Sabbath Message 2/9/27/120
Dear Friends,
This New Moon we looked at the concept of keeping the mind and body active and healthy. Much of what we are is what we do and what we put into our body and our mind. Very often the way our mind functions is beyond our direct control as we allow concepts into the mind that are simply not correct or not true.
The Ninth Commandment is integral to the operation of a healthy society. What conditions the thought processes of an individual goes also to shape the society that is made up of those individuals. As covetousness and the Tenth Commandment regulate the theoretical relationships within social interaction and equity, so also does the Ninth Commandment regulate social justice. These two commandments regulate the general society together with the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Commandments. These aspects are covered in the Law of God Series (L1), with which we should all become familiar and preparing to study in detail for next year.
Most people would think that they were just people and would not bear false witness and/or participate in unjust actions. However, the same people have their opinions formed by others in the manipulation of the information they allow into their minds, and their acceptance as fact of opinions or data of which they have no first hand knowledge or way of verifying.
We all do it and we all are more or less products of our society. We all read page one where the slander of an individual takes place, but few bother to read the retraction usually much later on in a later issue, if it is published at all. I referred to a particularly tragic case a few months ago regarding the Chamberlains whose child was taken by a dingo at Uluru in Australia. Now they have definitive evidence that the woman was unjustly convicted and persecuted by a society of naturalist do-gooders that simply have no knowledge of the matters about which they speak and write. In fact, even now when it is acknowledged by anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the facts that the mother was innocent of the death of her child, there are still people who refuse to accept the fact because they do not want to accept the fact. This week a dingo tried to do the same thing to another child and the elder sister prevented the child from being taken and eaten. Even then, the mother reportedly did not want the dingo destroyed. Whose child does have to die to get some positive action? Fortunately there are some sane people left in the world and it will be taken care of in the not too distant future. The attitudes displayed in these instances are conditioned by the uninformed corpus that makes up the education structure of the community.
We are a product of our education systems and sadly that has been woeful over recent years. We have downplayed education and taken the accountability out of the assessment systems, and we are paying the price. We have woeful reading skills in our school population but not just among the students. Some of our teachers in fact display learning disabilities and handicaps in these skills. Our people lack the basic education to discern fact from fiction in media and that is being cultivated by the administration for control purposes. That does not make a people free and just.
How can we educate a society if our educators are themselves uneducated or lacking the basic skills such as reading and communication? For it is in true and honest communication that we are able to maintain our cohesion as a society. When a society teaches people to lie, it ultimately disintegrates. Nowhere is that more so than in the Churches of God. This process is called cognitive dissonance. It unbalances the soundest minds.
There are two ways we can be affected socially by misinformation leading to injustice. The first level is by simple gossip. It is a fact that people love to gossip. The social motivation in the average population leads people to want to control by use of information. Thus, people become authorities on other people and inform people regarding their understanding of what other people say and do. The problem is that most often it is hearsay and all too often deliberate lies are picked up and repeated as fact.
We have seen baptised people of the Churches of God deliberately try to destroy
people by malicious gossip. I have seen officers in the Churches of God use
gossip as a weapon in the game of collecting people like pawns in the musical
churches routine that came from the disintegration at the end of the 20th century.
We have seen people try to destroy other officers and their reputations for the benefit of their own families. The Church will not stand for this behind the scenes character assassination that was a feature of earlier religious groups. When accusations are made against someone then they should be properly investigated. Fresh air and sunlight is the best antiseptic. A person is entitled to know of the charges against him. The charges must be in writing. He is entitled to know, hear, and test the evidence on which the charges are based. He is entitled to natural justice in the conduct of any hearing. He has a right to be heard and he must have a tribunal free of bias. Justice must be timely and evident. The critical element in all this is that it must all be based on truth and there can be no room for dishonesty. A false witness will not go unpunished (Prov. 19:5,9). The chapter in Proverbs repeats this promise within four verses for emphasis. The Church must be the centre of justice and fair hearings and not a place of persecution and gossip.
The second means is by deliberate misinformation on official reports. Satan is the accuser of the brethren and is an expert at fabricating accusations against us. Often we help him in the process through our own stupidity and sin. He has many willing helpers in the society. There are more and more devotees of Satan in the society now, and many are not even aware that they are part of the deeper things of Satan.
One of the common ploys developing in our society now with information technology is for senior people to produce false reports on people they don’t like or who threaten their position and it goes into the record. We have seen official reports produced on people with not a semblance of fact and simply manufactured to discredit the persons on which the reports are created. The collection of information these days is becoming based on rumour. All too often, corrupt officers compile reports to discredit people whom they perceive as being a threat to their continued positions or activities. This is now becoming more acceptable and allegations can be made against people and find their way into files without any basis in fact, but merely achieve a reality from their appearance on a file. Junior officers then repeat the lies because they see it on a file or wish to curry favour with their seniors. Privacy is a myth and with the destruction of privacy, the capacity for social justice is diminished. Organised crime is using police corruption for these purposes and the intelligence process is aiding it. The amazing thing is that the people are finding this erosion of their right to justice more acceptable as it applies to others. This comes from the “dumbing down” of the society.
This should not happen in the Church but sadly it does. The people most affected are usually the ones close to the offending party. They usually don’t want to believe the sad facts of the matter or doubt their relatives.
It is a sad fact that people have allowed themselves to be removed from the Church by the gossip and false statements of others through misguided loyalty. However, the people who have allowed those false statements to stand are also in a serious position in regard to the faith. Do not be an obstacle to the position of another by silence or false witness. God will hold it to your account until you repent and correct the problem. The Church will not remain silent forever. Go to your brother and restore him or her to the faith.
Each of us has a responsibility to ensure that our people are educated in the truth for only the truth will set us free. Justice starts with the family and the Church of God. If we create injustice in the Churches of God how can we expect the society to take us seriously?
We are still waiting for a problem among the brethren in one of the churches to reconcile in truth and honesty, and much of the problem is caused by the dishonesty of people long gone. Don’t let people with strange ideas drive wedges between the brethren in the Church simply because you don’t want to believe that they might actually do whatever it is because in your heart you want to believe them.
This leads me to another point. If you leave the Church, even if you are an innocent party, you are not absolved of the requirement to discern the body of Christ and keep the Passover. If you miss the Lord’s Supper you are no longer on the train. You can take the second one but if not then, you had better repent and restore yourself to the Church. Failure to keep the Lord’s Supper and Atonement means you are cut off from your people, namely the Church of God.
We should all get this one thing straight. If you have taken offence at something you have heard from another member and taken yourself out of the Church then, the problem lays with you, not him or her. Find out what is true and restore yourself to the Church. Do not expect to be part of CCG and tear your brothers apart. This Church does not run on gossip and character assassination or on injustice and abuse of justice. Do not come to the executive with a complaint and expect us to be influenced by it without a hearing based on the rules of natural justice.
Gossip will not be allowed on the Churches of God. Raising a false report is a perversion of justice and will not be tolerated.
We should all try to be reconciled to our brothers and to develop each other in the cause of the faith by justice and truth.
There is not one verse in the Bible that justifies a baptised member of the body of Christ in staying home or withholding tithes and his or her labour from the work. In fact, Christ is quite clear about what will happen to that person.
Work together as a cohesive body in the faith. Love one another and be reconciled. Work to the building of the Church of God in the nation and area in which you live. Do not be discouraged or offended.
Look to the greater things that are in store for you and work in harmony and love.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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