Sabbath 13/12/31/120 B

How High Can You Get?

This last week the LCG Binitarian “Oracle” on all things Bob Thiel wrote:

“The January 2009 edition of UCG’s United News arrived last night.  It contained some information on the size of the United Church of God:

Total worldwide Feast of Tabernacles attendance (including shut-ins who received tapes):

2005: 19,765 2006: 20,436 2007: 20,476 2008: 20,349

The following are the attendance figures from the Church Information System—the number listed as attending fluctuates from month to month.

U.S. Church attendance according to file Jan. 31, 2008: 15,498. U.S. Church attendance according to file Nov. 26, 2008: 15,345.

U.S. baptisms 2007 through December: 178. U.S. baptisms 2008 through November: 134. (Ministerial Services Reports Church Statistics.  United News, January 2009, p. 2)

These reductions are relatively small.  And they seem similar to those that David Hulme (former UCG president) reported about his COGaIC (see COGaIC’s Size).

UCG also reported that in the entire life of its Beyond Today telecast it received 29,461 responses:

Through November, we have had 29,461 telephone and online responses to the programming. Beyond Today currently airs on 177 cable-access television channels, which air programs 267 times weekly. It is also broadcast on 10 radio stations in the United States and two nationwide cable networks in Canada. (Eddington, Peter.  100th Beyond Today Episode Recorded.  United News, January 2009, p. 1)

To show its relative impact, UCG’s total is about what LCG’s Tomorrow’s World telecast received every nine weeks in 2009 (sic) and is also about the same as the small ICG receives each year.  Hence, while improving its public proclamation of the gospel was a goal for UCG in 2008, it does not seem to have accomplished that to any significant degree.”

1 Chronicles 21:1-30 says that Satan caused David to number Israel. David was punished for numbering Israel. 70,000 people died for this sin.

70,000 people of the WCG system were also removed and went up a hollow log for this sin in the WCG system. The sin was by the leadership and they continue to sin to this day and for that reason they will not be permitted to erect the Temple of God.

We are told not to do it. CCG has always taken this injunction seriously so much so that we are always attacked for being secretive about our numbers but the fact is that none knows how many we are so that we might serve God and live. Only the membership secretary has an idea and she never adds them together and tells no one.

This reminds me of the time when we were in primary school and the little boys sometimes had competitions to see how high they could pee up the wall. It would be funny if it were not so serious. David was given three choices by Gad on the instruction of God (1Chron. 21:9-14).

These were:

1. Three years famine

2. Three months before the sword of their foes; or

3. Three days pestilence.

David chose God’s punishment. The deaths were only halted at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite and the purchase of the Temple was made and the sacrifices commenced. David, however, was prevented from building the Temple and it was left to his son and so it will be with these people. WCG was destroyed for this sin and preoccupation with numbers. The Living Church of God allows this sin among its people. It is the last of the Sardis system and was named so by God through Christ. Christ says: “you have the name that you are living but you are dead (Rev. 3:1).” There has never been a church in all history called the Living Church of God until this last marker church of the Sardis system.

CCG has a specific clause in its constitution that prevents its members from this sin in running web sites out of the control of its administration. One of our coordinators in an Islamic country was imprisoned recently because we posted some calendars to him. Security is critical.

The absurdity of the claims is that these enquiries and reaches are pathetic. CCG has more online enquiry and paper downloads in one day than these people do in a year. It is set up so that people do not have to come to us other than online and so that they will be able to survive in the Last Days. God has given us an open door and people make use of it and come to us when they need baptism and the sacraments. The fact is that we could not afford the cost of postage alone that it would require to service demand. To post out between 150-200,000 papers a week to CCG worldwide distribution would cost us well over $55 million per year for the postage alone. The entire combined income of UCG, LCG, ICG, RCG and PCG and all the other COGs together would not pay our postage costs. We simply cannot afford to work like they do. God has made it that way.

Wade Cox

Coordinator General