Table of Contents

A Little-Known Feast of the Bible

What Is Real Leadership?

God’s Instructions for Rulers

The Immigration Threat

A Christian Perspective on Immigrants

Brexit: What Does It Mean for Your World?

God’s Greatest Miracle

Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles in Today’s World

How Do Christians Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles Today?

God’s Feast-Steps of Salvation

Lessons From the Parables: Are You a Wise and Watching Christian?

Follow Me: Don’t You Know Christ Is in You?

Mini-Study Series: Bible Prophecy and You: Amazing Examples of Prophecies Already Fulfilled

Are You Running on Fumes?

Current Events and Trends

What happens to all of mankind who lived and died before Jesus Christ lived, as well as those who die having never been told about Christ since then?

Letters From Our Readers: September/October 2016

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A Little-Known Feast of the Bible

by Scott Ashley

Take the opportunity to learn more about God’s festivals as revealed in the Bible.

More than 40 years ago, while a teenager, I attended a religious celebration that to this day remains vividly etched in my mind.

Curiously, it’s a biblical celebration that most people who say they follow the Bible have never heard of. Yet it’s right there in the pages of Scripture, listed among the holy celebrations God calls “My feasts” in Leviticus 23:1. Notice that God calls them His feasts, not the feasts of the Jews or the feasts of Israel.

John 7 describes Jesus Christ keeping this same Feast, and Zechariah 14 tells us that the entire world will keep it after Jesus Christ returns to establish His Kingdom on earth.

In the Bible it’s called the Feast of Tabernacles,and sometimes the Feast of Ingathering. The “Feast of Ingathering” comes from the time of year in which it is celebrated—in the autumn (in the northern hemisphere) when the grapes, dates, pomegranates and other fruits were gathered in during the final harvest of the year in the Holy Land. In ancient times it was a jubilant period of celebration and plenty, a festival eagerly anticipated every year (as it still is in Israel today).

As with all of God’s commands, He wants us to learn key lessons from obeying them.

God gives several specific reasons for keeping this Feast. One is found in Deuteronomy 14:22-26, where God tells us to save up money to attend the Feast, declaring, “. . . And you shall rejoice, you and your household” (emphasis added throughout). It is to be a family celebration.

God gives another reason in verse 23—“so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always” (New International Version). To revere, or “fear” as it is translated in some Bible versions, means to stand in awe of God and all that He is, to recognize and respect His awesome power that created the universe and controls our destiny, and to honor, respect and love Him as the great God of love that He is.

God gives a third reason in Leviticus 23:1-2, where He says of His Feasts, “These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies” (NIV). The Hebrew word moed, here translated “feasts,” means an appointed or set time—here a meeting time. What God says is that these are His divine appointments with us! He has invited us to this appointment and set the time and the place. And He expects us to show up!

He set apart these particular times for specific reasons—as we just saw, to rejoice and also to learn to revere and be in awe of Him. He has many important lessons to teach us through these “sacred assemblies”—His holy gatherings for His people.

This year my wife and I will gather with thousands of Bible-believing Christians, as we have for more than 40 years, to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles at one of our 56 sites around the world. We will rejoice. We will learn more about what it means to fear God, to hold our Creator in awe and reverence. We will again keep the divine appointment He has set for us. And as spelled out in several articles in this issue, we will learn more about God’s great plan for the salvation of mankind as revealed through His holy festivals.

Why don’t you take the opportunity to learn more about God’s festivals as revealed in the Bible? Visit our website at feast.ucg.org or search “Holy Days” and “Feast of Tabernacles” at ucg.org/learnmore. God would like nothing more than for you to come before Him to rejoice, to learn to deeply revere Him, and to keep this appointment with Him!

What Is Real Leadership?

by Scott Ashley

As a nation and a world cry out in desperation for right leadership, why is real leadership so hard to find? What makes a real leader, and will the world ever see the right kind of leadership?

In a hugely consequential election, American voters will soon choose the next U.S. president who, as “leader of the free world,” will wield more power and influence than any other person around the globe for the next four years.

However, many citizens of the nation—and the world as a whole—await the outcome not with eager anticipation, but with considerable trepidation.

Perhaps one of the most revealing news stories in the run-up to the election was a poll that asked how many voters would be embarrassed if either of the two leading candidates were elected president. The results showed that more than half would be embarrassed if one candidate were elected, and almost half would be embarrassed if the other won.

In a corollary, the same survey showed that barely a third of respondents said they would be proud if their candidate won, while less than a quarter of supporters of the other candidate said they’d be proud if that candidate won.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of leadership when the standard is which candidate is least embarrassing to the largest number of citizens! And sadly, that may well determine which candidate is chosen to the most powerful political position in the world.

Deeply flawed candidates vie for power

Given the ads that dominate the airwaves and our computer screens, one would think that this year’s presidential nominees were either savior or Satan, depending on one’s perspective.

The fact is, both candidates are deeply flawed when viewed from the expected standards of character and conduct found in the Bible—a fact that plays into the high percentage of voters who say they are embarrassed by these choices.

One candidate has a checkered history of questionable financial dealings, business bankruptcies and multiple marriages and affairs. The other has a long track record of scandals (including a husband who as U.S. president was impeached and disbarred for lying about an extramarital affair with a White House intern) and is one who left the White House “broke” but has since, with her husband, made $153 million for giving speeches—many to banking and financial interests—while positioning herself as a defender of the poor.

Millions of voters from both major parties have angrily declared that they won’t support these nominees, viewing them as deeply flawed and untrustworthy and either not conservative or not liberal enough.

Why are people fed up with leaders?

How did the nation get to this frustrated, angry state?

It’s not just a matter of flawed candidates. Americans’ trust in leadership is woefully lacking due to a government that grows ever larger and larger but accomplishes less and less. Huge national problems grow more difficult and challenging by the day.

With more than 90 million people out of the workforce, more than 45 million receiving food stamps, and companies shifting jobs overseas, Americans worry about their financial security. People are deeply concerned about their personal safety at a time when crime and random terror attacks dominate the headlines.

It doesn’t help that the current president appears to be in deep denial about the threat of Islamic terrorism when Islamic fundamentalists have murdered 91 people and injured 367 more in eight multi-fatality attacks on non-Muslims in the United States in the last eight years (not including the almost 3,000 killed in the 9/11 attacks 15 years ago).

Americans also realize that the government agencies tasked with defending the country have proved incapable of guarding the nation’s borders or deporting millions of illegal immigrants, including tens of thousands who have committed crimes on U.S. soil.

Meanwhile, the current administration has given preferential treatment to tens of thousands of foreign immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia who share little or nothing in common with traditional American values, and once on U.S. soil are given housing, food, health care and education at taxpayer expense.

It’s no wonder Americans are so fed up and distrustful of their leaders!

Good and bad leadership

The United States certainly isn’t the only nation struggling with leadership issues. Nor is this a new problem. The biblical book of Proverbs, written almost 3,000 years ago, contains an observation as true now as it was then: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2).

Good leadership translates into happy, satisfied people. Bad leadership translates into suffering, sorrow and oppression.

As various Middle Eastern despots have died, been executed or were toppled from power in recent years, their people have been shocked at the staggering fortunes these men accumulated in secret bank accounts during their years in power—often while their people suffered in grinding poverty.

Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority until his 2004 death, skimmed or stole an estimated $1 to 3 billion while in office, giving his wife (living in luxury in Paris) a monthly spending allowance of $200,000—enough to cover basic living expenses for 5,000 of her countrymen!

Several of his successors in Hamas, the terror organization that rules Gaza, have been revealed as having a net worth in the millions to billions of dollars. Mahmoud Abbas, current leader of the Palestinian Authority, is estimated to have accumulated an embezzled fortune of more than $100 million during his 12-year rule.

Col. Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya with an iron fist until he was captured and summarily executed after the collapse of his government in 2011, was thought to be the richest man on earth at the time, with an estimated $200 billion skimmed off the country’s oil sales.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, hanged in 2006, was a relative pauper in comparison, having managed to accumulate only an estimated $2-40 billion during his rule (although he did have 50 presidential palaces scattered across the country).

A biblical lesson in bad leadership

None of this should be surprising to those who study the lessons of the Bible. God warned of these arrogant and corrupting human tendencies some 3,000 years ago when the people of ancient Israel demanded a king to rule over them like the other nations around them. Notice what God warned such human rulers would do:

“This is how a king will reign over you . . . [He] will draft your sons and assign them to his chariots and his charioteers, making them run before his chariots. Some will be generals and captains in his army, some will be forced to plow in his fields and harvest his crops, and some will make his weapons and chariot equipment.

“The king will take your daughters from you and force them to cook and bake and make perfumes for him. He will take away the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his own officials. He will take a tenth of your grain and your grape harvest and distribute it among his officers and attendants.

“He will take your male and female slaves and demand the finest of your cattle and donkeys for his own use. He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you will be his slaves. When that day comes, you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but then the Lord will not help you” (1 Samuel 8:11-18, New Living Translation 2015).

Of course, the Israelites didn’t listen. Rather than submitting to God’s direct rule, they chose human rule—and how we have begged for relief ever since!

The heart of the issue

The world’s leadership problem is actually a problem of the heart. As the striking examples above show, many leaders and politicians view themselves as virtual gods, answerable to no one.

In the case of the Roman emperors in the time of Jesus and the first-century Church, this was literally the case, as they thought they would become divine at death (if not before, in the most arrogant cases). The Roman Emperor Vespasian (A.D. 69-79) said on his deathbed to those gathered around him, “I feel myself becoming a god!”

This kind of attitude was typical in ancient cultures. Leaders and government officials then, as now, abused their positions for self-advancement and power. But a revealing incident from the Gospels shows what true leadership is all about.

Before their conversion, Jesus’ disciples exhibited the same kind of attitude they saw in worldly leaders around them. They naturally jockeyed and contended for the most important positions—who would wield the most power when Jesus became King of the Kingdom He often spoke about.

But they were in for a surprise. In response to two of them trying to manipulate their way into the top positions among Jesus’ followers, He gave them a powerful lesson—at the same time revealing to them the essence of true leadership:

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (NLT 2015, emphasis added throughout).

True leadership begins with humility

As Jesus’ words to His followers show, God’s view of leadership is far different from ours. The human perspective on leadership is to view it as an opportunity for personal advancement and power. God’s perspective is the opposite—to use leadership as an opportunity to serve others.

God has a very different viewpoint on leadership, one that far transcends human vanity and folly. “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

“Before honor is humility,” wrote wise King Solomon (Proverbs 15:33). God similarly said through the prophet Micah, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

This is the starting point for real leadership. Real leadership isn’t about personal wants and desires. Real leadership is focused on sacrificing oneself in service to others. Its focus is more on helping others than serving one’s own self.

Jesus also emphasized this attitude of humility as the starting point for real leadership. When His disciples asked Him who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, He pointed them to a little child and said that unless they became humble and receptive like children, they would never be able to enter His Kingdom (Matthew 18:1-4).

Jesus Christ’s example of humility and serving others

In contrast to many human leaders, Jesus Christ backed up His words with actions. His example of humility in leadership was the most profound in all of history.

Interestingly, the term that Jesus Himself and the apostles use most often to describe God’s chosen and faithful people is slave—one whose life is totally dedicated to serving others. (For reasons of political correctness most Bible versions have translated the Greek word doulos as “servant” when referring to God’s people, but the literal meaning, as attested by countless ancient inscriptions and writings, is slave.)This is the attitude God wants in those who surrender their lives to Him.

Incredibly, even Jesus Christ Himself became a slave for our sakes. Notice what the apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2:5-8 (NLT 2015):

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”

Jesus Christ served all mankind in the most astounding way possible—emptying Himself of the glory, splendor and omnipotence He had shared with God the Father to become a human being to die for our sins that we might ultimately receive God’s gift of eternal life (see John 1:1-5; John 1:14; John 3:16-17; John 17:1-5).

When will the world see real godly leadership?

What an astounding contrast between the kind of leadership taught by Jesus and that practiced in so much of today’s world!

Will the world ever see that kind of godly, wise, righteous leadership exemplified by Jesus Christ? Amazingly, it will—and soon!

At some point you’ve probably read or recited that part of the Lord’s Prayer that asks, “Your kingdom come” and “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Perhaps without realizing it, you were asking for Jesus Christ to return and establish His Kingdom—the Kingdom of God—here on earth, for that is exactly what this prayer means!

That Kingdom—the initial phase of which will last 1,000 years, commonly called the Millennium—is when God’s will is to be fully carried out on earth (see Revelation 20:4; Revelation 20:6). Let’s notice some of the incredible prophecies of that time. One, immortalized in Handel’s Messiah, is found in Isaiah 9:6-7:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (New International Version 1984).

This tells us that Jesus Christ will establish on earth a government of peace, justice and righteousness. And since God’s commandments define righteousness (Psalm 119:172), that will be the basis of His leadership and government. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promises regarding that time, “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33).

Isaiah further describes Christ’s coming leadership over the world in these terms: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

“He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears [that is, merely by what is physically apparent (compare 1 Samuel 16:7)]; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash round his waist.

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them . . . They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:2-9, NIV 1984).

This is the wonderful world God promises for humanity under right and godly leadership!

What does this all mean for you?

This all sounds great—but exactly what does it mean for you?

In stark contrast to the true leadership principles found in the Bible is the corrupt leadership found throughout much of the world. And we can see this in the current political campaign cycle with its vain promises, deceitful attacks and distortions of reality—in all too many cases motivated by nothing more than desire for personal advancement and lust for power.

But while we can’t change this system, we certainly must change one thing—ourselves!

The prophecies of the new world Jesus Christ will establish are hopeful and encouraging. But Bible prophecy also warns where the leadership of this world is ultimately taking the human race before that time. It presents a frightening and horrifying picture of power-crazed madmen who will bring humankind to the brink of extinction. (You can read about this in our free study guide Are We Living in the Time of the End?)

