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EDITORIAL: A LETTER TO OUR READERS

The importance of the A.B.A.

From time to time that old deceiver Satan forces us, the believers who have tasted the fruits of salvation, to speak of ourselves. In that way, he reasons, our witness will not be true (John 5:31); forgetting that we have greater witnesses than ourselves (John 5:36; Hebrews 12:1; etc.). This is such a time for us of the Association for Biblical Astronomy. Up front: this is not about money. As far as money is concerned, the Lord has provided just enough, just in time, to pay whatever bill we have to pay; and since we have no payroll, no one's “living” depends on our readers' financial support. This was started as a subsistence-faith ministry 26 years ago and it's still that.

What makes the Association for Biblical Astronomy unique and valuable to the believers is that it stands for the absolute truth: not just the truth, but the absolute truth. The ABA is not beholding to anyone or any institution. We are the only group in the world which looks into the mechanism of God's “word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3) and its implication for the created universe. Ours is first a ministry to the Church.

In The Book of Bible Problems, we point out that the Bible lays the blame for all of the world's evil squarely on the heads of the Bible perverters who promote and profit from the modern versions (Revelation 22:18-19). In Geocentricity we note that the question of the motion of the sun is the only point about which science and the Bible truly differ, and the only point on which the Church compromised the Bible to science, and that it did so needlessly. And now our research has revealed that the proliferation of sin into the world actually reduces the strength of the earth's gravitation, leading to “natural” disasters as surely as jumping off a tall building leads to death (see “Panorama” in this issue and “The Waves of Sin” in the next issue, D.V.). These are topics few organizations will touch,and certainly none of the creationist organizations for they fear too much the reproach of men and the loss of financial support.

Of course one may say that it's easy for us to charge them because our livelihood doesn't depend on our ministry. That is true, but those who preach the truth must preach the whole truth. When the apostle Paul was teaching and preaching he did not make his living from “supporting churches.” Paul worked as a tent maker so that the words of God would not be compromised by hunger pangs. These same people who thus charge us would likely also tell us that God is not pleased with our work because he has not blessed us with fame and fortune. Do they ever consider that those who are honored by the world are the enemies of God? As a Bible and science organization the Association for Biblical Astronomy has earned the grudging respect of the world, but not its love or honor. Ours is the respect afforded a lion by jackals. May the Lord so provide for us in this ministry as he provides for “the ox which treadeth out the corn” (Deuteronomy 25:4).

Psalm 138:2 says that the Lord has magnified his word above all his name. That is the testimony of the Association for Biblical Astronomy. Our witness is not so much directed at the unsaved, although we have borne some fruit there, as it is directed at the saved. We bear witness against the errors and heresies which so easily beset the churches these last days.

How to support the A.B.A.

If the Lord has laid this type of ministry on your heart, please pray for us. Specifically, pray for time. Although financial support is nice, the one thing which we are really short on is time. Your editor has about six hours a month to devote to this work. It has become impossible to answer all the letters that come except those which most directly address the goals stated in the Credo. I've had to let my membership in the Creation Research Society lapse because I no longer have the time nor money to devote to articles on geology, biology, and even physics, which deal not with geocentricity and Bible absolutes. I can no longer enter into personal debates and long-winded antagonists who cannot stick to one key issue but who think that one can only win wars with shotguns. I can no longer spend time debating those who think that church councils are the only ones who can interpret the Bible, and who refuse to see that the Bible interprets itself in ways that are obvious to all. I no longer have time to spend on matters of chronology. Forgive me, all you who have written and to whom I owe letters. Please pray for time. That is the main thing.

Beyond time, Christian Pharisees who are envious and fearful of the objectives and standards of the Association have attacked my family on several fronts, to the point that my wife's been forced to resign from her teaching position in a formerly Christian school (now so in name only) for opposing, among more serious things, the introduction into that school of reading materials which advocate underage drinking and sex, swearing, lying, divorce, single parentage, and so forth. In addition, the College where I teach is changing over from quarters to semesters and that is taking a lot of my time and looks like it will do so for quite some time. To compound those problems, the College offers two majors, one in computer science and the other in computer information systems. Over the last few years the two have polarized so that the computer science major is predominantly in the day while the computer information systems students are predominantly evening students. Because the subject matter and methods are not clearly defined, the CIS major is more difficult to teach. As it is, I teach only one computer science course (compiler design) and for the rest I teach CIS courses. Now the obvious solution would be that I teach mostly evenings, but the College wants me to teach a full day load, too, and to teach the CIS for overload. So there are a few more things for which I would covet your prayers.

So?

Recently, some large Christian organizations have fallen on hard times, particularly those who are not in the good graces of the President and Vice President of the United States. The Church and its ministries are under attack around the world. Christians, especially true Christians, are being slaughtered every day throughout China, the Moslem world, Central and South America, and Africa (the innumerable of Rev. 7:14.) Along with that, babies are being murdered en masse and buried in landfills. At the same time real income is declining drastically in the United States. Yet the controlled news media and their puppets, notably Rush Limbaugh, report that the economy is booming. Corporate profits, maybe, but not real income. Employment is said to be high because the unemployment figures hover below 5%, but America has forgotten that whereas once people who collected unemployment were counted on the roll for up to two years, now they are counted for only six months. The actual unemployment figure is two to three times as high as reported. This means that on the average, our readers have less real money to spend on subscriptions and ministries. It's for that reason that we have decided to lower the subscription price 20%, from $15 per year to $12. Likewise, we've dropped membership rates to $20 per year, trusting the Lord for his provision.


Translated from WS2000 on 11 February 2005 by ws2html.