Dear Brethren and Friends!
When one takes the pulse of the current events in America and around the world, there is evidence that the patient is in critical condition and that there needs to be a change.
Chicago has had a crime increase of dramatic proportions. According to recent data released by the Chicago Police Department, murders in the nation’s third-largest city are up about 72%, while shootings have surged more than 88% in the first three months of 2016, compared with the same period last year.
A large degree of this crime wave is the result of unwed mothers bearing children with no father figure to stabilize the family, and thus many of the children revert to joining gangs which leads to crime and violence. It was reported that a couple from Colorado moved to Chicago. They only lasted there a week before moving back to Colorado because they did not feel safe there with all the violence and crime.
The statistics about Chicago only reflect one city out of many with huge problems in the United States. To add to the mix, New York has 31 gender designations which is hard to put your mind around, and you have to ask yourself what the world is coming to. The US debt has reached over 19 trillion dollars, a mind-numbing number to grasp with no end in sight and which is also unsustainable.
Travel is being curtailed to and from certain European cities because of the threat of terrorism, and some countries are starting to realize that allowing all these immigrants into their counties is causing problems with crime and the cultural effect on their societies. There are still many armed conflicts in the world and in spite of the efforts of some to bring solutions, conditions are only getting worse. A normal marriage is hard to find today and the very fabric of Western society is on the verge of collapse.
Where do we look for solutions, when there doesn’t seem to be any?
We are traveling next month to our designated Feast sites to keep the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days which picture the real solution for all the world’s problems that we currently face. The Feast pictures a time of peace when nations will not learn war anymore. Conflicts will cease and people will learn to love and respect their neighbors. Look at how it is described in Isaiah 2:4, when Jesus Christ will rule this world:
“He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Isaiah 11:2-9 adds the following encouraging prophecies about Christ’s rule on earth:
“The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.”
What is lacking today is the “knowledge of the LORD”—the understanding that true and sustainable peace can only be achieved through the obedience of the laws of God which are codified in the Ten Commandments and the statutes and judgments, including the observance of God’s seven annual Holy Days which outline God’s plan for mankind.
Mankind is lost without this precious knowledge, as evidenced today by the wretched conditions in the world under the influence of Satan the devil, the current god of this world. We are told that no flesh would be saved alive, if God was not to intervene in the affairs of man. Matthew 24:22 states plainly: “And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”
No flesh includes the lives of men and animals. This is a sobering reality which is part of the reason why we ought to pray daily for God’s Kingdom to come to the earth, because to let man continue on his present course would mean the total destruction of mankind and all other flesh. Thankfully, Christ will return and conditions will change for the good. Satan will be bound to stop his negative influence on mankind. As a consequence, we will experience one-thousand-years of peace and prosperity.
Amos 9:13-15 outlines what it will be like in the Millennium:
“‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, And all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, And no longer shall they be pulled up From the land I have given them,’ Says the LORD your God.”
It will be a time of peace and prosperity when all of the current world problems will be eventually resolved. We should not lose sight of man’s destiny, and we should be thankful that God wants us to be involved in solving man’s problems under the rule of Christ in the Millennium. That is what the coming Feast of Tabernacles reflects, and we should look forward to its reality in the not-too-distant future.
In Christian love,
Rene Messier (Canada)