Jesus Christ will return to establish His Kingdom on earth, but He must also return to save us from ourselves!

Notice how He describes that time immediately before His second coming: “For that will be a time of greater horror than anything the world has ever seen or will ever see again. In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened [or cut short from running its course], the entire human race will be destroyed . . .” (Matthew 24:21-22, NLT 1996).

His warning is deeply sobering! Conditions will be so perilous that mankind faces annihilation. In a time of hopelessness, He holds out hope for humanity through a relative handful of people: “. . . But [that time of calamity] will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones” (Matthew 24:22, NLT 1996).

Consider these words thoughtfully and prayerfully. Let them sink in. The fate of the human race depends on a relative handful of people—those whom Jesus calls “God’s chosen ones” or, in other translations, “the elect.” They are the ones described earlier—those who completely surrender their lives to God now and begin to humbly develop the character traits of Jesus Christ in every aspect of their lives.

Other prophecies describe how literally billions of people will perish as this age of man’s misrule draws to its devastating close. However, you don’t need to be among those caught in that terrible time of judgment surrounding Christ’s return. While the world goes through repeated cycles of electing leaders with corrupt hearts who are incapable of properly dealing with the world’s problems, God is in the process of selecting and preparing people for greater opportunities for serving others in the world to come—those who, with renewed hearts and minds, will bring the change the world needs.

God has extended this invitation to you—an invitation to be a part of the very different kind of leadership He promises in that coming age. He offers you nothing less than the opportunity to reign alongside Jesus Christ in this new and transformed world! (Revelation 3:21; Revelation 20:6).

But it requires something on your part now. It requires that you surrender all to follow Christ now (Luke 14:27; Luke 14:33). It requires that you

learn fully what it means to serve others as He did (Matthew 20:25-28).

If you are willing to do so, at His return you can take part in the most astounding opportunity of all time to serve and show true godly leadership in helping lead the entire world to understand and know the true God and His ways (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:8-12).

So, are you willing to accept God’s invitation? Are you ready to start learning real leadership now? If you are, God offers you His help in a plan and purpose to which nothing can compare!

God’s Instructions for Rulers

by Scott Ashley

The current U.S. presidential race is an embarrassment to the nation. The two leading contenders fall short of biblical character standards in critical areas. One has a history of multiple bankruptcies, questionable business dealings, marriages and affairs. The other supported her philandering husband for years, lied repeatedly about her e-mail communications while U.S. Secretary of State, and advocates for homosexual marriage and killing the unborn.

The sad fact is that the nation gets the kind of leadership it deserves, and regrettably that will be true in this election.

What kind of standards does God expect in leaders? And once in office, what should they focus on in fulfilling their duties? What would help them be the kind of leaders God would want them to be?

Some 3,500 years ago God set down a “constitution” of sorts for a new nation. The nation was Israel, newly freed from enslavement by the Egyptians. God laid out rules that would bring blessings and empower Israel to be an example that other nations would want to emulate (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). The key to those blessings was following their new “constitution,” God’s laws as revealed in the first five books of the Bible.

No one would be above the law or exempt from it. In fact, leaders were instructed to intimately familiarize themselves with it so they could rule humbly, wisely and righteously, leading to blessing for both themselves and the nation. Notice God’s instruction in Deuteronomy 17:18-20 that kings were to write out a copy of God’s law and to read and rule by it continuously:

“When [the new king] sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees.

“This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way. And it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel” (New Living Translation, 2015).

Consider these words of wisdom. Think on this deeply. How different would any nation be if its leadership took to heart this simple and plain instruction? What an astounding difference it would make!

The Immigration Threat

by Tom Robinson

A flood of immigration without assimilation has led to increased danger from foreigners among Western nations. How should we approach this matter, and what lies ahead?

A series of attacks in Germany in late July 2016 by Islamists—a number having entered the country as refugees—has brought renewed criticism of policies of welcoming refugees. “Anxiety over Germany’s ability to cope with last year’s flood of more than 1 million registered asylum seekers [largely from the ongoing Syrian crisis] first surged following a series of sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne during New Year celebrations.” But the violence has turned deadlier since then (Associated Press, July 25)—in France, Belgium and elsewhere too.

The British vote to leave the European Union was motivated in part by concern over immigration and open border policies. Many have had enough of multiculturalism leading not to a blending of peoples but to a fragmented society of growing foreign enclaves and ghettos hostile to the host nation.

As a result of popular outcry, Europe’s borders have had some toughening of late, “prompting migrants to switch focus to the United States, but their trek is being thwarted in Central America, where a bottleneck has formed,” with many Africans, Haitians, Afghans and Pakistanis waiting to move north (AFP, July 23).

Of course, the United States has been dealing with immigration problems for years, including calls for open borders. Over past decades the national makeup of those coming in has dramatically changed. And following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, fears have grown about terrorists crossing into the United States among those immigrating.

All of this amounts to a serious threat to Western countries. As former president Ronald Reagan warned, “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation”—at least in terms of the nation-state. Jan Brewer, former governor of Arizona, which has seen a lot of illegal immigration, echoed, “A nation without borders is like a house without walls—it collapses. And that is going to happen to our wonderful America.”

In the run-up to the current U.S. presidential elections, Louisiana governor and Republican primary presidential candidate Bobby Jindal spoke out against unfettered immigration and multiculturalism, saying: “Let’s be honest about this: Immigration without assimilation is not immigration; it’s an invasion . . . When you look at what’s happening in Europe, you’ve got second and third generation immigrants that don’t consider themselves parts of these societies, those cultures, those values. We mustn’t let that happen here” (Breitbart, Nov. 4, 2015, emphasis added throughout).

Moreover the Republican candidate for the general election, Donald Trump, “has yanked the issue of illegal immigration front and center . . . Trump has tapped into an angry pulsating nerve . . . To the dismay of both Republican and Democratic parties, Trump’s message is resonating” (Monette Maglava, Asian Journal, Nov. 24, 2015). Trump has even called for stopping Muslim immigration until those coming in can be properly vetted.

We certainly need to be paying attention to the political scene in regard to the immigration issue. And most importantly we need to know what the Bible tells us on the matter, both in terms of how to approach it and what the fallout will ultimately be on the national and world stage.

Devastating impact on European society

Conservative social commentator and former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan points out regarding the mass migration into Europe from Africa and the Middle East:

“With birth rates in this smallest and least populated of continents below replacement levels for decades, Europe is aging, shrinking and dying, as it is being invaded and altered forever. Optimists point to how America absorbed the 15 million that arrived in the Great Wave of immigration from 1890 to 1920. But they ignore the differences. America’s immigrants were Europeans from Christian nations coming to a country with a history of assimilation. And the Great Wave stopped in 1924, for 40 years . . .

“Unlike America, [modern] Europe has never known mass immigration. And those pouring into Europe are Arab, African and Muslim, not European Christians or Jews. They come from other civilizations and cultures. And they are not all assimilating but rather creating enclaves in Europe that replicate the lands whence they came” (“Can Europe Survive This Invasion?” Nov. 9, 2015).

This has led to serious consequences. In Sweden, 40 years after embracing multiculturalism, “violent crime has increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%. Sweden is now number two on the list of rape countries, surpassed only by Lesotho in Southern Africa” (Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard, “Sweden: Rape Capital of the West,” Gatestone Institute, Feb. 14, 2015). Some attempt to explain this by changed police reporting, but this cannot account for such a mind-numbing increase.

How has this been tolerated? Salim Mansur writes at the American Thinker that open-door immigration and multiculturalism are “based on the spurious idea that all cultures are equal and, therefore, deserving of equal respect and treatment” and “might also be viewed as the response of Western liberal democracies driven by a sense of guilt for past wrongs. This sense of guilt is uniquely a Western phenomenon . . .

“The French political philosopher Jean-François Revel observed, ‘Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is working to destroy it . . . What distinguishes it is its eagerness to believe in its own guilt and . . . [that it] is zealous in devising arguments to prove the justice of its adversary’s case and to lengthen the already overwhelming list of its own inadequacies’” (“Brexit and Multiculturalism,” June 26, 2016).

Western liberal democracy has also facilitated the change in Europe. Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation quotes former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in stating: “Multicultural societies have only . . . functioned peacefully in authoritarian states. To that extent it was a mistake for us to bring guest workers from foreign cultures into the country at the beginning of the 1960s” (DailySignal.com, Nov. 25, 2015).

This is affirmed by the late columnist Dr. Samuel Francis in his book, America Extinguished: Mass Immigration and the Disintegration of American Culture. He writes, “Virtually every ‘multicultural’ and ‘multiracial’ society in human history has had either an authoritarian government—the empires of ancient times, as well as those of the Habsburgs and Romanovs of more recent periods that were described as ‘prisonhouses of nations’—or a never-ending cycle of unstable governments” (2002, p. 19). With terror increasing, the tight discipline of such regimes is starting to appeal to more in Europe.

American assimilation abandoned

America was for a long time more successful in assimilating immigrants than Europe. George Washington actually used the word “assimilated” in this context—and this was widely embraced until more recently.

Mike Gonzalez, in another article, pointed out that when large numbers of immigrants came through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century, “they encountered what was then called—quaintly, and without irony or angst—an Americanization program. They were actually taught to love their new country . . . Today, our elites are far too ‘sophisticated’ to promote Americanization” (“America Used to Know How to Assimilate Immigrants,” TheFederalist.com, Jan. 12, 2016).

Of course it helped that previous immigrants were not as markedly different as they are now. A review of Dr. Francis’ book on mass immigration notes that it “points out that ‘the melting pot [of blending culture] has been possible at all only because what was melted in it was never very different in the first place.’ The overwhelming majority of immigrants until recently had a macro-level resemblance to the people already here: white, mostly Christian, with European folkways, institutions and morals.

“‘Since they were largely homogeneous to begin with, it’s not all that surprising they formed one nation that has retained that homogeneity until recently.’ Unfortunately, the homogeneity no longer exists. Most of our recent immigrants are radically different from America’s host population, so assimilation is far more difficult” (John Attarian, “Immigration Without Assimilation: A Formula for Dispossession,” The Social Contract, Spring 2004).

A prime example given of assimilation not happening is many Hispanics and other immigrants not learning English. In some public school districts, students have to be taught in literally dozens of languages—creating an unnecessary and enormously expensive financial burden for schools and taxpayers.

A major shift in immigration policy

The major shift in U.S. immigration came with the late liberal Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy ushering the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act through Congress. As Breitbart News reports: “That legislation resulted in the fundamental transformation of the demographic, economic, social, and political landscape of [the] nation, exactly the opposite of what its supporters promised. The Kennedy immigration law abolished the national origins quota system, which had favored immigrants from nations with a similar heritage to our own, and opened up American immigration visas to the entire world.

“While about nine in ten of the immigrants who came to the United States during the 19th and 20th century hailed from Europe, the 1965 law inverted that figure. Today about 9 out of every 10 new immigrants brought into the country on green cards come from Latin America, Africa, Asia or the Middle East . . . In 1965, according to Pew, the country was 84 percent white, 11 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic and less than 1 percent Asian. In 2015, as a result of Kennedy’s immigration law, the country is now 62 percent white, 12 percent black, 18 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian.

“Pew projects that in forty years time, ‘no racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of the U.S. population,’ as ‘whites are projected to become less than half of the U.S. population by 2055’” (“Ted Kennedy’s America: 50 Years After the Law That Changed Everything,” Oct. 3, 2015).

Part of the motivation for this change was liberal opposition to values rooted in the nation’s white European heritage. But another aim was to bring in impoverished immigrants to increase the numbers of those dependent on government—and politicians who would supposedly see to their needs. “To paraphrase Emma Lazarus, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and I will turn them into a redistributionist voting block loyal to one political party” (Charlotte Hays, “Europe Is Committing Suicide—Will the U.S. Follow Suit,” Independent Women’s Forum, Mar. 29, 2016).

The term assimilation has been rejected of late, being replaced by integration. Being integrated means immigrants are made to fit, but by making accommodations for them. For example, providing everything in Spanish, so there’s no expectation for learning English. They don’t even need to become Americans. A survey by the Pew Research Hispanic Center found that more than half of young Hispanics (under age 40) did not identify themselves as Americans. This extended to even second- and third-generation native-born Hispanics.

Of course, the biggest problem for the moment is immigration paths being infiltrated by terrorist enemies seeking to destroy—as is the case in Europe as well. Author and former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy points out that it’s not enough for a needed vetting process to just identify terrorists, but those apt to become jihadists after they settle here: “We find two necessary ingredients: (1) a mind that is hospitable to jihadism because it is already steeped in Islamic supremacism, and (2) a sharia-enclave environment that endorses jihadism and relentlessly portrays the West as corrupt and hostile. Our current refugee policies promote both factors” (NationalReview.com, Nov. 28, 2015).

A biblical assessment

Above all, we should consider what Scripture has to say on immigration, borders and assimilating or not. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was a migrant who relocated from Mesopotamia to Canaan and moved for a while to Egypt. His grandson Jacob, renamed Israel, lived for a time back in northern Syria and later moved with His family down to Egypt. His descendants became an oppressed and enslaved people in Egypt before their deliverance in the Exodus, when they left accompanied by a “mixed multitude” (Exodus 12:38).

Clearly God allowed people of other ethnic heritage to dwell among the Israelites—and He later allowed foreigners to settle among them. In fact, God commanded that aliens not be mistreated or deprived of justice, that charity and hospitality be shown them and that the Israelites were to love resident foreigners as themselves—remembering when they themselves were foreigners in Egypt (Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:9-10; Leviticus 19:33-34; Leviticus 23:22; Leviticus 24:16; Leviticus 24:22). David and Solomon even employed skilled foreign-born labor in the building of God’s temple and accepted immigrants into Israel’s military.

On the other hand, Scripture does not promote a borderless world, completely unrestricted immigration and multiculturalism with no assimilation. God caused people to spread out and resettle in national groupings when he confused the languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). He set the boundaries of peoples (Deuteronomy 32:8), and explicitly defined national and tribal borders.

