The following is a list of this month's articles.

Editorial - Is It Time to Reorganize?

At the Lord's Table - Chance, or Purpose?

The Beckford Story

Meaningful Moments

Editorial
Is It Time to Reorganize

Revelation 16:14 informs us that three demonic spirits that look like frogs are to gather “the whole world” for “the battle on the great day of God Almighty.”  Symbolically these issue forth from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

The dragon
The chief characteristics of the dragon are the satanic diabolism of its teaching, which “leads the whole world astray,” and its long war against those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 12:9,17 NIV).  The dragon of godless hedonistic humanism – love of worldly pleasure – reigns supreme throughout the affluent ‘West’ and also in east Asia.  Believers loyal to the Bible and its moral standards are under increasing legal pressure and being forced into social isolation.  In some places this is beginning to take the form of mild persecution.  Education authorities are insisting that all teaching must be patently atheistic, especially in science, and guidance counselling must be “value-free and non-judgmental” (whatever that means!).  The government of Sweden, for example, with the full support of the Lutheran state church, is preparing legislation to make it a punishable crime to quote in print or read aloud any passage of the Bible which is considered to be sexist or discriminatory to homosexuals.  A special national exhibition was held recently in the royal cathedral in Uppsala which specifically presented Jesus as an active homosexual.

The beast
The chief characteristics of the beast are worldwide authority, blasphemous teaching and a long and apparently successful war against the saints (13:7).  The beast puts his symbolic mark or brand of ownership on those loyal to him.  During the last ‘holy year’, at the ceremony of the opening of the golden door at the Vatican, the “Holy Father” (the Pope) was presented to a million worshippers in St. Peter’s Square as “the nearest we have to a world ruler,” and the crowds were urged to acknowledge him as such. 

The false prophet
The chief characteristics of the false prophet are his miraculous signs and his ability to delude those who have received the mark of the beast.  We can assume that Revelation is based upon Jesus’ words and warnings in Matthew 7:15 and 24:11.  Until eleven years ago, the world was divided by the ‘Cold War’ into two irreconcilable ideologies ‑ the so-called ‘free’ world and the socialist countries.  Today the world is divided almost equally into three vast ideological ‘camps’ – militant Islam, militant apostate Christendom, and an aggressive humanistic paganism.  All three are increasingly hostile to “the saints,” that is to say, sincere Bible believers.

The saints
Prominent in the Revelation, alongside the various symbolic animals, are some very real people.  They are (the elders say to God) “your saints and those who reverence your name” (11:18).  They are those who “overcome” by the word of their testimony, and by their faithfulness even unto death (12:11).  They are characterized by patient endurance and faithfulness (13:10).  They are, in fact, described as “blameless” (14:5).  And, most significantly, they are “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9).

Miracles of providence
Through miracles of Providence during the past ten years, sincere seekers for truth from Albania to Zululand have been led to our biblical faith.  Brother Ng and sister Aa have joined brother Smith and sister Brown around the Lord’s table, and in 2001, for the first time in the history of our denomination, a majority gave their good confession in a language other than English.  The productivity of God’s harvest fields is increasing all the time.  An elderly visiting brother recently told me that forty years ago his ecclesia had to invest many thousands of dollars to ‘produce’ one convert, and then he or she did not always stay the course.  Today, from a strictly financial standpoint, the outlay of a few dollars will yield a new convert for Christ.  And he also commented that it is seeing the ‘quality’ of our new members that gives him the greatest satisfaction.

Suffering saints
Recent reports indicate that many hundreds, perhaps even several thousand, beloved brethren and sisters are starving in Africa and elsewhere throughout the world’s poorer countries.  Hundreds are slowly dying because no emergency medical care is available.  Never in the history of our brotherhood has there been such a dire crisis.  Our Bible mission organisations are presently accepting much of the responsibility for dealing with this ‘welfare’ crisis, which, strictly speaking, is not their mandate.  Their funds should be directed towards preaching the gospel to every nation under heaven.

The latest information is that brothers and sisters are suffering direct and cruel persecution from dragon, beast and false prophet in at least twenty-five countries across the globe, including several ‘western’ countries (there has even been one recent tragic case in Birmingham, England!).  The Karolyn Andrews Memorial Fund, newly reorganized in Canada after being targeted by the international financial police in the Cayman Islands, is doing its best to help, but is desperate for funds also.

Waiting on tables
The worldwide ecclesia of Jesus Christ is facing its biggest financial challenge since the apostolic age.  In Acts 6:2, the leading preaching body (“the Twelve”) insisted, “It would not be right for us to neglect the  ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.”

Is it time, brethren and sisters, to reorganize the financial structure of the brotherhood on similar lines to those outlined in Acts 6?  The apostolic church had both ‘evangelists’ and ‘pastors’, each with specific responsibilities.  This was a wise division of responsibility.  Perhaps it is time for our Bible Missions to concentrate on preaching, and restrict their funds to that end.  Is it time for a specific worldwide pastoral or ‘welfare’ system to be devised, ecclesially based perhaps, using the sponsorship or twinning system which has proven to be so effective in denominations such as the American Baptists, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Church of God (Anderson, IN) and the Mennonites?

Alan Eyre

QUIZ – KNOW YOUR DRAGON

1. What colour was the dragon? 2. How many heads? 3. How many crowns? 4. What did it want to eat? 5. With whom did the dragon fight? 6. Where was he hurled from, and to? 7. Whom did he accuse before God? 8. How was he overcome? 9. Whom did he pursue? 10. What did he spew from his mouth? 11. What did he give to the beast?

