Sabbath 17/11/26/120
Dear Friends,
The ministry has raised a problem of determined action with me. It appears that many of the Churches of God with whom we come into contact have an intellectual escape clause in their reasoning. They do that so that they are excused from positive and determined action in reaching positive conclusions. Once they come to an understanding they do not become convicted to act in accordance with their reasoning or understanding. In other words once they realize that something is true biblically they have a means of putting off any positive action on that understanding.
We are often given this proposition. The New Moons are mentioned in the Bible and they are part of God’s Calendar. However it is a bit difficult to keep them in many career paths. The people who actually come to an understanding of them, that is the ones who bother to even study the matter, come to these conclusions.
The people who do these studies all get to the point of acknowledging that Elijah will be sent to restore all things before Christ’s return (Matt.17:11), and they agree, and indeed whole churches have agreed, that this will include New Moon observance as a Sabbath.
So once this Elijah “to come” appears, we will all commence observing the New Moons as well as other laws that are not being followed at present by all the Churches of God.
They rationalize that they don’t have to do it now because it will all be done by Elijah immediately prior to the coming of Messiah. Many of the same people believed and taught that Herbert Armstrong was Elijah and that he restored all things and, as he did not keep the New Moons, then the New Moons don’t have to be kept. Now that reasoning is false. We have examined the major reasons why Herbert Armstrong could not possibly be Elijah and those reasons have been published in the paper Elijah? (No. 233). Armstrong failed to complete the tasks required of anyone purporting to act in that role. Indeed, if he was anything along those lines, he was a proven false prophet in the Church. He also introduced the Hillel Calendar to the Church and destroyed its true calendar because he did not understand the history of the Church of God. The dispute over the calendar and the reason he was forced from fellowship with the Church of God (Seventh Day) (COG (SD)) is actually touched on in the papers regarding the Calendar published by the United Church of God (UCG) and commented on in our papers containing those documents (see the papers Commentary on the UCG Doctrinal Statement on the Calendar (No. 206) and Commentary on the UCG Doctrinal Paper Should Christians Keep New Moons? (No. 124)). It is also understood that there have been many in the spirit of Elijah in the Church over the centuries. Christ identified John the Baptist as one such person.
Most rational people see the error of the Armstrong was Elijah argument and not many rational people advance that hypothesis these days but some people still do argue thus. Usually it is advanced by a ministry that found it intellectually convenient to make such claims as they then are absolved from any sound and rational argument based on Bible fact. Organisations such as PCG and to a lesser extent the “Living” Church of God (LCG) simply claim he was either Elijah or a founding prophet of the Church. They then go on to argue that any one who does not acknowledge that fact is not of the true faith and therefore they don’t have to bother making any rational argument in defense of their position. That position is not new. It is an appeal to an authority that Armstrong and the WCG did not possess and is of the same order of intellectual dishonesty as the argument regarding infallibility of the popes. That false reasoning has never been accepted by the Church of God over the centuries so why would it be applied to one of its own people who was demonstrably in error on many occasions?
However, that is not the real issue in the error in the thinking of the Churches
of God and their failure to act in accordance with God’s Laws as portrayed in
the Bible.
The real problem with this thinking is seen from the following argument.
The obvious flaw in the reasoning is seen from the authority given to the Church, which begs this question. Why would God’s people be standing around waiting for a prophet to appear and restore “all things” if we now have the same responsibility collectively having been built “upon” the prophets? This means that the Church has the same responsibility, and should be acting as a “collective prophet” in the restoration of God’s Laws prior to Christ’s return.
The same argument can be advanced for the Sabbaths and the Holy Days and the Feasts. It is not logically confined to the New Moons.
In fact the very reason the Church has been persecuted so consistently over the centuries is because it has acted as a collective guardian of the doctrines of the faith once delivered and the world system has tried to stamp it out because of that fact.
The Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts of the Lord have been kept for centuries since the Church began and we know for a fact that the Sabbatarians in Transylvania were keeping them before and during the Restoration. The Protestants in Europe were every bit as cruel and persecuted the Church every bit as much if not more than the Roman Catholic system before them.
Look at the paper The Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170) for the doctrines and the details. See also Socinianism, Arianism and Unitarianism (No. 185) for the differences regarding their doctrines on the Nature of God. Other papers of relevance are The Original Doctrines of the Christian Faith (No. 88) and General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 122).
The other aspect of this absurd reasoning is the argument that says, “Well, the Church went astray but as it was God’s Church then God will act to send someone to fix the situation.” What they usually mean when they say that is that they want it restored to some semblance of the behaviour, conduct or doctrine that they found convenient prior to the deterioration that occurred from the point at which they were more or less oblivious to any error or problem. Sometimes and usually rarely that reaction is a catalyst to change and new understanding. We have some who were called to change and new understanding and to prove all things in that process. We should all take advantage of the challenges God sends us in that way.
Each member of the Church has a responsibility to act in accordance with biblical directives and cannot be excused because some other member, no matter what position they hold in the Church, tells them they do not have to comply with a Bible directive. The word member comes from the concept of the body having different members. The Church has different members but it is one body. That one body complies with the Laws of God and the direction given it by Christ through the Holy Spirit. These members are the elect who keep the Commandments of God and the Testimony or Faith of Jesus Christ (Rev. 12:17; 14:12).
