Dear Friends,

Today is the day we traditionally associate with the Return of the Messiah. It is the New Moon of the Seventh month. In ten days we will be fasting for the Day of Atonement and in fifteen days we will be at the Feast. It is the Third Year of the Sabbath cycle of the Sacred calendar. We are still on the long and dangerous road of world politics and war. Iraq is now setting an end to occupation and wants Iraq clear by 2011 so it says but I am afraid there will be much to do and the war will heat up. Everything we said in 1997 to 2001 has occurred exactly as we said it would. As we said last year it might be of use to go back and read the Sabbath Messages immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq and after we went into Afghanistan. The British Generals last year said the same things, but it was all too late.

Russia has destroyed Georgian sovereignty and is contemptuous of Human Rights. It wants to restore the Soviet Union and its old power base. China showed once again that sport is politics and it is also contemptuous of Human Rights. Teams of surgeons dismember prisoners for spare parts. Zimbabwe has now gone over the 20 million percent inflation and Robert Mugabe still does not get the message, killing people as his party wills. Torture and abuse of Human Rights is becoming entrenched in the West from the US.

As we said last year World War III is simply developing before our eyes and we seem powerless to stop it. Day by day the mindset of intolerance and bigotry is hardening. There are things being done now that we would never have thought possible in our free and open societies outside of all-out war, and only then in dictatorial regimes that had abandoned the rule of law and the conventions that civilised nations had laid down for the proper conduct of hostilities.

The US military develops civilian labour prisons on Army soil under its regulations. Other regulations provide for the UN control over the three nations in North America in the event of outbreaks such as Avian flu which is now being trumpeted as a certainty in the immediate future. Slavery is being accelerated in the US so that prison labour can be used in privately owned and controlled prisons so that industry can be brought back to the US on the same slave labour conditions as it was attracted to Asia and South America in the first place.

Our economies are going into recession but the US economy has now recovered significantly after it plunged the other national economies into chaos.

As we have pointed out repeatedly: “Christ told us that Satan’s rule had to be shortened because, unless those days were shortened, there would be no flesh saved alive.

Matthew 24:22 And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

Mark 13:20 And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days

The only reason that these days are shortened is because of the elect whom God has chosen (see the paper Predestination (No. 296)).

The Plan of God will continue, and the human race will be kept alive only because of its place in the Plan of God, as the elect has a place in that Plan.

For the many of you who are new to the faith this year, or who have been restored to the faith, which is also a significant number, it is important that we look at the paper Trumpets (No. 136) on this day to get our bearings as to what is to occur. It is not a matter that reflects on the Church, or on the justice and mercy of God. What is to happen does so because men are disobedient. God has given us a rulebook and a set of instructions that will ensure the protection, health and wellbeing of the entire planet, and ensure that we live life properly and have it more abundantly.”

We are required to work while we still can, while it is light. Soon the darkness will come upon us and no man can work. We hope to explain the events and sequence of the development of WWIII and how we might be saved out of it.

As we pointed out last year the Russian underground cities are supplying weapon-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons on the open market and they are not contained despite US and Russian efforts. The time for the conflict of WWIII to reach fruition, or full-scale holocaust is not far off.

As we said last year and the year before: “Every one of us should remember that God never changes. He is immutable. Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. God has written the Book of instructions and He gave it to us through His servants the prophets.

He didn’t change anything. He didn’t forget what He wrote. He did not lose it either. He appointed the Church and He gave that Church the authority to bind and loose. He established a Plan that pointed to Jesus Christ whom He sent, to die to redeem the creation from sin. The Temple system pointed to Christ who entered into the Sanctuary with his own blood once and for all to redeem mankind. God fulfilled the sacrificial laws. He was not a Trinity when He began to create. He was the One True God. He did not establish different calendars. He expects obedience more than sacrifice.