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The story of my ancestors
My ancestors in the 16^th and 17^th centuries were among the world’s richest and most powerful men.  The first Peter Beckford, according to his contemporaries, considered himself “the greatest man in the world.”  Originally, he was a nobody, or possibly a pirate or buccaneer.  But when Charles II became King of Jamaica, the Beckfords received enormous favors from the new monarch, no doubt a debt repayment for shrewd political support.  The sources of the immense wealth of the Beckford family were real estate, sugar, slave trading, and Atlantic commerce.  Some of the land they owned is so fertile it has been producing sugar cane continuously for 350 years.  It is written of the Beckfords that their “surplus energy found notable expression in the number of illegitimate children” which they produced with the eager help of their most beautiful slave girls.  The result has been a lot of Beckfords like me in the “illegitimate line.”  Very many people in Jamaica carry Beckford genes today, even if they do not bear the name as I do.

One historian has this comment on the first Peter Beckford.  “In this Jamaican we see manifest certain of the less attractive characteristics which were to be passed on to his descendants.  He was a man of violent temper, ruthless and not over-scrupulous in the conduct of his affairs, and given to exaggerations of a very misleading sort.”  The second Peter, son of the first, who might have been my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, inherited a vast fortune.  His father’s cash chest, when opened, is said to have revealed £250 million in modern currency equivalent.  He became Speaker of the Jamaican House of Assembly.  He was also above the law, as when he brutally murdered a senior judge and escaped prosecution.  By 1700 he was reputed to be the richest man in Europe and the Americas, and possibly in the world.  Certainly in 1735 his son, William, inherited the largest legacy in history, anywhere, and his fabulous wealth was said to be the envy of the crowned monarchs of Europe.  The Beckford mercantile fleet was the largest in the American-Caribbean trade.

William studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and became Lord Mayor of London (twice), the only Jamaican ever to reach such eminence.  He soon became the richest land baron and real estate speculator in the western hemisphere, and probably the greatest individual slave owner in the entire history of mankind.  Another historian has this to say of William.  “His family’s position in Jamaica was at least as important as that of any of the great titled families in England, and he was wealthier than any of them.  But as a ‘colonial’ with an ‘ugly’ Jamaican accent, he was cold-shouldered and regarded as an upstart.  Proud himself, he felt their insolent hauteur.”  Nevertheless, this upstart Jamaican, though rebuffed by British aristocracy, was most determined to take the Beckford genes to the very top of human society.  Through various marriages over the next four generations, I am genetically related to the royal families of Monaco and Hungary, and more distantly to those of Germany, France and Scotland, as well as to numerous dukes and counts

Lord Mayor William’s son, also William, built or rebuilt several magnificent great houses in Jamaica, including Fonthill in St. Elizabeth close to where I was born.  He also personally designed by far the biggest palace in the world ever built by a commoner, Fonthill Abbey in the west of England.  In the 1840’s, when slavery in Jamaica had been officially abolished and when his sugar fortune had crumbled, the gigantic and “impossible Abbey” literally crumbled too, in fulfilment of Psalm 49:14-20 and Ecclesiastes 5:13-15.  However, one of William’s biographers insists that “in his eighties he was as mentally alert, astute and untiring as ever.”

My story
My father was Vernon Beckford.  He died when I was young, so I hardly remember him.  I don’t recall my grandfather either, but in those days wherever Beckfords were born, there were the plantations which some of our ancestors owned and where others had slaved.  I was born at Lacovia in St. Elizabeth, with cane fields all around.

After my family moved to Kingston, I met Larry and Enid Henry and they invited us to Sunday school at the Christadelphian meeting hall, which was then in a back street in Allman Town.  I and my brothers used to attend.  My brothers didn’t stay long.  Perhaps because I am disabled in body, my mind is extra clear.  I followed the Light, and I do know that from the first time I went, I never looked back.

Not very long after the Six Day War, when Jerusalem fell to the Jews, I rose to newness of life, on March 10, 1968.  Four years later, in 1972, I met Bro. Eddie Johnson. He worked to establish training centres for the disabled.  He was a great believer in being self-reliant.  Perhaps God-reliant would be more accurate, because he was a great believer in the power of prayer.  He recruited me for one of his craft workshops, and I worked there for many years.

I have never been famous as some of my ancestors.  But God led me to treasures they never dreamed of.  I am far richer than they ever were.  Over the years, I have been a great reader, hungry for divine wisdom.  I cannot buy books, but any magazines or books on the truth I can lay my hands on, I will devour them.

Wisdom, that is what you need. The wisdom that is foolishness with men.  Life is in her right hand.  In her left are riches and honour.  She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov. 3:13-18).

Neville Beckford

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As a regular visitor to one of the Caribbean islands over several years, I always noticed that my favourite airport bus driver, an elderly Hispanic lady, was very courteous and pleasant but always bore a quiet sadness.  I often used to wonder why.  On a recent visit I found her bubbling over with joy, and accompanied by a very frail old man.  She told me her story.  In 1965 she and her husband, then in their forties, had tried to escape from Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  She had succeeded, but he was caught. For thirty-seven years she had lived alone, praying and waiting for him to be released and join her in exile.  Finally, ill and in his eighties, he arrived at the airport one day and they were reunited.  Moved almost to tears, I asked her what had sustained them both over those sad and lonely years.  She pointed heavenward and said simply, “Fidelidad” (loyalty).  I was utterly humbled by this lesson in faithfulness.

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