The Church has been given directives by the apostles and prophets. The Church is like the moon in that it waxes and wanes in its understanding often due to the diligence, or lack thereof, of the leaders and teachers. The concept of Church eras comes from the same idea that understanding differs over time and space with the diligence of the church group that exists at that time and has the lamp stand of the understanding or light of God. The Sardis and Laodicean church eras are removed as churches from the body of Christ because they are either dead or so lukewarm that they are spewed out of the mouth of God and Christ. They are both extant at the end days and the Laodicean era is the last era. If that is so and we are in the last days then does it not stand to reason that those eras exist now and they are removed because they are either spiritually dead or spiritually so indifferent that they have to be removed? Is it not so then that any one indifferent to the word of God and the Restoration of the Faith in all diligence is one of those members who are dead or dying and has to be removed?
It follows then as the night the day that the arguments proffered by those members as listed above are exactly those Sardis and Laodicean members who are removed and that they have to repent so as to remain and not be removed.
If you understand something and do not do it you are accountable for that knowledge and that inaction.
One might well ask: Why do I have to do what God says? That is a very serious question when the society is degenerating so fast that it is difficult to keep up with the degeneration. Each day there is some further erosion of the values we have tried to foster as a society over the centuries. Usually it is advanced as progress in understanding. Good is bad and bad is good.
Our standards today in the Church are measured against a falling standard in society. The gap is growing even if we simply stand still in our walk in the Faith. Abraham was called by God at ninety-nine years of age, and told to come out of the world and walk in His ways and to be “perfect.”
So why do I have to be different? Why do we have to be different to the society? The answer is that we cannot do two things and serve two masters. As Abraham was called so are we called.
How do our people come to an understanding? What standards do we have an obligation to follow?
One of the greatest legacies a society and a family can give their children is a sense of honour and a legitimate and moral family structure that follows from generation to generation. Noah was selected because he was pure in his generations. People will come to look on our generations in the last days as the most short-sighted. We have conquered technology and at the same time we have broken the family structure down and lost our own heritage.
What of it? Who cares if the society changes and the family no longer exists as we know it?
It has been proven over time that no society can last that denies the family. Of the sons of Abraham who denied the family tie and issues all perished. The best example was that of the Spartans. Josephus tells us they were sons of Keturah concubine then wife of Abraham. However, he did not preserve the exact evidence that was acknowledged to have demonstrated it. Remember there were families that had lost their lineages over time and could not prove their part in the social order. Now with DNA we are able to preserve the lineages of our people and as God says not a grain of corn will be lost. However, we have an obligation to act as a family and as a moral order and we are judged for that fact.
In the same way we are called into the faith and we have a higher obligation to preserve our faith and the Laws of God and act according to those laws. If we believe that something will be established by Christ in the Millennial system and we know that the same things were done by Christ and the apostles in obedience to the Laws of God during the establishment of the Church and the same things were done during the Temple period then we have an obligation to do them now.
I am not so amused by the adherents of the Armstrong system who teach false doctrine and make false statements to justify why they do incorrect things now. It is being advanced by some of the offshoots in the Churches of God that the postponements were in operation during the Temple period. Now that is a blatant lie as any one with a basic knowledge of the system knows. The people making the statement do so in absolute cynicism regarding the facts. They do so to justify their adherence to a false system derived from Jewish post Temple traditions for which Christ condemned them for trying to introduce even while the Temple still stood. They deceive the people and the people love to have it so. In that way they think they are excused for their inaction.
We have an obligation to obey God and to follow the truth no matter how inconvenient it is to do. God is testing us and seeing how obedient we are to His instructions.
The time will come when we will all be put to the final tests and we will all be measured completely. We have discussed the concept of the measuring of the Temple (see the paper Measuring the Temple (No. 137)).
We received a letter not so long ago that admitted that we had got the faith once delivered, and as laid down in the Bible, correct. However, the person who wrote the note added that it was too hard a walk. They opted out.
Yes it is hard in a completely agnostic state that is geared to a pagan calendar to follow the Laws of God and the calendar of God. However, we are obliged to try and God says His burden is not heavy. We might not get to rule the society now but then again we are not called to do that. We are called to show that we are fit to rule under Christ in the coming age.
So we are judged on how well we do and how faithfully we perform now in adversity. Any one can do well in good times. Any one can be generous in plenty. It is easier to be moral when there is no temptation. If every one goes to church, either in buildings or at home services, on Sabbath and not Sunday and keep the New Moons as monthly Holy Days instead of the days of human sacrifice as does the USA under one pretext or another then what test is that?
God will send us Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers else he will smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:6). However in Malachi 4:5 God says also “Remember the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statues and judgments.”
By keeping the law of God we also preserve the society for our children and they in turn may preserve our people also under God. When a nation forgets its God and His Laws, and forgets its families, the way of that people will fail.
It is up to us who are baptised in the faith to obey God and keep His commandments.
By our example the faith is taught to all men and the elect are called. The false systems that have entered the Church, like bad trumpets, merely sound strange and uncertain notes in the call to the faith. We are all judged by that fact and our reactions to truth. Through the Holy Spirit we come to understand the truth. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and guides us to action. Do not be afraid of being alone or of being spoken ill of, or despised, as they did that also of Christ and the apostles and prophets before us.
Love one another and keep the faith.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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