Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,
Greetings from Charlotte, NC! My wife and I just returned from an important trip to Britain and to South Africa. In Britain, we were able to meet with noted author Adrian Hilton, and gained valuable insights into what is happening in Britain and Europe. I will be sharing some of this information with you in future articles and letters. We were accompanied by our British and European Director, Dr. Douglas Winnail. He will now establish an ongoing relationship with Mr. Hilton, which should become a valuable source of information regarding the United Kingdom and the developing Beast Power on the continent.
We were able, in South Africa, to visit and speak to scores of our brethren and friends in that area. Although South Africa is still, on the surface, a vibrant and prosperous nation, there is an underlying fear among the white minority there as to their future. Hundreds of doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals are leaving the country, and this is beginning to create a serious "brain drain" which will adversely affect the nation within the next several years. Also, as most of you know, the entire continent of Africa is being overcome by AIDS. Literally millions are dying. Yet few seem to grasp that the only real solution is obedience to the laws of God concerning sex—learning to use God’s gifts of sex only in a marriage of one man and one woman.
Arriving home exhausted after a twenty-eight hour trip from Cape Town to Charlotte, NC, I was awakened from my first night’s sleep at home to be informed of the untimely death of my dear friend and brother, Carl McNair! Mr. McNair was the first Director of Church Administration for this Work. He and his capable and dedicated wife, Dorothy, virtually put together the Church Administration Department. They both worked long hours helping field the phone calls from all over the world, handling the records, being sure that people’s needs were being addressed and helping strengthen the brethren and "feeding the flock" in every way they could. Though she worked almost as many hours as her husband, Mrs. McNair would take no salary! Even when I insisted that, "The laborer is worthy of his wages" (Luke 10:7), Dorothy McNair declined to receive a salary and said her long hours of faithful service were "her gift" to the Work!
The unexpected death of Carl McNair shook me and made me realize, more than ever, how brief our life is in this human flesh and how much we need to fervently seek God while we have the opportunity. Many of us have been "drifting," I know, rather than zealously crying out to God to fashion and mold us and to use us ever more fully in His service.
Dear brethren and co-workers, we all need to follow the example of the Apostle Paul who earnestly hoped "that with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:20-21). No doubt Carl McNair has now "gained" eternal life as God’s precious gift because of his faith in Jesus Christ and his willingness to let the living Christ use him in serving people all over this world.
Each of us needs to examine himself. Have we fully "given" our lives to God through Christ? Or are we "holding back" in certain areas of our lives because we do not fully trust God? What impact has our life had in genuinely serving God and serving His people?
As brethren and co-workers in the very Work of the living Christ, how zealously do we strive to give to God? In giving our lives—our time, our talents and our energies—and certainly in paying our tithes to our Creator and then giving generous offerings according to our means, we all need to consider the Apostle Paul’s inspired instruction, "But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work." (II Cor. 9:6-8).
Now that this Work is headquartered here in Charlotte and we are fully settled here, my heart literally cries out to do a more powerful Work of preaching Christ’s message to the world and also warning our beloved peoples of the coming Great Tribulation before it is too late. But no matter how powerful our television messages become, or how effective our articles are in the Tomorrow’s World magazine (could they be any more powerful?)—only a very limited number of people are being reached. We must go on far more television stations—and we must greatly increase the circulation of the Tomorrow’s Worldmagazine—before this Work can have a significant impact on our nations. And that is where you come in! For if each one of you brethren and co-workers go "all out" to support this Work and even increase its power, and if each of us prays ferventlythat God will add thousands of additional donors and co-workers, the results will be enormous!
Dear brethren and friends, it should become increasingly obvious to all of us that we are truly living in the prophesied "last days." Time is short. Each of us needs to realize that we only have a little while and then—"poof!"—we leave this physical existence and "sleep in Jesus" (I Thess. 4:14), awaiting the glorious resurrection from the dead. Paul wrote, "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming" (I Cor. 15:21-23).
Although some of us will certainly die before the promised resurrection, our hope is sure if we have truly given our lives to God through Christ. When we consider the death of Carl McNair—and of the true saints of God down through the ages—we must not hopelessly "sorrow as others who have no hope" (I Thess. 4:13).
But what should we be doing with the remaining years of our lives?
Inspired by the great God whom we all serve, the Apostle Paul gives us the direct answer: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (I Cor. 15:58). May God inspire me, you and all of us to be more zealous and effective tools in His hands.
With Christian love,
—Roderick C. Meredith