Sabbath 26/11/33/120

Dear Friends
We are building up to the Passover of the 34th year of the 120th Jubilee. We have the New Moon of the Twelfth Month next Thursday and this year we intercalate We Adar or Adar 2. There are many people joining us and we have to induct many in time for the Passover. Every induction costs funds and we need help just to stay ahead of those joining us. Please pray for us to amass the tithe payers and funds just to keep ahead of the masses that are seeking baptism.

Yesterday there was a regional conference in Kisumu to discuss the problem of the collapse of the SDA church and the induction of the people there in Kenya. There are regional conferences in CCG being held all over Africa to discuss this phenomenon. So also will they discuss the collapse of the Roman Catholic system in Kenya and elsewhere and the people from that organisation who seem to be walking away from Christianity completely. At least from the total collapse of the WCG and offshoots in Africa they did not walk away from religion entirely. That seemed to only happen in the West. So also was it with the Church of God (Seventh Day) (COG (SD)) and Seventh Day Baptist unions. Although, the COG (SD) claims 200,000 - 300,000 on their web site, we know this to be incorrect.

Our task is to adapt our evangelism to cater for the varying mix of churches that are coming in to CCG. For example some left the SDA system in the early 90s. Others left in the 2000-2010 era. Most, however, left for similar reasons as we will see.

In the Muslim areas we have people come to us from both Islam and the few Sabbath-keeping systems that were with the SDA system. The strategy used there is different to what we would use in the US for example.

The most powerful tool we have in the Muslim countries is the history of the Churches of God as the Koran clearly talks about us and our understanding. They would never join the WCG system because they were clearly heretical in their evangelism out of Pasadena and they did not even realise it or admit it if they did understand the fact. That was why they never converted anyone from there to their heretical Ditheist doctrine (see the paper Ditheism (No. 076b)). Their recent claims that they are Binitarian, aside from being false, is just another reason why the people with any understanding of the history of the church would never join them (see the paper Binitarians and Trinitarian Misrepresentation of the Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127b)).

This month a former high ranking officer of the Adventist system contacted me in regard to forming a Theological College and sitting on the board as an academic member. We engaged in email communication on the serious problems facing the Sabbath-keeping churches. His name is Dr. Pieter Barkhuizen. He was a professor at Southern Adventist University and, at St. Elias Seminary and Graduate School, where he is still on the Faculty for Systematic Theology and Homiletics. He is not involved with Greek Orthodox Trinitarian Theology. He holds accredited BD, Th,M and Th.D degrees, involving Greek, Hebrew, and various  dissertations. He has also studied at Andrews University at graduate level, and received the H E D Psychology, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Most importantly he is not a Trinitarian and is concerned to re-establish the correct theology on the Nature of God. 

I had read some of his work relating to the collapse of the SDA system.

I read the intro to his paper which states:

In Adventist World-NAD, June 2007, on page 6, vice presidents Cooper and Finley reported that “from 2000 to 2005, nearly 1.4 million members walked out the back door and left the church.”  And the following quote is from an article by GC Ministerial Director, James Cress, in Ministry, February 2009, page 28: “In North America alone, nearly 300,000 members officially have been removed (and not because of death) from our membership in the past 20 years.  That total equals 40 percent of our total membership at the beginning of these two decades – a tragedy of greatest proportions, especially when we have not maintained even basic information like a mail or telephone contact.  This equals a total loss similar to that of the ten largest conferences in the division simply disappearing”.
Here is another provocative statement by the late Dr. Cress on the same page:  “only about 50 percent of all members actually attend weekly worship services.”
Do you find it difficult to believe that we have lost more than 4 million members during the past 4 decades?  There are some who believe the figure is closer to 6 million!
Of the approximately 15 million Adventists, according to the Cress-model, only about 450,000 are in North America (“on the books”).  The rest are in Europe, Africa, South America, and other Third World countries.  
It is conservatively estimated that members are still leaving the Adventist church at the rate of about 20,000 per month!  Many of those are gravitating to other Sabbatarian churches such as the Church of God, 7th day, General Conference Denver (the second largest Sabbatarian denomination in the world).  www.COG7.org
My limited, raw-statistical-findings, indicate that adult members leave our church for apparently two major reasons:  Sociological (approx. 20%) and Theological (approx. 80%).  In churches such as Trinity Community Church in Redlands, California, I have discovered that of the many former Adventists who joined that (Sunday-keeping) church, probably 95% left our ranks because of Theological issues, particularly, the Investigative Judgment.
One of the main factors for this phenomenon seems to be the unrestricted access members have to the Internet.  Search engines will offer more than 3 million Web-sites if you punch in "Sabbath".  For "Millennium" and "Investigative Judgment", the number of links are even greater!
Other researchers may want to explore the Sociological factors; I have decided to address the Theological issues.

