Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Greetings from Charlotte, NC! The world around us is changing fast! Before too many years, millions of people in the United States, Canada and Britain may be starving! Yes! Even here in what we have thought of as the “Breadbasket of the World.” And that includes Australia and New Zealand as well.
What is going on?
The simple fact is that worldwide stockpiles of cereals—wheat, corn, soybeans, etc.—are expected to fall to a 25-year low of 405 million tons in 2008. That’s down 21 million tons, or 5 percent, from their already reduced level last year. U.S. wheat stockpiles are at a 62-year low, even though farmers are planting from fence to fence—and with the U.S. dollar falling fast, foreign buyers are lining up to scoop up as much of Uncle Sam’s grain as they can carry away. Wheat recently soared to its highest price in 28 years. It is “out of sight” for many poor people in third world countries!
Meanwhile rice, a staple food for three billion people, is becoming scarce. World stores of rice have shrunk from 130 million tons eight years ago to today’s stockpile of 72 million tons—enough for only 17 percent of annual global demand. So that is beginning to hit the poorer nations as well—hard! As many of you know, there have been “food riots” in various nations around the world as tens of millions of people are now entering a period of starvation.
Part of it is the weather. There was too much rain in many areas of the United States in 2007. And there has been flooding in Indonesia and Bangladesh. Yet there has been drought in Canada and Australia—curbing world grain stockpiles. So the poorest countries may have to spend 56 percent more on grains this year than a year ago. What makes us think that we, in America and the West, are going to totally escape? The real answer is that we are not.
Why this sickening situation?
Most of you longtime members and co-workers already know the answer. The real answer is that God is not mocked! As we in America, and the British-descended peoples, sink even further into a cesspool of immorality, fornication, adultery, so-called “gay marriage,” drug addiction, drunkenness, lying, cheating, stealing, raping, murder, abortion, etc., the Creator is beginning to give us a national “chastening” of unprecedented proportions! In biblical terms, we are approaching the “Great Tribulation.” When Jesus Christ was asked to describe the signs of the end-time, He stated, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matt. 24:7-8). These prophesied events are right now beginning to occur—and they will soon be moving in your direction!
As most of you know, the American and British-descended peoples are descendants of the so-called “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.” So when God talks about certain end-time events coming upon “Israel,” He is directly talking about us! In a dual prophecy—certainly applying to ancient times as well as today—God tells our people, “‘Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; yet you have not returned to Me,’ says the Lord. ‘I also withheld rain from you, when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city, I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon, and where it did not rain the part withered.So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water, but they were not satisfied; yet you have not returned to Me,’ says the Lord” (Amos 4:6-8).
In a recent news release from Adelaide, Australia, the headline reads, “A WORSENING global food shortage is a problem far more urgent than climate change, top Australian scientists have warned.” The article continues, “The Australian Science Media Centre briefing heard why prices for some staple foods had risen by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, and how dramatic price rises are expected to sweep across all staples in the near future…. Key speaker at the national science briefing Professor Julian Cribb said the security of our food supply is ‘the global scientific challenge of our time.’ The problem was more urgent even than climate change, said Professor Cribb, from the University of Technology in Sydney, because it will get us first… through famine and war. ‘By 2050 we will have to feed the equivalent of 13 billion people at today’s levels of nutrition,’ he said” (Adelaide Now, January 17, 2008).
Meanwhile, a worldwide water crisis is developing coincident with the food shortages. Nations should make the problem of serious water shortages a top global priority in 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned January 2008 World Economic Forum attendees. Associated Press writer Edith Lederer reported on January 24 that Ban now fears conflicts over dwindling water supplies are imminent. “Too often, where we need water we find guns instead,” the Secretary-General said. “Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts are just over the horizon.” Ban pointed to a recent report showing that 46 countries, with a combined population of 2.7 billion, “are at high risk of violent conflict.” The fighting in Darfur is drought-related. Low water supplies are causing hardship in Somalia, Chad, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Colombia and Kazakhstan. Ban’s call for global action received strong support from several top business executives. “Water is today’s issue. It is the oil of this century, not a question,” observed Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical. “Time is still on our side but time is running out, just like water is running out,” said Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmanthe.
So will our peoples truly repent and turn to the God of the Bible and begin to sincerely keep His commandments and walk in His ways? What do you think?
We in this Work of the living Jesus Christ are doing all we can to warn our peoples of what is just ahead! Through the prophet Ezekiel, God warns me and all of us called to do this end-time Work, “‘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” (Ezek. 33:6-7).
And as you all know, we are also preaching the Good News of the soon-coming Kingdom of God—the magnificent world government of Jesus Christ which will finally bring genuine peace and prosperity to all nations. In this effort, we are constantly moving ahead to procure more television outlets and reach more people with Christ’s message.
Seven months ago, the Tomorrow’s World telecast received its millionth response from around the world since the program began airing in January 1999. In just four weeks from now, the responses from the U.S. and Canada alone will have exceeded one million. These responses came from more than a half-million individuals seeking God’s Truth in a time when truth has fallen in the streets (Isaiah 59:14).
Our newest nationwide superstation in the United States, the Black Entertainment Television Network, is drawing tremendous results for a program that airs at 3 o’clock in the morning (Eastern and Pacific Time). Already, more than 5,000 viewers have responded in the past three months. The network reaches more than 84 million households in North America, and at 3 o’clock in the morning, media statistics show that many tens of thousands of BET viewers have already watched the Tomorrow’s World telecast. Unbelievable for 3:00 in the morning! It is exciting to see such fine results.
Our Canadian Director, Evangelist Gerald Weston, is doing everything he can to help the Tomorrow’s World television program reach the Canadians. Just this past week he negotiated a TV deal with KVOS-TV in Bellingham, Washington, which reaches more than one million homes from Seattle, Washington, to Vancouver, British Columbia. KVOS-TV, channel 12, will begin airing the Tomorrow’s World on Sunday, July 6, at 7:30 am Pacific Time. Mr. Weston also purchased time on CHNU-TV, channel 10, in Vancouver, BC itself, which begins airing on Sundays at 5:00 pm, starting June 8. And starting on July 6, the telecast will begin airing on Sundays at 5:00 pm in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on CIIT-TV, channel 10. Your prayers for the success of these three TV stations would be much appreciated!
I think you know that television time is exceedingly expensive, but do you know that your heartfelt prayers can make a major difference for the Work of God? We are all hard-hit by the huge increases in gasoline prices, which are driving up consumer prices for everything else. This hurts all of us deeply—right in our pocketbooks—and can have a negative impact on God’s Work. But not necessarily so, if all of us really take to heart what Jesus asks us to do in Matthew 9:38, that is “…pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” All of you reading this letter are “laborers” with Christ, but your heartfelt and urgent prayers can draw even more laborers to this Work to fulfill the commission Jesus Christ has given us. This is a simple investment all of us can make, with potentially profound results! And it only takes a matter of seconds each day. What could be easier? We just need to do it.
So I ask all of you to “cry out” to God to use us and to empower us in this end-time Work! Let us each one do his part in this Crusade to preach and to publish the full Truth of Christ’s message to the world—while there is still time.
With Christian love,
Roderick C. Meredith