Spring 1999

Graduation on the Horizon

Graduation time is quickly approaching. We are especially excited about this year 's commencement because it will be the first one at our headquarters. If you have recently completed your degree requirements, please make plans to attend. Don't miss out! Graduation ceremonies will be held at ECUA Headquarters in Swartz, LA., minutes from Monroe. It will be Monday at 11:00 AM, June 28th. If you are planning to attend, please contact Dee Nance at (800) 346-4014. All academic work must be in our office no later than May 15th to give our professors the needed time to grade. All outstanding balances must also be paid in full by June 1 St. Come expecting a blessing!

The Cry being heard Around the Word--Y2K

Many thousands of people are preparing for a total shutdown of life as we know it, due to the problem that lies within the computer's inability to read two digits that it has never seen before at the end.. .00. While it would be foolish perhaps to totally disregard this as a serious matter, I am somewhat perplexed by the way many of my Christian brothers and sisters are handling the situation. People of faith around the world are being told by many pastors and frantic prophets of doom, to engage in a "bunker mentality" because of the holocaust that they believe will ensue because of this mighty demon...Y2K! Recently, I heard a Pastor on television say.. ."We are collecting food, water, and provisions because we believe that this will usher in the antichrist?" He further stated, "We are praying for the best, but preparing for the worst!" The last statement seems a bit of a contradiction in terms "or an oxymoron). What he is really saying is.. ."We are praying for the best, but have no faith to believe for the best!"

As a novice history buff, I have always been amazed at how history often repeats itself. The Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust would be the first to say that (as Simon Wiesenthal so elegantly stated) "We are doomed to repeat history unless we learn by it." The following story is true. For those interested in reading more about it I can recommend several books on the subject. This is a brief synopsis of a historical event that happened at the turn of the "first millennium," that might sound familiar for today's problem.

By the middle of the first millennium (around 560 A.D.) most of Europe had been "Christianized" and led away from the Vatican and Catholic stronghold that it had on Rome and the rest of the known world. Edward I, was King of England, while it would be another sixteen years before Duncan I, would be King of Scotland. Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and other parts of Europe were almost totally protestant by the time the year 999 approached.

A strange thing happened during the year 999. Rumor began to circulate among the Protestant church that the year 1000 would usher in the "end of civilization" as they knew it. Rumors were rampant that Rome, with the blessing of the Vatican, was going to mass raid the other countries with "supernatural" power of the "anti-Christ." The Roman devils would kill and destroy all of the male children, and sell the female children into slavery. All adults would be killed. The rumors were so rampant by the evening of January 1, 1000, the mass hysteria caused over two hundred thousand suicides. Of course, the apocalypse did not occur.

Is history perhaps repeating itself? Was Franklin Roosevelt right when he uttered the famous words..."All we have to fear, is fear itself!" I would rather listen to the words of King Jesus who has said.. .and promised.. .that "I will neither leave you nor forsake you." Fear is the very tool that Satan would use to have us "self-annihilate" as they did at the turn of the first millennium. I think of it as "Millennium Fever."

If we are to pray fervently about the Y2K problem, should it not be for "lost souls" in case of the worst case scenario? To hide in a bunker is not what I plan to do, thanks...but no thanks! I plan to usher in a new millennium.. .either here, or in heaven!