New Moon 1/11/27/120
Dear Friends,
Many of you will recall that in 1997 the paper Global Warming and Bible Prophecy (No. 218) and The Last Thirty Years: the Final Struggle (No. 219) were both issued. The papers were addressed at the Feast of Tabernacles of that year. The wars in the Middle East and the attendant Global Warming problems were addressed and the time frames and prophecies were indeed seen as radical at that time. In fact, the majority of people and especially scientists saw us as being decidedly “off balance.”
The Twentieth Century saw no true prophets until the last decade when the CCG was raised up to perform a series of tasks by the Lord God of Hosts in the latter days. The prophecies of the Adventists were of no avail and were wind and falsehood. The Jehovah Witnesses got it so wrong that they pronounced Christ as coming in 1914 and that he has been ruling the world from somewhere in New York since that time. If this is an example of his rulership, he had rather not bothered. The false prophecies of Herbert Armstrong and the dismal record of his lieutenants, such as Roderick Meredith, are a matter of public record. These men uttered false prophecy after false prophecy and now, when the Lord is dealing with the world in the latter days, they steal the words out of the mouths of the Church raised to speak of these matters. We will produce a list of the failed prophecies of these men next so that we might all see and hear and understand what the Lord has said concerning them.
The fact that God raises up a prophet does not make that man free of sin and righteous in his own eyes.
The test of prophecy and prophets is this:
If they do not speak according to the law and the testimony there is no light in them (Isa. 8:20).
No true prophet can diminish the law of God and not teach according to the Law and the Testimony. That is according to all of it. If they do not keep the Calendar according to the Temple system, and do not keep the New Moons and the Sabbaths and according to the Reading of the Law, there is no light in them.
If what a prophet says does not come to pass, then he is not to be feared. God has not sent him. The record of the ministry of the Worldwide Church of God and its offshoots is an appalling list of error and falsehood. It is obvious that God has not and could not have sent them or revealed His will through them at any time over the history of their mission. Their task was not and could never have been prophecy.
If what that prophet says DOES come to pass then there is another test of them. What they say must be measured against the laws of God and the Testimony.
If the prophets also preach contrary to the fact and the will of God as He is expressing through his true prophets, they are then subject to the death penalty.
Jeremiah was to have this instruction from God when he complained to Him concerning these false prophets.
“Then said I, ‘Ah Lord God! Behold the prophets say unto them, ‘Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’”
Then the Lord said unto me: The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I have sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought and the deceit of their heart.
Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall these prophets be consumed (Jer. 14:13-15).
God had said to Jeremiah that he was not to pray for the people of Judah and that He was to send them into captivity.
“Thus saith the Lord unto His People, ‘Thus have they loved to wander, they
have not refrained their feet,’ therefore the Lord does not accept them; He
will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins.
Then the Lord said unto me, ‘Pray not for this people for their good.
When they fast I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering
and an oblation, I will not accept them; But I will consume them by the sword,
and by the famine and by the pestilence’” (Jer. 14:10-12).
Thus, God was telling Jeremiah what to do and the prophets were gainsaying the Plan of God through their false prophecy. This is now happening in the Churches of God and God will deal with it.
When the last forty years of the times of judgment were commenced, these false prophets of the Churches of God were like dumb dogs. Their litany of false prophecies stood in testimony against them. Their disobedience cut them off from God and they had no command and no understanding upon which to act. Now that the sequence is becoming more obvious, they are barking from the sidelines with no command of the Lord. Because they do not obey the Living God in the Law and the Testimony they have no command of God. Scripture is of no private interpretation and therefore the elect can be given understanding of the mysteries of God. But where no command is from God, do not presume to speak as though it were so. Say that you have no command of the Lord in the matter so that God might spare your lives.
So also these snide critics who publish sites on the Internet hurling dust at those who try to do the will of God will not escape. The Benjamite did not escape even though it was Solomon and not David that punished him. Nevertheless his hoary head did not go down to the grave unpunished. Find out if what is being said is from God and respect those that carry it. Prophecy is a serious matter of the prophets, and His stewards unfold the mysteries of God.
We are now faced with the explanations of the religious leaders of the world, trying to make sense of the recent earthquakes and tsunamis. Some 200,000 people are dead or missing. We will never know the true numbers. The UN now admits that the numbers could easily exceed 200,000.
