Sabbath 14/10/34/120                                                                                                   

Dear Friends,

Have you ever wondered why the Churches of God get attacked when they are concerned with and discuss the return of Jesus Christ?  There are a few people that really hate the Churches of God and label any of the leaders, no matter who they are, as crackpots because they are concerned with the soon coming return of the Messiah.

It does not matter that most of the world is looking to the future with uncertainty and a degree of expectation and that all religions hold the return of the Messiah, whether Christian or Muslim, as a matter of theological fact. Even Hinduism holds the last age of destruction as a matter of faith. Why then would these strange little men be preoccupied with the projections of the Churches of God based on Biblical time frames and the exposition of Scripture? Why would they be preoccupied with printing lies about their various leaders and defaming them in the pathetic blogs that they manage to run among the small numbers of their cronies? Why would they for instance try to link the CCG and its doctrines with Armstrongism when we do not agree with much of what Herbert Armstrong and his ministry taught at all and deal with his errors publicly? Why do they publicly misrepresent known public documents for the purposes of defamation, themselves risking prosecution?  Why do they attack the other COGs and their leaders for analysing scripture and outlining the timelines of Scripture and prophecy?

Much of it stems from a deep seated sense of inadequacy in their periods of association with the Churches of God and feelings of rejection by the structures that they defame. In discussion with some of them we see that they were never accepted or used for serious tasks and never accepted by their peers. Many are failures and some are declared bankrupts in failed endeavours. There appears to be a small group of them that face serious mental disorders themselves and in their families and transpose these criticisms on to the officers of the churches that simply ignore them.

Why would any of these people try to claim that the Churches of God teach that the end of the world is being claimed by its leaders when the Churches of God have NEVER in all their history ever taught that the end of the world coincides with the return of the Messiah and trying to determine a likely time frame or sequence? The Bible is quite clear that the return of the Messiah begins a period of peace and prosperity never before seen in the history of the world and which leads to the resurrection and salvation of all mankind. Further, the Bible teaches and the Churches of God believe that after the Second Resurrection the entire world is placed before God who Himself comes to the earth and from which the entire universe is then directed (see the papers Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143) and the City of God (No. 180)).  Far from being the end of the world it is in fact the beginning. So from where do they get this rubbish?

They certainly do not get it from the leaders that they purport to quote and certainly not from CCG or from its leaders as a couple of these people falsely claim. We have noted that there is a group of them who claim to be members of the Churches of God and some even form forums on places such as Facebook and other sites.  One such site claimed to be formed from WCG survivors as though it was a life or death survival trial. It was indeed that but not the way they meant or claimed it to be.  When one really analysed what they believed and said, it became obvious that they were never really part of the Church of God nor did they ever understand the faith nor did they desire to follow and obey God and the Bible.  Many of them were straight out Antinomians that actually believed that when they died they went to heaven. Many sat in the Churches of God for a number of years. No one made them do so. No one held a gun to their head and forced them to sit there each Sabbath, or to tithe or to attend feasts. They did so of their own volition and without any compulsion and they could have left at any time.  The fact was that many came to the Churches of God in order to damage the ones they could. Some came with their families and had no grounding or conviction of their own. They were called but not chosen and they resented the fact that they were unable to grasp the faith and nor could they stand the test of their faith when the trials came to them.

One of them went from church to church attacking those he could as soon as he was admitted and then moving on to the next to attack those there. One of the CCG ministers was stupid enough to let him attend CCG for a short period and was amazed when he was told that it was only a matter of time before this person would attack us as he had attacked those before us. He indeed did so and went on to another church to attack them. He attends a Sunday worshipping system now, which was where he always belonged. He was never fit for, or called to, the Church of God. He will be corrected in the Second Resurrection. Father forgive him for he knows not what he does.

Why do these people become preoccupied with the COGs and so vehemently reject the concept of the coming of the Messiah? Why do they refer to it as the end of the world when it is anything but the end of the world? The answer is that it is the end of their world and they cannot stand the thought of being told what to do under the laws of God.

The Bible is clear on a number of aspects of the plan of Salvation.

1. The Creation is of a limited order and time.
2. Satan was a son of God that was given power over the earth for a limited time as Anointed Covering Cherub (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:4-7; Isa Ch. 14; Ezek. Ch. 28).
3. At the end of that time Christ is sent back to the earth to take over from him for the millennial reign of 1000 years with the elect of the First Resurrection (Rev. 20:1-15).
4. The church has always taught that the creation sequence was mirrored by the day is a thousand years principle as stated by Peter in 2Peter 3:8. The six days of the working creation in Genesis mirrored the six thousand years of Satan’s rule which was to be cut short. The thousand years of the rule of Christ was mirrored by the Sabbath which was the millennial rest of God.
5. The Church of the first century was confused by the false entries in the LXX which added over 1500 years to the creation making it appear that Satan’s time would be cut short with the destruction of the Temple expected in 70 CE as per the prophecy of Daniel 9:25-27. It was understanding this prophecy that saved the church in 64 CE when they fled to Pella after the death of James (see the paper The Sign of Jonah and the History of the Reconstruction of the Temple (No. 13)).
6. The Calendar determines the time frames of the Bible and prophecy happens in accordance with God’s Calendar.  The 6000 years of the creation began in 4004 BCE, as every serious theologian in the Reformation could and did tell us, based on the jubilees and the history of the Patriarchs which they had understood, and ended in 1997 CE.  The six thousand years of the jubilees starts with the jubilee in 3974 BCE and ends in 2027 CE.
7. The errors that have been made in the past have all been made by false prophets misapplying the aspects of prophecy to time frames within their own lives in order to bring the imprisonment of Satan sooner and the return of the Messiah in their timeframes of reference.

