Sabbath 28/7/28/120
Dear Friends,
By now we are all safely home from the Feast of Tabernacles and the Reading of the Law of God in the Sabbath Year.
The Feasts everywhere were a success although we are still waiting for reports from some sites in Asia. The World Conference in Canada was a great success and many people expressed their pleasure in the Feast. The Canadian church was acknowledged and thanked for their outstanding performance in organizing the Feast but there were a number of US officers also that rendered valuable assistance.
The World Conference objectives were set for the next seven years until the next Reading of the Law in 2012. We are hoping that we can next read the Law in Jerusalem, if, as one of the old timers wryly put it, Jerusalem is still there.
The children’s lessons and studies went very well and as usual they entertained us with their projects. The choir and special music was a success.
The catering was well organized and the food and wine was of high standard. I doubt any went to restaurants in the entire feast choosing instead to dine together and to meet new friends from around the world among the national representatives.
The desire to be together and eat together is a fairly sure sign of the commitment to the brethren and their individual and group dedication to the Church.
This period up to the Reading of the Law was a weeding-out process for the next phase of the work and a number did not survive the pressures and stresses. For some it was ambition that caused them to stumble, with others it was errors in thinking. Those that survived the trials will be stronger.
A number of officers were ordained this year and promoted. A new elder or bishop was raised from the rank of deacon evangelist. Mr. Dave Treat is now an Assistant Coordinator General. A number of trainee ministers were confirmed in rank and ordained as deacon evangelists. The song leader’s seminar conducted by the US choir master was a success and a number of new song leaders were set on the path in national churches.
The French work was placed under two French Canadian officers, M. Jacques Guerard and M. Jean-Guy Dionne. Ms. Nelly Veede was appointed as a secretary to the World Conference for the Spanish work.
The Feasts in Africa were a trifle more eventful than elsewhere. The national director of CCG in Tanzania and two area coordinators in northern Tanzania were opposed by some ministers who belonged to another organisation that had sought to join us, unsuccessfully as it turned out after my visit to Tanzania.
There were a significant number of other churches that attended the Feast in Tanzania including SDA, COG 7th Day and a number of others of local Sabbath-keeping origin,
In order to stop the Sabbath-keepers from becoming fully informed on the requirements of the Law of God regarding the feasts, attempts were made to close the sites down in the Lake Victoria region. False allegations and complaints were made concerning CCG’s activities. The false allegations were also made within CCG to disrupt and sow discord. However we were not fooled by such tactics. Our communications and respect for each other are also too good for such tactics to work. The national and area coordinators for CCG were ordered to report to the area police HQ in Tanzania for interrogation. After three hours of interrogation the police realized they were being used and gave our officers safe conduct in all areas they were to conduct the feast and asked us to establish further credentials for all the ministry so that they could be protected more fully in their activities. God literally reversed the outcome of the actions so that those trying to destroy what we were doing were the losers.
Many new church groups and people in Africa are aligning themselves with CCG on a weekly basis. After our visit there the weeding out process began and the end results are that a significant number of churches and hundreds of individuals from area to area are being consolidated on a widespread basis. As others become aware of the Truth they are being called and added to us.
It is encouraging to see such effort and sacrifice being made in so many nations and areas. It is all too easy to be discouraged by the problems and trials that are placed among us to disrupt what we do.
We should all now consider what we are to do and how we can encourage and support one another in the work.
One of the extraordinary errors made among the Sabbath churches is the attempt to keep the feasts according to the pagan calendar and in a corrupted fashion. The SDA elements are trying to keep the feast in the Seventh Month but they counted from January of the pagan calendar and so kept a strange and corrupt version of it in July. The COG 7th Day likewise does not keep the feasts and their people cannot understand why they do not when the Bible is so clear. They do not understand that the national branches of the COG 7th Day did in fact keep them for a century or more in South America especially but they lost their understanding because they did not obey fully and were destroyed in Chile by the WCG system.
We have to overcome these errors in understanding and more properly educate the various churches of God in the faith. Their gaps in knowledge are surprising considering the length of time that they been operating.
Now that we have returned home we should be looking to uplift and help the officers that have been appointed for the next seven years. Do not murmur and undermine the officers over you but rather encourage them and help them to do their duty and discharge the responsibilities with which they are entrusted.
If you cannot follow then you cannot lead. If you are entrusted with leadership, then be loyal. Thus, you will prove worthy of that trust.
God has established a Church with a system of administration and which is entrusted with the mysteries of the Kingdom of God in the Last Days. We all must protect the Church and its doctrines and its teachings.
We cannot allow the corruption of the Church in these Last Days. Time is short and there is much to do. Those that threaten the mission of the church are removed. Remember if you have office then you had better perform faithfully and in truth. By what you do in smaller things you are able to be advanced to larger responsibilities. Do not make false or railing accusations against your brethren. It is the responsibility of the executive to train its own replacements and protect the Church at the same time. This next seven years will see more advances and more growth in each individual. Pray we are all accounted worthy of the work ahead of us.
Be prepared for the work ahead. Also present yourselves before God in an appropriate manner. Have respect for one another and dress properly and in all modesty. Abide by the adopted dress codes as they apply in the various nations. Have respect for the brethren. Do not be in a race to compete in the social degeneration.
Remember that the love of God and the love of our neighbour are the basis of the law and the prophets.
If we learnt nothing else this Feast we should have come away with that message instilled in our hearts.
Have a great Sabbath and the forthcoming New Moon on the second
day of the week,
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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