World News and Trends: What's happening to our world?
It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with all the daily and weekly news relevant to biblical prophecies of the last days.
For example, we learned that the European Union (EU) bailout of the Republic of Ireland has not taken the pressure off the threatened euro (as expected), nor has it stabilized nervous markets. Then we soon discovered that Spain and Portugal may have to be bailed out as well. But before we could fully absorb this fresh development, surprising news surfaced that Belgium may also be a candidate for a future bailout. When will what began with bailing out Greece finally end? Can the euro survive all these past, present and potential bailouts?
Then on the military front, we received news that North Korea had wantonly shelled a South Korean island, even inflicting civilian fatalities. The immediate allied reaction was to announce a joint American–South Korean military exercise. But we soon found out that North Korea had allegedly supplied an already very dangerous Iran with missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads that could possibly reach Western Europe. Are we seeing these so-called new "axis powers" at the sinister start of a unified effort designed to harass and harm the West?
But before we could digest all these developments and others, we learned that hundreds of thousands of American State Department documents had been leaked to the media by the website WikiLeaks—replete with embarrassing but privately intended assessments of other countries, including even prominent individuals. Alleged Chinese views of the potential unification of the Koreas (with Seoul as the capital) came to light. Regrettably, this type of unauthorized diplomatic leak may actually be a factor in tempting China to postpone pressuring North Korea to unify with the South for some time to come.
We have now entered the second decade of the 21st century. What's ahead for 2011 and beyond? For the last few years in the January/February issues, we have reviewed events of the year past and looked ahead to the future—based on the overall guidance of biblical revelation. We continue that theme below.
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: January - February 2011
Course Content
Jerold Aust
Jerold Aust has served in the ministry for 52 years, as a public speaker for 58 years, a published writer for 38 years, and is employed by UCG’s Media and Communications Services. He is a Senior Writer, interviewer, and editor for Beyond Today Magazine and has taught Speech Communication for UCG’s ministerial online program and the Book of Revelation for ABC.
Jerold holds a BA in theology from Ambassador College, Pasadena (1968), an MA in Communication from California State University, Fullerton (1995), a distance-learning Ph.D (2006), and a Famous Writers School diploma in non-fiction writing (1973). Additionally, he studied post-grad communication at University of Southern California (1995), radio, TV, voice-overs, and Public Relations at Fullerton College (1995-1996), and graduate communication at Wichita State University (1978). Jerold has taught communication at the University of South Alabama (7 years) and ABC (17 years). His published works include, Ronald Reagan’s Rhetoric: Metaphor as Persuasion and EZSpeakers: Public Speaking Made Easy in 7 Steps. Jerold's overarching goal is to share with humankind its incredible destiny!
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
