New Moon 1/6/33/120 A

Dear Friends,

This new moon is the New Moon of the Sixth month and brings us to the final stages of the preparation of Israel as identified in the paper The Ascents of Moses (No. 70).

It is the final preparation for the Seventh month. There are many trials to endure and many things to be overcome before we see the New Moon of the Seventh month which is the Day of Trumpets and represents the coming of the Messiah (see the paper Trumpets (No. 136)). With the Messiah comes the First Resurrection and there are a great many people in the Last Days in the Churches of God that do not make the First Resurrection. God is quite specific in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 that there are two church systems (Sardis and Laodicea) that do not make it into the First Resurrection and two systems that do make it (Thyatira and Philadelphia).  We are preparing for the feast season of the seventh month that commences from this Day of Trumpets. The next holy day is the Day of Atonement that celebrates the Reconciliation of the world to God and the Law of God. The Laws of God are kept and enforced until the structure of the millennium is in place and the government of the world under Messiah is complete.

The Churches of God are being dealt with now and those of the Churches of God that are praying for the coming of the Messiah should be fully aware that they are under judgment and are asking for the completion of judgment on themselves and the cessation of the opportunity of correction.

They are effectively asking for completion of the opportunity of repentance to themselves and their children and the elect of the world. They are asking to bring an end to the opportunity of Grace and Repentance to them and all mankind. Put that way it is a very serious matter. It also is a declaration that they have overcome and they are ready to face the verdict of God and Christ on their service. Many will face a serious verdict and find themselves in serious trouble.

The entire Heavenly Host has been awaiting this day since the foundation of the world. The Fallen Host failed and they are consigned to Tartaros to await the judgment of the Second Resurrection along with a great number of the called but not chosen that may well think they are in the First Resurrection this very minute. The Churches of God have played “spot the Laodicean” for decades if not centuries. It has been the favourite pastime of the Churches of God for the last sixty years at least.

The verdict is delivered in a certain manner which will be obvious only to those left alive. The dead will only be aware of their judgment when they are raised from the dead. Some will rise with the false teachers they followed and will be stunned to find it is the Second Resurrection and not the First Resurrection. The people who are left alive at the Coming of the Messiah will wait and watch those being resurrected. For those who are alive will not precede (or prevent KJV) those who have fallen asleep, for the dead will arise first and then with we who are left alive will ascend and we will go as translated spirit beings to Jerusalem, and there we will ever be with the Lord Jesus Christ as part of the government of God (cf. 1Thes. 4:15).

The false teaching that those who are alive will go to heaven with those who have risen is logically impossible. There will be people who turn up at Jerusalem asking to be admitted and who are rejected because they have no wedding garment. They are rejected and they will weep and gnash their teeth. It is thus impossible to be anywhere in the First Resurrection but on earth and at Jerusalem.  

But Jesus warned that many might be shocked by the finality of our “Gospel” initiatives. They might find that what they consider to be their deep knowledge about His Law, His holy days, and His prophecies are wrong and have mislead the brethren and it will be better for them to have a millstone around their necks.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Mat 7:21-23).

Sin is transgression of the Law of God. The Law of God proceeds from the nature of God and God is Love hence the Law of God is structured on love. The elect are those that keep the Commandments of God and the Testimony or faith of Jesus Christ (Rev. 12:17; 14:12). Thus our salvation depends on what we ourselves do and not who we follow. It depends very much also on not following false teachers for they will find themselves in the Second Resurrection and so will we if we follow them. Our salvation depends on what we do and what we teach as an example of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

It is worthless to be in error concerning the law and claim to have proclaimed Jesus as Lord. You can do that all you like but unless we follow the Commandments of God we will NOT be saved. Thus we can call on the Names of God in the name of Christ but we then have to keep the commandments of God or we will NOT BE SAVED.

At the end of the New Testament era in the First century the apostles John and James and Jude pleaded with people to be doers of the Law of love, not just give them lip service. Faith without works is dead (Jas. 1:22, 2:14-26; 1Jn. 2:6,29).

Jude, the brother of James, said quite simply: Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. These people come in also in the last days. But you must remember beloved, the predications of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; they said to you, “In the Last Time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who set up divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. But you beloved, build yourselves up on your most Holy Faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

I am pleased brethren that we see the dreadful results of the false doctrines and immorality and divisions of the Churches of God have not hurt you as much as they might. We see that the offshoots and their corruption and divisions and the false doctrines of them and of the wreckage from the Binitarian/Trinitarian plants into the many and various Sabbath-keeping churches that you have all rejected for the faith once delivered. It is not just that you are now the masthead and the massive core of the faith once delivered but that you have learned to love one another. We see in many nations now that there is neither black nor white, nor Jew nor Greek, neither Congo or Ugandan nor Luo nor Kikuyu or Kamba or Ethiopian or any other tribe but that you are all fitly framed together in the love of God which stems from His Law and is proven by your love of one another. 

Your salvation is based on the Law of God and the correct doctrines that you have identified and keep. On the truth you will be judged and only the truth has set you free. You know the truth of the Nature of God and the Calendar on which you based your decisions. Our salvation is ours alone and following men and false doctrine and false calendars, such as the Hillel system of modern Judaism, will not ensure your salvation. The Church of God is not a social club nor is it a Non Government Organisation (NGO) that assists you. It can be all of those. However, it is primarily a vehicle that allows you to worship with like minded people and grow in the Holy Spirit under judgment so that you might enter the Kingdom of God as a bride of Christ righteous in the Love of God which is framed in His Law and the faith of Christ and the patriarchs and prophets and those others of the Church of God found worthy to attain to salvation.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:34-35).

