Sabbath 13/5/36/120
Dear Friends,
Last Monday week was the New Moon of the Fifth month or the month of Ab. It is traditionally a month of disaster in Israel. As we have said often, the month of Tammuz, which as we know is the Fourth month, is so named because of the worship of the god Tammuz or Dumuzi and its association with the Babylonian mystery system, which has penetrated the Churches of God from the second century and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries under the Church of God (Seventh Day) and WCG system when it adopted the modern Jewish Hillel Calendar based on the Babylonian intercalations. Many do not even understand what they have done and how idolatrous their position is. It is one of the reasons the Sardis and Laodicaean systems do not enter the First Resurrection. Much of it is the fault of their ministry and they are held to account even more rigorously, and have been since the Measuring of the Temple was declared by J. Tkach Snr in 1987 (see the paper Measuring the Temple (No. 137)).
The month Tammuz is named to remind us that Moses went up the mountain and stayed there for forty days from the end part of the Third month until the end of the Fourth month.
Moses was given the tablets of stone on which were written the Laws of God in the form of the basic Ten Commandments. Israel was tested under its priesthood for this period. While Moses was away with the elohim, who was the Angel or Messenger of Yahovah of Hosts, Israel went into sin. They forgot the basic Ten Commandments that they had been given not two months before. Israel had turned back into idolatry and away from the Laws of God. They had already been given the Law, verbally by Moses, before he went to the mountain. He went to receive detailed instructions on the entire system of Law and bring back the Commandments engraved by the “finger of God.” The elders had actually sat down and eaten with the great Angel of the Law (see the paper The Angel of YHVH (No. 24)). Aaron their high priest was left in charge of the people.
This was no small matter. The Priesthood were all given clear responsibility for the welfare of Israel in Moses’ absence. So also the responsibility rests with the Church in the last days. The Laws of God are left in the protection of the Church, and the churches and their priesthood are to learn to protect their understanding and implementation. The lips of the priesthood should preserve knowledge. God will not tolerate antinomianism among the clergy and He will remove them from the true Church when they profane the teaching of the Law.
Many do not really understand what is happening in regard to the Laws of God in the Church. We have seen God act to remove those who teach against His Law.
In the last week at the end of the month of Tammuz, Moses returned from the mountain with Joshua and the Tablets of the Law. They were greeted by noise. The elohim we now know as Jesus Christ said to Moses after he had carved the Laws of God out in stone tablets: “Go, get you down for your people have corrupted themselves.” Joshua said he thought that there was a noise of war in the camp but Moses recognised it for what it was. The noise was revelry for the people had made themselves a Golden Calf (see the paper The Golden Calf (No. 222)). They had thrown away the Laws of God and were worshipping a false system. Aaron, when questioned said simply, “I just put it in the fire and out came this calf.” Fancy that!
I have seen ministers teach that the Laws of God were done away along the same lines. They taught that the Law was done away when Christ came to preach the coming of the Holy Spirit. Why would Christ give a set of Laws to Moses and then kill people for not obeying them only to allow his Church to ignore them when he came to give the Holy Spirit to mankind. We are taught that the Holy Spirit is necessary to the keeping of the Law properly. Without the Holy Spirit we could not properly keep or understand the Law.
The Bible is quite clear that sin is transgression of the Law (1Jn 3:4) and that we are to obey or keep the Commandments of God (1Jn 5:2-3).
On this evening at the end of Tammuz and the beginning of the New Moon of Ab, Moses returned to find Israel in sin and he broke the tablets of the Law and held the priesthood accountable. He took a number of Levites and then began to kill the ringleaders of the heresy. He killed 3,000 idolaters and then went back up the mountain to receive another set of tablets uncorrupted by the sins of the congregation as had occurred in the Fourth month of Tammuz.
I have now seen, twice in a number of years, ministry killed or removed for teaching against the Laws of God in the Church of God. The Trinitarian system does not experience such action because God is not concerned with their idolatry at present. However, the leaders of the Church of God are under judgment. God will deal with them and has dealt with them in that manner. I saw a church sifted for the Law recently. Some time ago I saw the leader of the Worldwide Church of God killed forty weeks from the day to the hour, adjusted for time difference in the USA, from the time he gave a sermon doing away with or saying that the Law of God was done away. He died in agony. We in CCG simply watched in fascination knowing what had happened and knowing the errors and heresy perpetrated by that ministry under that man. Their lamp stand was removed in its entirety from their ministry everywhere.
We have seen whole churches sifted for teaching against the Laws of God, such as that which had emanated from the WCG ministry.