The religious leaders are trying to answer the question of the disaster within their terms of reference. Some Buddhist monks have been quoted as saying it really is due to the “forces of nature” as though it were an “enlightened” religious system. However, the government in the Myanmar Republic has clamped down on all news coverage precisely because it is a Buddhist nation. The Buddhists there are of an old form from Theravadin Buddhism that has been influenced by the Tantric rites such as we find in Thailand (See Mysticism chs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for details of the religious systems involved). These people believe that the “gods” or the divine influences as explained in Buddhist terminology are angry and express their displeasure with the leaders of the nation in such ways. The same views are held in Indonesia and also to a lesser extent in Malaysia, where the Wahyu Kedaton or spiritual forces of the ruling parties are understood as being affected by the display of cosmic events and changes in leadership are heralded by such events.
That is why it was no accident that the two most highly accessed papers of the CCG web sites over the last week of December and the first week of January were the Indonesian language versions of the papers Global Warming (No 218) and also Mysticism chapter 9 regarding religion in South East Asia (Mysticism B7-9).
The last section of Global Warming and Bible Prophecy (No. 218) deals with Tsunamis. We said in that work that there would be increasing earthquake activity from that time. We expected these activities to increase after the Reading of the Law in 1998 and will again from 2005. Each seven-year period will become more serious than the last until Messiah ends it all and the millennial system is put in place.
In that sense, the Animists are correct and the catastrophes do indicate displeasure with the world’s leaders and their ways.
The Hindus and the Buddhists are confronted in this matter with a serious dilemma. Their law of the Dharma or the concept of Karma holds that these things are a measure of the past demerits inherited by these people in past lives. They allegedly suffered and died because of things they did in the past. Yet Buddhism is forced to deny that the system works in a credit/debit balance sheet like some enormous balance of account. This matter silences them, as they stand condemned by it.
The so-called Christians, on the other hand, are taking relative comfort from the enormous death lists of the Muslims and the Hindus and are trying to claim that God is more displeased with the Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists in their persecution of Christians, than with the Christians. Unfortunately, there is bad news coming for them. God will deal with them and their false system in a very serious way and they will stand condemned by Christ. Both Islam and Christianity are apostate and God will punish both of them.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are allegedly trying to claim that their false prophecies and predictions regarding increasing earthquake activity in the 20th century are at last justified. The fact is that the Twentieth Century saw less earthquake activity after 1914 and up until 1999 than before, or will indeed see in the future. Undeterred they appear to massage the figures to support their false predictions. They too will be ashamed when the time arrives.
The simple facts are that the real earthquake activity is usually on the Pacific Rim. “Pacific” is a misnomer. The Pacific is anything but peaceful. As recent as four hundred years ago a giant tsunami had struck the Pacific west coasts and wiped out part of Australia due to the San Andreas Fault. Asia did not escape but the brunt was taken here. There may have been two or more tsunamis in the same century as the Portland fault also went some 330 years ago. A meteor also sent a tsunami against the South East Australian coast and the West coast of NZ in the same century. One hundred thousand years ago the Hawaiian landslip wiped out the Australian East coast. Australia has stones washed and made round by the activities of their exposure in the sea, in some cases, seventy odd metres up the cliffs above sea level. They are washed into crevasses and ledges by tsunami activity. To reiterate the problem, tsunamis travel at just under the speed of sound in walls of water anything from three to three hundred or more metres high. They can travel across all oceans of the world. The only thing that stops them is when they hit a land mass and all living matter on that land mass, in the path of the tsunami, is usually destroyed or uprooted.
The Atlantic is not safe either, in that the earthquake activity can and does result from the volcanoes it has. There are fears that the volcano Cumbre Vieja will cause a landslip that will wipe out the American East Coast.
So what is next? The answer is that God has said the coastlands will weep. It is essential that the major development of the nations do not become concentrated on the coasts. Much of this is the plan of the Fallen Host; in that with the major catastrophes come more complete devastation. God will allow it because it will mean less pollution in the coming millennial system.
That fact, however, does not help you to survive. To survive you must turn
to God and minimise your exposure to these dangers. There are also dangers in
the earthquake belt in the inland of many countries. Australia has a belt for
example from the Australian Capital Territory to north of Newcastle and running
almost to Roma in Queensland in decreasing incidence. There is a matter of faith
also but we do not knowingly have to tempt God.
Look at some sobering facts. The San Andreas Fault goes every four centuries
or so, and is overdue now. The Portland Fault goes every three centuries or
so, and is overdue now. There is a landslip developing in Hawaii and it can
go anytime. There is increasing activity in South America and the Atlantic.
The Bible speaks of great earthquakes.
We have seen some of the “prophets” of the Churches of God refer to these prophecies so that they might jump on the bandwagon after the event. They were able to say nothing before the events of recent years occurred.
