Herbert W Armstrong

“Keeping Current” With this issue of the “Pastor General's Report" we are pleased to be able to begin offering a new service to the ministry in the form of a copy of the Ambassador College Library's monthly publication titled "Keeping Current.” “Keeping Current” will be a one­page insert included in your PGR envelope. It will serve to update you on articles of interest from current periodicals, as well as newly released books. This will save you some leg and eye work of seeking out relevant research materials for sermon and Bible study preparation.

Please realize, however, that the Library cannot provide copies of these materials for you. The purpose of "Keeping Current” is to make you aware of what is available so that you can obtain the material you may be interested in from a newsstand or from your local library.

Keep in mind that we do not, of course, necessarily endorse the views or facts presented in any of the books or articles mentioned. "Keeping Current" is merely an announcement bulletin. It is not an "official list” of “approved" or “sanctioned" books and articles. I hope that is clear. (I do not want to find that someone is propounding some point or subject from an article they saw mentioned in "Keeping Current” and then saying that the Church must have somehow approved of or agreed with the contents. The Church agrees with nothing except that which agrees with God's word.)

We appreciate the efforts of Dr. Richard Walther in having this material compiled for our use.

Pocket Calendars Included with this issue are two 1986 pocket calendars, which give the dates of each of the Holy Days for the upcoming year. I hope you will find these useful.

Prayer Updates I am sorry to have to inform you that Mr. and Mrs. John Moskel's 3-year-old daughter, Molly, died this past Tuesday, December 17, from leukemia. Funeral services were planned for Friday morning in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Moskels have expressed their heartfelt appreciation for the concern and prayers on their behalf through this trial. It has now been determined that their two sons, Jesse, age 9, and Benjamin, age 6, also have beginning stages of the same disease. Let's all continue to pray earnestly for the Moskels, that God will comfort them and that He will intervene to totally heal their sons.

In last week's PGR, I mentioned that tests were being run to determine whether the tumor partially removed from Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Robertson's daughter, Jennifer, was malignant. The tumor is malignant. Please continue to remember the Robertsons in your prayers as well.

Through all these severe trials so many are experiencing right now, it is important that we keep our minds focused upon the true meaning of life, and on the reason God has made us temporary, physical beings, and what His promises are for the future. The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:16-23, Revised Authorized Version:

The Spirit [itself] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. And not only they, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

The rest of chapter 8 further calls to our minds the vastness of God's love and His all-encompassing purpose for us. Paul gives us great encouragement in verses 31-39, RAV:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let's look to God for the encouragement and strength through His Spirit that we all need.