The most identified "problem doctrines" were the Investigative Judgment, Trinity, Heavenly Millennium, and also "the Testimony of Jesus", or the position we hold regarding Ellen G. White. I have confined my research to these Pillars of Our Faith.

I replied to him stating that I could not agree more. The figures of the SDA losses are well over six million. In fact we think the SDAs have lost over four million in Africa alone, assuming they had as many as they claimed in the statistics, which is doubtful.  They claimed almost 16 million baptised members in 2008. They could have had nothing like that and they cannot be over 10 million worldwide and we think it is much less. God tells us not to number Israel and that is followed by punishment.

Most of them are joining CCG which is now by far the largest Sabbatarian organisation in the world (SDAs are no longer classed as Sabbatarian due to their Trinitarianism). I had pointed out that the General Conference of the COG (SD) is not the largest by any stretch of the imagination and is Radical Unitarian following Anthony Buzzard’s error. He was in fact however referring to the Church of God (Seventh Day) Denver Conference as an examination of the link revealed.

I had informed him that by the end of this year we expect that the majority of SDAs in Africa will have joined CCG. We already far outnumber them in Muslim Africa. In fact we have more baptised converted Muslims than the nearest COG has in total members worldwide. We don’t know how many we have in baptised members let alone the kids but we may well be over the million, total, by Passover in Africa alone. Many of them have come and will be coming from the SDAs.  God is working mightily outside of North America and it appears from what I see here that God may be dealing with the Sabbatarians there now and has been since 2007. He has been working in Africa since before 2005 and it appears it may have been in 2000-2002 when the SDA system began to split there.

Why are they leaving? The reasons are simple.

1. Ellen G. White is an acknowledged false prophetess and her views are held to be utter heresy including that on the so-called “Testimony of Jesus.”
2. Vegetarianism is a death sentence in Africa and is a direct attack on the Bible and the Nature of God. Even in the US, the members are nutritionally deficient through their vegetarianism.
3. Trinitarianism is a late heresy in the SDA system. Most outside of the US and White BC never accepted it.
4. The Heavenly Millennium is a cheap heretical vegetarian ruse that destroyed the SDAs. It misrepresents Jeremiah chapter 4 totally and has brought the SDA system into ridiculous heresy.

I pointed out that, with the Internet, even the dumb of the SDA system are going to become exposed to the truth. The SDA people will be confronted by the young regarding it and the SDAs will not survive. That is happening now all over the world.

The same is true for the COG (SD) and the WCG offshoots. The COG (SD) became Binitarian in 1995 as Roy Marrs was told they would, and in 1999 they announced they were Trinitarian. They claim churches where they have none as an examination of the inactive country links in Africa and elsewhere on their website will show. Most of their congregations in Africa are with CCG. The WCG offshoots are all collapsing because of their Binitarian (and Trinitarian) heresy, their self-interest, and their literal worship of Herbert Armstrong over and above biblical truth and correct doctrine. The same is not the case outside of the US and white BC. God is sending the Holy Spirit to deal with people and open their eyes that they might see and hear and understand. God is yet to tear the COG offshoots in the US apart and He is doing that now.

CCG is growing exponentially now. We have doubled in size every three to six months. It takes longer to double simply because there are many more of us. This month, based on those waiting induction so far, we will induct approximately 160 churches with approx 18,000 baptised adults.  Many of those are former SDAs including their ministry who in every case request rebaptism and re-ordination. This is the greatest reformation in the Sabbatarian Churches ever undertaken and it has been commenced from outside of the US, in accordance with Scripture. It is assisted in strength from inside the US which is why we were attacked from there to stop us.

The SDA leaders need to understand what the problem really is. Not that they will abandon their Vegetarianism or their Jesuit families and the Trinitarianism that they brought into the faith. It may serve however, to show people what they are really up against. For the same reason the members of the Churches of God need to see what they are up against and the heresy their ministry follow to keep numbers and tithes.

The estimate is that the SDAs have lost at least three million people in Africa alone since 1999-2000. It could be much more than that and is at least 50% of their numbers and it is suspected that it is well over 60%, and the ones that are with the SDAs still do not believe SDA doctrines.  It is only a matter of time before they lose the vast majority and keep only the paid lackeys and their entourage. The African leaders of the SDA are deliberately hiding the truth from the leaders in the US. It appears that they have at least some grip on it in other countries, or so it now seems. For example a person who disliked the COGs and who became alarmed at the fact that CCG was absorbing the SDAs at such a large rate emailed the SDA HQ and asked them if it was really happening. They not only knew nothing about it but they also knew nothing about us. Both are very silly errors.  CCG has also rejected a number of churches in other countries because of the no wine and vegetarianism doctrines.

Please pray that we are given more financial strength to achieve what God has given us to do.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General.