Born in England in 1885, Mr. Brelsford came to Canada in 1910 and found employment with Imperial Oil Company in Port Moody. When he retired, he was the company’s personnel manager. He learned of the Israel Truth in the 1920’s and became very involved with the Association. For many years, he served as a member of the Executive Committee and also as President for a number of years until his death in 1960.

Mr. Brelsford particularly enjoyed his participation as a broadcaster with our radio ministry. He also wrote articles for publication in our magazine.

At the beginning of a New Year we naturally speculate as to what may transpire during the year ahead; but perhaps it would be wise to first glance back over the old year, for the future (whether it be that of an individual or of a nation) is necessarily linked to the past.

As we look over the past year, and recollect periods of difficulty or perhaps serious misfortune, we shall, I am sure, still find many things for which to give thanks to God. And, if we take into our view the sweep of the years as far back as we can remember we shall be amazed at the way our Heavenly Father has led us. “All things,” do indeed, “work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.”

As individuals, gifted with the power of freewill, we make or mar our own destinies, and the final judgment at the bar of Divine Justice will be based on the life-long exercise of our own free will. There is no inevitable course laid out for any of us, but there is, in the foreknowledge of God, a place in His scheme of things for those “who are called according to His purpose.”

Now this “calling” should not be confused with fore-ordination or predestination; it is a calling based, not on a divine decree laying down the course each one of us must take, but rather on God's foreknowledge of the course each of us will take, by the exercise of his own free will. During a life-time many thousands of free-will decisions must be made by every one of us; but among all these decisions there is just one that is absolutely essential if we would make “our calling and election sure,” 2 Peter 1, 10. That decision, of course, is to accept our Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

Now, addressing myself particularly to those who claim to be Christians, I would like to pose some pertinent questions. To be Christian; you must have accepted Christ as your Saviour, but are you convinced that He is, in very fact, the Son of God? if the One Who died on the cross was not actually the Son of God, he could certainly not have risen from the dead, and therefore, as Paul writes to the Corinthians (I Cor. 15: 17-19) “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins... Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

Now, assuming that you have no doubts as to the divinity of Christ, my next question is a dual one. Do you believe our Lord will come again to the earth? And, if so, Do you believe that He will come with a tangible, physical body? If you believe that Christ rose from the dead, you must believe also that He had a physical body, for in the 24th chapter of Luke we are told that the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem, and “Jesus stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you, But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And He said unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet that it is I, myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit bath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” And when He had thus spoken He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb and He took it, and did eat before them.” (vs. 36.43) Now if this testimony of St. Luke be true, there is no evading the fact of Christ's resurrection body being a tangible, physical body, Our Lord Himself said be had flesh and bones; and He also ate a meal. The only apparent change in Christ's body seems to be that whereas it still had flesh and bones it had no blood. “A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” In verses 50-51 of the same chapter we read, “And He led them out as far as to Bethany and He lifted up His hands and blessed them, and it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried-up into heaven.” And in Acts 1:10-11 we read, “And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, two met stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this, same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have been him go into heaven.” Do these words of our Lord Himself, His apostles and the angelic messengers mean anything?

Many have been led into a false understanding of these things by Modernist sophistry, or by the metaphysical nonsense that claims that Christ did not rise with a tangible body and that there is to be no resurrection of the physical body; but that, as soon as a person dies he experiences his own resurrection, and receives an ethereal body, Such teaching postulates a continual succession of individual resurrections, which must already have been going on for more than 1900 years. But in I Cor. 15:23 we read, that “Christ is the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming.” Has He come yet? If not, then neither has there been any resurrection of the dead.

To true Christians, the forward look is filled with the expectation of the return of their Lord; the resurrection of the dead, and the translation of the living. Listen to Paul, “Behold I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be rained incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” I Cor. 15;51-52.

Now let us briefly consider the backward and forward look from the standpoint of our race, Modern Israel, the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples. The links between the past and the present in this case, are the facts of history. It is by our history, fulfilling as it does, the prophecies concerning our race, that we can prove beyond possible doubt the truth of the Scriptures, and can also show that the Second Coming of our Lord is very near; and while we do not forget our Lord's warning “Ye know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh” Matt. 25:13 – neither do we forget His words regarding the signs of the times. In Matt. 16:23 we read: “He said unto them, When it is evening ye say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowring. O, ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”