Sabbath 12/1/33/120

Dear Friends

Tomorrow we take the Lord’s Supper and begin the Feast of the Passover and Unleavened Bread. There are some forty or so churches that came in this week that we will not be able to reach and baptise and so they will miss the Lord’s Supper but they will be able to be educated in the faith over the feast of Unleavened Bread. That means over five thousand of you will not experience the Lord’s Supper but you will be baptised over the period and so you will still be in the body of Christ from this Passover onwards. The Lord’s Supper and the foot washing are for baptised persons only.

It is a great responsibility to fall into the hands of the living God but it is also a great honour and it can be a lot of fun and great joy. It has proven to be of great interest this year as we see thousands and thousands of people who did not fall into the traps that ensnared some of the European and North American Churches of God that did not understand the faith and fell into this social club of the Protestant system where the Nature of God was not important to them.

Those of you who were part of the Churches of God (and I include the Seventh Day Baptists outside of the US in that category) that survived the system and regrouped deserve a great commendation. I was contributing to a group of a number of people who described themselves as survivors of the WCG system. It was as though the entire understanding of the faith had been ripped out of them and they displayed no real knowledge of what you people had managed to survive and hang on to, and what these others regrouping with you had seen and understood and to what we were all called. They were as though they were children saying, Lord! Lord! yet doing nothing of what he had commanded just as Christ described them. They seemed to think they could have Christianity without the Guts of the Laws of God and the understanding of the Bible. They were worse than Protestants and much worse than they were when they came into the Churches of God. Most of the problem stemmed from the ministry that had been taught wrongly and in turn had damaged them. They just could not see the problem and get over it. The fact is, however, each of us is the maker of our own fortune as far as the church of God is concerned.  There is no trial that God does not give you a way out. We are all called to the faith to do a job and we are all given the fruits of the spirit according to the gifts of God as needed by the Church of God.

Please do not be discouraged by the trials that lay ahead of us. You will all see the salvation of our God. Be patient and help one another.

The Love of God is not expressed in words but in works.  If someone is in need than help them. Do not say be warm and filled my son and leave them alone with no help. Faith without works is dead. Encourage everyone and help those that need it.

None of us is wealthy. However, a righteous person will always have something to give to another. Even a smile and an encouraging word are gifts of great value. I was once helped when one of the brethren heard about a scholarship on the radio that had not been taken up and I followed it up and my son was awarded the scholarship to help him through university. They had bestowed great assistance on us simply by thinking about us when they heard of a benefit for which we might apply.

Remember Proverbs 11:24. One man gives freely yet grows all the richer, another withholds what he should give and only suffers want.

Proverbs 22:16: He who oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to want.

Proverbs 28:27: He who gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.
 
CCG has helped many people all over the world and many do not even know just how much they have done themselves for others.  

Through the righteousness of the few many are saved and protected. This week you went through the Sanctification of the Temple of God. From the 10th of Abib we set aside over three thousand new members as a result of your sanctification of the Simple and the Erroneous on the 7th of Abib, as part of the Sanctification of the Temple of God (No. 241).  

That is an example of obedience to the laws of God.

We have had sad news this week.  One of our loved brethren was dying with cancer seven years ago and had her bones breaking through the cancer. She was healed through your prayers, anointing and fasting and the signs of the cancer simply disappeared the following week in the tests and her bones quickly healed. She has been free for over seven years of any sign of the disease but this month the cancer returned and she is in pain again. We will send a deaconess and assistant to conduct Passover with her in the hospital.  Please pray for her and the family again so that she is given relief. She is in need, and much loved by the church, especially in the USA where she lives.

Please pray also for the Muslim convert that was attacked and disabled by the Muslim fanatic in North Africa. He also needs your prayers. As we grow so does our list of those needing prayers.

Pray for the needy and the sick and the disabled and the elderly and the orphaned and the widowed. This is religion pure and undefiled to visit widows and orphans. 

We have just inducted a church on a small island in Lake Victoria, and a number of churches in the district are assembling on the Island for Passover. It should be a very pleasant surrounding for the Passover.

There are many different environments in which this Passover will be kept. Remember, wine only and no grape juice during the Lord’s Supper and Passover for those that are new. Eat unleavened bread during the Feast for the seven days from Holy Day to Holy Day and the Lord’s Supper must be taken with unleavened bread baked for the purpose. You are not to eat leaven with the feast and that includes the Lord’s Supper itself.

Pray for our brethren in the Muslim countries. Pray they are all kept safe.

There is much to do.

Let us hope that we are able to get to and from the Feast of the Passover safely and we all have a great time in the pursuit of knowledge and the Love of God.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General