The Year in Review

Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober."—1 Thessalonians 5:6

It has been well said that Christians must live in the world but should not be of it. Their "citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20 NAS). They are in the position of being "ambassadors for Christ" (2 Cor. 5:20). As good ambassadors, they have an interest in the affairs of their host country. Therefore, while primarily interested in spiritual pursuits, the events of the surrounding world are also worthy of their continuing attention.

Current events are also the backbone of God’s prophetic word. God’s plan is not some nebulous spiritual concept but deals with real people living on the very real planet earth. If redemption is the "past" of this plan, his kingdom is its "future." And the "present" is the transition from the one to the other.

This issue of THE HERALD is devoted to a review of the past year. Our theme is "1997-1998: Retrospect and Prospect." It opens with a treatise on Studying Today’s News to give a proper perspective on how Christians study the events of their day to see how they fit into the overall prophetic framework of the word of God. The article also deals with principles of prophetic interpretation, acknowledging that the true import of prophecy is best understood only after it has been fulfilled (Deut. 18:22).

Clouds of Fear, Linings of Hope examines some of the most significant events of the past year. The author seeks to weed out the trivial and sensational from those more important events showing the trends the Bible leads us to expect in these "end times."

The past year has been a giddy one for the stock markets of the world. Trading has been volatile, with all of the major stock exchanges from the Pacific Rim to the New York Stock Exchange gyrating wildly from new highs to sharp sell-offs, including the largest one-day drop ever in the respected Dow Jones Industrial Average. Wealth of the Nations demonstrates how modern society has become more driven by financial motives than by ideological ones, with an increasing emphasis on globalization.

Ecology has been another area of the news demanding attention. Leading scientists warn of global warming and other ecological catastrophes in the making. Keeping the Garden offers an in-depth insight into this area of world news.

Jesus chided the leaders of his day for having the sagacity to predict the weather but being ignorant of "the signs of the times" (Matt. 16:3). In the treatise bearing the rather long title of A Retrospective Look at the Fulfillment of Time Prophecy, the author seeks to give a historic perspective to the concept of the Bible’s predictions of specific dating in God’s plan.

The Bible Student movement has always been intensely interested in current events. A regular feature of the leading journal of the movement, "Zion’s Watch Tower," was a column entitled "Views from the Tower." These articles provided a running commentary on the news of that time. Often the conclusions needed to be revised but they showed a remarkable consistency in the long-range expectations concerning the present period of transition into the incoming kingdom. We have gone back just one century, to 1898, to compile a few of these observations in our ECHOES FROM THE PAST feature entitled News from a Century Ago.

In line with the theme for this issue, our regular "verse by verse Bible study" article, Scoffers in the Last Days, examines the third chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter. This chapter provides a fitting summary of the application of the prophetic word to the events of future times. A final article, Earth, As Well as Heaven, is taken from a newsletter of the Chicago Bible Students.

The article God’s Kingdom, printed in booklet form, is being distributed with this issue. Up to three copies of this booklet will be supplied free to our readers. Additional copies are available at only postage cost. We are enclosing a convenient order form for such requests.

Many readers will notice that this review of the year omits an area of extreme interest to all students of the Lord’s word—the developments in Israel and the Middle East. This omission was not accidental. To mark the 50th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, the May-June issue will reprint articles from 1948, 1958, 1968, 1978, and 1988 issues of THE HERALD as well as a current in-depth article on God’s dealings with "the people of the book."

We invite our readers to visit us on the Internet. THE HERALD web page features over 200 articles, some never before published. The web page is updated weekly with additional material. Our address: www.heraldmag.org

May the Lord bless you in your personal experiences as he develops in you a character more like Jesus and more like that of God himself.