Sabbath 20/11/27/120
Dear Friends,
This Sabbath we will deal with the question of false prophecy in the Churches of God over the last two centuries. False prophecy is not a rare event in the Churches of God. Over this last period it has become an epidemic. Each of the major churches were founded on and developed false prophecy to the extent that one can scarcely credit the imbecility and credulity of the members that follow these false prophets and prophetesses.
We intend to progressively and systematically deal with the errors made by these people, and the basis of the errors and misinterpretation of the Bible prophecies as revealed by God through His servants the prophets.
The messages will take place as a series and then will be compiled into a paper that will be issued and translated so that people of all nations might understand the false teachings that have been used, and are in fact still being used, to exploit them over time.
Background to the division of the Churches
The Thyatiran era ended with the Reformation and the effective persecution of the Sabbatarian movements in Europe by the newly emerging Protestants. The identification of these groups and persecutions are contained in the papers General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No. 122) and also Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170).
The Reformation was not designed to destroy the false Sunday-worshipping and Trinitarian churches in Europe. It was designed to protect the false doctrines of the sun cults that were in danger of being destroyed by the immorality and excesses of the perversion of the Roman Catholic system. The conditions that prevailed then are more or less being repeated now, as we all see by the endless litigation against the churches for their aberrant behaviour. The Protestant churches did not correct anything of importance at the Reformation. They simply gave a more respectable face to an ancient and pagan system that was at odds with Bible Christianity. The printing press had seen the emergence of a cheap readily available Bible that exposed the false system for what it was. The Bible literacy could not be stopped. That was tried and had failed. It could only be slowed. It had to be misdirected for their very survival. Unless the false system gave the appearance of reform, it was doomed. So it had what came to be called the Protestant Reformation. The Protestants were called that from the words “Pro teste” meaning for the truth. The Roman Catholics turned it to mean Protesting from Roman Catholic doctrine. The Protestants did not go back beyond the Fourth Century in their search for truth. As a result, they upheld the errors from Augustine of Hippo and the early Trinitarian structure. They in fact persecuted the Churches of God even more severely, if possible, than the Roman Catholics before them.
Many Protestant denominations arose due to the aspirations of carnal men. Based on the structure of secret societies, such as Scottish Rite Freemasonry, churches such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints were formed. They were called Mormons because of their cult of the dead. Mormo was the ancient god of the dead among the pagans. Their leaders also engaged in false prophecy and were seemingly killed by Masons due to the exposure and use of the Masonic rites and system for benefit as a competing religious system. These people also remained Unitarian but their understanding was corrupt. It is only now being corrected due in large part to the CCG exposition of the doctrines of the Nature of God.
Trinitarian agents placed many of the errors that found their way in to the Churches of God there. Many entered by the uninspired actions of avaricious and aberrant people who sought to use the Churches of God for their own ends.
In the 19th century, in what was the Sardis era, there was a great movement that anticipated the return of the Messiah. It was misdirected in order to discredit the clear Bible message of the return of the Messiah and to cause a sense of disappointment and induce the conditions that would see people disregard Bible prophecy as aberration. The Church of God movement was influenced by those who came to be known as Adventists from the concept of the Advent of the Messiah. A number of false doctrines had originated from the Protestant system also, such as the Rapture theory coming out of England in the 18th century (see the paper The Millennium and the Rapture (No. 95)).
The demons had induced this phase so that a situation could be achieved as noted in the NT where it would be said that: “My Lord has delayed his coming.”
These people had been exposed to the Churches of God who were comprised of officers who were the stewards of the Mysteries of God. The fact of the matter is that the Sardis system was dead, and is dead, and has not, and never has had a full understanding of Bible prophecy. That situation was brought about because they never adhered to the full truth and the doctrines of the Bible as taught under the Laws of God. They never fully adopted the Calendar of the Bible as held under the ancient Temple system. The result was that the Adventists did not understand the Jubilee system and the full Calendar. They got only as far as the Sabbath. Even that small step split the movement into a Sunday group as well as the main Sabbath thrust. They were, however, Unitarians and did not compromise on the Nature of God. Into that group, which had adopted the doctrines of William Miller and the Whites, was injected a further serious doctrine of demons, namely that of vegetarianism. The false prophetess, Ellen G. White, then assumed more importance and her false prophecies were introduced repeatedly. These teachings became more and more aimed at the denial of the true nature of the millennial system on earth under the resurrected saints of the Church. That misdirection was necessary, because the Bible prophecies showed that the millennial system would not be vegetarian. People would eat meat on a systematic and sanctioned basis.