He even defines such borders for the time when Jesus Christ will rule over all nations in the future (see Ezekiel 47-48). And He warns against removing set landmarks (Deuteronomy 19:14; Proverbs 22:28)—these denoting territorial claims of both private families and broader nations.

Furthermore, immigrants were not immediately reckoned as Israelites—but needed to become rooted over generations. And the set requirement was not the same for all foreigners. Because of their former mistreatment of Israel, Ammonites and Moabites were not to be considered part of Israel until the 10th generation, whereas Edomites and Egyptians could be so reckoned in the third generation (Deuteronomy 23:3-8). (We do have the cases of Rahab of Canaan and Ruth of Moab marrying into Israel—and becoming ancestors of Jesus Christ.)

Nevertheless, those who came in were to have equal protection under the law, and—most relevant to our current situation—they were to be assimilated under the same laws and customs.

God told the Israelites, “One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger [or immigrant] who dwells with you” (Numbers 15:16; see Numbers 15:15; Numbers 15:29; Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 24:22. Foreigners were expected to adapt to Israel’s culture, not the other way around. Immigrants were to obey all of God’s laws, including keeping the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10), keeping the Feasts of Pentecost and Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 16:14), fasting on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29) and offering sacrifices for sins (Numbers 15:27-29).

In a modern context, local pockets of sharia law would be out of the question! A model such as God gave Israel would prevent many of the problems we see with immigration into the West. No Islamist or others seeking to perpetuate antibiblical cultural elements would want to come to such a society, knowing their efforts would be rejected.

Needed perspective in looking ahead

It’s important to keep a proper perspective in watching these disturbing world events and trends. Part of that perspective involves the true identity of America, Britain and other nations of Northwest European heritage.

We need to realize that the migration of the ancient Israelites did not cease in the Promised Land. For they were later taken captive by the Assyrians and afterward migrated far to the northwest, eventually settling in Northwest Europe. The nations that emerged from here are Israelite—foremost among them being Britain and the United States, descended in large part from Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh. (See our free study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy to learn more.)

Satan wants to see the Israelite nations destroyed—with God’s promises and prophecies brought to naught. Indeed, with so much in these events being self-destructive and utterly irrational, we should recognize that malevolent spirit forces that are beyond normal human comprehension are at work.

Consider that, as one author points out, Westerners are being made to finance their own destruction: “Just imagine that for a second. A people are being forced via taxation and under threat of punitive ‘thought/hate crime laws’ and guilt propaganda to tolerate and pay for an invasion of their territories, the dilution of their cultures and their own displacement and eventual replacement.

“Previously, territory would have to be gained through warfare, with a high price paid in both blood and money. Not any more, because multiculturalism negates the need for invaders to fight for territory. The financial burden of conquest is passed on to the conquered who are being forced by their own governments to surrender” (Christopher Green, “How Monocultural Multiculturalism Is Raping Identity,” LibertyGB.org.uk, July 4, 2016).

As people come to see the failure of open borders and multiculturalism in Europe, there is increasing call for change. But what they’ll end up with is not the change that’s needed. Rather, it will be the totalitarian kind that has taken hold of mixed cultures before.

Already we see Europeans turning more and more to the far right. And in fact the Bible has prophesied that a terrible European dictatorship will arise in Europe—in part as a reaction to threats from the south. Are we seeing the beginnings of a backlash against the multicultural utopianism that has landed Europe in its present predicament?

Pat Buchanan concluded his piece with these words of warning: “Can a civilization survive the replacement of the people who created it by people of other races, religions, and civilizations? Ask the Native Americans. Will Europe remain Europe if she is repopulated by Arabs, Muslims, Asians and Africans. What will hold Europe together? Free trade? . . . One day soon, a voice will arise across the Atlantic calling for an end to this invasion, by force if necessary, and declare: ‘Let Europe be Europe!’”

The growing immigration crisis is but one of many geopolitical trends shaping our world and leading to a time of unparalleled global conflict before Jesus Christ’s return. Continue reading Beyond Today to understand what these events and trends mean. And stay on the alert. Darker times are coming.

A Christian Perspective on Immigrants

by Tom Robinson

Christians must recognize that we ourselves are strangers amid Western culture and all human society—being citizens of a kingdom yet to come. In dealing with immigrants, we are to follow the Golden Rule in treating others as we wish to be treated (Matthew 7:12). And the commands to show hospitality to immigrants still apply.

However, that does not mean we should endorse and embrace all immigration—illegal or even legal if subverting morality and acceptable culture. Our own practice as strangers is to follow the laws of the land that don’t contradict God’s laws (Romans 13). And where we are not able to follow laws that contradict God’s laws (Acts 5:29), that never means inflicting harm on those of the nation around us, as some immigrants—Islamist jihadists a prime example—would seek to do. Our adherence to God’s laws when there is conflict with the laws and traditions of the surrounding society is done peacefully on our part (Romans 12:18).

In considering the immigration issue, we should have great sympathy toward those who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families—and be welcoming and kind even if they are not assimilating. Never are we to be racist, as God Himself is not (Acts 10:34-35). Nor are we to be ethnocentrists apart from promoting the superiority of biblical morality and liberty. It’s good to be patriotic (having love for one’s country), but not chauvinist or nationalistic and putting others down where there is no issue of morality.

Still, we must recognize that cultures more closely aligned with biblical teaching are superior to others in important respects. Economics professor Walter Williams writes: “Ask a diversity/ multiculturalism advocate: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in northern Sudan. In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education . . . Are all these cultural values morally equivalent to those of the West?” (“Multiculturalism: A Failed Concept,” CNSNews.com, June 29, 2016).

Sadly, such values are making inroads into the West through immigration and growing Islamist communities—in direct conflict with godly standards and values.

Brexit: What Does It Mean for Your World?

The European Union (EU) was formed to promote peace, prosperity and economic and political union throughout Europe. But the recent British exit vote (Brexit) has thrown those assumptions into doubt. What does the future hold for Europe?

by Darris McNeely

Ever since Great Britain decided in a June 23, 2016, referendum to leave the European Union, the big questions have been: What will this mean for Britain, what will it mean for the EU and even what will it mean for the United States and its relationship with both the United Kingdom and Europe?

The immediate impact of the decision has been currency fluctuations, stock market shocks and a great deal of speculation about Britain’s future role in the global economy and about its historic leadership role.

For students of Bible prophecy it has also raised the question of what this might mean for the world in light of Bible prophecies about events leading to the end of the age. It is this question that most concerns readers and viewers of Beyond Today.

Through the years we have described in detail what the Bible calls Babylon, a great religious and political power that will rise to dominate the world in the period prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. We have shown that the modern roots of this coming system are to be found in present Europe. The cultural and spiritual history of that region point to the place where this prophesied power will emerge.

The biblical book of Revelation describes this power in terms that leave no doubt that the world will be controlled by this system that will hold the nations entranced with its promise of order and affluence. Our study aid The Book of Revelation Unveiled describes in overview the magnificent prophetic hope contained in the Bible’s final book. But first come events that help set the stage, as we see taking shape in today’s world. Following is a brief summary.

A woman and a beast

Revelation 17 opens with a description of a woman clothed in purple and scarlet riding a ferocious-looking beast with multiple heads and horns. On the forehead of the woman is a name:“Mystery, babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth” (Revelation 17:5). The woman is drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs of Jesus Christ. She is a symbol for a great religious system that opposes God and His people.

The beast the woman sits on is described in other parts of the Bible in terms that fit significant political systems that control large parts of the world at times in history. The prophet Daniel saw such images while in exile in Babylon, and they continue here in the book of Revelation.

The apostle John here sees a multiheaded beast with horns. It rises from among the nations. He mentions “kings,” or leaders of state, who give their power for a time to a single leader also called “the beast” (Revelation 17:12). While there is a time of mutual benefit and cooperation between the religious power represented by the woman and the political power represented by the Beast, it will not end well. The Beast turns on the woman and consumes her power and continues to make war on the Lamb, Jesus Christ. This system will even fight Him at His coming.

The global spiritual deception described here is unprecedented. Daniel presents a time of world trouble unlike any ever seen in human history (Daniel 12:1). Jesus even warned His disciples of a time of deception that could possibly lead astray those among God’s elect, His Church (Matthew 24:24).

The book of Revelation describes this deception as coming from Satan through three powerful spirits working though his chief human minions of the end time, the Beast and the False Prophet. The call to defend the corrupt world order created by this system called Babylon will bring the military powers of the world into one final battle against God at the time of Christ’s appearing (Revelation 16:13-14).

The events and setting for these scenes are beyond anything in today’s headlines. Frankly, they are beyond even the best fictional scenarios of apocalyptic disorder turned out by Hollywood or the best techno-thriller writers.

The facts of history can only give us faint foot tracks to guide us in discerning what they mean. The key to understanding is God’s Word and His Holy Spirit. It takes submitting your life to God, like the prophets of old had to do, to understand the times and what God is doing.

Bible prophecy provides stunning details of key events in history that impact His salvation plan for mankind. In coming to understand these, we can begin to discern the events of our time and their meaning and where we are heading in this unfolding plan.

To understand where the events of today’s world are leading, we must keep our focus on the hope and understanding God’s Word gives us.

Brexit—what happened

Britain’s decision to leave the 28-member European Union—of which it has been a member for more than 43 years—stunned the world. Even British voters were surprised. News reports and commentators were in a fog for several days trying to explain what happened, why it happened and what it meant. Much is still unknown about the impact Britain’s exit from the world’s largest trading bloc will have.

The vote immediately triggered the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the failed effort to remain in the EU. On July 13 Theresa May formed a new government and stated intentions to begin the difficult process to disentangle Britain from the EU, which could take several years.

In the immediate aftermath of the vote, the value of the British currency, the pound, plummeted. London has grown to become the center of European finance. Will companies begin to move their operations away from Britain to maintain competitive advantage in the global economy? What will happen to Britain’s trade with other EU members? Many questions remain unanswered.

But no question is bigger than what will happen to the EU itself. The union has been troubled with other crises in recent years, such as the economic plight of such member nations as Greece and Italy. It has also struggled with how to cope with Russian aggression and intransigence along its eastern borders.

Most challenging, however, was the flood of more than a million immigrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa. The raging conflicts in the Middle East and chaos and poverty in northern Africa have driven huge masses of people to seek asylum and a better life in the EU.

The sheer size of such immigration has ripped the social fabric of Austria, Germany and Hungary in particular. Gains by right-wing political movements in these nations are fueled by the fears of those who feel their culture, financial stability and future threatened by strangers from vastly different cultures and completely different outlooks on life.

Radical Islamist terrorist attacks and skyrocketing migrant crimes have added to the uncertainty of life. British voters who opted to leave cited such immigration and migrant problems as a major factor in their desire to get out—and shut the door behind them.

The EU response to each of these crisis points has been lacking in vision and resolve. And now a major player in the EU has decided to go it alone. Speculation is that other EU nations may decide to hold referendums on the question of continued membership. The present EU has changed and will undoubtedly change more.

A world drawing inward

Britain’s vote to withdraw to its island is an example of the reaction occurring in other parts of the world. The march toward a global order, a world without borders, frightens people.

While people in the upper-income levels have grown richer, those in the mid- to lower-income areas have stagnated or grown poorer. Millions have seen their jobs displaced, and whole communities have been permanently changed. Add in vast cultural and moral change, and people worry over what the future holds. Fear and uncertainty are driving not only Brexit, but also the American presidential campaign and other cultural clashes.

Britain’s decision to leave the EU should be understood in a larger historical perspective. Britain has always been influenced by affairs on the European continent while at the same time developing within itself a distinct personality and worldview.

Historian Margaret McMillan wrote about this in The Financial Times: “The British, like all Europeans, have been part of a shared European civilisation. Ideas, goods, tastes and fashions have spread through a web of trading and communications networks for centuries. Even before the Emperor Claudius made Britain a Roman colony, the British were adopting Roman ways and trading for Roman goods. The Norman invasion brought what we now think of as a British tradition of aristocracy, along with castles and cathedrals” (“Britain and Europe: The Ties That Bind,” July 8, 2016).

English kings once ruled parts of France. When a new king was needed at the time of the 17th-century Glorious Revolution, the English turned to the House of Orange in the Netherlands. And the current House of Windsor, of which is Queen Elizabeth II, was brought into Britain from Germany, it having shared ancestry with the royal family in England.

The connections between England and the continent have been strong and consistent even as a distinct Anglo culture developed through law, language and tradition. England pursued a different destiny through the period of colonization that spread out of Europe in the 15th century.

Through the generations, Britain pursued a policy of keeping any one continental power from dominating all others. This was why England led a coalition to finally defeat Napoleon’s universal ambitions at Waterloo. It was these alliances that led England into both World Wars of the 20th century. The present EU is in part the result of the vision to prevent future war by maintaining an economic union. That dream is threatened by Britain’s exit.

The idea of Europe

The concept of Europe, what it is and what its boundaries are, has shifted through the ages. In the Roman period Europe was centered around the Mediterranean, what the Romans called Mare Nostrum or “Our Sea.” That concept of Europe spanned the present continent as well as North Africa and large parts of the present Middle East as far as the Persian Gulf. It was only after the rise of Islam, when European culture was driven out, that these perceptions and borders shifted.

Through the Middle Ages into the modern period, Europe was dominated by the church-state union called the Holy Roman Empire. This system collapsed after the defeat of Napoleon. With the fall of empires after World War I (Russian, Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Ottoman), we’ve had a pause in this historic pattern.

The present world of Europe and the Middle East, both created in the aftermath of the two World Wars, is going through a strained and challenging period. War, mass migration, globalization and in particular the changing position and influence of both Britain and the United States, is having a major impact.