This year is the First year of the Sabbatical cycle (see the paper Samson and the Judges (No. 73)). Last feast the Church elders taught the understanding of the Law, and of tithing, and the function of the Commandments of God, and the operation of the Church of God. It was forty-two weeks from the week at the end of the feast to the last week of the Fourth month. Forty weeks are allowed for repentance and removal of error. The repetition of false teaching regarding the Law is then dealt with over that two-week period. Make sure that you have reacted correctly to what God has shown you to be your faults in teaching His Laws and His system. The congregations that support false teachings, or which are asleep, are dealt with in this period. These actions are done under control of the Holy Spirit. Make sure that you are acting correctly in what God has shown you to do. God will not be mocked. If you have been dealt with, then repent and obey God.
God often times is dealing with the actions of His Church to coincide with the timing of the fall of Israel at Sinai with idolatry. The period of the Golden Calf and the destruction of the tablets of the Law all occurred in that last week of the Fourth month and the culmination was on the First day of the Fifth month or the New Moon of Ab. In this way He brings us to repentance.
The month of Ab has seen God deal with Israel often, and the destruction of the Temple occurred in this month under the Babylonians. The Temple was destroyed and Israel was sent into captivity because they had not kept the Laws of God properly and the land had to be given its Sabbaths under the Law.
Remember that during the month of Ab and into the Sixth month, Moses was on the mountain again with Christ receiving detailed instruction on how to keep the Law and how the Law subtended from the Ten Commandments and how it was divided into the two Great Commandments. On these two Great Commandments hang all the Law and the prophets. Scripture cannot be broken. God will not allow any diminishing of the Law in His Church under Jesus Christ.
One thing most people do not fully comprehend is that if Christ had taught the diminishing of the Law he would have disqualified himself as the Messiah. He would be dead now awaiting the second resurrection and God would have sent another. However, God knew Christ would not sin and sent him because he would not sin. Christ himself said that until heaven and earth pass away not one jot or tittle would pass from the Law. He fulfilled the sacrificial law by giving himself once and for all time. The fulfilling of the sacrificial law, which stood against us, required constant expiation and sacrifice due to our debts in sin against the Law of God. That is the only thing that was changed. Hebrews tells us the entire reasoning and the structure of the change in the sacrifices and the priesthood, which were changed also with Christ and the implementation of the order of Melchisedek (see also the paper Melchisedek (No. 128)).
Those who do not keep the Commandments of God crucify Christ again and again. Quite simply the false teaching has no place among the servants of God and God has shown it will not be tolerated. I was amused to hear the argument dealt with among the servants of God in the following way. One man was arguing that the Law had been done away and another answered the comment simply by saying: “Oh, OK, tonight I will be around to sleep with your wife!” The man had no answer. Because, if what he was saying was true, then there was no law in the country he was in which said that could not happen. The only reason two consenting adults could not have intercourse rested solely on the prohibition of the Seventh Commandment and the attendant biblical legislation derived from that section of the Law (see the papers Law of God Series (L1) and Law and the Seventh Commandment (No. 260)).
That is why this antinomian teaching of doing away with the Law of God is being circulated in the Trinitarian Churches this century. It was never accepted by the Protestants of the Reformation, as we see from their Confessions of Faith outlined in the paper Distinction in the Law (No. 96). It is essentially an argument advanced by perverts and fornicators to justify their aberrations. The problem is that many who espouse it do not understand the logic of what they say.
If you are being exposed to or are being corrupted by this doctrine deal with it before it does more damage to your congregation.
Usually it is accompanied by the control of information contrary to, or to change, what is being taught. The propaganda process starts off with a strong statement in support of what is being undermined and then the process of destruction is commenced or continued. The mental process is called cognitive dissonance. It can send some people mad.
I wrote to Joseph W. Tkach of the WCG when he started out on this road to heresy and death and told him what the logical end was to where he was going. He wrote back to me, and his minions wrote back to me, denying that was the case. They consistently denied that WCG was moving towards Sunday worship and Trinitarianism and Antinomianism. He had advisors who were Protestant trained and they knew exactly where they were going. I also have university qualification in Comparative Religion and Philosophy and had seen it all before historically over the centuries.
Joseph Tkach Jnr. says in his book “Transformed by Truth” that they were told where they were going. Yes, I told them many times, as I told the Church of God (Seventh Day) also. However, Tkach Jnr. claims in his book that they did not actually know what the result would be. Now that is a truly remarkable statement. Anyone with the basics of understanding of theology would have known immediately where they were headed. Who commences a journey without knowing the destination? There is no doubt in my mind that they knew. A very old friend of mine was standing behind the stage at Pasadena in the Worldwide Church of God Auditorium when Herbert Armstrong gave his now infamous “putting the church back on track” sermon. In that sermon he denied all knowledge of the so-called Systematic Theology Project or STP. My friend was with another senior minister of WCG and said to him somewhat bemused “That’s a lie.” His friend allegedly said: “Yes that’s a lie.”
As the tirade continued he states he said: “Herbert Armstrong is a liar.” His colleague reportedly answered: “Yes, Herbert Armstrong is a liar.” My friend said to me: “Wade if they say that they did not know that this would happen they are all liars. They all knew and they were simply waiting for him to die so they could implement this teaching,” or words to that effect.
