Sabbath and Passover 14/1/34/120-21/1/34/120

Dear Friends,

We are now at the Passover and this year the First Holy Day of the Feast is also the Wave Sheaf Offering. This Sabbath is the 14th of Abib, the preparation day, and so most of us will have done our preparation on the 13th and the Lord’s Supper was taken last night.

This year has commenced with some terrible conflicts and events all over Africa and the Middle East and it shows no sign of letting up. The earthquakes in diverse places take on new meaning as we have seen in Asia and the Pacific. The effects of toxicity in the fishing grounds of Japan seem to be mirrored also in the fishing grounds of Madagascar. Fish sales there have been suspended due to multiple deaths and hospitalisations due to fish toxicity. It is uncertain as to the cause but it appears to be caused by improper waste management.

Over the last year we saw great inductions. Month after month and particularly through the two months of Adar this last year we have had many new inductions each month and thousands upon thousands of baptisms every month. Over one hundred thousand people will hold the Passover for the first time.

The Passover looks grim for the brethren in Ivory Coast. We have just managed to establish contact on the evening of 7 Abib and we have given permission for them to hold the Second Passover due to the terrible circumstances in which they find themselves. Please pray for them and for the brethren in North Africa in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and particularly in Lybia, Egypt, and also Eritrea and Somalia. We have lost contact with many of the brethren in North Africa. The Horn is relatively safe so far, although our communications were out for a couple of weeks. We are moving the Somalis to Djibouti for the Passover for safe keeping. Last year we did that with the churches in Zanzibar by moving them to Dar es Salaam.

We are growing now at a very rapid rate. There are many churches requesting induction every day and many individuals in all nations and areas. For the first time in the Churches of God for some centuries we are now the major Christian denomination in one country. It is not a large country and it is an Islamic nation but we have become the largest Christian denomination. We outnumber the Roman Catholic ministry by ten to one and their families by 25%. On Zanzibar also we believe we are the largest Christian denomination. That is an amazing feat for the Churches of God in a few years. We have every reason to be proud of our achievements, although the call is of God and not our doing. We are making it possible by the publications of the doctrines. God puts it under the noses of the brethren to be called when it is the opportune time.

For the first time in at least one thousand years God is calling people from Muslim countries. That means also our approach this Passover will be along two lines. For the new brethren it will be one of instruction and consolidation in the CCG doctrines and the explanation of the conduct in the Passover over the majority of nations and churches. For the old timers who have done it so many times that they can probably recite the papers it will be along a different track. The Passover will be an intensive study of the papers based on the Koran or Qur’an. Each paper will be studied against the Surahs and compared with the Bible texts so that each Surah will contain a commentary and an inter comparison with the relevant Bible texts. That way it will be obvious to all just how interlinked the works are and how the Koran is a commentary on the Bible linking both OT and NT texts to the history of the church in Arabia. We will issue the Surahs one after another following the Passover for study each week. In that way we will be able to confound the West and the Islamist scholars of the Hadith. Both groups will be shown to be teachers of false doctrine and fomenters of war and discord.  The Islamists of the Hadith teach the lie that the Bible has been lost. We expose that lie. So also the West teaches the lie that the Law of God is done away. It is now so blatant from the US and the West in general that these people today would never have been allowed in the Protestant system in the Reformation. The closer it gets to the Churches of God the closer and tighter the deception is to deceive the elect. The Churches of God and their predecessors the Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) teach false doctrine and use the false Hillel calendar or other systems, and many claim the Law of God is done away. They all adhere to false prophecy and false prophets along the lines of The Watchtower and Bible Tract crew, Ellen G. White and the Armstrong system. They are the last traps to prevent the elect from a return to the true faith. Look at the papers False Prophecy (No. 269); General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No. 122); and Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170). 

In dealing with the JWs there is one irrefutable piece of logic that they cannot answer and that is this: when they say that the law of God is done away and that you do not have the keep the Commandments of God tie them down to the specific commandment that has been done away. They will agree that you cannot commit idolatry or take the Lord’s name in vain or make idols and worship them. They will agree also that you cannot dishonour your parents, kill, steal, lie or covet so there is really only one Commandment that is done away, yet they will still claim the law has been done away, even though they say it is not all right to break the other laws. That is the Fourth Commandment that requires the Sabbath to be kept holy. Also from that commandment subtends all the other Holy Days including the New Moons, Passover, Pentecost and the Feasts, Indeed, from the Two Great Commandments subtends all the Law and the Prophets (Mat. 22:40).  Yet they will invite anyone to the Lord’s Supper which they keep on the wrong date and usually according to Hillel anyway. They will produce the usual antinomian foot work around the doing away with the law which has been covered in the papers Antinomian Destruction of Christianity by Misuse of Scripture (No. 164C); Antinomian Attacks on the Law of God (No. 164D) and Antinomian Denial of Baptism (No. 164E).