The UK’s departure from the EU is a significant statement against globalization, which dilutes national identity. In England many fear the nation is changing beyond anything they recognize. In many ways this is true. The same can be said of the United States. Terrorism, uncontrolled immigration and the elimination of traditional borders of trade, economies and culture have created a new world that unsettles many.

The world is now watching to see what will happen in Europe. How will Germany and France, the two largest nations, react? Will others decide to go? Will the present EU be reconfigured to a smaller but stronger grouping of core nations that go forward with a closer political, military and economic union? What will bind them together more tightly than anything to the present? Does Bible prophecy give any indication?

Some feel the key to a closer union of European states is the spiritual element, religion. Historical pattern provides precedent for this. And this brings us back to the subject of Babylon.

The religious-political system the Bible calls “Mystery, babylon the great” arises from among the world’s nations at a time of global crisis. The established order is threatened. Economic collapse could upend years of work and effort. World leaders unwilling to let that happen will come together to create what they see as the solution to strife, fear and an uncertain future.

Revelation 17:12, in describing 10 rulers giving their sovereign power to one figure, presents a critical moment where power is consolidated. “Peace and safety” will be proclaimed, and the world will wonder at what has been created (1 Thessalonians 5:1-6). But we are not there yet.

What Britain has said with its Brexit vote is a resounding “no” to further cooperation within a growing supranational system that seeks conformity to a model of global unity. The EU’s present course is a union of nations without borders, where immigrants, workers and anyone can travel, work and live. The EU seeks a world order that alters the present idea of the nation-state. Its recent struggles reflect the immense challenge to this ideal, given the fact that most people want to remain French, Austrian, Greek or British.

In Genesis 11 the human intent was to build a city and a tower and to make a name to keep from being scattered across the earth (verse 4). God saw this would propel the human family more rapidly toward a crisis point than His plan intended. So He scattered the people of that day by confusing their language (verse 7).

The place of this ancient dream was called Babel, and it was the beginning of the human aspiration to create a world apart from and in defiance of God. Babel is also called Babylon, a city and empire that stood through the ages as the antithesis to everything God planned and worked toward on the earth. Babylon reappears in Revelation 17 in one grand final manifestation of opposition to God. It will astound the world and end in defeat at the coming of the Lord.

If you haven’t yet read our study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy, go online now and begin reading the fascinating story of America and Britain in today’s world. See what lies ahead for these two nations. It will fill in the details of what this article addresses, giving vital background to Brexit and current world affairs.

What about you?

Revelation 18:4-5 contains a command from God that impacts us all: “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her [Babylon’s] sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.’”

This final system of Babylon is forming today and will make its appearance in God’s timetable as the events of the end of the age fall into place.

It’s hard for most of us to envision this. We live in a time of great wealth and technological marvels. Our global world contains innovations, comforts and pleasures that make life enjoyable, exciting and fulfilling. The challenge for the people of God is to navigate this world without being taken in by its charm and deception.

God says the sins of Babylon “reach to heaven” and that He will not overlook them (Revelation 18:5). Babylon will grow in power and luxury and then suddenly, virtually overnight, collapse in the final judgment God imposes (Revelation 18:7-9).

It’s difficult for God’s people to discern this without the spiritual insight and power He provides. You can study these passages and apply the history of Babylon and come up with a level of understanding. Babylon is portrayed in the Bible as the head of gold in the dream of Daniel 2. Babylon’s religion and culture has migrated through history, manifesting itself in Persian, Greek and Roman forms. Babylon’s roots live on and await the day when they will spring forth in full view of the world.

How will you know when it comes? How will you avoid the deceptive allure of the system and not be joined to it spiritually or culturally? This will be a challenge for all of us. Christ’s words to us to discern the signs of our time have never been more important!

God’s Greatest Miracle

Your Bible and all nature tell of the many miracles of God. But one qualifies as His greatest. Could it involve you?

by Jerold Aust

Is it possible to briefly reverse the earth’s natural rotation and then set it back in normal motion while keeping its surface intact? Today’s scientific community would not think this could have happened. Yet your Bible records that this amazing miracle did indeed occur!

King Hezekiah of Judah (ca. 715-686 B.C.) was dying, and he begged God to heal him. God heard his remorseful prayer and promised to heal him and extend his life by 15 years. The king asked for a confirming sign and, amazingly, God offered him two options: He could request the sundial’s shadow be advanced or reversed by 10 degrees.

The king was wise: “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:10). God then reversed the sundial’s shadow 10 degrees—an amazing miracle (2 Kings 20:8-11).

Is this one of God’s greatest miracles? Consider that the sun itself and its phenomenal relationship with the earth are quite miraculous.

The miraculous sun

The sun, a blazing star, is remarkably placed in regard to our planet, some 93 million miles away. Any closer and the earth would be too hot to support life. Any farther and it would be too cold. As it stands, the perfect placement of the sun provides the only known habitable environment in the universe.

The sun’s rays also provide food for every organism on earth. Plants produce food through the process of photosynthesis. Those plants are in turn eaten by animals, and those animals are then eaten by others, creating the wonderful miracle of the food chain, giving life to all of the earth’s organisms.

The precise placement of the sun, along with the precise motion of the earth around the sun and its rotation on its axis, also creates the change in seasons required to produce the variety of temperatures and weather patterns that make life possible. This truly is a wonderful miracle of God!

Nevertheless, the sun’s self-regulated, regenerative power isn’t God’s greatest miracle. Nor was the reversal of the earth’s rotation at the time of Hezekiah. So, then, what is?

God’s greatest miracle

Given the amazing life-giving qualities of the sun that find parallels with the work of God in our lives through Jesus Christ, it should be no surprise that Christ is depicted in Scripture as “the Sun of Righteousness” (Malachi 4:2) who shines on us and even out through His followers, bringing awesome change. This metaphor points toward God’s greatest miracle—His transformation of the human mind and heart to the mind of Jesus Christ with our voluntary, faithful commitment to God (Ephesians 2:10; Galatians 2:20).

This greatest miracle is not measured by scientific means, as the sun is, but instead by faith demonstrated by works (James 2:17-18; (James 2:24). The Bible shows the phenomenal end-result of humankind’s transformation—becoming the glorified children of God (Hebrews 2:10-11; 2 Corinthians 6:18).

God clearly requires our wholehearted participation in His greatest miracle! Our redemption is not a one-way activity with Him. You and I have a direct hand in our miraculous transformation!

For this greatest miracle to come to fruition, human beings must come to think like God (John 17:21; Romans 12:2). The apostle Paul claimed that he and others had the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and we should realize that we can also have the same mind!

Your Bible is filled with examples of men and women who came to think as God did—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Israel, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and God’s other prophets (see Hebrews 11). All were flesh and blood, like you and me. Each was transformed to follow God’s ways through faith (Hebrews 11:1-2). Each one had his or her heart changed into a receptive one (2 Corinthians 3:3). The changing of one’s mind from man’s to God’s embodies the greatest of all miracles!

How does this miracle take place?

How does this greatest miracle come to pass? God gives human beings the option to choose between good and evil. He urges us to choose the good (Deuteronomy 30:19). Yet humankind cannot naturally obey God’s laws that provide us true liberty (Romans 8:7) because of our self-seeking and self-serving human nature (Jeremiah 17:9).

So God helps His called disciples to choose His way of thinking (Proverbs 1:1-7) through the supernatural power of God’s Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-14). Christ Jesus transforms us, through that Holy Spirit, to God’s way that leads to eternal life (1 Corinthians 11:31-32).

Earlier, I mentioned that God requires our cooperation. Those who voluntarily cooperate with Him through prayer and humbly seeking His way will be able to help others who are enduring the same kind of difficulties they are. This is God’s plan for us. This is how He remakes us into His spiritual image.

When God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), did He mean His anatomical image alone, or does this include His spiritual image? Since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50), that leaves us with God’s spiritual image: “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (verse 49).

God through Christ Jesus remakes us into His spiritual image through these steps: We are called by God, chosen by God, and finally we are helped to remain faithful to God.

Called of God

Jesus clearly identified His future resurrected saints—His true followers from this age—through three transformational steps: “Those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14, emphasis added throughout).

First God calls or draws us. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44, see also John 6:65).

God called Moses through the miracle of a burning bush (Exodus 3:2-10). The apostles were called through the teachings and example of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:1-3).

God’s calling is holy and unique (2 Timothy 1:9). We cannot, on our own, come to know God (Matthew 13:11). We can know God as He calls us to understand His truth that frees us from this world’s ways (John 8:32).

Let’s see how this works by using God’s Sabbath command as an example. The Bible is clear about God’s divinely instituted Sabbath day (Exodus 20:8-11). What’s not always clear is what the Sabbath means to Christians and what we should do about it. Jesus Himself observed the Sabbath day and even called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8). The apostles recognized that they should follow His example, so the early Church continued to observe the Sabbath day in accordance with Scripture (Exodus 20:8-11; Acts 13:14; Acts 13:42; Acts 13:44).

No wonder God commanded mankind to observe the Sabbath when we recognize it as a wonderful opportunity to connect with God and His Word, just as the early Church practiced. In a way the Sabbath is a weekly “calling,” where God’s people are called away from daily work and distractions to focus together on Him and His plan for them.

When God calls you and you commit to turning your life over to Him, you have the opportunity to be chosen by Him as you remain committed to faithfully obeying His laws.

Chosen by God

Those who respond to God’s calling begin to repent from breaking God’s laws (1 John 3:4). Simultaneously they exercise faith toward God by obeying His command to be baptized and have hands laid on them by one of God’s ministers.

When people repent, accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and resolve to obey Him, God responds by giving them the gift of His Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Acts 19:5-6). This is when God’s called become God’s chosen: “For many are called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16). God’s saints are sealed with His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Let’s see how Christ’s chosen are identified. As people are being called, they begin to learn more about God, His plan for them, and what He expects of them. If he or she begins to keep God’s commandments—to do His will—like the Sabbath command we discussed earlier, that person will be led to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). The disciple of Christ then becomes His friend, chosen to represent Him on this earth, “For all things that I [Jesus] heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

Finally, the chosen saint must faithfully endure to the end.

Faithful to God

God expects His saints to remain faithful to the end of their lives: “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13; see also Matthew 10:22).

God’s faithful people experience daily trials. We can grow weary continuing in God’s ways while living in a perverse and dangerous society (2 Timothy 3:1-7). If we’re not careful and vigilant, we can fall away from God (1 Corinthians 10:12). We must also avoid pride and cultivate godly humility, overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Jesus offers this question to the faithful: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Some won’t be faithful (Matthew 24:10). Others will (Revelation 3:10).

The resurrected saints who follow the descending Christ to the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:3-4) are those who were in this life called, then chosen, and remained faithful to Him (Revelation 17:14).

Are you God’s greatest miracle?

God’s amazing plan is to remake human beings into His spiritual image (1 John 3:1-3), to become His very children (Hebrews 2:10)! Then we can serve billions more human beings in Christ’s coming Kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:2).

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void [empty], but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11). God will save all who are willing to fully surrender their lives to Him to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4).

Will you answer God’s call today? If you will, you can become “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9; New International Version).

God’s glorious light is Christ Jesus, the light of the world (John 8:12; John 9:5) and the Sun of Righteousness to shine on us and bring needed change. He helps change the human mind to be like His mind (1 Corinthians 2:13-16)—so that you may be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).

You are now called to help others become a part of God’s greatest miracle of transforming human minds and hearts to become like His. Ultimately, “those who are wise [teachers] will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars [like the sun!] for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3, New International Version).

May you become one of God’s greatest miracles, beginning today!

Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles in Today’s World

This seven-day biblical festival gives you a preview of the coming wonderful age beyond today.

by Steve Myers

Have you ever heard of the Feast of Tabernacles? Did you know that Jesus Christ celebrated it in the first century? Did you know that, even today, thousands of Christians follow His example by observing it every year?

There is great significance to the Feast of Tabernacles for Christians today. We’ll take a look at what this festival means and why it’s so important to God that you observe it too.

We’ll examine why thousands of Christians the world over take time off of work and away from school to gather together, staying in temporary dwellings, to worship God and Jesus Christ. We’ll see how this biblical festival holds incredible meaning for all of mankind!

A vision of God’s Kingdom

Three of Jesus’ disciples were part of a life-changing event that’s recorded in the Gospels. You might be familiar with what happened, but most people don’t realize that it actually has everything to do with the Feast of Tabernacles.

Let’s notice the details of the event commonly called the Transfiguration. One day Jesus was talking to His disciples and said something incredible: “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power” (Mark 9:1).

No doubt they didn’t know how soon Jesus’ words would come true! “Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain . . . and He was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white . . . And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles’” (Mark 9:1-5, emphasis added throughout).

What an amazing event! In a vision, these disciples were suddenly whisked into the future to see Jesus Christ in His glory in His Kingdom!

Don’t miss Peter’s reaction. What did Peter associate with this vision? He said that they should make tabernacles.

What does that have to do with anything? Peter clearly related the Feast of Tabernacles to the idea of a tabernacle or a temporary dwelling. Why does this matter to Christians today? To answer that question, let’s look at a bit of background information.

A commanded celebration

In giving His laws to Moses, God said: “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation . . .’” (Leviticus 23:34-35).

You may be thinking that this is just an Old Testament thing for the Jews. It’s not. It’s a Christian thing! Do you realize that your Savior, Jesus Christ, set the example of observing this feast?

The book of John records this about Jesus and His brothers going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles: “But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, ‘Where is He?’ . . . Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught” (John 7:10-11; John 7:14).

Did you notice that everyone expected Jesus to be at the Feast of Tabernacles? Why? Because it was His lifelong practice to celebrate God’s festivals as required in God’s laws. Even when His life was threatened, He went to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles!

You see, Christ knew that this was a commanded yearly celebration, and it wasn’t intended just for the Jews. Leviticus 23 rightly calls the occasions listed here “the feasts of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:2). They weren’t just feasts for Israel or celebrations just for the Jews. Jesus set the example by showing they were for everyone and that they continue to be God’s festivals.

