New Moon 1/8/28/120
Dear Friends
This month begins the countdown to the first year of the next cycle. The Feast is over and the five-month gap has begun. Each of us should now look at preparing ourselves to take part in the work ahead of us. Whilst we are still in part of the Sabbath cycle we should also be preparing for the next harvest, which is the barley harvest of the First Month of the next cycle. In the same way, we should prepare ourselves for work and to support the Church. Some of us have left the burden of the work fall to others less able to do so but more willing than some who are perhaps more able.
It is often the way in the Churches of God that the widow’s mite goes a long way. Whilst the obligations under the Fourth Commandment to labour six days are suspended in favour of study in the word of God, if we have not chosen to implement that study time, we should be looking to now get down to some serious work in preparation for the harvest of the next season. Each of us should look at the capacity we have to work. If we have not got a job, we should get out and get one. If we received help from the Church over the Feast we should look at repaying the help where possible. If you are young and fit and have not been tithing, then it is about time you got out and worked to support the faith. Stop polling on your brethren. Use this period wisely to set yourselves up and improve your employment situation. Plan your life and work systematically to that end. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
Start setting your funds or what is effectively your second tithe away so that you can attend the feasts in the years ahead. Plan and save for the third year and the seventh year of the cycle and start now. If we had all done that over the last cycle no one would have needed assistance, except the truly poor in genuine emergency situations.
If you are in a developing country and your situation is not good, do not expect others to provide funds to you all the time. Remember that you are the majority of the Church and others as badly off as you have to forgo their own welfare to help you. It is time that everyone stopped this handout mentality and unrealistic expectations of the Church and did some work on their own and saved for the feasts as God commands them to do. I was pleased when the churches in Tanzania saw their responsibilities in this regard and commenced to support their own feasts. They are now leaving their former parasite ministries behind and will forge a healthy and hard working Church from many of the churches in their nation.
Everyone should repent of their sloth and prepare for the work of God. If we don’t work, we don’t eat. Even the disabled of the Church give something in return and seek to serve God and help each other. Much of the work is done with handicapped people who are dedicated to God and each other. They are the true inspiration of the Churches of God.
If you have a capacity for work and especially in translations, then put that to work and help the Church establish. We have much to do.
Do not be taken in by every wind of doctrine. One of the truly odd situations that we experience on a regular basis is that as some people come to us from various organizations, they know very little when they arrive and after a period of time they forget that they learnt what they know from the Church. They do not keep their study in a disciplined manner and because they are not grounded in the faith, they get carried away by winds of doctrine. Because they have no grounded discernment in truth they try to introduce novelties to the Church and seem surprised when the Church does not accept what they say. Some seem to think that the others who have endured for years will immediately embrace what they think is a new revelation. They see the executive as an impediment to their newfound truth. These flashes of ideas take many forms but usually they concern the weaknesses of the people involved. Many are “new prophets” not yet “appreciated” by the church. They seem genuinely surprised when they find “old timers” that are grounded in the faith and speak the same thing. Some of the “old timers” are younger women who have done their apprenticeship the hard way and are able to give an account of the faith and the hope that lies within them. Over the last cycle we saw a number of people destroy the chances they were offered and breached the trust extended to them. Some purporting to be wise showed themselves to be completely unethical and babes in the faith. They lost their positions and their place in the Church.
We have seen people attacked over time and without cause. One of the common factors in these attacks is that they are directed at the stable people in the Church who have proven to be lynchpins in the faith. One of the things that governs our administration in the faith is that we will not follow a multitude to do evil. In one case, had we done what was asked and wrested judgment due to the pressure on us, we would have effectively destroyed the national organisation in question. The person attacked proved to be the only genuine long serving person to remain capable of performing ministerial duties in that nation. The others drifted off with aberrations regarding calendars, and self-righteousness, and who knows what else. Always the Church is attacked. Always the doctrines are attacked with the intention of seeing them destroyed. Always the administration is attacked. In all of these instances we have not witnessed the Holy Spirit working with the attackers. In fact, the reverse is the case. It is a spirit of evil and accusation of the brethren using self-righteousness. Some even reportedly claim to still be of us yet not within us but still within the body of Christ. Do not be fooled. Christ is not divided. If you do not take the Passover with us you are not of us. If you have severed yourself from communion, then you have gone out from us and you are not of us. You need to repent and be restored. If you have misled others then you had better repent or God will deal with you for that fact.
Over the last cycle a number were lost through the actions of ambitious and unethical coordinators. Some were lost through misplaced loyalties. Others were never genuinely with us. It is in this period now that we should examine our motives and the basis of our faith. If you are reading this and are one of those severed from the communion of the Church through error and folly, then repent and be restored to the faith. The basis of the faith is repentance and restoration to the love of God.
If you are reading this and have kept yourself from the Church and the work through weakness and timidity, then repent and call yourself to a new boldness in the faith, in the strength that is Christ. Step out in faith. You are not alone. There are literally untold thousands of you studying now each day.
We should all pray now for the restoration of those lost through
error and silly ambitious leadership railing against the administration of the
Church. It is now over this period that we should strive to restore all to the
faith once delivered.
Pray for those that have fallen from understanding. Pray for the unification
of the brethren. Those of us that have been here a long time know that the Holy
Spirit gives us understanding of what is to come to pass in many ways. Many
things have been given to us and so we often know what people will do and long
before they do it. It is not weakness on our part that allows such “error,”
but rather the grace of God in Jesus Christ that honours past gifts and responsibilities.
We honour the fact that the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. We give
people the responsibility that past time and service indicate and that present
circumstances indicate God may be dealing with people. The brethren know what
is being done and they are not fooled by misuse of position.
One of the things that is alien to us, and particularly to my mindset is treachery in deceit in position of responsibility. We all understand Noah when he took a little too much of the harvest wine even though very few of us ever do that. The lusts of the flesh struggle within us and the old man dies hard. However, what is alien to the Church is the cunning manipulative ambition that would seek to dominate and destroy, or manipulate into error, the Church of God. Such thinking is of the adversary and has no place among us. It is that thinking that is most difficult to understand. Usually that thinking is accompanied by self-righteousness. If we esteem others better than ourselves then self-righteousness has no place with us. As with all cases, self-righteousness is completely unwarranted and is without basis in performance. The people that engage in it are much less productive and more dishonest than the people they accuse. It is always the same. Some nations are more prone to it than others. Some sins go before a man and others come afterwards. Our job is to determine the repentant and help the unrepentant to see their errors. The biggest problem is to limit the damage from the self-righteous because they are truly deceived and cannot see their own condition.
It is not our intention to dampen the joy of the feast period but rather to help us all prepare now for the time ahead and to restore the deceived and the erroneous to the faith.
Love one another and pray for our enemies. God will listen to the prayers of the Church and bind it in heaven and, through the Holy Spirit, act on it on earth.
Prepare now for the work ahead and get ready to support the
great effort required of us in the next cycle. There is much to do and we have
the planet to address and guide into the new millennial system. Get ready for
what lies ahead.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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