Weekly Update

January 5th, 2023

Greetings from Charlotte,

On Wednesday, Mr. Wallace Smith recorded a telecast entitled “Armor Up Against the Devil,” offering the DVD “The Occult and the Spirit World.” He discusses the spiritual war for our minds and a call to repentance and the encouraging news that Christ will help us to fight against Satan in this battle. Mr. Peter Nathan reports that the U.K. postal strike is impacting the response to the semi-annual offer of the new Germany in Prophecy booklet. We are presently receiving only one-quarter of the expected responses. The strike is also impacting income, although the majority of U.K. income comes online. The Mail Processing Department here in Charlotte mailed out more than 1.6 million pieces last year. I’ll save some exciting news from the Work in the Spanish language for this week’s video update. Teen Camp Texas registration is now open, so be sure to apply early.—Gerald Weston

Church Administration

Recent and Upcoming Tomorrow’s World Presentations

This weekend we are scheduled to hold two initial Tomorrow’s World presentations: Anniston, Alabama; and Gainesville, Florida. Thank you for your continued prayers for this effort to preach the Gospel.

Update on the Work in the French Language

This week we published a new telecast titled, “Coming Soon: Jerusalem, Capital of the World,” presented by Mr. Ames and offering the booklet The Middle East in Prophecy. We also published a new whiteboard called “5 Biblical Keys for Raising Children,” offering the booklet: Successful Parenting: God’s Way. Both videos are available on our Le Monde de Demain YouTube channel and Facebook page. Make sure to subscribe to not miss out on any new content.  We have also had a very good response to last week’s telecast by Mr. Weston titled: “2023 in Bible Prophecy.” In less than a week, it received more than 100,000 views on YouTube and close to 300,000 on Facebook.  

Living Education

Living for Tomorrow – L4T Eagle Rock

The first L4T of 2023 will be held at Camp Eagle Rock, located west of Branson, Missouri. This event will be held over President’s Day weekend, February 17–20, and will be for young adults ages 18–30. Camp Eagle Rock is a beautiful site to get together with other young adults for an uplifting Sabbath, enjoyable activities, and focused presentations. The activity will begin on Friday evening, February 17, with departure on Monday morning, February 20. Log on to MyLCG for a link to register for the event. Registration is now open, so plan to sign up and make that weekend a highlight of your winter!—Jonathan McNair

Feast of Tabernacles

2023 Feast of Tabernacles Registration: Sunday, April 30

General Feast of Tabernacles registration is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, April 30. The U.S. Feast sites and coordinators are listed as follows:

Living Youth Program

Living Youth Teen Camp 2023 Registration Opens

Registration for this year’s Living Youth Teen Camp in Athens, Texas, is now open, and we are accepting applications for campers, staff, and mini-campers. Youth aged 13 to 17 can register to attend as campers, and those aged 17 and 18 can apply to be members of our High School Staff. Staff registration is open for those 19 and older. The preteen children of staff members can be accepted as mini-campers. Staff will need to arrive on July 9, and camper arrival is July 11. The departure date at the end of camp is July 24.

For more information about the camps, fees, and to begin registration, please visit https://camp.livingyouth.org. We hope to see you all there! We strongly encourage people to register early for camp as it greatly helps us in planning for the camp, so don’t delay!

Registration for this year’s Preteen and Adventure Camps will begin at a future date.—Joshua Penman

Comments

Do You Love God's Law? We live in an age when many professing Christians believe God’s laws are a burden or out of date. Many in our secular world have no knowledge of God’s laws. Few today understand that God gave His laws to the Israelites so they could be lights and examples to the world (Deuteronomy 4:1–10). Yet Bible prophecy reveals the time would come when future Israelites would reject God’s laws and view them as “a strange thing” (Hosea 8:1, 12)—which is where we are today. However, David loved and meditated on God’s laws (Psalm 119:16–18, 97–104, 129), and David will rule over the tribes of Israel in the coming Kingdom and teach them God’s ways (Ezekiel 37:24–25; Hosea 3:5). Many professing Christians and peoples in our secular societies today will be surprised when Jesus Christ and His saints return to teach the world the laws of God (Isaiah 2:2–4). This is the future for those who love God’s law.

Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail

News and Prophecy—January 5, 2023

A Special Clean-Up Crew: Scavenging animals are often looked down upon as dirty creatures. Yet, they play a vital role in balancing and protecting the ecosystem, and “the more scientists find out more about these consumers of the dead, the clearer it becomes that we should be valuing and protecting scavengers far more than we do today.… By devouring carcasses, they prevent pathogens from spreading to humans and wildlife and contaminants from leaching into the environment” (BBC, December 8, 2022).

Vultures, for example, are highly efficient at cleaning up dead animals. They can eat up to 40 percent of their body weight, compared to just 5 percent for most other scavenging animals. Vultures clean down to the bone, preventing the spread of pathogens—when vulture populations decline, diseases spread more easily. The efficiency of vultures also keeps feral dog populations in check, thus keeping rabies at bay. The scavengers even reduce the greenhouse gases emitted by decomposing carrion. Sadly today, vulture populations are in great decline in parts of the world such as the Indian subcontinent, due to poisons spread on animal carcasses and the drugs used to treat sick cattle, which, when they die, are consumed by the vultures.

God created our entire ecosystem to work together to keep our planet clean and keep diseases at a minimum. Yet, mankind has not managed that ecosystem well and thus suffers the consequences. Additionally, human beings often consume many species that God created to keep the earth clean and pure. As more research is conducted, scientists are gaining a greater appreciation for creatures often thought to be unimportant or just another food source. To learn more about the importance of the “clean-up crew” God created, be sure to read “Do You Really Want to Eat That?”

Japan’s Historic New Military Buildup: Japan has had a pacifist stance since World War II. Yet with China’s massive military buildup and territorial expansion in the South China Sea and North Korea’s overt missile testing, Japan is being moved to expand its military. In an unprecedented move, the island nation will double its military budget by 2027, from 1 to 2 percent of its GDP, in line with the higher level expected of NATO members. Japan will focus in part on “counter-strike” capabilities and buy hundreds of U.S.-made missiles to help reach this goal.

China has criticized this move, in spite of the fact that China has engaged in its own massive military buildup for years. North Korea has also condemned the move with an official warning: “Japan is bringing a serious security crisis on the Korean Peninsula and in the East Asia region by adopting a new security strategy that effectively acknowledges its pre-emptive strike capabilities against other countries” (Reuters, December 19, 2022). These comments are ironic given that North Korea has test-launched dozens of missiles—including two intercontinental ballistic missiles—in the last year. Several of these missiles have been launched directly over Japan!

The military buildup and saber-rattling in the Asian region should grab the world’s attention, as nations increasingly seek not only to drastically improve their military capabilities, but also, in some cases, to bolster their nuclear armaments. The history of military confrontations among these nations and the fact that it has been less than 80 years since many of these nations were engaged in a world war against each other highlight the potential for this situation to escalate quickly and dangerously.

Bible prophecy warns that the war-like nature of many nations will surface again as the end of the age approaches and that unless Jesus Christ returns to stop this madness, no flesh would be saved alive (Matthew 24:22). The positive message of the Scriptures is that He will indeed return and save mankind from self-destruction. To learn more about what the Bible reveals about the future, read or listen to Armageddon and Beyond.—Scott Winnail, Francine Prater, and Bob Rodzaj