You have all done what the Spirit said to the Church of the Philadelphians. They are the church of brotherly love. “He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the Temple of my God and he will no more go out.” The RSV says: “never go out” but it is actually “no more go out” and it carries with it the implication that the Philadelphians all had to be called out of an apostate system. Everyone of you has been called from such as system all over the world.  Although poor, you are now established with a little strength (Rev. 3:7-13). Our brethren are poor in wealth and many are dependent on helping each other to even live but we are many and a mighty body that God has built up dramatically and we are bound by the love of one another and thereby show we are the body of Christ.

We are each responsible for working out our own salvation with fear and trembling but our reward is great if we run the race to success without grumbling and to God’s good pleasure, blameless and innocent children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:12-14).

So be blessed and work for one another and join together in worship on the New Moon as we also do on the Sabbaths and prepare for the Feast season ahead.

Strive to be wise and not foolish virgins. Be those in the right hand side of Christ. Be the wise virgins who love one another and whose vial is full of the oil of the Holy Spirit. Do not be a vexation to the brethren and those who are given administration.

Christ will not lose one of us that are given to him by the One True God our Saviour (Jude 25). Be imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:1-2).

As faithful servants of God through Jesus Christ await your judgment and pray it is on the right hand of Christ:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me...
For as we do it to the least of God’s elect we do it to God and Christ. The elect are portrayed as not realising they were judged on these very matters.

I was very sad when I learned that the Church of God into which we had been called had no programs for helping the poor and the needy and yet spent millions and millions on aeroplanes and massive salaries and lavish buildings. Their leader paid himself over half a million in salary and over a million in expenses. The next leader was not far behind the first. He then gave a sermon doing away with the law and died. We were all put in mind of this punishment in judgment by Christ when he spoke to those on his left hand who did not help the brethren and who did not seek out the poor regardless of tribe, nation and colour.

'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Mat. 25:34-37,45-46).

Almost all of us work for nothing and help one another to establish the body of Christ. By our sacrifice we serve God and show love to our brethren. Each day we show the faith by our works, for faith without works is dead. God is love (1Jn. 4:7-8) and we become elohim as sons of God (Zech. 12:8) through the development of the Holy Spirit which is the spirit of love that permeates all so that God can become all in all (Eph. 4:6).

As Peter said, love covers a multitude of sins.

But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "love will cover a multitude of sins" (1Pet. 4:7-8).

1Corinthians 13 shows that if we have not love it does not matter what we do; we are just clanging gongs and cymbals. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace (Gal. 5:22) (see the paper Fruit of the Holy Spirit (No. 146)). Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Rom. 8:14) and have the Spirit of God which is love.

Many of us will come from the east and the west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven as part of the First Resurrection while the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat. 8:11-12).

The sons of the Kingdom are in two groups. The first group is those of the Tribes of Israel which think that their bloodlines shall save them. They have corrupted God’s Laws by their traditions and false calendars and denial of Christ. The second group is worse than the first because they had the opportunity at salvation and failed by corruption and false doctrine and a false calendar and man-worship. These are rejected in the Last Days as worshippers of the idol shepherd and the dead church of Sardis. 

Remember we look to the Kingdom of God. We judge angels because of the way in which we perform in the Millennium as servants of God and Christ doing the jobs the fallen Host should have done. We have a much shorter time. We will have a millennium and the Second Resurrection of 100 years. After that the New System will be upon us and another creation will come from it.

What we need to do is be able to identify truth and error and put error behind us and seize the truth and pursue it and the peace that God grants diligently. The Churches of God in the last days are filled with false teachers who teach for hire. We are all given appointed tasks set by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:11-16). Beware of the false prophets who come as sheep but are ravening wolves. Remember that you are placed as servants and not greedy for gain. You lead the flock with diligence and we are all judged in these last days and sheep on sheep under Ezekiel 34 (cf. Mat. 7:15-20). By their fruits you know them and it is these who dance and cry “Lord, Lord” that will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  These also sow tares among the wheat of the elect and destroy the integrity of the harvest and will be removed at the end (Mat. 13:25-30).

The Churches of God are disintegrating. Fortunately most are being re-established within CCG. We are blessed to be taken from the darkness into the glorious light of the faith once delivered (Jude 3) and we are being set free from these errors and attacks. Use the armour of God to defend the faith (Eph. 6:11-18). Your own deeds will be tested and everything we do is subject to the fire of proof.

Remember our inheritance is kept in heaven for us by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gird up your minds so that we all understand the hope that lies ahead of us. It is our task to be Holy as God who called us is Holy and as Jesus Christ also is Holy. Christ was raised for the dead so that our faith and hope is in God who raised Christ from the dead. Our faith is tested. We purify our souls through obedience to the truth and no loyalty to a false church teaching false doctrine will be accepted. We are to love one another truthfully and earnestly from the heart for we are born to an imperishable future through the living and abiding word of God (1Pet. 1:3-23).  

God has prophesied that He will tear the sheep out of the hands of the shepherds and the turmoil they have caused is their own making and God will deal with them for it.

Even though you will experience trauma and difficulty ahead through the persecutions and the final trouble of the Fifth Seal of Revelation, hold on to the faith. It is written: you will not have finished fleeing through the cities of Israel until the son of man comes (Mat. 10:23).

Nothing will prevent us from achieving or separate us from the love of God that is also in Christ Jesus our lord (Rom. 8:35-39).

The marriage of the Lamb has not yet come and we need to hang on to the faith once delivered and maintain ourselves ready to be brides of Christ. However, there is not long now to go before the Witnesses are here and then the Messiah will come to save we who are eagerly awaiting him.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General