The early Church continued in Jesus’ example of celebrating the feasts. He celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles every year and taught about its great significance. Scripture instructs us that, as His followers, we are to walk as He walked—to live as He lived (Isaiah 25:6-7).

When God says we are to celebrate the feasts, He uses a Hebrew word that means “appointed times” or “appointments.” Do you realize that God has set up a number of appointments with you to keep? These are also called “holy convocations” or “sacred assemblies.” Jesus knew that we can learn valuable lessons by meeting, fellowshipping and observing the Feast together.

God tells us that we have a special appointment with Him at the Feast of Tabernacles. Now imagine that! God has given us all a unique invitation to a personal meeting with Him!

Why a celebration of tabernacles?

In order to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, God told the Israelites to do something that may seem strange to us. They were to observe the Feast with “tabernacles.” What does that mean?

A “tabernacle,” or “booth,” as it is also called, is a temporary sheltering structure, such as a tent or similar temporary dwelling. So the Feast was to be observed by leaving home and staying in such a dwelling.

Why is this part of celebrating the festival?

God said that it’s “so that generations to come may learn how I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:42-43).

Today, Christians observe the Feast by staying in modern temporary dwellings and assembling together to worship God and to hear the Bible being preached and taught.

Temporary dwellings remind us of part of the spiritual significance of the festival—that life is fleeting. We are strangers and pilgrims on this earth. That’s powerful symbolism! It points out that this world isn’t our real home—that we’re really citizens of God’s Kingdom.

Peter used this analogy when he thought back to that glimpse of Jesus Christ in his spiritual glory in the Kingdom of God at the transfiguration: “I consider it my duty, as long as I live in the temporary dwelling of this body, to stimulate you by these reminders” (2 Peter 1:12, J.B. Phillips New Testament).

Peter made the connection between the Kingdom of God and temporary dwellings! The Feast of Tabernacles reminds us of the temporary nature of our physical life, and it helps us to focus on what’s permanent—our goal for eternal life in God’s Kingdom.

A celebration of God’s care for us

Another lesson of the Feast is “that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43).

This hearkens back to Israel wandering in the barren desert—coming out of the present world to sojourn with God under His protection. In those harsh conditions, Israel had to totally depend on God. So what did God do? He was faithful to provide all of their needs. He quenched their thirst with clean water, He fed them with manna from heaven, and He even gave them quail to eat. It all showed His love and concern for His people when they needed Him most.

God’s great care for Israel should remind us of the great care God gives to us. We have the Creator and Sustainer of the universe providing for our daily needs. He takes specific interest in our lives. Beyond that, He provides what we needed most—a Savior who can give us eternal life. Christians should absolutely celebrate and honor our faithful God, who provides everything that we need.

The Feast itself is another thing God gives us as He provides for us spiritually. God says we shall gather to worship Him—and anything that God commands us is for our own benefit. He assures us that all the celebrations He’s instituted are important to Him. Again, He says they are “the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts” (Leviticus 23:2).

God’s festivals are part of how God cares for us by giving us special time to spend with Him. Jesus knew that we can learn valuable lessons by meeting, fellowshipping and observing these feasts together. It’s more than just a nice idea, more than an option, more than just good advice. God actually commands us to observe His Feast for our own good!

Isn’t it a blessing for God to give us a wonderful spiritual celebration that pleases and honors Him?

Celebrating a better world to come

We’ve covered some of the physical and spiritual concepts that observing the Feast of Tabernacles teaches us, like focusing on our real home in God’s Kingdom and God’s care for us in this life. But there’s one more lesson we can learn from this festival—and it’s the most important of all.

For the Israelites, the Feast of Tabernacles was a celebration of the large late summer and autumn harvest in the land of Israel. God blessed them with abundant crops. Behind the celebration of the harvest is an incredible spiritual lesson that foreshadows a large spiritual harvest. God has given us physical lessons to teach us spiritual truth.

This lesson points to why the feasts of the Lord are for all mankind, not just the Jews. The Feast of Tabernacles is a joyous time that pictures an ultimate joyous time after the return of Jesus Christ. Don’t you look forward to rejoicing when the current world, with all of its problems and tragedies, will be replaced by the prophesied Kingdom of God?

Jesus taught extensively about His Kingdom during his earthly ministry. When He returns, there will be a time of great spiritual harvest from every corner of the world as He brings the nations and peoples of the earth into the Kingdom of God to live under His righteous rule. The Feast of Tabernacles symbolizes that time when Jesus returns to directly rule the world for 1,000 years. It will be a time of unparalleled peace and harmony. It’s truly a wonderful reason to celebrate!

Bible prophecy tells us that “it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles” (Zechariah 14:16).

Imagine that: God tells us that the time is coming when the whole world will celebrate the Feast together!

At Christ’s return, the foundation will be in place for the restoration of all things to peace and harmony with God. The Feast of Tabernacles foreshadows a changed world when people will say: “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in his paths . . . 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 2:3-4).

At that time everyone in all nations will join in this yearly festival gathering. All people will learn God’s way of love. Through receiving God’s Holy Spirit, they will then be able to internalize God’s perfect way. Humanity will at last be restored to a right relationship with the Creator.

Celebrate the Feast!

The Feast of Tabernacles pictures an incredible time. The symbolism in this unique Christian festival is astounding, and the lessons will change the way you think about God’s plan for your life. Celebrating the Feast gives us a glimpse of the world beyond today—an incredible preview of the age to come. Take time to learn more about it. Don’t miss out on this wonderful spiritual opportunity. I hope you’ll make celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles a powerful statement of your faith.

Don’t underrate the significance of this festival in your life. You can begin to live God’s purpose for you today. Take this opportunity to be empowered by the Word of God and the special time set aside at the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s an important step in living a life in harmony with God’s way as you prepare for eternal life.

How Do Christians Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles Today?

by Beyond Today editor

To observe the seven days of the Feast and the Eighth Day that immediately follows, families gather in centralized locations for the entire festival. In the United Church of God, which produces Beyond Today magazine, members and their families travel to sites around the world to take part in the celebration. Large conference centers and facilities accommodate everyone so they can assemble together for daily worship services.

The Feast of Tabernacles focuses on a great time of spiritual renewal and a time of enjoyment with something for everyone, so daily services are centered around teaching the Word of God. Specifically, messages focus on the hope we have in the coming Kingdom of God and the role Christians play today in serving their King.

Because the Feast of Tabernacles occurs when vacations and school absences may not be common, members notify employers and schools well in advance of their plans. You can expect that the vast majority of teachers and employers will be cooperative and accommodating in the observance of the biblical festivals, especially in the United States.

In the rare instances of difficulty in getting off of work or school, or in countries where religious freedom isn’t guaranteed, you may have to take a stand for your beliefs. It’s only through trusting God and putting our trials into His hands that we experience the best blessings He has for our lives.

The Feast of Tabernacles is a special time that’s celebrated with great rejoicing. We’re told, “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days” (Leviticus 23:40).

The Feast is a wonderful and exciting part of a Christian life. To learn more about the Feast of Tabernacles and how to observe the biblical festivals with the United Church of God, go to www.ucg.org/what-is-the-feast-of-tabernacles. You can also contact the United Church of God minister closest to you. He would be happy to tell you more about the Feast of Tabernacles.

God’s Feast-Steps of Salvation

Few people know that the Bible reveals seven festivals that were kept by Jesus Christ and the early Church and how these festivals show the way God is working out His plan for mankind!

by Mario Seiglie

Jesus Christ promised that in the future His disciples would receive special power to understand and remember the spiritual concepts He had taught them.

He told them: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit . . . the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26, New Revised Standard Version).

He later added: “I have much more to say to you, but right now it would be more than you could understand. The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth” (John 16:12-13, Contemporary English Version).

After Christ’s death and resurrection, when the disciples received the Holy Spirit on the biblical Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), this new power helped them to understand the spiritual meaning and depth of Jesus’ sayings.

The true spiritual significance of Passover

One such case was the meaning of the symbols of the Passover ceremony, which He spoke to them about in the last Passover they observed with Him just before His arrest and crucifixion.

He had said, “‘With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’

“Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me’” (Luke 22:15-19, emphasis added throughout).

They came to realize that the annual Passover remembrance now had a new meaning—that of remembering Christ’s sacrifice until He returns.

Notice that He told them to observe it not only just then, or just until some future generation of Christians would change and replace it with Easter, but until He came back to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.

This is why the apostle Paul instructed the Corinthian church to continue celebrating the Passover, but now with the newly highlighted symbols and spiritual significance Jesus Christ had conveyed to His followers.

Paul told them: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

Paul had understood this connection and therefore called the feasts of God “a shadow of things to come” (Colossians 2:17). Bear in mind they are a shadow of not only things that are now past, but of things still to come, for their meanings have not yet been totally fulfilled.

He could thus say to the Corinthians about this underlying meaning of Passover, “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

The spiritual importance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread

The same realization came to the early Christians with the next festival commanded in the Bible in Leviticus 23—the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They discovered its spiritual meaning.

For example, Paul likewise explained to the Corinthian brethren about the spiritually deeper significance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He wrote to them, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (Leviticus 23:8).

Here Paul is comparing the leavened bread that was to be avoided on those seven days of the feast with sin—“malice and wickedness”—while equating the unleavened bread that was to be eaten during this time with the godly virtues of “sincerity and truth,” which is what Christians are now to put into their lives.

How thrilling it must have been for the apostles and members of the early Church to discover the deeper spiritual meaning and significance of each of the biblical feasts—just as we still can today!

Keeping the biblical feasts with Christian understanding

Next, the early Christians also connected Pentecost to the receiving of the Holy Spirit on that very same day, for this was when the Church received the Holy Spirit for the first time (Acts 2:1-4). And as shown in the book of Acts, the Church continued to keep God’s feasts throughout this whole period of time (Acts 12:3-4; Acts 20:6; Acts 20:16; Acts 27:9; 1 Corinthians 16:8).

As The Encyclopedia Britannica states: “The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals [as found in the Bible in Leviticus 23], though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb . . . continued to be observed . . .” (11th edition, Vol. 8, p. 828, “Easter”).

So here, in short order, are God’s steps of salvation as revealed through His feasts found in the Bible. They are shown graphically as steps progressing upward, as more knowledge, understanding and experience are acquired. They show each step is necessary to complete before taking the next one. The whole gist of the Bible can be found in them, from righteous Abel (Matthew 23:35), the first faithful follower of God whose story is found in Genesis, to the final people who are eventually saved, which is described in the book of Revelation.

It is a worthwhile study to go over each scripture below and relate it to the chart at https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-magazine/gods-feast-steps-of-salvation

Steps in God’s plan of salvation

The first step of God’s salvation plan deals with the meaning of the Passover and what conversion is all about. This process is called justification in the Bible, where we are to develop “fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8), also described in these three scriptures Romans 5:1-3; Roman 8:30 and Titus 3:3-7.

The second step is concerned with the Days of Unleavened Bread and the concept of separation or coming out from sin and the false values of the world. As Jesus said of His followers: “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:16-17). This process commences prior to repentance, but significantly advances following repentance.

The third step has to do with Pentecost and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. This greatly enables the process of sanctification, being set apart to God, through having God’s Spirit in us. Paul said, “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Romans 8:7).

The Bible shows that receiving this Spirit comes from the laying on of hands by God’s ministry: “Then Paul said, ‘John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them . . .” (Acts 19:4-6).

Next comes the fourth step dealing with the Feast of Trumpets and the second coming of Christ. This is when the resurrection and glorification of God’s saints—His sanctified or set apart people (all true Christians as well as all faithful believers of Old Testament times)—will take place. The apostle Paul described it this way: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

Notice that here, and in a parallel passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Paul states this will happen at the sound of the last trumpet—connecting it to the biblical Feast of Trumpets.

Then follows the fifth step represented by the Day of Atonement and the binding of Satan for 1,000 years. This begins the process of purification of the earth from its thousands of years of moral and spiritual corruption. Satan will be bound and locked away so he will no longer be able to spiritually deceive the nations as he has done throughout human history.

As Revelation 20:2-3 says prophetically, “He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.”

The sixth step entails the Feast of Tabernacles and Jesus Christ establishing the Kingdom of God on earth for a thousand years. This begins the process of beautification of the world when the curse over the plants and animals will be removed and the earth will abound in fruitfulness and beauty.

We read in Isaiah 11:6-7 about this transformation: “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 seventh step covers the period of the Great White Throne Judgment, called the Eighth Day or Last Great Day, which deals with the time when the great majority of the earth’s dead will be resurrected and will come to know God for the first time. Described in Revelation 20:11-13, this will be a time of evaluation, with the Bible as the standard and their instruction book, while the Book of Life is opened to them to be inscribed in if they accept Christ as their Savior and go through the feast-steps of salvation.

As Paul said, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). One day, this will occur!

Finally, at the completion of the feast-steps, God the Father will come down with the New Jerusalem and dwell with His glorified children. This is when all of the saved of mankind enter into eternity as God’s children dwelling together with Him as His family forever. As Revelation 21:3-7 says of this time:

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away . . . He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.’”

What a wonderful plan of God we have in front of us! It is the great gift of God the Father and Jesus Christ to all of us. So, where are we now in this plan? Isn’t it time you looked into these biblical festivals and what they have to teach us about God’s plan?

Lessons From the Parables: Are You a Wise and Watching Christian?

Matthew 25 records Jesus Christ’s parable of the wise and foolish virgins. What lessons did He intend us to learn from it?

by Darris McNeely

Have you ever run out of gas and found yourself stranded on the side of the road? Once I was rushing to a meeting when we ran out of gas. The irony was that we had just pulled out of a gas station where we had stopped to make a phone call. We drove a mile down the road when the car sputtered to a halt. It was frustrating, but I learned a valuable lesson.

This reminds me of a song from the 1970s titled “Running on Empty.” The song’s theme was that we get very busy and don’t know we may be close to empty in a lot of ways. Could you or I be “running on empty”?

