Sabbath 5/11/33./120

Dear Friends,

We are being approached by people from all nations and walks of life. There is a question that is on the lips of many people and that is what is the true faith and what is the correct way of approaching things to deal with spirituality.          

It is a true matter that God deals with mankind and does nothing except He warns people through His servants the prophets. Also the body of Christ which is the church of God must be somewhere on this planet working and doing things as God has determined through the inspired text of the Bible. God warned Egypt by sending a prophet (Isaiah 20:2-4) down there and making him walk around naked. The church of God has been tasked with keeping the flame of the truth alight for almost two thousand years. The Bible says in prophecy that they would be persecuted for that truth in keeping the Commandments of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ (Rev. 12:17; 14:12). It does not matter whether we personally even like our leaders. They are appointed to do a work in the last days and we all must support them and perform the work of God.

The task of each of us is to identify the church that has the lamp-stand at the time. That is to identify which body has the most truth and is performing to the best of the faith once delivered to the saints. Once that is made clear to us then we are obliged to go to that body and give whatever talent we possess to that body and work for it.  Failure to do so is to result in us incurring judgment as we see in the parable of the Talents. Christ castigates the man who hid his talent (Mat. 25:15-28). So also those under judgment who cause a schism in the church are to be marked for that division and the Bible is quite clear on that fact (Rom. 16:7). Each Passover we are to be reconciled to one another and forgive each other before we go to the Passover. That reconciliation is a clear requirement placed on each of us. In that way we are able to maintain the body and support the work of God through Christ and the church. None of us is to leave their post or fail to support the work. Once you have put your hand onto the plough do not turn back (Luke 9:62). These divisions that occur in the churches of God are caused by the self interest and irrational thinking of the people that are not being led properly by the Holy Spirit. God allows their destruction as churches of God because they are not founded on sound doctrines.

The Holy Spirit brings us to the faith and we will look at two examples of this process of elimination as it occurred in the lives of two people who came to CCG by a process of elimination of the errors and the arrival at the truth. As Arthur Conan-Doyle had Sherlock Holmes once say to Dr. Watson: “You start out by eliminating the impossible and what is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth. On the truth stands the faith once delivered to the saints and it is that faith for which we must contend (see the paper Truth (No. 168)).

One of the people is in Eastern Europe and was educated under the Soviet system in Russia at the end of that empire. He was brought up under Atheism and had to identify the entire process of religion including the Indian and East Asian Liberation theologies. He had to evaluate each religion against their scriptures and the scriptures themselves for their validity. Only one could be true and the religion or church most faithfully following the literal intent of the Scriptures was the church of God. The second man, who came from the US, was brought up in Roman Catholicism and was recruited by the Jesuits to undergo training in their order The Society of Jesus.

Each applied the process of logic to their learning and God used that logic to guide them through the differing religious systems to the truth. Each went through an epiphany of understanding as to their real position and of the logic of the faith.

We will start with the man in Eastern Europe. He had to examine religion generally including the Asian Liberation theologies. He came to accept that the Bible was the true word of God. He then had to identify it and the church most obediently following it. He says of that process:

“In  2000-2005 years: I met with members of different Christian denominations and read their literature and then I began to read the Bible. I had understood that any religion can’t be one of the ways to God. Because different religions have different teachings, but different teachings can’t be all true at the same time. One of them is true or another (is true).

Then I had got the new question – which religion is true – Christianity, Hindu, Islam, Buddhism or any other religion. I met with everybody, who was related with religion and read all that they gave me. For a long time I couldn’t answer the question – which religion is true. And finally I had found the answer. Through the Bible I had been convinced that God is love, and His love is perfect and unlimited. Such love I had found in Christ - in His love, in His teaching, in His life and in His death for everybody. I had understood that there doesn’t exist such love, that is more than Christ’s love. And I had understood that only Christ is the way to the true God. So I had been convinced that only Christianity is the true religion. But, as I had seen, Christianity is separated in many denominations. And I again got the new question – which of them is true or maybe all of them are pleasing to God. I continued to study the Bible and met with members of the Orthodox church, Evangelical church, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists. Then I had been convinced that the Bible is the word of God and only through the Bible could I find the truth. Then I had been convinced that only one church is pleasing for God, because Christ had made only one church with its structure and teaching. And different churches with their different heads and teachings can’t be all ruled by God. That can be only one church. And I decided to find this church. And I knew that only that church, which teaching completely corresponds with the Bible is the true Church of God. I quickly stopped contact with the Orthodox Church, because of their worship to icons, relation with the government and many other things that doesn’t correspond with the Bible. Then through the Bible I had been convinced that after death man’s soul doesn’t go to paradise or hell and [does] not migrate in other beings, but a man returns to the ground [and becomes] dust and can’t think anything before the resurrection. So I had stopped contact with [the] Evangelical church and had contact only with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh day Adventists.”