These errors have been dealt with in the paper the Pre-Advent Judgment (No. 176) as well as the paper Millennium and the Rapture (No. 95).
Ellen G White was to become the most dangerous of the false prophets, or false prophetesses, of the Sabbath-keeping system. There were to be only a couple of others that rivalled her for error and damage to the Churches of God and the prophetic system within the stewardship of the Mysteries of God. One of these was a man named Charles Taze Russell. He had been exposed to the Churches of God in the 19th century, and had seen the potential of the doctrinal system he was explained. He saw that the Sabbath was an inconvenient interference in the recruiting and expansion of the money making operation that was in fact the potential of the religion business, particularly in the USA. He and a few others formed the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society. That corporation owns what became the organisation known as the Jehovah Witnesses. They have corrupted Bible prophecy and adapted it to the Sunday worshipping system, even though they adhere to the doctrines of the nature of God derived from the Churches of God in the 19th century. They are Unitarians even to this day but their understanding of prophecy is so flawed as to be farcical.
The next development in the Churches of God was made necessary because the Church of God had not been entirely destroyed by these false prophets and their movements. The Churches of God were moving steadily to the proper adoption of the full Temple Calendar under the Unitarian structure. The next crisis that was to be experienced came under Herbert W. Armstrong who adopted the Jewish Hillel system and corrupted those churches of the Church of God Seventh Day that were in fact keeping the true Calendar. The Sabbatarians in Eastern Europe, that had survived the demise of the Waldensians and the Reformation, remained more or less intact until the Nazi Holocaust. They were decimated at that time. God has placed no other burden on them (see Cox, Kohn, The Sabbatarians in Transylvania, CCG Publishing 1998).
What we are now going to do is to examine year by year the false prophecies made by these latter day false prophets and the people who feed from their errors.
We will commence with the year 1832 and the so-called visions of Joseph Smith and his subsequent false predictions. You will see that these people and their organisations never apologise for false prophecy.
Editors note: This statement “Truly or Thus saith the Lord” qualifies Smith
as a deliberate false prophet under the Bible laws and identifications. He continued
in this vein, as we will see.
We now find William Miller’s false prophecies coming into exposure along with
those of Joseph Smith.
Their false prophecy was aimed at consolidating aberrant and anti-Bible doctrines
whilst using the people who were genuinely trying to follow God within what
they perceived as legitimate groupings of those entitled to confer the baptism
of the followers of Jesus Christ. It seems that on this basis they were able
to push any strange and aberrant doctrine on to the faithful.
Next week we will push on to the false prophecies and antinomianism of Charles
Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The following week we will examine the failure of the Churches of God system and the false prophet Herbert W Armstrong and his associates who seemed to wallow in his penchant for false prophecy. They themselves still continue this fine tradition of false prophecy as though it were a mantle of Elijah to be aspired to and defended. We will continue to examine the unabashed justifications of the Jehovah Witnesses and the datelines of both systems. These and others will be examined right up to the present day.
What is most bizarre is the fact that the followers of these false prophets seem not to care one jot that they continue in this error and blasphemy.
We all make mistakes but modesty and integrity would demand an acknowledgment. Even the stewards of the Mysteries of God can misunderstand the sequence of prophecy if they have no command of God. If one wishes to be dogmatic, one has an obligation to be correct.
At the end of the series we will detail what is to happen with the Church and its role in prophecy and the Mysteries of God. Then a series of papers will be issued to the Church.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
© Copyright 2005 Christian Churches of God, All Rights Reserved