He gave us simple laws to obey. The pointer to the capacity for obedience is the Sabbath. He commanded us to gather three times a year to worship Him and we are not to come empty-handed.“

We have issued a generic offering message that deals with those issues (see the paper Offering (No. 275)). There is no offering on Trumpets or Atonement, and only one at the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles; thus three offerings a year.

The Churches of God are expected to obey God and follow His instructions. The Churches of God in the last half of the twentieth century have failed to be doctrinally correct. The failures and the man-worship of Armstrongism are simply sickening. Last week the failure to follow the correct calendar because of the errors of one man and the weakness and idolatry of his followers was again discussed in relation to the postponements of the Hillel calendar of Judaism. Soon Christ will come to restore the calendar and extinguish modern Judaism and its traditions for good.

The Temple, while it stood, kept the correct calendar. It did not postpone its New Moons and Holy Days. It kept the calendar according to the conjunction and it did not commence the year as the Samaritans established (i.e. with 1 Abib/Nisan always falling after the spring equinox), even as early as Jeroboam.

As we have continually said: There is nothing difficult about it all. All you have to do is read the Book and do what it says. It does not say to keep Sundays, and it does not say to keep Christmas and the festivals of Ishtar or Easter (see the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235)).

It is written: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God“ (Mat. 4:4). Christ did that and he rebuked Satan with those words.

Our task is to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and to make disciples of men. We are to warn all men in these Last Days as to what is to occur.

God chose us and gave us to Jesus Christ. Christ is told not to lose us and we are told to be obedient.

The Bible text has a clear plan. There is nothing contradictory about it all. It means what it says, and the text is to be obeyed. The fruits of disobedience are everywhere evident now and the planet is groaning. We are now in the Last Days (see the paper The Day of the Lord and the Last Days (No. 192)).

Over a number of decades we have seen people come into the Churches of God and be baptised, and then over the years they somehow lose sight of what it was they had. They sometimes lose heart and some turn and attack those who taught them. These are the ones that had pearls cast before them and then turned to rend their teachers. Some even blaspheme and curse God because they have lost sight of the Plan. Some simply use the Churches of God and milk money from a number of churches thinking God is blind to what these people are doing. God is not mocked and these people will simply be rejected at the marriage supper of the Lamb, which this day represents also.

Work now towards Atonement. Pray that the Adversary is restrained and the bonds of wickedness are broken and the oppressed go free.

Pray that we are able to reach the world. We note that the media is deliberately stopping the publication of scientific truth regarding the Global Warming con and withholding details regarding the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period. We will update Global Warming and Bible Prophecy (No. 218) again soon so we can deal with more details up until the middle of the seventeenth century. The governments of the world are becoming more and more corrupt and the media condones it as running dogs of the Globalist system.

God judges us all on our ability to act as nations and to exist as extended families. Nothing can stop that despite the New World Order and all that man can do. These people have little time left.

In this build up to the Feast of Tabernacles, pray that we are consolidated as a Church and a people. Pray that we are blessed and protected in our travels and in our meetings and in our activities. Pray for the new brethren, especially in Africa.

Pray for your brethren and their troubles. Pray for those in need in desperate times. Pray for those who are set tasks in the Faith. Pray that our people are all restored to their loved ones in good health.

Again this year pray that Christ is soon here and that the time is cut short and peace can reign, and also again pray that the world is corrected and the wars of false religion set up under the Seals are ended (see the paper The Seven Seals (No 140)). We know that once the Witnesses are here we have a very short time to go. For me personally, it will be a great relief to see them standing in Jerusalem. The events over the 1263.5 days will be horrendous but we know it is the time set and we will expect the Messiah at its completion (see the papers The Witnesses (No. 135) and the Advent of Messiah: Part I (No. 210A)).

Once again: Pray that the people wounded and hurt by religious misuse are healed and they are at peace. Pray for the lives and the health of the world as they go through this trial ahead of us.

Wade Cox

Coordinator General