So why is it strange that as we get nearer to the end of the 6000 years that the Churches of God should become interested in and concerned with documenting the time frames of the creation and the coming of the Messiah?  If the 6000 years of the 120 jubilees finishes in 2027 then the Millennium begins from Atonement 2027 and the first harvest of the New system begins in Abib 2028. One would imagine that even a dolt could add those figures up and understand the underlying concepts.

Now if the week does not underpin the creation and the plan of salvation and the Millennium of 1000 years represent the Sabbath reign of Jesus Christ then the Church of God has been badly misled by the Holy Spirit over the last two thousand years; and the 1000 years of Revelation Chapter 20 of the reign of Christ and the saints from Jerusalem and the Second Resurrection of the Dead and the Great White Throne Judgment have to be unconnected with the time sequence before it.

However, the church has always believed that to be the case and the writings of the church show that to be the case and the Two Witnesses and their structure and names are well documented from the second century (see the papers The Witnesses (including the Two Witnesses) (No. 135) and Antichrist in Early Church Theology and the Last Days (No. 299F)).

The facts are that the Bible is inspired by God as it claims to be, or it is not.  The church is led by the Holy Spirit as the Bible claims it to be, or it is not. The leaders of the church are part of that governing body led by the Spirit or they are not. If they are not then they are either sinning and cut off from it, or the Bible is false.

It follows therefore that the leaders of the Church of God have an obligation to understand and disclose the mysteries of God so that the world may understand what is happening to it.  Scripture states that God does nothing but He warns the people through His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7), and that Spirit of prophecy also rests in the Church of God.

Why then would a church leader be labelled a crackpot for diligently seeking to identify the sequence of activities of God as revealed by Him through His servants the prophets in Scripture?

The test of a prophet is if what he says comes to pass or not (Deut. 18:22). That is step one. The next test is if he teaches according to the law and the testimony (Isa. 8:20).

So far those who have claimed to speak as prophets have failed.  CCG has to date never issued a single false prophecy.

If the jubilee in 2027 is not the end of the 6000 years and Messiah is not here by that time then we have the terms of reference incorrect. So far there is no indication whatsoever that we are incorrect and the time frame is seemingly well attested and in fact drawing some agitation from the Antinomians. The Atheists dismiss it all as the writings of a religion they reject and therefore irrelevant. Their concerns will come to a head when Christ does in fact get here and we will then have their undivided attention as well.  Then we will all have the big show and tell in Jerusalem and they will all be irrelevant to what happens and that is what will agitate all of them, and is agitating these ex-COG people now, because deep down they know that is what the Bible actually says and if we are correct they are all in big trouble. Even many of the ministry and members of the Churches of God will be weeping and gnashing their teeth.

Recently we read one woman write of us on a forum that she understood where we “get this stuff from because that is what the Bible does say in many of these scriptures they quote.” However, she then went on to say that when you died you went straight to heaven and ignored all these Scriptures that said the direct opposite (e.g. Isa. 66:23; Zech 14:16-19; Rev. 20 etc).

It follows as a matter of irrefutable logic that if the 6000 years of the creation from the closure of Eden, or 120 jubilees are up in 2027, which indeed they are, then Satan must be placed in the bottomless pit before that date. Thus Messiah must be here before 2027. If the 6000 years are irrelevant and there is no time frame following the creation week on a millennium to a day basis then the Holy Spirit has not revealed that fact to the Church of God and there is no identifiable time frame in the Bible other than the prophecies already identified by CCG in the papers such as the Sign of Jonah above and the Fall of Egypt Part I (No 36) and the Fall of Egypt Part II (No. 36B) and the Last Thirty Years the Final Struggle (No. 219).

However, the Church of God has been given understanding of the prophecies and the Bible states clearly that the coming of the Messiah will be prophesied from Dan/Ephraim (Jer. 4:15) (see the paper Warning of the Last Days (No 44)).

If 2027 is the end of the time frame, then it follows that Messiah must be here before that date. Are there any other prophecies that indicate by which time previous to that date he might be expected to arrive? Yes, such a prophecy exists in the story of the fall of Jericho. On a year for a day basis the seven days would equal seven years and it must be on a year for a day basis to allow the events in Revelation to all take place (see the paper The Fall of Jericho (No. 142)).

Therefore, should such prophecy be coherent or applicable as it seems to be then Christ could be expected to be here by 2019. So is the Church of God unbalanced for stating that is a very real possibility and for allowing that to be the likely scenario given the understanding of the brethren of Scripture and prophecy? On the contrary; an obligation rests on the scoffers to rationally account for the prophecies in refutation. Abuse and defamation is not rational argument and is the mark of an inferior intellect.

Wade Cox