Recently one of these people used the text in Matthew 24:7. That prophecy however, does not occur in the Last Days. Christ says that after his death till his return there will be wars, famines and commotions. The Greek word for earthquake is "seismos" meaning shaking or commotion and refers to the sky and the earth.
It is reasonable therefore to assume Christ meant cyclones, earthquakes, etc.
Interestingly, Christ refers to these events as labour pains. So over the two
thousand years the woman is in labour, culminating in the birth of the millennium.
That event is preceded by the Day of the Lord. Christ is effectively saying
that just because there is an earthquake and tsunami that kills 200,000 people,
it is not an immediate sign of his coming.
There was a cyclone that killed 138,000 Bangladeshis in 1991. There was an earthquake
that killed 800,000 Chinese in the 1500,s. Neither event was a sign of the immediate
return of Christ. They were simply more labour pains. We do not then say that
his coming is not immediate. There are many associated prophecies and also much
that has to be done in that sequence, and taking the events out of sequence
merely confuses the issues and creates error. We are to watch and wait. We have
given a clear explanation of the Jubilee System and the Calendar of God. God
acts in accordance with His own Laws. His time sequence and Calendar have not
changed.
In one such example of the bandwagon jumpers, Mr Roderick Meredith, came out effectively saying that it was five to fifteen years until Messiah comes, seemingly in 2019. This seems to mimic the comments of the CCG but takes much of it out of context (See the paper Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272)). That is probably because he does not understand the key calendar problems of the Bible. So does he have special insight or is he just taking words from the mouth of the CCG contrary to the commands of God? All of a sudden our time frames seem important to him and LCG. However, in 1956 he made similar prophecies concerning a period of fifteen years also. He was wrong then as history attests.
Roderick Meredith was to say in 2001:
"We are going to be spanked by the Great God [as many observe, spanking seems to be a recurrent theme with Rod Meredith]. World War III is coming up. I am God's servant and God's witness. I myself, Mr. Ames and others, may be killed or martyred. We are at that time now. We are entering the last generation. Those under 20 years of age are undoubtedly living in the last complete generation of this world's society (Tomorrow's World broadcast, 2001, "Is this the last generation").
Now that’s quite a call. Rod Meredith is allegedly “God’s Witness” here. Then perhaps God was only fooling when Rod said this:
"Frankly, literally dozens of prophesied events indicate that this final revival of the Roman Empire in Europe-and its bestial persecution of multitudes of Bible-believing Christians-will take place within the next seven to ten years of your life!" (The Plain Truth, Feb. 1965, p. 48).
Perhaps we might excuse his ramblings based on his own testimony:
Larry Salyer, letter to Global Church of God ministers, November 25, 1998 (excerpt
also quoted in The Journal, November 30, 1998): "[W] e learned that more
than a quarter of a million dollars had suddenly been drained from Global's
bank account, through the use of unauthorized checks, signed by Dr. Meredith
and another individual who had no power to sign any checks. Further, one six-figure
check was payable to the very person who signed it without authority. Thankfully,
[we were able] to stop payment of those unauthorized checks. But we learned
that fully one half million dollars was moved from our investment account to
the operating account to cover the checks."
"By the way, these actions were justified by saying that the money was
being used to pay back loans to individuals. Maybe so, but that process always
involves authorization and is done according to strict agreements and payback
schedules agreed to by all parties. In this case, the loans were not due and
payable, and the checks were hand-written, apparently outside office hours,
and not through the person who is responsible for such checks.... When pointed
out that this action, in our opinion, might potentially constitute criminal
activity, Dr. Meredith suggested that we could just tell the bank that the signer
was a 68-year-old man who didn't quite know what he was doing."
We will deal with the extensive nature of the false prophecies of the Armstrong ministry over fifty years in the near future. Why is CCG bothering to do that? The answer is that the people of God need to know what God wants of His people and that the message of the Mysteries of God cannot be allowed to be corrupted by systems that misuse it. The New Moons were used by God to speak through His servants the prophets, and true end time prophecy requires obedience to the Laws of God and that includes the observance of the New Moons. The Church of God had no true prophets in the Twentieth Century because they did not keep the Calendar correctly, and especially the New Moons. Also Muhammed is recorded as saying: “There is no prophet that has not been a shepherd. I tended sheep as a boy.”
God does nothing except he warns the people by His servants the prophets. We must all take very seriously the word of God and what He has given us to do. The love of God is expressed by our love of mankind in the Commandments of the Lord. Love one another as God and Christ love us.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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