New Moon 1/3/28/120
Dear Friends,
This New Moon of the Third Month we proceed as usual to the week of Pentecost, which is the Feast of Weeks.
Next week Pentecost will fall on the Eighth Day of the Third Month, which is the First Day of the week called the Day of the Sun or Sunday by the pagans. Many religious groups observe it and yet seem to espouse nothing of the Laws of God or the Bible structure. Over this period we need to address what it is that manifests the Holy Spirit and its works at Pentecost. We need to know how the Church of God is able to discern its works and to protect its own people in the execution of those works.
For the New Moon we will discuss the protection of the Church and the brethren in the works of the Holy Spirit.
Over the twentieth century the Churches of God went through one of the most bizarre phases of its two thousand year history. It saw quite strange notions of Church history advanced, and it saw a system of brainwashing and elitism intrude into it so that the love of one another ran cold. People were taught an allegiance to a ministry so that whatever they said from time to time overrode the base standards of the morality of the Church in its relationships to one another. There intruded into the Churches of God a spirit of “I’m all right but you’re not all right”. In extension it was: “My little group is all right but you are not part of that group and you’re not all right, and those associated with you on the outside of my group are not all right”. A spirit of cliques was developed and the abuse of the brethren became endemic.
This mindset often develops in the society among mainstream church groups and the end result is persecution and war. However, it is not to be so among us.
This mindset is homicidal. It ultimately leads people to attack one another and to destroy those identified as not being part of the clique. It induces and has induced a spirit of slander among the Churches of God. It ultimately affects the ethics and morality of the entire Churches of God, such that they are divorced from what is a sound biblical ethical structure and commence to slander one another inducing hatred. Then they go on to libel in reducing to writing what they have been conditioned to accept as normal behaviour in their verbal social conduct.
It is written that a false witness will not go unpunished.
What is expected of us? Why is it that we are often too feeble to address this form of slander among us? It often comes from the conditioning of our organisations over the last fifty years. It also is affected by the spirit of humility that is among the brethren. The Churches of God have also been conditioned to accept abuse and to tolerate abuse of one another at the sanction of perceived authority. Some of the Churches of God were rightly identified as abusive organisations over the last fifty years. Some people are dysfunctional and enter among us with the aim of attacking and destroying the Churches of God and their workers through slander. They often pretend to be of us in order to achieve that end.
We should all be able to identify this process and by using the biblical procedures we should be able to bring it out in the open. Fresh air and sunlight, as the old saying goes is the best antiseptic.
It should ring a warning bell with you when someone starts to attack one of the members of the Church to you. It does not matter if it is during the services, or on the Church forum, or a public forum, or in social activity, or in private. You should be able to bring it to a head with this simple question: “Have you gone to your brother?”
If the answer is “no,” then insist that procedure is followed. If they have done that and the person does not respond, then take a witness.
If there is no response, then take it to the Church. If the person does not hear the Church, then they are to be removed as a heathen. Nothing is ever to be allowed to be reduced to slander and gossip.
The procedure is clear and outlined in Matthew, chapter 18 and the Constitution of the Church.
Slander is clearly identified by Christ as being a marker of the unconverted.
Having the Holy Spirit does not mean that you have to be reduced to the level of a doormat. Even being married to someone does not mean that they can dictate your spiritual life. We have often seen spouses use brinkmanship in trying to remove their partners from the Church when plain slander does not work. They threaten to leave and may even walk out once or twice. The answer is to let them go. The Bible is quite clear that while the unconverted spouse consents to stay with you, then remain with them. When they no longer consent, you are no longer bound.
Do not assume that because a person was baptised into the Churches of God that they were necessarily converted. Their division of the word of God and their behaviour is the sign of their conversion. Heresies or errors are allowed among us to show who has the approval of God. Often the self-righteous are weeded out with obvious errors, or hateful behaviour that is obvious to all except them and their type.
Often our people are too feeble in dealing with attacks on the Church and its officers. The love of one another starts with treating one another with care and concern and showing that we love one another. It is normal in society that people defend those of their organisations; it is a basic loyalty issue. However, in the Churches of God many of the people were taught the opposite. They permitted disloyalty and were encouraged to be disloyal to one another and curried favour with a transient ministry. The result was that no one had any loyalty to anything and they developed the most appalling ethics and behaviour.
We will deal with this aspect in the Pentecost message on an organisational basis. There is a very serious ethical situation developing among what we shall term the Rapture Nuts of North American Pseudo-Christianity. For now, we will concentrate on the treatment of the brethren within what poses as the Churches of God.
We should not allow a spirit of slander to go unchallenged in the Church. It is endemic in the Churches of God and was particularly prevalent and developed in the WCG system under Herbert Armstrong. Gossip and slander are the assassination of the character of the person being slandered or gossiped about. Love is not permitting your brother or sister to be damaged when they are not there to defend themselves. It is not simply that you should stick up for the Church or the officers of the Church. You should be prepared to protect and defend everyone in the Church. If they have done wrong, then insist they redress the wrong in the correct manner. Insist that their accusers act in the appropriate manner.
What is of interest is that we see more and more spineless behaviour in the form of anonymous or pseudepigraphic writing, using false names to hide their names and agenda. Their actions are attacks by slanderers and gossips using the Internet and other media. Do not tolerate these jellyfish. Never permit or allow such behaviour to go unchallenged. If they attack your brothers, then they attack you when you are not there or when you are in a position of power or authority that threatens them.
It is par for the course that the leaders of the Church are attacked and slandered. So too will you be attacked when it is your turn to be appointed to responsibility. When we are too old, then it will be our children who come after us. Stamp this behaviour out in the Church and do not permit it within our society. Do not hold back in this matter or be feeble in the defence of each other.
That does not mean we have to be blind to sin and fault. Make sure it is handled correctly and in all honour and seriousness. Never damage the standing of your brother or allow anyone else to do that either.
What has taken many of us a long time to come to grips with is that we are the Church of God and we are the Temple of God. The Holy Spirit has given us the stewardship of the Mysteries of God. The Church is composed of a group of individuals who are called out of the body of humanity to be given the understanding of the Will of God within a social structure as a living, breathing organism.
What joins us together is the correct understanding of the Word of God. If it were not for that fact, we would not be joined together as a body. We would be scattered among the nations without an understanding of God’s purpose.
It is Satan’s purpose to undermine that body and that understanding, and to attack us wherever and however he can do so.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren. Whenever you see that spirit of accusation and attack at work, you know that Satan is the author of the attack. It has been the same since Christ began the ministry, and it was the same with the prophets before him. The people purporting to zealously worship God killed the prophets. The prophets were killed by those who went to services every Sabbath. The heathens disregarded them. The Church has been killed by the Pharisees firstly, and then the Rabbis, and lastly by the so-called Christian church under the Trinitarians.
There is a move underway now to reinforce the paganism of the old systems that these false priests placed in Trinitarianism of old. They are prepared to kill to do so. That is the spirit that enters the Church. You must prevent it and defend the faith once delivered to the saints, and that means the body of Christ who are your brothers and sisters.
God is opening the minds of people now to the truth of the religious systems that have destroyed our people of old. Do not let Satan confound or damage this work of the Last Days. Keep us free of the accusers of the brethren.
Love one another. There is no greater love than this; that we lay down our lives for each other.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
© Copyright 2005 Christian Churches of God, All Rights Reserved