His process narrowed the structure down to these two structures and then by elimination he realised that both were defective. The JWs were defective in their rejection of the Sabbath and the Law of God and their misunderstanding of the Millennial system, and the SDAs in their failure to keep the Biblical Sabbaths, New Moons and Holy Days and their acceptance of Trinitarianism over recent years. Their acceptance of Ellen G. White’s errors and Vegetarianism were also serious limitations to all of those that enter them.

He was then faced with the Churches of God. For someone coming upon them the divisions and false doctrines of the Armstrong system are indeed perplexing to the outsider just as they are to the insiders also.

Armstrong’s heretical doctrine of Ditheism is a serious problem to the churches of God in the last days and the US was the source of this heresy in all the churches of God of the twentieth century (see the paper Ditheism (No. 76B)).

We will now look at the experience of the US man who began with the Jesuits. He says:
“About eight years ago I was in the preliminary "grooming" stages of beginning training with the Jesuits.  I never went to their seminary.  I was looking earnestly for the answers to many of my questions; chief among them was the most important, namely the divinity of our Lord.  I sat alone in the Jesuit chapel in Wernersville, PA, at about three in the morning, staring at a fifteen foot crucifix.  Other than myself there was not another human soul in the room.  I decided that Jesus Christ was not God.  I then wrote a note for the priests, and I left the facility and drove back to my home in New Jersey.

 Over the following years I read philosophy and theology on a regular basis.  I have always believed in God.  In fact, I am of the opinion that the true atheist is a myth.  There are only lazy agnostics, and those 'atheists' who say they do not believe in God, when in reality they believe in him very much -- they just hate him.  As a result of my rejection of the idea of Christ as God, I came to the faulty conclusion that Christianity was false, and thus I rejected it as well.  When I read The Age of Reasonby Thomas Paine, I was then convinced that Christianity was a false religion.  Paine did such an effective job (to my flawed way of thinking) of excoriating Christianity, that I was sure he must be correct in his conclusion.  Not once did I question the motives of a man who would take the time to launch so solid and forceful an attack at a religious doctrine he did not agree with.  I have never felt compelled to write a scathing pamphlet which railed against Vishnu or the teachings of the Hindus.  They just don't rankle my feathers in the least.  I believe they are wrong, and would be far better suited adopting correct theology.  I am not mad at the Hindus, nor do I hate them.  But this thought did not occur to me at the time I read Paine.

 It was to be about another year before I was lead to the works of Eric Voegelin.  Voegelin was a philosopher of history.  It is safe to say that if God compiled a list of the 50 most intelligent people to have lived since the Creation, Voegelin would be on that list.  And Voegelin was a Christian.  Nor did he simply pay lip service to Christian teaching --  the man was sincere.  This caused me to re-think my opinion on the matter.  It is safe to say that Eric Voegelin is the man most directly responsible for my return to The LORD.  It was the manner in which I found Voegelin which convinced me that I had been led. 

My search for answers continued.  I bought a New American Standard Bible and began to read -- from beginning to end.  As I was nearing the New Testament, I had the very real and slightly eerie sense that I could actually FEEL Jesus coming.  I could feel him drawing nearer.  At some point before I finished the Old Testament I knew that by the time I reached the gospels I would officially be a "Christian."  And so I became.  But I was still clouded by the Roman doctrine.

I began looking for a "conservative" Roman Catholic church.  In my studies, I learned everything I never knew about the Second Vatican Council, and am now convinced that the Vatican was effectively absorbed by the "secret societies."  Then I learned who the god of those societies is.  And finally I learned some real American History.  Lastly I found the Society of Saint Pius X, which was purported to be traditionalist and insulated enough from the Vatican that there was a chance that with them, one might remain free from the infection which had made Rome so sick.

As my studies proceeded (and they always do) I happened (merely by "chance") upon your website (www.logon.org) and began reading.  I also began looking up the proof texts in the bible which Mr. Wade Cox referenced in his convincing defeat of the doctrine of the Trinity.  By the grace of God, I have learned to be as open as I know how to evidence in support of truths which I have rejected, or do not believe.  I am interested in the truth ONLY.  I have no interest in proving myself right.  And this is why, when my friends and family asked how I could reject the teaching of the Roman Catholic church as quickly as I did, I respond by telling them that I would have dropped their doctrine just as quickly if I had been going to Sunday mass for thirty years, as I had when attending for only thirty days.  About two months ago, I began hitting my knees in prayer several times each day.  Since that time, what I have learned is enough to make me dizzy.” 

As a result of the examination of the works both men have been able to identify the CCG as the one church most correctly working with the faith and holding to the true doctrines of the Bible as embraced by the churches of God over time. Both men are working to baptism and their place in the work of God. This process is occurring all over the world. The other incorrect doctrines that have destroyed the other churches are being recognised for what they are and the Holy Spirit is welding the brethren together in a theologically better equipped body in preparation for the coming of the Witnesses and the Messiah.

As we work up to the Passover reflect on your position in relation to the faith and be reconciled to those with whom you know are working under the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ. Work towards the extension of the faith to all nations so that when Christ comes he can say: Well done good and faithful servant! You were faithful in what you were given and you supported the work of God, go now and take your place in the kingdom of God.
Wade Cox