November 2024 Member Letter

November 14, 2024

Dear Brethren,

Three weeks ago, we were together celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, which pictures the millennial reign of Jesus Christ here on earth. Scripture tells us that after His return, Christ will be hailed as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). During the Feast, we were daily reminded of what a different world it will be when Jesus Christ is the ruler.

Contrast that Festival experience with what we have witnessed here in the United States over the past year during a bitter presidential campaign season, which finally concluded on Tuesday, Nov. 5. That was the day that America elected a new president—Donald J. Trump. Each side’s anger and bitterness toward the other candidate—the outright hatred and disgust for the other side—are the things that I will remember most from this past year’s presidential election process. While our country has been deeply polarized during this campaign season, most Americans breathed a sigh of relief on Nov. 5. The bitter campaigning was finally over. It really didn’t matter their position or their candidate, the experience wasn’t pleasant and certainly couldn’t be called godly.

While contrasting our Feast of Tabernacles experience with the just completed election, consider that the greatest gift God has given us is His truth. Compare that to the lies, greed and lust for power upon which man has built his governments. Jesus Christ stated that we must worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:24). All of us were called out of this world either by responding to the truth or by being taught the truth growing up in our families. Either way, the truth is the foundation of that calling. It is impossible to overstate the significance of the truth and the need for holding on to that truth, defined by Christ as God’s Word (John 17:17).

Recently, I was asked, what is it that keeps me awake at night? Or, as another person put it, what am I most concerned about for the future of the Church? My concern has always been focused on the truth and maintaining that truth for future generations. Consider that we must preach the gospel, but if, in so doing, we lose the truth, what value will our preaching be? We must never take the truth for granted, and we must continually remind ourselves what it contains.

In a letter to the members and coworkers of the Radio Church of God in 1946, Herbert Armstrong wrote that “real conversion and salvation is education” (Our Co-workers’ Bulletin, Nov. 29, 1946). This was in his announcement for the opening of Ambassador College. In this letter he was emphatic about the need for continual education to maintain our understanding of the truth and to teach it to the next generation. It wasn’t a “one and done” approach, but one of continued education. Today, almost 80 years later, we are doing our best to follow that model—preaching the gospel to the world while maintaining and teaching the truth in the Church. 

If we are not careful, it is easy to get caught up in worldly politics. Paul warned us that our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), thereby confirming what Christ said when He stated “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). While we choose not to get involved in elections or politics, it doesn’t mean that we are uninterested in what is happening in our country. We are told by the apostle Paul that we should pray for our leaders: “Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 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 2:1-4).

Why should we pray for leaders? Paul explains, “That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” We know from other scriptures that God is in charge of human affairs even though He has declared Satan to be the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But God still holds ultimate control. In the book of Daniel, we are told that God exercises that control as He chooses—“that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4:17). This is repeated in Daniel 5:21, where Nebuchadnezzar came to know that “the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses.”

As Christians, we have faith that God is in charge and that we must focus on the things that are within our control—preaching the gospel, teaching the truth and maintaining the truth, while living in a society that rejects truth and is often willing to accept lies, even when they are known to be lies. I believe this past American election provides ample evidence of the fact that people are willing to knowingly accept lies in hopes that they will hurt their candidate’s opponent. This is the antithesis of God’s truth and God’s way.

As further evidence of what we are facing in the world, leading up to this year’s Feast of Tabernacles, an unusual thing happened that helps us understand the need to pray for our leaders. Just before the Feast this year we were told by officials in the country of Rwanda that since we are not legally registered, we would not be allowed to meet together for services during the Feast or on the weekly Sabbath day. Joel Meeker, the regional director for the French work, flew to Rwanda and spent most of a month trying to get this problem resolved, but the officials would not yield. For the first time since there was a congregation of the Church of God in Rwanda, we were denied the ability to meet together for services—despite the fact that we have our own hall and, therefore, have no need to rent any additional space. Shocking as it may sound, we were denied the use of our own facility.

This brings us to where we are today. We have a newly elected president in the United States. We should pray for him and the other leaders in our country and other countries, no matter where we live. We should pray for them not because they are righteous or because they have knowledge of God’s truth. We should pray for them so that we might be able to preach the gospel, hold on to the truth and meet in peace on the weekly Sabbath and annual holy days, as God commands, without interference or persecution for doing so. This is something that could easily be taken away from us by a government exercising its power. For that reason, we rely on God as the only true hope for mankind, not on man or man’s governments, or on the election of a specific person to be president. And we look forward to the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles when Jesus Christ will be on this earth as the ruler—the King of kings and Lord of lords—of the Kingdom of God.

Sincerely, your brother in Christ,

Jim Franks