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Dear Brethren and Friends,

In a little less than a month from now, baptized members of the Church of God will be observing the Passover, and members and prospective members will also celebrate the Days of Unleavened Bread. Are we preparing in our minds, hearts and homes for these occasions?

The Passover gives us the opportunity to remember and recommit to our covenant with God; to realize who we are; to take note of changes we have made; to recognize that we have more room to grow; and to make sure that we are willing and wanting to make all necessary changes. God promises us that we can come to Him at any time and ask for forgiveness, and He will grant it to us, based on certain conditions. The Passover also helps to remind us of the supreme Sacrifice that Christ gave on our behalf, and just what that Sacrifice should mean in the life of a true Christian.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – March 13, 2017"

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Dear Members and Friends,

Have we ever been in a situation in our lifetime when virtually the whole world is concerned about one nation, specifically one man, as we are experiencing now? Not a day goes by since the current President of the United States has been elected into office that we don’t see some kind of grave anxiety, based on the reactions all over the world, and the year has just started.

All we need to do is turn on the news or the home page of our browsers on our computers. When it comes to the latest approval rate, as of February 17, 2017, President Trump has reached his all-time low. According to theweek.com, his approval rating dropped to only 38 percent.

The article points out, “President Trump’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest level since his inauguration, with just 38 percent of Americans approving of his job as president, Gallup reports. Trump is now 23 points below the historical average for new presidents in mid-February, who are typically approved of by 61 percent of voters. He is also 13 points below the lowest mid-February approval rating for any other president in modern polling history, which was Bill Clinton with 51 percent. For context: Former President Barack Obama’s lowest approval rating in eight years as president was 38 percent, a drop that followed instances such as the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations and downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, or in September 2014, just before the Islamic State released videos of U.S. journalists being beheaded. Trump’s highest approval rating since taking office was 46 percent, on his fourth and fifth day in office. It’s all been downhill from there; by Friday, 56 percent of Americans disapproved of the job Trump was doing in office. Gallup’s poll reaches 1,500 adults across the nation by telephone, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points.”

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – February 21, 2017"

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Dear Brethren, Co-Workers and Friends:

The age we live in is characterized by an attitude in which religious zeal is apathetic and holiness is unimportant. Society has traded in godliness for worldliness today, valuing the carnal ideals of man more than righteousness. The laws of the land increasingly marginalize Christian ideals in favor of the ill-motivated preferences of mankind. The Truth of the Bible is compromised and scientific theory vaunted. These are the signs of the times. Truly, we only need to read the Bible and look around us to come to the conclusion that Truth is exchanged for the lie (compare Romans 1:25), and that which is good is declared as evil (compare Isaiah 5:20).

Most of the world is blind to these observations though. But, if we are able to recognize and comprehend how society has departed from God, we should consider ourselves to be very fortunate. For, God calls very few out of this world to understand the Truth—and indeed, it is a great privilege, especially in the current age. If we are blessed enough to be given the gift of understanding through the Holy Spirit living within us, we are also accountable to do something with our understanding.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – January 12, 2017"

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Dear Brethren and Friends,

At the end of each year, it is customary for the media to look back over the previous twelve months but, in recent memory, 2016 will turn out to be a time of extraordinary events that have happened around the world, with many of these surely having an impact that doesn’t bode well for humanity.

Peter Hitchens, a regular Daily Mail columnist, made these observations in his column on the 13th November 2016 when talking about the liberal elite in society today: “On they ploughed with their mass immigration, their diversity and equality, their contempt for lifelong, stable marriage, their refusal to punish crime, their mad, idealistic foreign wars, their indulgence of drugs, their scorn for patriotism, their schools and universities, turning out graduates with certificates they can barely read. And on they went with their destruction of real jobs, promising a new globalised prosperity that never came. Millions have just had too much of this.”

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – December 2, 2016"

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Dear Members, Co-Workers and Friends:

What most did not believe possible has indeed occurred: Republican candidate Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States of America. As the Republicans have also maintained the majority in both the House and the Senate, Mr. Trump will become the most powerful man on earth. His power will be greater than that of any recent American President. The German tabloid Bild ran this headline on November 9: “Trump Almighty.” As USA Today wrote, Mr. Trump will be in a position to repeal large parts of President Obama’s legislative agenda, repeal his executive orders with a stroke of a pen, and install conservative Supreme Court justices. As Commander-in-Chief, he will have the power to go to war.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – November 9, 2016"

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Dear Brethren and Friends,

Are you READY… or NOT?

No greater challenge faces us than this question. Jesus said that we should be ready for His return—that we should be watching and actually knowing that the time has drawn near. Read again the
momentous events revealed by Jesus in chapters 24 and 25 of Matthew—many occurrences
prophesied are at play RIGHT NOW!

Are you watching? Can you relate world events to key prophecies of the end time, and do you truly believe what you are seeing?

Not many do, and it will be only the smallest minority of faithful Christians who will take Christ’s admonition seriously to, “‘Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man’” (Luke 21:36).

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – October 5, 2016"

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Dear Members and Friends:

In the early 1960’s, Bob Dylan penned a song that became a reflection of a generation growing up in that decade. “The Times They Are a-Changin’” became a ballad of the civil rights movement. Dylan himself became an icon for that era and embodied changes that many sought after, either peacefully or through radical means.

History.com sums up this decade stating, “At the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age. On January 20, 1961, the handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. His confidence that, as one historian put it, ‘the government possessed big answers to big problems’ seemed to set the tone for the rest of the decade. However, that golden age never materialized. On the contrary, by the end of the 1960s it seemed that the nation was falling apart.”

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – August 22, 2016"

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Dear Members and Friends,

We said in the beginning of the year that 2016 is going to be interesting; that things will not get better; and that we should be prepared for significant events to take place, in light of biblical prophecy. We are now in the middle of the year and what we have said has been confirmed: more ISIS terrorist attacks; more political drama; Great Britain leaving the EU; more racial tension and violent controversy; and there is more to come.

With more than 7 billion people in the world, we have seen that some of the “minorities” are letting their voices be heard, but not in a good way. For example, the LGBT community has gained a lot more momentum lately—even more so now since last month’s terrorist attack at a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, where gays were specifically targeted. The world sympathized with them and brought increasing attention to the gay community. This is not to say that the murder of innocent civilians was justified, as that terrible action was clearly wrong.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – July 18, 2016"

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Dear Brethren and Friends,

As we draw to the close of this age, what stands out for each of us? We live in a world that, as we watch each day, gets further and further away from God. This was pointed out in the first chapter of Romans where Paul tells us, in verses 19–32, that when people no longer want to retain God in their thoughts, then their debauchery and subsequent downfall is imminent. Truly, in a relative sense of the amount of years since the Bible was written, our time is short. If we truly think about it, 6,000 years is not that long a time, but the amount of progress that has been accomplished in just the last 50 years is staggering. We see that because God gave us creative minds, humans can do almost anything they put their minds to. We know that at the tower of Babel, God had to stop those people from continuing what they were doing. God rightly said in Genesis 11:6: “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” But when Satan is in the mix, this element of human creativity takes on a dark twist.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – June 7, 2016"