There are however, two texts which show that the Commandments of God must be kept to be part of the elect and in the First Resurrection. Those two texts are in the Book of Revelation and specifically refer to the elect of the Church of God in the Last Days. The texts are Revelation 12:17 and 14:12.

These texts clearly show that the Churches of God are under attack in the Last Days at it is on these two issues that the Churches of God are judged and tested. If you do not wish to keep the Commandments of God and the Faith or Testimony of Jesus Christ do not come to us. It is better that you don’t waste your time and go and play golf as you will be in the Second Resurrection along with everyone else.  

Revelation 12:[13] And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. [14] But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. [15] The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. [16] But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. [17] Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

The Woman is the mother of Israel, and the Church of the Firstborn, the Body of Christ. The Woman was pursued by Satan and the demons to destroy the Body of Christ and to corrupt and pervert it by false doctrine that seeks to strike at the capacity to obey God and Christ and to endure to the First Resurrection. This persecution will continue to the end. Then Babylon, the seat of the false religion of the Whore and the Mystery Cults that strike at the Law and the Testimony or Faith of Christ is destroyed. It is on these two elements that the Church is tested: that they keep the Commandment of God and the Testimony or Faith of Jesus Christ. 

Revelation 14:[6] Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; [7] and he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water."  [8] Another angel, a second, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion." [9] And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If any one worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, [10] he also shall drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. [11] And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name." [12] Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. [13] And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!"

The Faith of Jesus Christ was to keep the Commandments of God according to the Temple Calendar. If he did not keep the Commandments of God and the Temple Calendar correctly then he sinned and was disqualified from being the Messiah and we have no salvation. If the Jews got it wrong and he was killed on the wrong day and not 14 Abib at the correct time for the Passover sacrifice then he was not the Passover sacrifice. He was just another evening sacrifice and again we have no Messiah. This is the acid test of the faith once delivered. If they do not keep the Commandments of God and the faith or Testimony of Jesus Christ then they do not speak according to the law and the Testimony and if they do not speak according to the law and the Testimony there is no light in them (Isa. 8:20) and they cannot be one of the saints of the elect.

No person who does not keep the Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts of God, which includes the Lord’s Supper, with the Bread and Wine and Footwashing of the elect will be in the First Resurrection.  The Sardis and Laodicean systems are dead or spewed out of God’s mouth and are not in the First Resurrection. Revelation is quite clear on that aspect. By the return of the Messiah those systems will have been cleared of all the elect of God who will be in the reformed and restructured Body of Christ. That reformation is occurring now and will continue until the Millennium is commenced. There will be NO false religious system operating by 2028. There will be: No Hillel Calendar; No Postponements; No Trinitarianism; No observation Karaite system; No Crescent Moon observance; No Easter system; No Christmas; No Hadith, No Infant Baptism; No Buddhism; No Hinduism; No Animism or Ancestor Worship; or anything else. There will be No False Religion whatsoever. Those who do not keep the Commandments of God and the Sabbaths, New Moon and Feasts of God according to the Temple Calendar will starve and, if they have irrigation, they will die of the plagues of Egypt until they get the Message (Isa. 66:23; Zech. 14:16-19). The Millennium will be run on simple lines. God will have obedience or those who do not obey will die. There is NO negotiation. The elect have been persecuted because they obey God and are obedient, as Christ was obedient, even unto death. There is not long to go now. Be faithful through this last trial and you will inherit a crown of life. There will be peace for a thousand years until Satan is released again at the end of the Millennium to deceive mankind once again.

In a few short years all of those who deceive the world will be taken away and not permitted to teach error again. With no false doctrine, and the demons restrained, there will be only peace.

The first step on this road is to be worked with by the Holy Spirit and brought to Baptism and the Second is the Lord’s Supper to renew your position with the Holy Spirit. You must have the first step completed to partake of the second, and you must do them each year to be in the First Resurrection and one of the priesthood of Melchisedek under Messiah. Pray that we continue to have those added to in the elect of God. These are they who are foreknown and chosen, predestined, called, justified and glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). Pray that the earth is not allowed to be harmed yet until the last of our brethren are called in and baptised into the Body of Christ.  Pray our young are kept whole and safe to become kings and priests under the new millennial system. Pray we are faithful and we carry out our duties and fail no one in the process.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General