Pastor Letter (January 31, 2020)

The Night Comes When No Man Can Work

Blackout in New York City during Hurricane Sandy

                                                                                                    

There will be a famine….  a Famine of the Word of the Lord (Amos 8: 11). While that has not happened yet, it will. This means that the opportunity to share hope with society will severely drop. This raises 2 questions:  

Are we ourselves spiritually getting ready?  and,

Are we reasonably doing what we can to help “complete God’s Work?”

If we are, we still cannot take any credit for being ready or helping complete the Work, for by the grace of God go we. There can absolutely be no self-righteousness in our attitude when dealing with other human beings…even where we might be right and other people might be wrong.

Christ conducted His ministry with a sense of urgency and we who are 2,000 years closer to His return need to do the same. Perhaps we are. Otherwise we can become spiritually negligent. It can be difficult for us to imagine such an age of spiritual famine because so many of us have never dealt with imposed spiritual darkness, but the Bible forecasts it. Nations who are not Christians and others of varied belief systems already are intolerant of the Bible. The book of Revelation indicates that some of these elements will obtain enough political and military power to squelch true Christianity.

Freedom of religion will become extinct which means it may temporarily become very difficult to keep God’s Sabbaths, Holy Days and Passover; all of which should make us savor the religious freedoms and opportunities that we currently have.

With all of this unfolding, our lives will certainly change but hopefully not our optimism. The human race needs the optimism and confidence that we should all exude as we move toward the Great Tribulation and the wonderful developments that we know will follow.  This confidence will be the only thing that keeps others going when they see their world disintegrate.

Enter Local Evangelism

So rather than give up in complete despair, people that today are mired in spiritual inertia, but who have heard about the difficult future, will begin to turn toward God -  IF they remember our gospel message that guarantees that events will get better after Christ returns. All of that is predicated on us finishing the work that God has given us. That work includes having us reach as many people as we reasonably can before time runs out.

John 9:4  “The Night Comes When No Man Can Work”                                           

We have finished the first round of public presentations in which 8 people came and 2 called to expressed interest in coming, for a 1.2% response. That percentage is above what many direct mailing campaigns consider as successful.  Readers’ Digest has lived off of this strategy for decades. But as my friend and BT editor Scott Ashley reminded me, today’s society overall is much less interested in religion than it used to be. But it remains to be seen as to what our final impact will be after conducting several more rounds of presentations.

A major reason why more people attended WCG public seminars than UCG seminars was that the WCG could invite almost 30 times as many people. We mailed out 850 invitations to near-by zip codes. The WCG back in 1986 could have invited 28 times as many subscribers in the same zip codes because its Plain Truth magazine circulation was 28 times larger than ours. Today we have 295,000 subscribers. At its peak the WCG had 8.2 million subscribers or about one person per every 30 Americans. Based on the turn-out percentage, if our subscribers were 28 times more numerous than they presently are, we would have had well over 100 visitors attend last Sabbath.

Zechariah 4: 10 reminds us that we cannot despise the day of small things. God very well may judge us on our passion as much as He will judge us on the fruit of our efforts, which will primarily be harvested later.

 

Tallahassee

Tallahassee will be the first congregation to conduct the seminar of “Jerusalem in Prophecy.”  170 invitations have been mailed out, primarily to Tallahassee, Crawfordville, Woodville, Quincy, Gretna, and Midway. In the first seminar, a man came who had been a WCG member in the mid 1970’s. He returned the following week. Please pray for success in round two.

 

Ft. Myers

Brethren met this past week to prepare and mail out 250 letters to Ft. Myers, Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral, North Ft. Myers, and Bonita Springs. The next seminar there will be February 8.

Because we have outgrown the meeting room of our former location, Candlewood Suites, we have signed a contract to meet for the next year at the Baymont by Wyndham hotel, just off Daniels Pkwy at 9401 Marketplace Rd., Ft. Myers, FL., 33912. It is a blessing that we obtain twice the space for the same money that we were previously paying.

Yesterday I was able to tape 2 hour-long radio programs, with a Biblical slant on killer diseases including this current coronavirus. I am sure that it is good strategy to elaborate on hot topics like this that have already captured the attention of numerous people.

 

Vero Beach

Last week’s seminar on “Why You Were Born” attracted 4 people which is standard average. It was nice that two of the people are within walking distance of our hall and said they would be back this Sabbath.

Good news came to the Banisters in that their home in Indiantown sold! Now they can purchase a home for themselves near their relatives. This also means they will no longer be under the responsibility of paying a $600 monthly fee for the privilege of owning property there. A neighbor across the street from the Banisters bought the house as a renovation project. That probably would have never happened if it were not for the roofing projects that Mike Fike coordinated and if it were not for the Bratnick sisters, Bill Loftus and Bill Wilson cleaning and re-organizing the house. Obviously, for many reasons not everyone could be involved, but we need to be forever grateful to our caring people that have stepped in as they have to help.

 

Ocala

Two weeks ago, the previously high attendance for Ocala of 32 people was shattered when 40 people converged! Granted, we had 12 visitors and a pot luck meal, but it was nice to see such a full house. Last week Stan Braumuller helped Church Smith by visiting brethren and handling church services in Trinidad. I know we can’t hog this guy all of the time but it will be nice to have him back tomorrow.

 

This Sabbath, Bill Wilson & Jonathan Hendricks will speak in Vero Beach, Mike Fike will be in Ocala, John White will speak in Ft. Myers,and I will be in Tallahassee doing the first public presentation of “Jerusalem in Prophecy”.

 

BV

 

Photo credits

"Time Management for Kids and Teens" by JoanDragonfly is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0   "Black New York" by Maxime Quoilin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0"Under The Cloak Of Darkness" by MarianOne is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0"ngitngitjud" by wGGta is licensed under CC BY 2.0  "Kerze_wbr_3919" by Aureusbay is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0