Sabbath 21/05/34/120

Dear Friends,

This week we have noted the problems occurring among self servers in the ministry and I thought it is about time we looked at the Sabbath Message given on 2003 concerning the problems in the Churches of God and the ministry that sought to destroy and exploit the church and the brethren. Many are still seeking to do so and they corrupt the churches wherever they go and many seek to exploit the brethren and live off their tithes and seem unconcerned for the poor and the widows and orphans and all those who are needy among us. Since I wrote that message we were attacked and penetrated a further three times by rogues and thieves and those who sought to destroy us. It would do well for us all to reconsider what was said then as it has resulted in entire cleanouts of the Churches of God in many nations.

Also beware of the offshoots that seek to divide the Churches of God and exploit the brethren. They will bring their self serving schismatic division to Africa in the near future.

We are also about to re-engage in India and we need prayers for that enterprise as it should be very significant. We are also expanding in Africa and our development projects are establishing the brethren there. But so too we are having to clean the self serving “ministry” from among us.

The Churches of God have been attacked without let up for many years now and they have been penetrated and undermined. Many of the teachers and prominent members of the Churches of God are in fact worse than the Scribes and Pharisees who were criticised by Christ in the period of his ministry from 28-30 CE.

Christ said: “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these you ought to have done and not to leave the other undone. You blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisee cleanse first what is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also” (Mat. 23:23-26).

Christ attacked these people because they were purporting to sit in Moses’ seat but they were corrupting the teachings of the Law. They ought to have kept both the minor aspects of the law and the weightier matters of it in judgment, mercy and faith.

How did this type of people undermine the Churches of God? How is the Church still undermined by them?

The answer is that many people came into the church with agendas that were never disclosed. Many came in purporting to agree with our doctrines and then set about corrupting us with false doctrine. Many were simply thieves. They came in like Iscariot to get their hands on the purse strings. Others simply came in because their families came in. Others came in like the silversmiths at Ephesus who later became bishops from Smyrna in order to continue in the power and wealth they had accumulated from the pagan system.

Many of these opportunists gravitate to the top because that is where the money is, and the pushy undermine the truly faithful and penitent. Hopefully the leadership is on the lookout for them, but once they become entrenched they are difficult to remove without a fight. Relatives of the leadership also are problems and we should not be in respect of persons when it comes to heresy.

Also, we should be mindful of the need to tithe mint and cumin as well as the rest and also to keep the weightier matters of the law and the prophets. We have seen people attack the requirement to tithe even though Christ upheld it. The last of the prophets before John the Baptist and the Church, Malachi, said that if you did not tithe you robbed God. Yet we have had people write treatises on the subject suggesting that tithing is not required.

We have seen people slowly undermine entire congregations with antinomianism. Do not be fooled by such teaching. Anyone who does not speak according to the Law and the Testimony has no light in them. No one in CCG is permitted to speak against the Law and the Testimony. No congregation is to tolerate such behaviour. If it occurs, the people are to be called to repentance. If anyone has signed the form for fellowship and commences to teach against doctrine, they are to be counselled by the nearest coordinator and if they do not repent they are to be removed.

False teachers and hypocrites undermined the Churches of God in the second half of the twentieth century. The “teachers” began by attacking and changing small things. They taught the post-Temple Jewish system and corrupted the calendar. They taught that it was okay to change the offering system from three to seven times in the year. They stopped keeping the full Passover and Unleavened Bread Feast. They taught that it was okay to go to restaurants on the Sabbath anytime, and not just when far from home in emergencies. These were the small things of the law. But are they small and silly things?

What does it mean to go to a restaurant on the Sabbath? God says in the Fourth Commandment that you are to keep the Sabbath holy and you are to refrain from labour, and your sons and daughters, and your manservant and your maidservant, and your cattle, and even the strangers that are within your gates.

So if you go to a restaurant you are effectively making everyone there, working for you for hire, your servants and not just strangers within your gates. None of these people can be required to work by you on the Sabbaths of the Lord your God. You have no right or permission to do that. The so-called “ox in a ditch” situation concerns just that and the potential loss of life and care of the sick. I have seen people forget the milk and juice on Sabbath when on duty so they had an excuse to call in to the shop and break the Sabbath, as they thought, with impunity. These people mock God. That is why the Churches of God collapsed when the antinomians got in among them. I have seen second generation Christians angry when told that they no longer had to keep the law. They were not angry with the false teachers that told them that lie but with the parents who made them keep the Sabbath for so long allegedly making them miss out on so many things. Their parents, who were called out of darkness, went back into darkness because some mindless fool appointed their minister told them it was all right to do so.