On several occasions Jesus Christ told His disciples to “watch” for His coming because we wouldn’t know the day or the hour. Learning the fine art of “watching” that we might follow His instruction requires that we not run out of gas. We have to learn to watch the gauge.

How do we learn to wait and watch?

One of Christ’s parables gives us the key to learn how to “watch” and to be ready when He returns in glory. Known as the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, it’s found in Matthew 25.

The previous chapter, Matthew 24, is a very detailed prophecy Jesus gave about the world events leading to His second coming. This parable is a continuation of the prophecy, telling us what we must do in light of what He says about His return. So let’s look at this parable to understand how we can watch and wait with godly patience for the coming of the Lord.

“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom” (Matthew 25:1). The disciples listening to this would know what Christ meant. The image comes right out of the marriage customs of the time. When the husband-to-be had finished preparing the place he and his bride would live, he would come for her to escort her to the wedding. Shouts of “the bridegroom is coming!” would echo through the village as he came for his bride. Excitement would build as people gathered for the wedding festivity and the procession moved through the streets.

“Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps” (Matthew 25:2-4). By tradition the bridegroom would come at night, which is why the virgins needed their lamps. A lamp in this ancient setting was a small hand-held clay lamp, which used olive oil as its fuel. Without oil it gave no light. Five of the virgins prepared ahead and had enough oil to light their path, while five were foolish in not having oil.

In the Bible, olive oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Like the oil, God’s Holy Spirit comes from a source apart from the individual. The Holy Spirit comes from God. It then resides in a person and is a power to produce good fruit of conduct and character. The Holy Spirit dwelling in a person is the key to being a Christian (Romans 8:9; 1 John 3:24).

In the parable the presence or absence of the Holy Spirit is the hinge on which the lesson hangs. Five of these ten virgins lack the Holy Spirit of God to lead them. Five do have the Spirit and are prepared to meet the bridegroom as he arrives.

Traditionally, friends of the bridegroom would precede the coming of the bridegroom, saying, “The bridegroom is coming!” This would be done at night under the idea that the groom was coming to steal the bride away. The bride would be with her bridesmaids waiting. This would be one of the signs of warning that the coming of the groom was near. So there was a high anticipation and expectation along with the uncertainty of exactly when he would arrive.

An unexpected delay

The parable continues, “But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept” (Matthew 25:5). All 10 virgins slept, even the wise who had the oil. The virgins represent the people of God’s Church, and here is a strong admonition for the Church to stay awake and alert spiritually.

The apostle Paul shed further light on what it means to fight against spiritual drowsiness: “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them . . . But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief . . . Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6).

Reading this parable should remind us that we are all susceptible to neglecting our salvation. Each of us can be caught up with the cares of the world and begin to slip spiritually. We can lose sight of just how vigilant a Christian must be. We can all fall asleep and be caught unaware.

I’m reminded of this every time a significant world event occurs that might bear on Bible prophecy. People “wake up” and pay attention to the news and wonder, “What does this mean?” When the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred, my phone rang off the hook with calls from people who were startled and wondered if that attack might fit into the Bible’s prophetic framework. Churches were filled for the next few weeks. But after the event passed, life returned to normal. If we are not careful, we fall asleep.

Jesus then shows what happens when we fall asleep spiritually: “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps” (Matthew 25:6-7). Each oil lamp had a wick that had to be trimmed to work effectively. But it would not burn without fuel. The five foolish had their lamps and trimmed the wicks, but they had no oil. This shows that we can have part of the picture but still be missing a key part.

“And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves’” (Matthew 25:8-9).

Oil in the ancient world was a valuable commodity. Each person had to ensure his or her supplies were adequate. You couldn’t rely on another for this resource. So it is with the Holy Spirit—the most valuable commodity and power one can have. You cannot rely on your friend, your spouse or anyone else to provide you with the Holy Spirit. It is between you and God.

Some are shut out

Character is crucial at critical moments. If you don’t have it you lose out. The courage and insight we need to make wise decisions must be cultivated and maintained so that what’s needed at the time of crisis is in your mind and heart beforehand. Being led by God’s Spirit is the key difference between success and failure.

The foolish virgins were told to go and buy the oil they had neglected to have with them. “And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut” (Matthew 25:10). The foolish were not ready for the bridegroom’s appearance. To leave and try to buy oil at that time was a critical mistake. They were caught unaware. The bridegroom came, and they were left behind.

The sound of a shutting door carries a somber note of finality. The bridegroom has come to marry his bride. The wedding is set. At any wedding ceremony there is a realization that all has been prepared and a new life begins. When Jesus Christ returns and takes the Church as His bride there will come a moment when all the work of preparation will culminate in the marriage of the ages.

The lesson from this parable is to prepare now while you still have time. Those who did not prepare are not allowed to enter the wedding. “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you’” (Matthew 25:11-12).

Of all the words Christ could say to anyone, “I do not know you” may be the most tragic. Yet this parable and other scriptures show us a moment of justice waits. Our life’s work will be evaluated. God is patient and merciful, but He is also a God of judgment.

Christ’s concluding statement in this parable brings us back to what we have to do now: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Matthew 25:13).

The return of Christ is an event we know will come but not when. We have to watch. We have to watch our lives, watch our world and let the nature of the times and events spur us on to overcoming and living godly lives every minute of every day.

Are you a wise and watching Christian?

Follow Me: Don’t You Know Christ Is in You?

Was the close connection first-century Christians had with the Father and Christ only for that time? Or is it for us today as well?

by Robin Webber

American news anchorman and journalist Tom Brokaw’s insightful book The Greatest Generation depicts the lives of courageous men and women who experienced the Great Depression and World War II.

Those of younger generations marvel at how their parents and grandparents’ lives were upended and transformed. Brokaw intimately chronicles what constituted that generation’s moral fiber, which enabled them to persevere and overcome.

Likewise, Christians often marvel at the spiritual attributes and deeds of first-century believers. That spiritual generation is often considered the “greatest generation” in terms of sacrifice, valor and accomplishing incredible spiritual outcomes.

But does our Heavenly Father have a “greatest generation” of followers, or does He share the means of His perfecting work with every generation of believers? The answer amazingly resides inside of us as to how every follower of every generation may successfully embrace Christ’s invitation of “Follow Me.”

It’s like He never left!

We might ask, “How near, and how inside, and most importantly what or who is inside us?” Let’s consider Jesus’ parting words of encouragement to His disciples on the night before He died: “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:18-20, emphasis added throughout).

Did you note the connective triple emphasis of “in,” “in” and “in”?

What’s the big meaning behind the tiny word “in”? Jesus made a deeply personal promise to them that night. Even after His ascension to heaven, His early followers never dismissed His literal presence with them. They took Him at His word.

Every aspect of their ministry and personal lives demonstrated His intimacy and connection with them in every turn of life. They called on those who heard their message to not merely believe on Jesus, but to encounter the One who died, rose again and lives forever and to personally experience Him like they did on an ongoing intimate basis.

The early followers understood that Christ’s resurrection and ascension marked a transition in how He performed the ministry of salvation committed to Him by God the Father. The events recorded in the New Testament are a continuing story of Jesus’ literal work through others by new and extraordinary means.

The Son of God dynamically operates without human limitations through a new collective spiritual body of which He is the Head—that is, the Church, His called-out assembly of followers (Ephesians 1:22-23).

His followers would thereby become His tongue to speak His truths. They would become His arms and hands to reach out to others in need. They would become His feet to carry the good news of salvation throughout the world and beyond. Isn’t our calling just the same?

“In” means in!

The apostle Paul dramatically challenges followers of all generations to consider the dynamic reality of Christ’s words: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Far too often, we can diminish the divine impact of this plain statement and its significance by relegating it to a metaphorical inference rather than making it the intended weighty anchor of our existence.

Jesus clearly alluded to this early on in His earthly ministry in declaring how His followers would worship God in a new way. Before His coming as a man, Israel and later the Jews had been guided by God through a presence in a burning bush, through a pillar of cloud and fire, through the words of angels and prophets, and through the transitory coming and going of His Spirit over the ages.

“But,” said Jesus, “the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship must worship Him in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Here, Christ points us to a new realm of experience.

Paul later builds on these words, writing: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit [that] dwells in you” (Romans 8:9-11).

The Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Christ is the same Holy Spirit—the same Spirit that can live in us as believers.

Now let’s connect some thoughts to fully understand what the gift of the Holy Spirit truly is. God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16; Revelation 15:3-4). Christ is holy (Acts 2:26-27; 4:30). And both God the Father and Jesus Christ are Spirit (John 4:23-24; Romans 8:9-11).

The plain biblical truth is that God’s miraculous gift to us is that He has placed His very essence, what He is—Spirit (Holy Spirit)—in us. The definition of essence is the fundamental nature, substance or special quality that distinguishes something—in this case God. In putting Their essence into us, the Father and Christ become actually present within us.

You are the temple of God!

Paul made this amazing statement: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? . . . The temple of God is holy, which temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

Now we come to understand Christ’s proclamation that the day would come when His followers would not go from one mountain of worship to another. God has elected to fill us with the divine presence—the presence of the Father and Christ through the Holy Spirit—on our voluntary surrender.

Is it any wonder, then, that Paul could state, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). He doesn’t merely state, “I’m Christlike” or “My behavior matches Christ.” The Spirit of God within us works to convert us so we can “walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6)—to live just as He lived.

Paul further stated in Colossians 1:27 that our Heavenly Father’s very will is “to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Compare the riches of the glory of the mystery here with 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness [physically back in Genesis 1], who has shone in our hearts [spiritually] to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels [physical bodies], that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

It’s this understanding that enabled first-century Christians to seize the opportunities and surmount the challenges of their day. And it’s this revelation that continues to enable every person who heeds Jesus’ invitation of “Follow Me” to stay on the journey set before us.

The disciples came to trust Jesus’ promise that “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18) and to understand that He didn’t merely mean His literal future return to the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but as our personal Shepherd now—the Great Shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20).

He is a Shepherd in whom we shall not be in want or have to reach for—because He is in us, embedded where neither man or external events can reach. For God has elected to work and develop His new creation from the inside out.

It’s the same today as it was then. The reality of the Christian saga down through the ages is that God doesn’t have one special “greatest generation.” After all, He shows no partiality (Acts 10:34), and we are all His direct children (1 John 3:9-10), not generations removed from Him and one another in a spiritual sense. And He has literally placed the essence of His Son’s righteousness in all His true followers to guide and keep us as we acknowledge and heed that presence.

When God gave His Son the name of Immanuel—“God with Us” (Isaiah 7:14), little could people of old imagine the depth of God’s intention that the Messiah would not simply be a companion walking beside us, but living inside us to enable our Heavenly Father to perfect us.

When the cares of this life make us want to abandon the invitation of “Follow Me,” just remember Paul’s challenge to consider, “Don’t you know Christ is in you?” Such a gift! Such an assurance! And with opportunity comes responsibility, as we’ll see next time.

Mini-Study Series: Bible Prophecy and You: Amazing Examples of Prophecies Already Fulfilled

God is the all-powerful Creator of the universe who has a master plan, who determines future events and then brings them to pass—exactly in every detail, and exactly on time!

by Beyond Today editor

Welcome to the fifth lesson in the “Bible Prophecy and You” series.

With this lesson, we hope to whet your appetite for a subject not only exciting but very profitable spiritually. It will strengthen your faith in God and your faith in the Bible as the infallible revelation of God!

As you learn how Bible prophecies of events that are now in the past were fulfilled in exact detail, you will come to fully trust and believe in the prophecies of yet future events that will take place!

The mission of God’s prophets was more about preaching repentance and obedience than about foretelling future events. They defined good and evil and explained the outcomes. But their prophecies and how they were fulfilled are truly inspiring.

Every fulfilled prophecy exalts and glorifies God! He is the all-powerful Creator of the universe who has a master plan, who determines future events and then brings them to pass—exactly in every detail, and exactly on time!

All fulfilled prophecies are amazing. Only God can truly foretell the future because only He has the power to make what He foretells come to pass (Isaiah 46:9-11).

Bible prophecy begins with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

In the midst of the beautiful garden stood two trees. God had warned the first human couple not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the devil, speaking through a serpent, convinced Eve that God was lying and withholding good things from them.

“‘You won’t die!’ the serpent hissed. ‘God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil’” (Genesis 3:4-5, New Living Translation).

Eve believed the lie. She and Adam both chose to disobey their Creator, so God took away the idyllic blessings of life in the Garden of Eden and their opportunity to then partake of the tree representing eternal life. God also foretold that they—and all mankind after them—would have much more difficulty in this life with their relationships, childbearing, farming, earning a livelihood and many related problems (Genesis 3:16-19; Genesis 3:22-24). All mankind shares in these curses because “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23).

Yet in the judgment God decreed for Satan, He hinted at His plan for the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:19-21). He told the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed [Jesus Christ]; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Bruising the heel of the woman’s Seed was metaphorical of Christ’s crucifixion and death, which could not hold Him. After three days and three nights He was raised from the dead. Christ’s sacrifice provided the way to remove the penalties of sin, and after Christ’s second coming, He will remove these curses from the earth.

A sampling of prophecies already fulfilled

No human being can “see” the future on his or her own. The best anybody can do in that regard is make an educated guess. God’s prophets (sometimes called “seers”) were allowed to see into the future through God’s revelation—whether by word or vision. And they relayed what God revealed. Fulfilled prophecies therefore prove the supreme divinity of God and the absolute veracity and validity of the Bible.

Bible prophecies have revealed the details of the two greatest world events, one in the past and one in the future. These events are the first coming of Jesus Christ and His second coming! We will focus on these in future lessons in this series.

The current lesson contains a very small sample of the hundreds of other prophesied events that have already happened.

Did God foretell a catastrophic flood that would destroy the entire earth?

“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord . . .

