Greetings from Charlotte,
Many have remarked upon Passover falling on Friday evening this year. While this is uncommon, Passover did fall on the weekly Sabbath four other times in the past 25 years: 2001, 2005, 2008, and 2021. That is correct—2021. You can check it for yourself. How short our memories are! But, for some reason, many of us felt this Passover, Night to be Much Observed, and First Day of Unleavened Bread were special. I hope all of you genuinely feel that way as well.
I must share something I learned this week about God’s creation, as it shows how remarkable our Creator is. The cells in our bodies are incredibly small, but few of us can even imagine just how complex they are. One of the structures in our cells is the ribosome, which is a molecular machine made partially of proteins. Its primary role is to read genetic instructions copied from DNA and assemble proteins out of amino acids. Don’t let these technical terms get in the way of appreciating a simple fact: As small as our cells are, according to several sources, each human cell may contain as many as 10 million of these complex protein-producing machines. This is yet another reason to get on our knees and express our awe of God!
—Gerald E. Weston
Church Administration
The Second Passover
The Second Passover this year is on Monday, May 12, which means that it will be observed on Sunday evening, May 11, shortly after sunset. This Passover is for those baptized members who were unable to take the first Passover due to unavoidable circumstances, as instructed in Numbers 9:1–14. If you have any questions, please contact your pastor.
Living for Tomorrow 2025 – Blowing Rock, North Carolina
This year’s L4T program at Blowing Rock will be conducted from May 23 to May 25. L4T is built for our adults aged 18–30 and is geared toward learning, fellowship, worship, and fun! The cost is $140 per person, which includes lodging, food, and inspiration. Arrival is on Friday afternoon, with dinner at 6:00 p.m., followed shortly by our first meeting at 7:30 p.m. Departure will be at noon on Sunday. If you’d like to be part of this program, just go to https://www.lcgeducation.org/l4t-blowingrock-2025/ and sign up! The deadline to register is May 9, so act soon!
Feast of Tabernacles
Festival Advisor Meeting
The Festival Office is scheduled to host a meeting with the Festival Advisors of each congregation. This meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 21, at 8:00 p.m. Charlotte time. If you did not receive a link to this meeting, please contact your pastor.
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The Real Key to Success: Does success depend on who you know or what you are? The Bible offers some valuable advice. Jesus stressed the importance of humility and teachability when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are the meek,” because they will inherit the Kingdom of God and reign on this earth (Matthew 5:3–5). God was able to use Moses because he was humble and teachable (Numbers 12:3). Jesus was exalted because He humbled Himself and followed God’s instructions (Philippians 2:8–11). Solomon understood that “before honor is humility” (Proverbs 15:33), and the Apostle James recorded, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6–10). Isaiah summarizes what God is looking for in those He will reward: “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). These scriptures describe someone who is humble, willing to change, and ready to be taught by God. These attributes are the real key to spiritual growth and ultimate success. Let’s use this key!
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail
News and Prophecy – April 17, 2025
Living Together Before Marriage Is a Bad Idea: Marriage rates are falling in many Western nations. And within those nations, many who eventually choose to marry have already lived together before marriage. A common thought is that cohabitation before marriage will help one discover if this is the right partner for life—so the eventual marriage will be more successful. But is this really true?
Research on relationships and marriage has suggested otherwise for decades—and more recent research agrees. A 2022 YouGov survey conducted by the Institute for Family Studies found that couples who cohabit before marriage are more likely to separate or divorce than those who do not, and a 2018 Stanford University study found that the odds of divorce doubled for a woman who had cohabited with a man other than her future spouse. Even within marriage, a 2009 study in the Journal of Family Psychology revealed “lower marital satisfaction, dedication, and confidence” when couples had cohabited before marriage. Cohabitation, despite the claims of its advocates, is clearly not a wise alternative to marriage. It is even destructive to a future marriage!
The word of God has long pointed out that cohabitation before marriage is a bad idea—the Bible calls it fornication. While many modern Christians refer to the God of the Old Testament as stern and controlling, that same God gave His laws out of His love for humanity. Those laws point the way to a more abundant and blessed life, and modern research continues to prove just how wise and loving the Lawgiver is. To learn more about how to have a healthy, successful marriage, be sure to watch “How to Make Your Marriage Happier.”
Birds May Use Quantum Mechanics to Navigate: How many of us take birds for granted? When they are near, we hear their singing and notice them flitting about. When they migrate away for the season, we seldom notice their absence. Yet many birds migrate thousands of miles (or kilometers) twice a year—returning to the exact location they left six months earlier. Some species of hummingbirds (about the size of a small fig), migrate over 3,000 miles (5,000 km) from Mexico and Central America to Alaska, twice a year—flying as many as 500 miles (833 km) per day (LearningBirdWatching.com). Yet, how do these tiny creatures navigate so precisely without satellites—some actually returning to within centimeters of where they departed from months earlier (The Guardian, March 23, 2025)?
Interestingly, many migrating birds travel at night or alone, so they are not learning navigation skills from their parents. As the growing field of bird migration is discovering, some birds “use the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way, and it is likely that at least part of the biological mechanism that allows them to do this can be explained through quantum mechanics.” Scientists are still refining their theories, but many feel they are getting closer to understanding how birds use magnetic fields to geolocate. As one scientist stated in an attempt to explain the phenomenal feat, “it amounts to an incredible feat of quantum sensing”—performed not in an advanced laboratory, but “in the messy organic environment of a bird’s eye.”
While scientists grapple with the incredible molecular and cellular technology to be found in bird biology, they cling to the mistaken idea that this technology, far ahead of anything human beings have yet developed, happened through random and unguided forces. Once again, mindless evolution is attributed far more intelligence than humans—which makes little sense and runs contrary to evidence. How long will humanity deny the “invisible attributes” of a real God that are clearly seen throughout His creation (Romans 1:20)? To learn more about the confounding intricacy of God’s creation, read “Tiny Bird, Big Miracle!” —Scott Winnail, Rod McNair, and Francine Prater