Letter to the Brethren: October 25, 2018

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philemon 3).

We continue to work on materials to teach people around the world. This also includes another animation that we are finishing up (we thought it was done, but have to make some artistic changes) and the script of another animation that I just started to write yesterday.

Speaking of animations, Andre Nelson reported yesterday that we have had 6,000 views of one of our animations this month via Facebook, though YouTube only shows total views in the low hundreds.

Kindle Direct Publishing

As mentioned last week, Amazon essentially eliminated CreateSpace and merged it with Kindle Direct Publishing.

We had been using CreateSpace for many years to print much of our literature.

Anyway, this merging has caused us some problems in getting literature orders processed.

However, we were able to get past a minor issue with Kindle Direct Publishing as at first it sent us emails saying a literature order we made for Ethiopia did not go through, then after we inquired, it said that it sent us two wrong emails and that the order did go through. It also would not allow us to order our books in the Spanish language at first, but now does, so we sent many books to group in Tabasco, Mexico. The literature we had sent earlier to Canada, before the merging, made it there after the merging.

Now there still are some concerns about how Kindle Direct Publishing will handle our African, Serbian, and Asian language materials. Technically those languages are on “hold” and “are unsupported” by Kindle Direct Publishing. Well, I telephoned them and Kindle says that we will be able to handle them as we have in the past, but basically cannot update them. So, that should work for us.

Radio and Halloween

Ended up with a last minute radio interview on the NutriMedical Report on Thursday, October 18th starting at 2:06 pm PDT on the Deagle-Network. We discussed prophecy, the Eurasian Economic Union, Armageddon, and why the Bible shows that the Beast is European.

I am scheduled to be on again at 1:06 pm PDT on October 30th. The expected subject will be why Christians should not celebrate Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, I did not do a new sermon on that subject this year.

For those interested in one, however, here is a link to one done last year: Debunking 17 reasons to celebrate Halloween and here is a link to one done in 2015: Halloween: Are there 7 reasons for Christians to celebrate it?

Also, for those interested in looking at written information, here is a link the article: Is Halloween Holy Time for Christians? and here is a link to our free online book: Should You Keep God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays?

Google Campaign

Google reported that our campaign with them had 1,939,724 computer impressions last month. That is up from the previous month.

Some may wonder why we have not reported about the Google campaign the past several months.

Well, the reason is that, until this week, Google stopped sending monthly reports.

Why Google stopped sending monthly reports and why it suddenly resumed doing so was not explained to us.

Anyway, we have continued the campaign with Google–and never stopped it.

Since we began it about five years ago, we have had over 158,000,000 computer impressions (each computer impression is counted as one, so the number of unique computers would be less than that–Google does not provide us unique computer information) and had over a million clicks on articles from the campaign.

While we would like to some day pour more resources into this or similar promotions,  even at the level we are doing this, a witness to the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of God is going forth as we are working to fulfill Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19-20.

Websites Down?

The CCOG and COGwriter websites may be down for hours today as our host server is doing some type of update and maintenance. So, should you experience this, realize that they should come back up when the server company is done with their updates.

Quarterly USA Donation Receipts

We were able to mail out some of the quarterly donation receipts to USA donors who have given us mailing addresses. There was a mail problem, so the rest should go out in a few days.

Since the accounting computer goes by the date entered, and September 14th was the last date in the office before our family flew to Europe for part of the Fall Holy Days, the receipts only reflect donations received this year, as of September 14th.

The next time we expect to send statements will be in January 2019 for the calendar year of 2018.

World News Items

Jesus spoke of famines and pestilences (Matthew 24:8). It was reported that the USA is working on infecting insects that can cause both (see DARPA to weaponize insects to spread viruses across the population… sinister plans exposed by team of scientists). This world truly needs the Kingdom of God to come.

Yesterday it was reported that some deranged person(s) sent terrorist packages to some USA Democrats as well as the news company CNN (see Terrorizing packages mailed to Clintons, Obamas, CNN NY offices, & George Soros). Furthermore, two more suspected bombs were found in New York City and Delaware this morning (see Bombs and dividing the USA). And risk of repeat, this world truly needs the Kingdom of God to come.

As far as personal health goes, a new study has concluded that eating more organically grown foods seems to reduce the risk of getting cancer (see Eating organic foods appears to reduce risk of developing cancer). Of course, the Bible teaches “eat what is good” (Isaiah 55;12) and eating chemicals used as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. would not to be optimal (though they are not totally unavoidable for most people)–so trying to eat more foods not processed with them would seem to be best.

The UK’s departure from the European Union and monetary problems of the EU have been in the news (see Brexit, ‘ECB Is Worst-Run Central Bank In The World,’ & Prophecy). A financial crisis of some type, perhaps similar to one that the last Herbert W. Armstrong mentioned in a sermon on July 7, 1984, is likely to be a factor to bring Europe together to support the dictatorial Beast (Revelation 17:12).

Speaking of financial matters, Russia, China, the EU, and others continue to look at ways to bypass US dollar dominance in international trade (see Russia, Iran, Europe, and others looking at SWIFT end of USA dominance). While some analysts believe that the USA has too much dominance for such things to matter, the reality is that, in time, as more nations develop ways to bypass the USA dollar, it will one day be so bypassed that it will not be used.

Last Thursday, we mentioned that there was a rift developing between the Eastern and Russian Orthodox churches. On Friday, the Russian Orthodox met with the Vatican (see Schism: Russian Orthodox meet with Vatican regarding Constantinople). Our recommended sermonette for this Sabbath is related to these matters: Orthodox Schisms: What Will Happen?

Suggested Sabbath Service

Here is a suggested Sabbath service for this week for our scattered brethren:

• 2-3 hymns (our songbook, The Bible Hymnal, contains the materials from the 1974 Bible Hymnal from the old WCG with new covers, plus ten additional hymns; there is also some Choral Accompaniment online).
• Opening prayer.
• Sermonette, which for most who receive this letter via email will be a recorded one. The one suggested for this week is: Orthodox Schisms: What Will Happen? Other sermonettes are available at the Bible News Prophecy channel.
• Announcements (if any; though for many it will be this letter) and one hymn.
• Sermon, which for most who receive this letter via email will be a recorded one. The one suggested for this week is: Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome. Other sermons are also available at the ContinuingCOG channel.
  Other sermons are also available at the ContinuingCOG channel.
• Final hymn.
• Closing prayer.

Note: If you have a slow internet connection, you can watch these by starting the video, then below it (and towards the right) look for an outline of a gear–if you click on that, it will allow the YouTube video to be played with lower video quality, but at least it will not stop often–you can select a quality as low as 144p. If your internet connection is still too slow (as my home one is) and/or you prefer audio messages to audio-visuals ones, go to the YouTube link for the message, click on SHOW MORE related to the description. You will then see something that says, “Download MP3.” Below that is a link to an MP3 file. Most computers (and even some cellular telephones) will allow MP3 files to be downloaded and played. This is an option we have made available (but we are also looking into ways to improve that as well)–and, of course, we have written article options. Some people have found that if their internet connections are not fast enough, that they can simply listen to the messages that are found at the Bible News Prophecy online radio channel.

IN CASE YOU DO NOT RECEIVE A ‘LETTER TO THE BRETHREN’ FOR ANY WEEK, REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE MANY SERMON MESSAGES ON THE ContinuingCOG channel AND MANY SERMONETTE MESSAGES ON THE Bible News Prophecy channel. There are also some messages at the CCOGAfrica channel.

Concluding Comments

The Apostle Paul wrote:

8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.

9 But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. 10 Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. (Titus 3:8-11)