“‘And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish My covenant with you [Noah]; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you’” (Genesis 6:5-8; Genesis 6:17-18).

Because of the extreme evil that pervaded the earth, God said that a worldwide flood would destroy every human being except Noah and his family. God called Noah to build an ark and at the same time to be a “preacher of righteousness,” warning the people to repent of their sins (2 Peter 2:5).

Genesis 6:3 appears to mean that God announced His plan 120 years before the Flood, which would mean that Noah had 120 years to warn people. This is a remarkable example of how God is merciful and “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). But then, at last, the Flood came.

Confirmation of this event comes through Jesus Christ, the prophets and the apostles all referring to Noah and the Flood as facts of history. Abundant geological evidence also testifies of a worldwide flood. (For more information, search for “Noah’s Flood: Did It Really Happen?” at ucg.org/learnmore.) We can learn great spiritual lessons from this series of events including one that Jesus explained in Matthew 24:37-39.

Did God foretell enormous blessings for the descendants of Abraham?

“Now the Lord had said to Abram [later renamed Abraham]: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’” (Genesis 12:1-3).

“And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘This one [a servant born in Abram’s house] shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.’ Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Genesis 15:4-5).

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.’

“Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.

“‘I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God’” (Genesis 17:1-8).

“Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice’” (Genesis 22:15-18).

God foretold that Abraham would have a son in his old age and his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and that he would “be a father of many nations.” The fulfillment of the many promises given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a big and exciting subject in itself. For a full explanation, please download or request our free study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy.

God also gave a vital spiritual promise to Abraham. When God said in Genesis 22:18 and 26:4 that “in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” He was primarily foretelling the blessings to come through one descendant—the singular “Seed,” Jesus Christ—who would be the “Savior of the world” (Galatians 3:16; 1 John 4:14). God gave this prophecy almost 1,900 years before the birth of Jesus!

Did God tell Abraham that over the course of 400 years his descendants would be sojourners and later enslaved in a foreign land and then liberated to “come out with great possessions”?

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions” (Genesis 15:13-14, New International Version).

This amazing prophecy undoubtedly triggered many big questions in the mind of Abraham: Why and how will they become enslaved? How will God deliver them? How will they be able to come out of slavery with great possessions?

The prophecy was fulfilled by Abraham’s descendants migrating to Egypt, later becoming enslaved there, and eventually being delivered by God under the leadership of Moses. The liberation of the Israelites is described in the book of Exodus (see especially Exodus 3:20-22).

Did God tell Moses that He would use many mighty miracles to bring Israel out of Egypt and bring them to a wonderful Promised Land?

“And the Lord said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites . . .

“‘But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go’” (Exodus 3:7-8; Exodus 3:19-20).

“Now the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son’s son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord’” (Exodus 10:1-2).

Yes, and He did all that He promised to do! He crushed the mighty power of Egypt, liberated the Israelites and led them out of Egypt. He provided for the Israelites in a desolate wilderness for 40 years and then helped them conquer the land of Canaan. These were incredibly miraculous and spectacular events foretold ahead of time!

The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua are largely devoted to these events, and they are referred to frequently throughout the Bible. Exactly according to His purpose and plan, God used innumerable miracles to show that great national and military prowess is nothing compared to His supreme power.

Did God foretell that the kingdom of Israel would be conquered and its people deported because of their sins?

“For the Lord will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their wooden images, provoking the Lord to anger. And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin” (1 Kings 14:15-16).

After Solomon’s death, the northern 10 tribes of Israel broke away from Judah to form the kingdom of Israel (Judah along with Benjamin constituting the southern kingdom of Judah). Israel’s king Jeroboam led the new nation away from God’s laws into idolatry. Therefore God inspired the prophet Ahijah to foretell that God would “uproot Israel” and scatter its people “beyond the River,” that is, the Euphrates to the northeast. Rising in power beyond it was Assyria, which would be God’s instrument for punishing Israel.

God “testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, ‘Turn from your evil ways’” (2 Kings 17:13). After God’s prophets warned Israel for about 200 years, the king of Assyria besieged Israel’s capital city of Samaria for three years, conquered it in 722 B.C. and “carried Israel away to Assyria,” where its people were scattered among other nations (2 Kings 17:5-7, 23).

Most of the world today considers the Israelites carried away captive and their descendants "the Lost Ten Tribes.” Yet they are not truly “lost,” as you can learn from our free study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy.

Did God foretell that the kingdom of Judah would be conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and carried into captivity in Babylon for 70 years because of their sins, but that then they would be freed to return to their homeland?

“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

“‘Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

“‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation’” (Jeremiah 25:8-12).

“For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10).

These amazingly specific prophecies were indeed fulfilled precisely. For more than 300 years, God sent prophets to warn the kingdom of Judah about her sins, but those warnings were mostly ignored. The 70-year span refers to multiple things: a 70-year duration of the Babylonian Empire, a 70-year captivity of Judah before some returned and a 70-year period without a functioning temple in Jerusalem. These are not all the same 70 years, but they greatly overlap. (To learn more, search for “Seventy Years; Judgment on the Nations” at ucg.org/learnmore.)

The fall of Babylon will be addressed by the last question in this lesson. The proclamation that freed the Jewish captives is described in 2 Chronicles 36:20-23.

Did God use a dream of Nebuchadnezzar to foretell four successive great empires, followed by the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth?

“This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold.

“But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

“Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

“And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure” (Daniel 2:36-45).

You can read the entire second chapter of Daniel to get the full context. God inspired Daniel to correctly interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about a great human-shaped image made up of different metals. Daniel told the king “you are this head of gold” (Daniel 2:38), so Babylon was the first empire in the sequence.

Then during the reign of the Babylonian King Belshazzar, Daniel had a vision that revealed that the next two world-ruling empires would be the kingdom of “Media and Persia” and then the kingdom of “Greece,” which would split into four divisions (Daniel 8:1-8; Daniel 8:20-22).

The next great empire in history to follow these was the Roman Empire with its successive revivals. Most Bible scholars agree with this interpretation of the four parts of the image, as a comparison with history makes it rather obvious.

The really exciting part of the prophecy is that all these human kingdoms will be replaced someday when “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44-45). It’s awesome that in this one chapter God gave an outline of the next 2,500 plus years down to the second coming of Christ to establish God’s Kingdom!

Did God foretell about 150 years in advance who by name would conquer Babylon, set the Jewish captives free and even enable them to return and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple?

“. . . Who confirms the word of His servant, and performs the counsel of His messengers; who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’ to the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’ and I will raise up her waste places; who says to the deep, ‘Be dry! And I will dry up your rivers’; who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, and he shall perform all My pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” and to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid”’” (Isaiah 44:26-28).

“Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held—to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut: ‘I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.

“‘For Jacob My servant’s sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other . . .’” (Isaiah 45:1-6).

“‘I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build My city and let My exiles go free, not for price nor reward,’ says the Lord of hosts” Isaiah 45:13).

Isaiah records God foretelling the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple before they were even destroyed! He foretold the freeing of the Jewish captives before they were taken into captivity! He foretold the name of Cyrus long before he was even born!

God even said, “I will dry up your rivers” (Isaiah 44:27), a prophecy of Cyrus’ strategy—to divert the waters of the Euphrates so his soldiers could wade up the riverbed into the city of Babylon to capture it. God even foretold that someone would unlock the “double doors” or “gates” facing the river on that night (45:1). Part of the fulfillment of God’s prophecies was Cyrus’ proclamation to rebuild God’s temple (see Ezra 1:1-4). To learn more, search for “Prophecy of Cyrus—Past and Future Fulfillment” at ucg.org/learnmore.

The theme of chapters 40 through 48 of Isaiah is that foretelling the future is a major proof of God’s unique and supreme power. The detailed prophecies regarding Cyrus show how God has absolute dominion over His creation! God sums this up well in the prophecy of Cyrus in Isaiah 46:11 (which also speaks in a dual sense of the future coming of Christ): “Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.”

Apply Now

Write down three spiritual lessons you learned from these prophecies and their fulfillments. As a result, this lesson will have an even deeper effect on you and will be a more lasting blessing for your life. We also encourage you to read our free study guide Is The Bible True? You can download or request it at ucg.org/booklets.

Are You Running on Fumes?

If your fuel tank is running so low that you’re running on fumes, you may be in danger in more ways than one!

by Peter Eddington

In 1981 I bought a high-mileage car that got about nine miles to the gallon. I was a college student at the time, and I bought the car from another broke student for $50.

This was quite a unique car. The engine was worn out and the transmission had problems. The tires had little tread left on them. But, as a poor student, it was invaluable.

One dollar of gas

Being a student meant that cash was rather limited. So, whenever I bought gas, I‘d usually put in only one dollar’s worth. Gas was around 59 cents a gallon then, so I got about 1½ gallons of gas. Afterwards, the fuel gauge still showed empty, but I knew I could get about 12 to 15 miles on that dollar.

How do you think that worked? I could take my girlfriend at the time, Terri (now my wife), out to get a hamburger or an occasional dessert. But after about two round trips I knew I’d be out of gas. A few times the engine misfired as it gasped for gasoline, but by shaking the steering wheel or pumping the brakes I could get the gasoline to find the bottom of the gas tank and pump a few more ounces into the engine, as we coasted to the nearest gas station.

Terri and I dated like this for two years. But the inevitable happened. Twice I miscalculated my mileage and ran out of gas.

I was running that car literally on fumes! Such is the life of a college student, thousands of miles from home, on a strict, limited budget.

So what’s the point here? What can we discover about ourselves? It’s one thing to run a car on fumes, but what about our spiritual life? Can we afford to just put in one dollar of gas at a time? Can we really go day-to-day running on fumes?

How serious are we about developing our relationship with God? Are we putting in a few cents’ worth at a time, or do we fill up our tank?

Your oil lamp

What scriptures come to mind in this regard? Is there an example of fuel tanks running on empty?

Jesus drew such a comparison in Matthew 25, saying: “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

“But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’

“Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’

“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (verses 1-13).

The lesson for us today—the warning for us today—is don’t let your lamp run out of fuel. Don’t run the risk of running on fumes and having your lamp burn out altogether!

This applies to us being filled with the Holy Spirit, and it also applies to everything else with which we need to fill our minds.

Keep a full tank!

Is your tank depleted? I know that mine runs close to empty sometimes if I’m not careful. But we have to refill it regularly. We have to top off our spiritual tanks. And that comes from prayer and Bible study.

Don’t run on fumes! Otherwise you’re in danger of your engine stopping, and you’ll be turning to others and asking them to fill your tank, and they’ll say, “No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.” And then the bridegroom will come and the door will shut before you have time to get back with your fuel, your oil—your full measure of God’s Holy Spirit. (Be sure to read “Are You a Wise and Watching Christian?” .)

We cannot run on fumes. Our lamps must be full of oil. Our prayer to God and study of His Word must go deep and be filling our lives. It’s a good reminder to us all as we step up to the challenges of life and prepare for our Father’s Kingdom.

Don’t run on spiritual fumes. Keep a full tank!

Current Events & Trends

An overview of events and conditions around the world.

by Scott Ashley, Tom Robinson, Milan Bizic, Mitch Moss and Rudy Rangel

Current Events & Trends: Islamic State explains to West: “Why We Hate You”

by Scott Ashley

The leaders of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) are nothing if not accomplished advocates and propagandists for their cause. In addition to glitzy videos regularly distributed via social media, they produce an eye-catching color online magazine, Dabiq—named after a town in northern Syria where, according to Islamic writings, Muslim armies will meet and defeat the forces of the West in an Armageddon-like battle leading to Islamic rule over the entire world.

The issue published in July 2016, titled “Break the Cross,” encourages Christians to do exactly that—arguing that this is what Jesus Himself (whom they  call Isa and believe to be a true Muslim) will do at His return (along with converting the world to Islam). The cover shows an Islamic State fighter breaking a cross from the top of a church building.

The magazine urges Christians to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, since Jesus himself was “a slave of Allah” who upon returning to earth will “wage jihad” upon all non-Muslims.

The magazine’s editorial explains why Westerners—including “pagan Christians,” “liberal secularists” and “skeptical atheists”—“must abandon their infidelity and accept Islam, the religion of sincerity and submission to the Lord of the heavens and the earth.” It states that recent terror attacks that killed and injured more than 600 should cause those in the West “to pause and contemplate the reasons behind the animosity and enmity held by Muslims for Westerners”—enmity rooted in the West’s refusal to worship Allah and submit to him (Islam means “submission [to Allah]”).

An article titled “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You” mocks Western political and religious leaders who say the Islamic State is not Islamic. “Muslims have been commanded to terrorize the disbelieving enemies of Allah,” it explains. “One would think that the average Westerner, by now, would have abandoned the tired claim that the actions of the mujahidin [martyrs for the cause of Islam] . . . don’t make sense.”

It goes on to explain that politicians will say the actions of the Islamic State have nothing to do with Islam “regardless of how much it stands in opposition to facts and common sense just to garner as many votes as they can for the next election cycle.”

The article blasts Western media for the lie that the attacks on Westerners are not Islamic, saying “the analysts and journalists will say it in order to keep themselves from becoming a target for saying something that the masses deem to be ‘politically incorrect’ . . . It’s foolish, but they keep repeating it regardless because they’re afraid of the consequences of deviating from the script.” (Source: Dabiqmagazine).

Current Events & Trends: Fallout from Turkey’s failed coup

by Milan Bizic

Since 1923, following the successful Turkish War of Independence after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire of the Turks in World War I, the Republic of Turkey was organized according to the vision of one man—Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk’s vision for the future of Turkey was in stark contrast to its past reality. Instead of the former theocratic sultanate, in which the Islamic religion informed policy, Ataturk envisioned an entirely secular society with secular laws. Rather than being under the thumb of a multi-ethnic empire or foreign occupying powers, Ataturk envisioned a Turkey in which Turks controlled their own national destiny.