Herbert Armstrong himself was behind it as he apparently thought it would increase their recruiting and tithe base and they would make more money. Instead it threatened to destroy the church and Herbert had the intuition to see the fact whereas the others did not and had no real convictions or theology themselves. My friend left the WCG in disgust. However, he did tell me this later and reduced it to writing for me.
God then destroyed that system completely because of what they had done to the Law and the Testimony. God is not mocked. His system will be implemented when Christ gets here and it will last for one thousand years and on through the General Resurrection. The world will be run from Jerusalem. However, it will not be run, not as Simon Peres of the current Israeli Knesset now suggests, as a world capital under the United Nations and its idolatrous system. That is only a short-term problem. The EU is now trying to force Israel to cede all areas taken after the 1967 war including the Golan and East Jerusalem and Arab lands and Judea and Samaria. That will be the start of the occupation of Jerusalem by the NATO and Beast power forces. They will take it for 42 months until Christ kills them. Christ will take up rulership in Jerusalem as the centre of World Government and the entire world will follow the Laws of God or they will die. The Temple will be rebuilt and the world will keep the Laws of God and the Testimony or Faith of Jesus Christ.
Judaism and so-called modern Islam will vanish. Judah will repent and its eyes finally will be opened, as will the sons of Ishmael and Israel combined. Islam will be restored to what it was under the Patriarchs, Moses and Christ.
Nothing will be allowed to interfere with that process. The Laws will stand and they will be explained. The Church will not deviate from the faith. Its teachers will not survive under error or in indolence.
Below is an example of how the ministry of the Churches of God are destroying the Churches of God with lies and false teaching. In 2000 years the Churches of God have never prayed to Christ and never taught it was permissible to pray to Christ. In all our years in the Churches of God it was never permitted or heard as a prayer uttered by anyone in the entire system including the WCG until the breakup in 1994. Christ taught us how to pray and it was to the Father in his name and to no other being or entity (see the paper Teach Us To Pray (No. 111)). This same church teaches it is OK to go to restaurants on a Sabbath and to pay them as your menservants and maidservants on the Sabbath contrary to the Fourth Commandment. They also keep the Babylonian intercalations introduced by the Hillel system in 358 CE. Christ said that they have the name that they are living but they are dead. They teach two true God in a confusion of Ditheist and Binitarian paganism. God is now beginning to deal with them.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
Question:
Is it wrong to pray to Jesus Christ?Answer:
No, it is not wrong to pray to Jesus Christ. God is our loving Father, but we should not neglect His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We can see from Scripture that Jesus Christ is worthy of receiving our prayer. We understand that Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament (1 Corinthians 10:1–4). He was with God the Father from the beginning (John 1:1–4). The Word, who was with God at the beginning, became flesh (John 1:14–15).
Scripture gives us the example of the deacon Stephen—the first recorded martyr of the Apostolic Church. "And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’" (Acts 7:59). Even at the very end of his life, while he was being murdered for his bold preaching, Stephen called out not to God the Father but to Jesus Christ, his Savior. Stephen knew that he had a profound relationship with both God the Father and with Jesus Christ. Jesus accepted worship, the reverence of others, towards Him. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, "…they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him" (Matthew 28:9).Yet we must not neglect God the Father, directing the majority of our prayers to Him. Jesus Christ stated that He and the Father are one in thought, attitude and purpose (John 10:22–39; John 17:20–23). Since His resurrection, the glorified Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father (Hebrews 10:12; 1 Peter 3:21–22).
Jesus Christ is God, as God the Father is God. And we can understand that without Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, the veil between humans and God the Father would not have been lifted (2 Corinthians 3:14). If we do not pray to the Father, we are minimizing this great gift that was given to us by Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray to the Father, who He acknowledged was greater than He Himself (Matthew 6:9; John 14:28). We must not ignore His instruction to honor our loving Father.
Yet even when we pray to God the Father, we do so by the authority of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).
The Apostle Paul also wrote of his hope that Christians’ "…hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:2–3). Our Savior not only taught us to pray to God the Father, but He made those prayers possible. Nevertheless, God the Father does not want us to avoid a loving, personal relationship with His beloved Son. (Matthew 17:5)
Scripture shows us that God the Father is the foremost member of the God Family, as Jesus Himself acknowledged. Before Christ’s sacrifice, a veil separated humanity from God the Father, and it was Jesus Christ’s sacrifice that removed the veil. We can see that, as Jesus Christ taught, God the Father should be the primary recipient of our thanks, praise and petitions in prayer. Yet we also see that these prayers go to God the Father in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, with whom we should have an intimate and personal relationship. As part of that relationship, we may certainly follow the Biblical example of Stephen and direct some of our prayers to the beloved Son of God the Father, Jesus Christ.”