As usual the premise of the letter says that if you are sick it is your fault! Your "lukewarm" attitude is causing your sickness. Your lack of passion and refusal to put "your heart" into God's work is letting Satan have free access to your brain and causing you to sin. Plus, if you sinners have stopped using your Moffat translation Bible you had better dig it out of the attic! Does any one even quote that translation anymore except for Spanky?
Dear fellow ministers and brethren,
Greetings from Charlotte! I want to give an emergency comment
about the upcoming FAST we have called for this Sabbath, December 17,
2011. I should have put this in the Update yesterday, but was too busy
and got distracted. So it is my fault. Dr. Winnail
mentioned it, but I do want to comment further because of the extreme
urgency of the situation we are in—which some of you may not fully
realize.
Brethren, more than in any time I can remember, literally dozens
of our members and ministers are in “dire straits” physically. Up and
down the East Coast, especially at here at Headquarters, at least seven
individuals that I happen to know about are in life threatening
situations—mostly from cancer. Just this morning, interestingly, I
received an email from one of our leading members, Syd Attenborough,
telling about the death of two CGI elders. One of the men I had known,
Dennis Lawrence. The other I had not known but am very sorry for his
death and the death of all of God’s people who perhaps
have to die prematurely. So these two elders have died just within the
last several days. A number more of our own people may die within the next several months unless we—as a Church—cry out
to God to please intervene more powerfully to heal His own people!
Certainly, as Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes, will He really
find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).
May God powerfully help us to regain the
child-like faith that many had in years past—as some may not have had
at all! Brethren, one of the major parts of Jesus’ ministry was to heal the sick—as
I have explained many times. So we need to beseech God to help all of
us draw closer to God so that He will begin to supernaturally heal those who turn to Him for this mercy. But the problem with many of us here—in this society—is that we do not get truly urgent
in our prayers. We tend to be “lukewarm” in our prayers for
healing—as in so many other things. One of Mr. Armstrong’s favorite
scriptures along this line was something he said that we—as a Church—vitally needed to meditate upon. That is Moffatt’s translation of Hosea 7:14: “Though it was I who redeemed them, they have lied to me; they never put their heart into their prayers.” Mr. Armstrong often remarked that he thought that this was perhaps the greatest weakness in the prayers of God’s people—the lack of total fervency and passion
when we pray to Almighty God. Brethren, I hope that as we enter this
fast, that we can meditate on that and cry out to God for the sense of
urgency and heartfelt outflowing concern for these people that are
truly sick and perhaps ev en dying among our own brethren in the Church!
Remember when God told His servants to cry out to Him about the
coming trials of the Day of the Lord—the time just ahead of us—He
urged them, “‘Now, therefore,’ says the Lord, ‘Turn to me with all your
heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
So rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel 2:12-13). And when
God instructs us in the New Testament to pray for healing, He states,
“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another,
that you may be healed. The effective, fervent
prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). Therefore, as we
enter this fast, I hope and pray that all of us will genuinely take
it seriously and try to mediate thoughtfully and lovingly about the
suffering and imminent death so many of our own brethren are going through! Let us, together, truly cry out to our God at this time for His special intervention and healing of
His own people. I am sure God would want us to do this. If we cry out
to God in this way at this time, it will all draw us close together
as a Church and He will no doubt bless us in many other ways. As we
pray, let us also cry out for additional faith and courage so that we may move ahead in every aspect of our Christian lives and honor the God who gives us life and breath.
Brethren, please take this seriously and let us go all out as a Church in seeking our God in this day of fasting and prayer.
With Christian love,
Roderick C. Meredith
