Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Is the United States of America coming apart? Are we headed toward a total breakdown—perhaps even a Race War?
Only God knows!
But what most of us who believe in the Bible know—or should know and admit to ourselves—is that, as a people, we are acting as if the God of the Bible does not exist. For the vast majority of politicians, the media and the educators pay virtually no attention whatsoever to the inspired Laws of Almighty God! It is not as though they do not know about them. For our past leaders—especially men like Abraham Lincoln—talked a great deal about many of the Laws of God and how important they are. Yet our modern liberal leaders have totally rejected virtually everything the God of the Bible tells us to do!
Now, a “day of reckoning” is at hand. For the inspired Word of our Creator gave our forefathers this warning: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess” (Deuteronomy 28:15-21).
My friends, it is significant that this powerful indictment closes with the phrase: “…you have forsaken Me.” Whether our society “likes it” or not, Almighty God will not allow us as a nation to continue on acting as though He does not even exist. Oh, I am aware that most of our purported leaders give “lip service” to God and that they will sometimes briefly mention His name in some offhand manner or at the end of their speech where they may say: “And God bless America.” But in the heart of their speeches—when talking about the real issues of the nation or the world—God is seldom even mentioned. Yet, in his time, when discussing the tragedy of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln invoked God’s name many times and talked about how we needed His guidance and were worthy of His chastisement.
After he was elected President, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous “farewell” address at Springfield, Illinois. He stated: “I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never could have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine Aid which sustained him; and in the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine Assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an affectionate farewell” (The World’s Great Speeches, p. 315).
Later, when talking about the horrors of the Civil War, in which the nation was then engaged, and the terrible sin of slavery, Lincoln stated: “The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern there any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (The World’s Great Speeches, p. 316-317).
So we in this Work of the living Christ have our work cut out for us! In this time of national
trauma, because we have as a nation rejected God and are now a divided and confused people, we are indeed in “trouble.” Yet we who are “called” are commanded to warn our people of what is just ahead. God instructs us in His inspired Word: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand. So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me” (Ezekiel 33:6-7). Each of us will have to answer to God if we are not willing to be totally involved in proclaiming His warning message to our beloved people in time for them to act before the prophesied Great Tribulation begins. I pray that each one of us may be worthy of this charge.
As we do our best to go through all of the “doors” that God opens for us to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ’s coming Kingdom, and also to blow the “warning trumpet” of God’s impending judgment on the nations (Ezekiel 33), we have been very encouraged by the growth in our worldwide Internet impact. Although we are quite small by the world’s standards, God has greatly blessed our various Internet efforts in helping us utilize new technology to reach new people whom we may not otherwise reach through classic print media or cable or satellite television. For example, in 2016 we began investing more to promote the Tomorrow’s World telecast on all of the main streaming-video-on-demand (SVOD) Internet platforms, including Roku, GoogleTV, AppleTV and Amazon FireTV. Just as we also do with conventional television, we measure the expenses and the results on Internet television to ensure that we are being “good stewards” of God’s tithes and offerings, and the results have been quite encouraging! For example, our SVOD platforms are now producing many hundreds of responses per week, and are in recent weeks bringing in more subscribers than some of our nationwide television stations!
As mentioned above, we have been advertising on SVOD Internet television platforms in order to reach more people, and we are pleased to note that our 2016 Roku advertising campaign in particular has generated more than 3.2 million ad impressions, increasing our installation base to now well over 45,000! On the Internet, we have long advertised Tomorrow’s World magazine, Tomorrow’s World telecast and other material all around the world. And recently we have begun testing additional, intensive geographic advertising in a few cities, including Charlotte, Toronto, London, Johannesburg and Harrismith, South Africa, Adelaide, Australia, and Mexico City.
Additionally, we are reaching increasing numbers every month with telecasts and webcasts on YouTube. As many of you know, people are increasingly watching video over the Internet on their “Smartphones” and other computers, so this is another area where we are really investing time and energy, and we are thankful for the results so far! To share some encouraging numbers with each of you, currently the English-language YouTube page (youtube.com/tomorrowsworldtv) has generated more than 6.7 million views, the French-language YouTube page (youtube.com/mondedemain) now has more than 500,000 views, and the Spanish-language YouTube page (youtube.com/elmundodemanana1) recently passed 4.6 million views! Our YouTube efforts, along with the SVOD efforts mentioned above, have been an additional, very powerful way for us to reach millions of people in the world with the True Gospel about Jesus Christ’s soon coming Kingdom—the only real hope that humanity has! And, as we see tightening “censorship” and hostility to God’s Truth increasing around the world, we have already seen on more than a few occasions where some local television station will censor or reject one of our telecasts, but that telecast is still able to be seen on one of our many Internet platforms.
So, the Truth and the “Good News” and the message of repentance from sin is indeed going out powerfully over numerous Internet platforms with increasing power and increasingly producing more and more fruit. I ask you to continue to pray for God’s guidance in these and all of our media efforts.
Yet, my friends, in our own personal lives and attitudes, we must genuinely “walk with God.” We must not allow ourselves to become emotionally involved or politically involved in the racial fighting and the national or political fighting of our generation! Please remember, Jesus Christ is to live His life within us through the Holy Spirit (Galatians 2:20). And as the Apostle Paul was inspired to tell us after describing the enemies of Christ: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). May Almighty God inspire all of us to give our lives to Him and in His service to truly help our peoples turn to Him in deep repentance before it is too late. For God’s judgment on our peoples will not be delayed forever!
With Christian love,
Roderick C. Meredith