Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Greetings from Charlotte, NC! “As California goes, so goes the nation!” That famous phrase has begun to take on more meaning than ever in the last several years. As the illegal immigrants gain more political clout, it becomes harder for the traditional family to feel at home in California and many parts of the nation. And the powerful homosexual activists are being granted more and more opportunities to destroy the normal American family. These sex perverts have now made it practically illegal to speak out against homosexuality and same-sex relations in the public schools in California.
Now—above all that—a recent civil ruling by super-liberal judges has essentially declared that most forms of homeschooling are “illegal” in California! So what can Christian parents do if they don’t want their children exposed to the increasingly powerful homosexual propaganda now widely promulgated in the public schools out there?
Truly, my friends, our nation is becoming more like Sodom with each passing year! Witness the Governor of New York having to “apologize” to his family and the public recently in a prostitution scandal!
Is God pleased with where we are headed as a nation? And where Canada, Great Britain and Australia are also headed? Even most professing Christians in today’s environment are seemingly unaware of how the Creator God looks on the fornicating, wife swapping and homosexual behavior which is being so heavily promoted in our television programs and films, in our music and now—to some extent—even in our schools and colleges!
The express will of the great God who guides the rise and fall of nations is clearly revealed in His inspired Word—the Holy Bible. Centuries ago, God told our forefathers, “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe all His commandments which I have commanded you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these shall come upon you… blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the produce of your ground…. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail…” (Deut. 28:1-4, 12-13). My friends, for about two centuries God gave these blessings—to our English-speaking peoples in America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. However, as we have increasingly turned away from God and literally despised His inspired Word, He has begun to take away these blessings and bring upon us the promised curses also revealed in this powerful biblical passage.
For the prophecy goes on to say, “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 kneading bowl… 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” (vv. 15-17, 43-45).
My dear friends and brethren, all these curses will certainly come upon us with increasing fury unless we truly turn back to the God of the Bible, repent of our sins, our cynicism and our rebellion, and sincerely begin to obey the commandments and statutes of our Creator! There is no other way!
Right now, as most of you know, the United States and much of the western world is descending into a financial crisis of unprecedented proportion! Major banks, insurance companies and related industries are going down and out. Especially in the United States, our Federal Reserve is printing money like crazy—virtually out of thin air! There is no extra gold or other commodity or productive asset behind this newly created money. Even the more liberal economists realize that something is desperately wrong.
Meanwhile, America’s national debt is becoming truly astronomical. As many have noted, the total debt—both public and private—of our nation is now in the neighborhood of fifty-five trillion dollars! This is a figure which is simply incomprehensible. It will never be able to be repaid within this present age.
So what is a truly Christian person to do? How can you—and your loved ones—survive the unpredictable and massive swings in the financial markets, the unemployment problems, the coming food and water shortages and all the other problems brought on by our mounting national sins against our Creator? Should you simply “hide” and withdraw within yourself? Should you cut back on your tithes and offerings to the God who gives you life and breath? What should you do?
If you truly believe the Bible, then you will begin to act on faith based on the direct statements in God’s inspired Word. He tells you—again and again—that if you will obey Him and keep His commandments, He will always take care of you. But you must not“live beyond your means.” You must learn to live carefully, thoughtfully and obediently before your Creator. God’s Word tells us, “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Heb. 13:5).
Repeatedly—in many different places in the Bible—God tells us to put our “treasure” in His Work and in the business of preaching His Gospel to the world! Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
Describing the true Christian approach to “giving” in God’s service, the Apostle Paul was inspired to tell us, “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:6-8). So God truly “loves a cheerful giver.” And God is “able” to give you and me “the breaks” so that we may “always having sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work.”
More than 58 years ago, I sincerely decided to “give” my life to God—including my time, my talents, my resources and everything that I had. I have certainly not done this perfectly. But I have sincerely tried. God has never let me down. He has allowed me to go through all kinds of trials and tests. But He has always delivered me, always taken care of me—and He always will!
In His Instruction Book for us, God inspired these words from King David for our edification, “I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his descendants begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). My dear friends and loved ones, we are headed into a literal maelstrom of physical and financial problems never before faced to the same extent by a God-rejecting humanity. For the coming famines, storms, earthquakes, disease epidemics, wars, persecuting rampages and financial upheavals just ahead of us will be unique in all human history.
Yet, if we can truly believe the God of the Bible, we can know that He will always take care of us and make a “way out” so that we may survive in order to keep His commandments, serve His people and do His Work. Even though some of us may die or be martyred along the way—as the Bible clearly indicates—we will see that the vast majority of God’s own people will be taken care of. And the “Big Picture” events affecting the major nations of the world and the massive prophecies involving divine intervention in human affairs, weather, disease, etc., will come about as God has predicted! For God is real. We must believe this and we must put our hearts in His Work to fully please our heavenly Father!
The prophet Daniel was inspired to describe these very end-times in which we are living, and also to describe what true Christians ought to be doing! Daniel described the soon-coming “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that time” (Dan. 12:1). Then Daniel described what we, today, should truly have our hearts in doing! For Daniel tells us, “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (v. 3). If we truly have genuine faith in God and what He clearly tells us in His Word, we will be doing just that in the months and years ahead! For we will “know,” by faith, that the God of the Bible will take care of us, watch over us and then bless us for putting our trust in Him. Thank you for your generous financial support and your fervent prayers for the success of this end-time Work.
With Christian love,
Roderick C. Meredith