Dear Friends,

It is written that neither a liar nor a thief will inherit the Kingdom of God. These are the things we must watch for:

1 Corinthians 6
[9] Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts,
[10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5
[21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5
[5] Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Despite these clear injunctions a great many people in the Churches of God engage in immorality and more particularly in lies and scams to swindle the various Churches of God. Many are successful because the officers of the Churches of God extend a thing called trust to those who were baptised or involved with the Churches of God. We extend trust to people that have been baptised into the Churches of God on the basis of their faith. Most of the time we are honoured and the people prove trustworthy. Sometimes, however, we are faced with the fact that the person is untrustworthy. We then deal with them.

Somehow the people do not realise that they are breaking faith with God. Ananias and Sophora were killed as an example to the church in the first century and a record for us as to what God expects from us. The lesson was reinforced to show us what would happen.

We sometimes find that there are unscrupulous people that attempt to use the Churches of God. The scams have been able to develop because the Churches of God compete with one another and do not cooperate by and large. The Anglicans and Roman Catholics for example do not have such a problem especially in Africa as they have nearby ministry that are able to communicate and they have an existing infrastructure.

In Africa we have found a few people that operate under different names using different churches to take money under false pretences.

We have uncovered a few rackets and exposed a few people largely through our infrastructure and our cooperation with the other Churches of God that are civil to one another. For example, we are on good working terms with UCG and a number of small COGs that are sometimes used by these scammers. When we know of a scam we will communicate with the others and inform them of what we find. Exceptions are those such as LCG and RCG that simply are unable to accept what they are told and work with anyone else. The attitude seems to be that anyone who says he is on my side can do no wrong and anyone not in my church can do no right. Consequently they have done the image of the Churches of God enormous damage especially in Africa.

I will give you some case studies in scams within the Churches of God and you can do a study on what you think will happen to those people.

Study 1:

In Dar es Salaam there is a man that approached CCG some years ago for baptism and employment and a role in CCG. I went to Dar and baptised him. He worked for the church for some time. I went to the Lakes area and took him as our interpreter and whilst there I warned him about the church in India and how they had been dismissed for unethical behaviour some time beforehand. By his reaction I saw that he had done the same thing. Not long after that the Holy Spirit made it evident that he had in fact approached the UCG and I warned them of what I suspected was happening. The officer of UCG confirmed that he had indeed approached them and they had gone to Dar and baptised him in the same pool that I had baptised him. He was then fired from both CCG and UCG. We subsequently found that he had also set up a scam with LCG. They were warned about it but ignored my warning to them. More importantly, they were unconcerned with the ethics of what they were doing.

They set up a group there in the Lakes district and subsequently suffered problems through deceit.

It also appears that they were compromised by even further scams with the same people involving Sunday worshippers and other Sunday Missionary activity. These groups had also involved the COG (7D) as we will see next.

What problems do you think the persons involving themselves in these scams and multiple baptism had?

What was the flaw in their understanding regarding the function of baptism and the role of the Holy Spirit?

Secondary problem 1a:

The man ultimately ran out of options and had nowhere to go and returned to us to be readmitted.

What should our reaction be?

What we did do was to agree to readmit him on a specific set of criteria.

Instead of agreeing he came back at us with a vitriolic diatribe.

We then simply ignored him.

Study 2:

A man had served in COG (7D). They had not registered their church in that country. After a while the man ran into conflict with other officers whom he insists were corrupt and was dismissed from the church.

He went to the capital and proceeded to register the church under his administration. He then contacted CCG for admission and asked for some funds to return to his hometown. CCG funded his return. He then informed them that he was registering his church. He was told that under no circumstances would he be allowed to register CCG. He said no and stated that he had in fact registered the body as COG (7D). We contacted the church that seemed to have no idea who was involved and nominated their officers in the country some of whom were listed as being with this man and part of the groups coming to CCG. We had authorised another person from the neighbouring nation to take some equipment to this man to begin work on translations.

CCG became very concerned about this man’s attitude. He was informed of our concern. He was unable to take direction. Communication ceased. He retained the equipment he had been given.

What do you think this man’s problems were?

Study 3:

A man from Nyanza province in Kenya came to CCG and asked to become part of us and asked to be used, as he had been a member. Another former member of the WCG/UCG accompanied him and they had photos of the UCG officers from USA that had visited them and the photos were checked and confirmed with the officers in UCG.

The men were given tasks involving trust. The younger one was to purchase equipment and take the equipment to other officers for their administrative purposes. The man did not purchase all the equipment and retained the funds for those items.

He was found out and disciplined and subsequently dismissed. During the time he was with us we identified through investigations some major scams involving the people in Kenya, both in Nyanza Province and in the Eastern Province, that were bringing the entire Churches of God into disrepute and not just the Armstrongite ministry.

There were in fact whole-scale church groups pretending to be Church of God groups while in fact returning to Sunday worship after the ministry had gone home, and they were also operating businesses on the Sabbath.

Funds were stolen and a minister was poisoned over the activities.

We found that in the Rongo-Migori area there were extensive scam operations covering some six or seven Churches of God using bogus aliases and names of relatives who had no knowledge of what was happening.

With the assistance of some of the other Churches of God we more or less cleaned the area up. They are trying to start up again. If any COG is approached from any of these areas we will assist them.

What was most depressing was that it was not the members of the COG that informed us of the corruption. It was new members converted and baptised that helped us identify the people and stop the rot.

The behaviour of the WCG offshoots does not help the conversion of those observing their activities.

What do you think of the actions here? What laws of God are being broken? What do you think God will do with these people?

Remember when people observe the rot in the Church of God like this no one wins: not the church, not the people being called and not the individual in the groups.

Remember a reputation lost is harder to win back than a citadel.

The best case to look at is Nigeria. Virtually the entire nation is so corrupt that Western Union is refusing to send money transfers there now at all. Our Telecom people are telling us that organised gangs have taken over the country and have blocked access to the Telecommunication databases in Nigeria. The gangs are forcing people to engage in scams. The nation is so corrupt that nothing can be done with it.

Ghana is having major problems with Islamic Jihadists. They are backed by Iranian and Arab money and are proselytising and become violent when challenged over their nonsense. The people there need help and we have to do as much as we can to help with language also. A communication from a minister there this week shows how bad it is getting.

Remember that you can only help those that want to be helped. A corrupt official is a source of oppression to their people.

You are an ambassador for God and the Church of God. You can make a difference no matter how poor or disabled you are. You can help with something. Try to do what you can. If your church is in Africa and you are poor and struggling with oppression you can still help each other overcome.

Those of you in the developed nations remember we are about to go into the Beast power and we will all suffer.

We will all need each other and the help of God to get through it all. You will not have finished fleeing through the cities of Israel until the Messiah comes (Mat. 10:23).

Wade Cox

Coordinator General