Sabbath 2/5/41/120

Dear Friends

This month is the Month of Ab and has always been associated with catastrophe in ancient Israel.  We of the Churches of God in the last days may well ask the question: Why?  Why did God allow the Sardis and Laodicean eras of the Churches of God to become so influential and yet to come to nothing and most of their membership does not even make it into the First Resurrection?  Why would He do that and for the last 180 odd years allow them to run side by side both with false doctrines operating under false prophecy?

God allowed these two eras to develop and collapse of their own accord. Also God prophesied through the mouths of the prophets using His Holy Spirit. In Zechariah 11:17 God foretold of the Idol Shepherd and the testing of the elect shepherds in Ezekiel 34 and He gave the results of when it was to occur in the eras of the Churches of God in Revelation chapter 3 in the Last Days.  Traditionally we have assumed that Philadelphia comes out of Sardis which was true as it indeed did come from them but so also did Laodicea come from Sardis over a hundred and fifty years previously in the Adventist system as did the JWs at the same time.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses did not even qualify as an era of the Churches of God.  The reasons are all to do with their failures regarding the Sabbath and the Calendar and the Nature of God and their failure to control prophecy and false doctrines.  The results of the church regarding false prophecy have been scandalous (see False Prophecy (No. 269)).

The mess that began with the death of the false prophet, Herbert W. Armstrong, commenced the Measuring of the Temple of God (No.137) in 1987as announced by the replacement Pastor General of the WCG Joseph Tkach Snr.  The process was to last 40 years and covered the period up until the 120th Jubilee in 2027.  After the Seven years’ measurement of the ministry they began to be destroyed in 1994.  The ministry had by this time failed to correct error and because they had allowed the perjury of Armstrong and Portune to steal the church and place it in the ownership of one man and dissolve the constitution they were trapped in a pit of their own making and could do nothing about it. They had undertaken the most extensive brainwashing project ever seen in the Church of God and because of that they themselves knew nothing.

CCG was formed out of this mess in 1994 and began preparing for the long task ahead of the final remnant of the Churches of God.  People began to be restored to the church by the Holy Spirit as they recognised the truth of the Churches of God as revealed in Scripture.  To achieve that CCG had to restore the original faith free of the lies of the Sardis and Laodicean systems. The Sardis system did not end until the church calling itself the Living Church of God had been declared in accordance with Revelation 3:1.  That was in 1997 after the disgraceful Global bankruptcy scandal.

You members of CCG came to us from all parts of the Churches of God, from both Sardis and Laodicea, in order to form a new system free of error.  You were and are tested in all aspects and many of us have seen blood, sweat and tears.  Many have faltered on the way.  Many were in fact weeded out because they came with the wrong motives and for the wrong reasons.  Many were plants placed among us simply to undermine and destroy us.

You here now and joining us have survived and, like the stones in the Temple described in the Shepherd of Hermas, some were spared some of the more trying times and were placed aside and called to the work when we could all be most productive. The major growth in the work has occurred in Africa because CCG is not racist and does not have a closed system.  Also CCG doctrines had to be free of Ditheism and Binitarianism/Trinitarianism in order to have discourse with the sons of Shem among what is now pseudo-Islam of the Arab etc world.  The CCG Commentary on the Qur’an was a very significant undertaking that could never have been undertaken by either Sardis or Laodicea as their doctrines were flawed and their administration incorrect. Try talking to a Muslim about Two True Gods existent before the creation and if they do not kill you for heresy they will disregard you immediately.

The Koran or Qur’an is God’s first Warning to them and any other warning must be couched in those terms tying them into Scripture.  Only CCG could do this and had to be raised to do exactly this.  Our Arab ministry over North Africa and the Middle East is working hard to achieve this. They are excited over the truth of the message. We have also issued the paper Myths and Fabrications in Islam (Q001C).

One of the major flaws in the people coming to us is that they think that the brethren in the West, especially in the US and BC, have unlimited funds and their generosity comes not from their faith and obedience to God under the tithe laws and the work placed before them but from their simple affluence. God will test that attitude very soon and He will sift out that attitude from among us. For such are the tares among the grain of the elect. If you obeyed God and tithed then you would not need help (see the papers Tithing ( No.161) and the Commentary on Malachi  (No. 021L)).

So also will the self-righteousness of Sardis and Laodicea be brought to nothing in order to rectify them for the First Resurrection. If they do not repent and change their views they will die and be placed in the Second Resurrection.

As we work together please look at how we can support one another.  We are mindful of, and grateful for, the prayers of the Saints. I am sure that I and many others have been able to continue as well as we are because of God’s intervention through those prayers.

God has also acted to cleanse us of the plants and the idolaters coming to us from those placed among the Churches of God by the world’s systems and sent to close us down. Because of your vigilance and dedication we have survived and continue to survive and we are doing a mighty job with each hand at their action stations doing their assigned role. 

Take encouragement from what we are achieving and what we are able to do. Encourage one another. Love one another and thereby show that you love God and are fit to become sons of God as is Jesus the Christ or Messiah, the Angel of Yahovah at our head who became a son of God in power from his resurrection from the dead. Help the brethren who do not as yet understand what has been done to them by the false systems and help to bring them to the faith under the Holy Spirit.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General