically little things, and yet turn them aside from their part in God’s Work. Satan is extremely clever at this!
Throughout the American and British-descended nations, Satan is very busy absolutely destroying almost every vestige of true Christianity that he possibly can. We see that all the way from the “same-sex” marriage hysteria to the recent “self-identity” movement where men are able to state that they are women and somehow get away with it—even having legal backing wherein they can sue somebody who does not recognize that they really are not of the gender they claim to be! Our God-rejecting, anti-God society is willing to “swallow” almost anything, it seems! All across the British Isles, millions of Muslims have moved in and are asserting their control over entire cities and regional areas with increasing impunity. Often, the police do essentially nothing! From a recent article in BreakingIsraelNews.com, January 3, 2016, we read the following:
“Hospitals across Britain are dealing with at least 15 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) every day. Although FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1984, there has not been a single conviction.
At least 1,400 children were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 in the town of Rotherham, mostly by Muslim gangs, but police and municipal officials failed to tackle the problem because they feared being branded ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic.’
Reverend Giles Goddard, vicar of St John’s in Waterloo, central London, allowed a full Muslim prayer service to be held in his church. He also asked his congregation to praise ‘the God that we love, Allah.’
There has been a 60 percent increase in child sexual abuse reported to the police over the past four years, according to official figures.
British intelligence are monitoring more than 3,000 homegrown Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in Britain.”
How much will it take to “wake up” the basically peace-loving Anglo-Saxon peoples in Britain and America? Must the modern descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh have a knife at their very own throats in order to be concerned? What will it take? Would any of us need to witness our own wife being gang-raped before we would take the problem seriously? What will it take?
Truly, brethren, a “spirit of blindness” has come over the British and American peoples in regard to their total disregard for God, their increasing heinous sins, which in the past would have been abhorred by the majority of the population, and our complete turning away from the entire way of Christianity as described in the Bible!
Yet, we in God’s Church must also “wake up”! We must not be like the lukewarm Laodiceans who just “allow” a gradual deterioration of morals to occur in their churches and in their lives. Remember, Laodiceans are never described as being totally blinded to the Truth. They are never described as being totally wrong doctrinally. The main description, given to them in Revelation, is this: “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).
Often, God’s people themselves do not fully realize what is happening. Satan is so subtle and sneaks up on us so that we are unaware we are really “boiling” like the proverbial frog in the cooking pot, or “freezing” in the cold away from God—until it is too late for us to act. Worse yet, as the Bible points out, many do not choose to go one way or the other, to either dedicate ourselves fully or not at all—they simply become “lukewarm”!
May God grant that all of us wake up while we have plenty of opportunity to give our lives to Him with increasing feeling and passion! Brethren, we have the opportunity to have a genuine impact on this whole world and the many millions of people who are “starving” for God’s Truth around the globe! God is giving us this Truth. We have the opportunity and the obligation to proclaim it powerfully and with heartfelt effort so that people can really understand! We have the opportunity and direct charge from God to warn our people of the coming Tribulation while there is time (Ezekiel 33).
Again, we must be true “Christian soldiers” and be willing to fight with all our might for the Truth and way of God! We must fully realize that we are “at war” in fighting a spirit battle with “wicked spirits” as I pointed out above. As the Apostle Paul said: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 10:3–6).
As your human leader and Presiding Evangelist, pastoring all of you in the Living Church of God, I exhort every one of you to “get real.” Be truly zealous to prove the real Truth—to appreciate where God’s Work is actually being done and to go all out to do your part in proclaiming Christ’s message around this world! Be sure that you recognize that we are in a “spirit war.” It is not easy. We need to be thoughtful, receptive and always aware that we are not just fighting human beings—as Paul said—but wicked spirits and that we are battling “arguments” and “every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” (v. 5).
It is not always easy to discern the inherent evil in many of the practices that are taking place throughout our society and that are absolutely ungodly, but if we constantly study God’s word, the Bible, we will have the “mind of God.” We will have God’s discernment and be able to perceive how Satan is leading God’s people astray and what we personally—and in our own families—must do to resist and overcome these wrong “arguments” and “high things” that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.
Dear brethren, let us fervently pray for one another! Let us do everything we can to forgive each other, to help each other and to build the attitude of love and unity, of which we have experienced so much recently. Thank God for the wonderful weekend we enjoyed! But, let us also realize that in the months and years just ahead, Satan will do everything he possibly can to destroy that attitude of love and unity. He will come after us with clever arguments and demonic capacity so that we will need God’s direct power to overcome. So we can overcome. And with God’s help, we will overcome!
That is why—as I have said—we must be willing to fight. We must recognize that we are not just “nice people,” but that we are also “Christian soldiers.” We must ask God for the Spirit, the faith and the courage of the Apostle Paul who wrote at the very end of one of the most traumatic event-filled lives in the history of Christianity: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7–8).
With Christian love,