I have been saddened by the publication of the details of the wholesale fraud of the Church by leaders and the people did nothing about it. I watched Herbert Armstrong steal a church and defraud its people and then hand it to an antinomian who presided over the wholesale destruction of a system by lies and deceit and the spineless acquiescence of the congregation and knowing ministry. I watch the same destruction go on today among the same manipulators. I watch churches spilt and destroyed by ministers who squabble among themselves for funds and control. We see the same arguments coming into the CCG from these same groups who have not cleansed themselves of the antinomian heresy that has plagued the Church from the beginning.
We are required to do a series of things. We are required to keep the Laws of God from the simple to the weightier matters of the law. We are required to rebuke sin and error and root it out of the people and the Church. We are required to love one another in sincerity and truth. If someone teaches error, then rebuke him or her. If they continue doing it, report the matter and have them disciplined. If necessary, we will deal with it.

If there is fraud or heresy, then let us know and we will deal with it. The Christian Churches of God is a living organism made up of many believers who must fight to protect the Church. We are all of one mind and we speak one doctrine. Our doctrines are published. If there is disagreement then go and find another church. We are sure that there are a multitude of erroneous communities that will accommodate your particular heresy. The Churches of God were split into a myriad of two-God worshipping, Hillel Calendar observing, privately owned corporations that spend their time shearing the sheep of God in one error or another.

What you can be sure of is that there is only one true Church, worshipping One True God, under Jesus Christ on this planet in the last days doing the work of God. If you don’t tithe to it you are a thief. If you don’t work to its correct calendar you are worshipping in vain. If you teach contrary to the Law and the Testimony you are a blind guide and there is no light in you (Isa. 8:20). If you teach contrary to the doctrines and the Testimony and the Commandments of God you are not of the elect or the saints. You are merely a teacher of false doctrine and a liar. As such, it is only a matter of time before the elect will demand your repentance or removal.

Often you will be given opportunities to test you. Many times you will be given leadership to see if you can exercise it. The worst sin we have seen in the Church is self-righteousness. You cannot deal with it because the person thinks that they are more righteous than you are. If you are given a task, then do it with all your might. Don’t be a vexation to your leaders. Be trustworthy in the exercise of your authority. Don’t look down on other people and other nations. If you wish to come into the Church of God, remember that there are responsibilities that go with that job and calling. If you have a problem in that regard, resign so we can give the task to someone who will do it faithfully.

Why do we have so many phoney Christians in the world? The answer is that the nations were arranged according to the faith of their leaders and the religions were all based on the false sun worship of the Roman system. Anyone who disagreed was killed. Sunday was its day of worship and the festival of the Mother goddess Easter or Istar and the solstice festival of 25 December were its key festivals. This false system spread all over the world and bribed followers. The nations of Africa and Asia were bribed with sugar and foodstuffs to be baptised. The US Baptist system perpetuates this prostitution both in Africa and India and elsewhere.

They pay for conversions, not for the locals but for the congregations back home who provide more funds for these “conversions.” Neither the phoney conversions abroad, nor the Sunday Baptists back home, nor the Roman Catholics, nor the Anglicans, nor Episcopalians are part of the system, and none will enter the Kingdom of God. Why? Because they are teachers of a false system! They are antinomians who teach contrary to the Laws of God. The only difference between them and the antinomians in the Churches of God is that they are openly professing the lie and the plants in the Churches of God are doing it by subterfuge.

If you have problems with doctrine, then get off your individual and collective backsides and study. If you find you are not in agreement, then you will have to go elsewhere. No one will hate you for it. Most will try to help you through the problem.

If you wish to come into the Churches of God, do not be offended when you are asked a series of questions. The local golf club would do no less if you wanted to join and many are very choosy as to whom they let in. We aren’t all that choosey as God only deals with sinners. He even chose me. He forgives all our sins, even yours. However, while you are with us, you will obey your leaders and you will obey the Laws of God. We are not a social club although we care for one another. We are not a holiday home although we are together three times a year. We are an army of God and we function on discipline and order.

We are a family and we also function on love.

Love one another as God and Christ love us and prove we love them by keeping their Commandments.

Wade Cox

Coordinator General