Turkey has even been incorporated into the West as a key member of the NATO alliance, but its dreams of becoming part of the European Union have not been realized.

The recent history of the Turkish Republic under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pronouncedER-doh-ahn, with a silent g) shows that Ataturk’s vision of a purely secular, democratic Turkey may not reach its 100th birthday. Over time President Erdogan has, at the very least, dissolved the veneer of secularism and allowed an Islamist element to take root in Turkey’s government and civil life.

This Islamization process was begun by Erdogan a number of years back, as we detailed in a March-April 2013 article (search for “Will the World See a New Caliphate?” at ucg.org to gain that context). Despite this he has been greatly hailed by U.S. President Barack Obama—Erdog˘an being his go-to colleague for advice on direction to take in the region.

Now, following the recent failed coup by some members of the nation’s military (which has preserved the secular state against Islamization in the past), Turkey’s government is engaging in a vast program to identify and punish those not only suspected of aiding the coup attempt, but also those who have been critical of Erdogan.

Robert Pearson, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, in an op-ed for news aggregator RealClear World, wrote: “More than 50,000 people have been arrested, fired, suspended, or told to resign. The ranks of the expelled include judges, university deans, teachers, police, and military officers . . . Meanwhile, U.S.-Turkey relations will likely become even more difficult than they were before the coup attempt” (“Turkey’s Downward Spiral,” July 26, 2016).

Erdogan is blaming Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim preacher who promotes interfaith tolerance, for ordering the coup, and Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for him. Gulen strongly denies any involvement. Many have expressed suspicion that Erdogan staged his own coup as a way to purge out those who don’t support him and his agenda. While we don’t know that, it’s true that there were a number of oddities in what happened (Noah Daponte-Smith, “Conspiracy Theorists Will Be Busy for Years,” NationalReview.com, July 18, 2016).

In any case, it is clear that Erdogan is using the coup attempt for his own ends. In an article at the CATO Institute, Doug Bandow says: “Unfortunately, as I wrote for Forbes, ‘the botched coup is likely to act like the infamous Reichstag fire under the Nazis and accelerate the Erdogan government’s race to the dictatorial bottom. He is likely to become more vindictive and paranoid—because he does have enemies everywhere. “Never mind that he bears responsibility for the authoritarian policies and corrupt practices which have energized his most fervent opponents’” (“Turkey’s Coup Provides Reichstag Fire Moment for Authoritarian Erdogan,” July 18, 2016).

Whether or not Ataturk’s vision of a secular, democratic Turkey will survive this most recent challenge remains to be seen. What is certain is that Islamists have taken a step forward in the country, and the West’s goal of eliminating the threat of Islamic extremism and terrorist organizations such as ISIS will only become more difficult with an unstable or Islamist-friendly Turkey on the scene. (Source: AFP, CATO.org, NationalReview.com,RealClear World.)

Current Events & Trends: Germany’s migrant policy unchanged after attacks

by Milan Bizic

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Germany has experienced a good measure of progress, prosperity and peace. The European Union may have its capital in Brussels, but Berlin is the real heart of Europe, politically, culturally and economically, with Paris close behind.

Such is Germany’s stability that German Chancellor Angela Merkel banked on the country’s continued success in agreeing to allow the immigration of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Syrian Civil War. However that stability is being tested amid a recent deluge of small-to-medium scale terror and criminal attacks involving migrants, both in Germany and France.

Despite public outcry following the attacks and a growing movement among Germany’s populace to do something to stop or slow the flow of Middle Eastern refugees into the country, Merkel has stood firm on her insistence that Germany “can do it,” referring to fixing the problems, without a change in policy.

“Ms. Merkel’s comments were her first after a suicide bombing in southern Germany . . . The bombing in the town of Ansbach, which injured 15, and an ax attack [in July] . . . that injured five, were both carried out by asylum applicants who were apparently followers of radical Islam. The bombings have thrown a harsh light on the security implications of Ms. Merkel’s refusal to close Germany’s border as more than a million migrants entered the country since the beginning of last year.

“The chancellor also drew criticism for maintaining a public silence for days in the wake of the Ansbach bombing, which was the first Islamist suicide attack in Germany’s history” (Anton Troianovski and Ruth Bender, “Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel Stands Firm on Migrant Policy After Terrorist Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2016).

As Europe is pressed by increasing numbers of terror attacks, don’t be surprised if Germany, France and other EU states take strong action in response. We encourage our readers to stay abreast of important developments in many regions of the world. Europe and the Middle East are particularly significant because of what Bible prophecy has to say about these regions.

To understand how the Middle East and Europe are entwined in Bible prophecy, study the prophecies of the book of Daniel and read our companion study guide The Middle East in Bible Prophecy. And for more on the ongoing migrant crisis, be sure to read “The Immigration Threat,” in this issue of Beyond Today. (Source: The Wall Street Journal.)

Current Events & Trends: ISIS calls for violence against Russia

by Milan Bizic

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (or ISIS) continues to terrorize the Middle East while encouraging and supporting terrorist attacks abroad, especially in Europe, and influencing jihadist activity in the United States. Now, in a recent video released on YouTube, ISIS is calling for its followers to commit acts of terrorism in the name of jihad in Russia.

Reuters quoted part of the video in covering the story: “‘Listen Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes . . . Oh Brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them,’ a masked man driving a car in the desert yelled while wagging his finger in the last couple of minutes of the video” (Ali Abdelatti and Amina Ismail, “Islamic State Calls on Members to Carry Out Jihad in Russia,” July 31, 2016).

Russia has been militarily supportive of Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad against Islamist elements that seek his overthrow, including ISIS. Retaliation by ISIS in Russia, however, will not drive Russia out of the Middle East. It will only give more impetus to Russian involvement there.

While Bible prophecy of the end time has major focus on the Middle East and Europe, the book of Revelation says that the final conflict leading up to the return of Jesus Christ will actually involve peoples and nations from all over the world, influenced by demons: “For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Revelation 16:14, emphasis added).

As more world attention is focused on the Middle East, specifically the area surrounding Jerusalem, we should keep a close watch on world events—and on our personal conduct, striving to do right and repenting where we fall short. Jesus followed up Revelation 16:14 by saying, “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments [here representing righteousness], lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15). (Source: Reuters.)

Current Events & Trends: Fitness as important as not smoking

by Rudy Rangel

We’ve been taught since grade school that we should stay fit to live healthier and longer lives. A recent study with data going back close to a lifetime reveals more about this.

“For the new study, which was published [in late July] in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and other institutions turned to an impressively large and long-term database of information about Swedish men” (“Being Unfit May Be Almost as Bad for You as Smoking,” The New York Times, July 27, 2016).

The results confirmed what many studies before had concluded: “Not surprisingly, smoking had the greatest impact on lifespan. It substantially shortened lives. But low aerobic capacity wasn’t far behind.”

What’s interesting in this new study and data analysis is that doing nothing for your health is just as bad as making poor health choices such as smoking. “Poor fitness turned out to be unhealthier even than high blood pressure or poor cholesterol profiles, the researchers found” (ibid.).

God’s design of our bodies is beautiful and harmonious. Paul mentions that taking care of our bodies does profit us, but our greater focus must be on exercising spiritually: “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Considering this on a spiritual level we may also be reminded that it’s not enough to just do nothing in avoiding evil, but we must be active in practicing righteousness—doing what is good: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Avoiding smoking is good for our health, but we should add to that by staying fit. Just so, we must avoid sinful lifestyles as well as strive to do good. Show love and let that love be authentic. We should keep ourselves fit—physically and spiritually. (Source: The New York Times.)

Questions and Answers: What happens to all of mankind who lived and died before Jesus Christ lived, as well as those who die having never been told about Christ since then? Are they lost forever? Or does God have a way for them to possibly still be saved?

The wonderful answer to the last part of the question is yes, they can be saved. God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). He says further, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Yet we know that countless millions have lived and died with-out knowing this one clear biblical fact about salvation: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, New International Version). This name, of course, is Jesus Christ.

The amazing truth is that a future resurrection is coming for this one great purpose—to offer eternal life to those who lived their entire lives without knowing the true God and His Son.

Scripture shows that God will bring the vast majority of humanity back to physical life and give them their opportunity for salvation by allowing them to learn about His plan and purpose and to come to know Him and His Son. Please note this prophecy in Ezekiel 37:1-14 where God gives to Ezekiel an astounding vision of the resurrection to physical life of the nation of Israel:

“The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ So I answered, ‘O Lord God, You know.’

“Again He said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.’”’”

Clearly what we are reading about here is a resurrection of people long dead to a physical life. Continuing:

“So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. Also He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’”’

“So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!” Therefore prophesy and say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,’ says the Lord.”’”

Note what this passage teaches us. God asked Ezekiel if these dead Israelites could live again, and then in vision God puts sinews, flesh and skin on the dead bones and breathes the breath of life back into them and they come alive. Then God gives them His Holy Spirit to guide them, to obey Him and to do His will.

Once given the Holy Spirit, these people will live on the earth for a period of time and will be judged for their works. They will not be condemned to eternal hellfire for the sins of their past lives when they did not know God. Rather, they will be judged for their behavior at this future time in man’s history.

And by extension, if God is going to provide a way to save ancient Israel, He will also offer all gentiles the same plan of salvation (Luke 2:30-32). We know this because the Word of God says repeatedly that God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9). Regarding salvation, all peoples have an equal opportunity.

This resurrection is also described in Matthew 11:20-24, where Jesus explained that long-dead inhabitants of the sinful cities of Sodom, Tyre and Sidon would have repented at His preaching if they had had the opportunity. At last they will have that opportunity. (See also Matthew 12:41-42.)

The same resurrection is also described in the vision of the Great White Throne in Revelation 20:11-15—the judgment here being a period of evaluation as people learn to live by the Scriptures, not an immediate sentencing.

In the end the evil works of Satan will be defeated by the power and mercy of God. Ultimately, it will not be untold masses of people who ultimately reject God and suffer the fate of eternal death. Rather, most of humanity will come to understand and know God and the depth of God's mercies through Jesus Christ, and they also will come to repentance.

This short response gives only a brief overview of a great biblical truth revealing God’s mercy regarding untold billions who have died without understanding forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

At our website we have several articles and studies on this important subject. If you would like to study the topic further, search for “second resurrection” at ucg.org/learnmore.

These articles will show you more biblical proof that in God’s great plan there is indeed an opportunity for all to receive God’s gift of salvation. And may God continue to bless you as you strive to learn more about Him.

Letters From Our Readers: September/October 2016

Readers of Beyond Today magazine share their thoughts in the September/October 2016 issue.

“A Scientist’s Journey to God”

As a Ph.D. engineer I swallowed the lie of evolution hook, line and sinker until about three years into my relationship with God. Then I was challenged by my fellow Christians to justify evolution and produce incontrovertible evidence to show that evolution was the truth of our origins. With some fervor I set about finding evidence that could not be challenged; I found none. Since that time (over 40 years) I have been an advocate for creation and have developed a ministry to the science community in the support of Genesis’ account of creation. I’m amazed that more scientists cannot see the stupidity of accepting evolution. The Bible is not a textbook, but it does tell us so much about science.

From the Internet

Thank you! Science and religion are commonly believed to be at odds with one another, but I think it is more a case of people being at odds. As you described so well, science seeks to discover and establish truth. That is a good thing. There are plenty of scientists who are also Christians—their books and blogs make for some good reading.

From the Internet

I was surprised by your articles on evolution and atheism in the July-August issue of Beyond Today. They are full of facts, unlike most religious publications. I consider myself a free thinker, and this issue made for enjoyable reading. Keep up the factual good work!

Reader in North Carolina

“Visiting Widowers and Widows in Their Affliction”

Wonderful article. I am suffering through a health trial right now, and the goodness of my friends and church brethren is deeply comforting. Just helping with chores like taking out the trash, washing the dishes, mowing the grass or doing errands are monumental helps to people who find their lives completely turned upside down due to a loss or illness. There is a big difference between saying “Get well soon” and helping that person in an active way.

From the Internet

“The Cup and Dish”

Thanks for the excellent analogy! Every time I wash dishes, I will think about cleaning myself, too. The comparisons were effective.

From the Internet

Looking for a congregation to worship with fellow believers

Are there any United Church of God congregations in my area? I am impressed that you as a church really follow the Bible, and I would like to be a part of it. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

From the Internet

I would like to find a church that observes God’s Sabbath, and I would like to learn more about how to observe God’s festivals. Thank you.

From the Internet

We are so glad you are ready to follow God and observe His festivals! On our website, we have a Bible Q&A that answers this question. Just go to ucg.org/learnmore and type into the page's search bar “How Do I Keep God’s Sabbaths and Holy Days?”

We have been shown in the Scriptures that we must keep the Sabbath and Holy Days. Can you tell us where we can go to meet with people of like mind?

From the Internet

Good news—we have a congregation about 25 miles from you! We have dozens of local congregations around the world, which you can look up online at our website: www.ucg.org/congregations.

Grateful for Beyond Today’s biblical accuracy

Today I came across Beyond Today online while looking for information about the life of Enoch. I am so impressed by the explanation given about Enoch being taken by God. Your explanations for this and other Bible difficulties are so concrete and systematic; they inspire me a lot. I would love if everyone could read your writings and solve their Bible difficulties themselves, like I have done. Thank you.

Reader in Myanmar

I just want to say how much I am enjoying your Bible study guide series at freebiblestudyguides.org. I am using it as a tool to study God’s Word daily. I appreciate you making the lessons available to the world, and I will be sure to share your website with others.

From the Internet

I have been receiving my subscription to Beyond Today for some years now, and have never written to you to tell you what a profound effect your articles have had on my life. I belong to the Salvation Army Church in South Africa. As soon as I am finished reading each issue, I leave it at the church so that other people can also get the benefit of your articles and teachings. Everything is so well written and researched that it is impossible not to be captivated by the Word of God. Thank you so very much for making the Bible simpler and more understandable, and for changing my life.

Subscriber in South Africa

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