Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:
Greetings from Grover Beach, California.
While it seems like we barely finished having the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread for 2021, the Day of Pentecost is coming soon: May 16, 2021.
This is one of the rare days of the year that we also have church services on a Sunday. Hence, there will be back-to-back Sabbaths.
India
Manipur, India in red (via Filpro, Wikipedia)
Our deacon in India sent the following:
India has a lot of languages and dialects, over 19,500.Manipur, my State also speaks over 35 dialects.We have been having our Sabbath services in Manipuri which is included in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution as an official language.However my native tongue is Mao/Emela.My wife and children speak Tangkhul.Therefore we grow up learning several languages: English, Hindi, Manipuri and our native dialect.If I go to meet another person in another State, it is natural for us to communicate in English (strong) or Hindi (weak).This will be the same if we have to go to Bangladesh, Nepal or Myanmar.All of us can speak and write in English because of our English heritage 1700 – 1948 to a fair degree with variations in grammatical proficiency, pronunciation and usage. … I am therefore enclosing an article which I propose to release language/dialect recordings on YouTube in Manipuri, Mao, Tangkhul and Somra (Myanmar tribe).
Our deacon and I went over the article and after some minor edits, we hope to make this accessible at our ccog.in website and other places. We also are looking into the possibility of putting audio messages up in one or more Indian languages. Currently, we have no materials online in the languages he mentioned.
Over in the USA, we also made some changes to the ccog.in website in order to make it easier for visitors to find materials in the 9 ‘Indian’ languages we currently have some of our literature translated into–with more expected in the future.
Rift Valley
Pastor Tiongik Sawek sent the following report today:
Receive greetings in Jesus christ. We are happy in Kenya Rift valley region and continuing very well. I now feel better and by next week shall begin to work as I have recovered very well. We shall embark on rescheduling the postponed meetings to places where lockdown was exempted. The places we are planning to visit this time are Kericho, Sigor and Transmara West-Angata Barikoi bordering Tanzania Country. I therefore still seek for your prayers to end this pandemic and also to allow us proceed and accomplish the scheduled meetings. I will therefore visit to these areas and talk with the concerns people and inform Evangelist Ochieng so as we visit together.
Lastly, concerning the Book about God Holidays translation, we are yet to accomplish and once we are done we shall hand to Evangelist Ochieng. The translated book will be very useful to us. May God bless you.Regards,Pastor Sawek.
Please pray for his visits and those in his area. And, yes, for the successful translation of our booklet: Should You Keep God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays?
Animations
Last week we showed the results of a campaign by Andre Nelson related to our CCOG Animations YouTube channel. Perhaps it should be mentioned that we also have our animations over at BitChute on a channel called COGAnimations–which has done fairly well in terms of viewership.
Speaking of animations, I wrote the script for another one and updated that script in the past week. The audio (voices) have been done, but it the drawing, etc. has not yet began.
We hope to have that new animation finished probably no later than this Summer.
Suggested Sabbath Day Services
Here is a suggested Sabbath day service for our scattered brethren and other interested people:
- 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.
- Suggested sermonette: Human-Monkey Embryos and Death. Other sermonettes are available at our Prophecy channel on BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/prophecy/
- 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 suggested one is: Book of Esther. Other sermons are also available at the COGTube channel on BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogtube/
- 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. There are also messages in the Spanish language at the CDLIDDSermones channel.
World News Items
In the USA, President Joe Biden kept a promise that several of his predecessors made and then broke–he declared what the Turks did to the Armenians in 1915 as genocide (see 106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide). This pleased Armenians around the world, but displeased the nation of Turkey (see VOA: Turkey Summons US Ambassador over Biden’s Armenian Genocide Declaration; COGwriter: Turkey will take other steps). While the USA does not seem overly concerned about Turkey’s view of this, Turkey will one day be part of a confederation that will do harm to the USA (cf. Psalm 83:2-8).
Speaking of Joe Biden, he gave a speech last night touting what he considers to be the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris Administration and some of its future spending plans (see 100 Day speech: Biden takes credit, proposes more deficit spending, and makes a promise to those calling themselves transgendered). His proposals continue to acceleration of US debt that we saw in the Obama-Biden and Trump-Pence Administrations. This will not end well per Habakkuk 2:6-8.
Voice of America reported that the Chinese Communist Party expects religions in that nation to conform to its requirements. While that truly is not appropriate, similar (though more subtle) steps have been taking place in the USA as it is losing more of its religious freedoms (see Chinese Decree Tells Religious Leaders to Support the Communist Party; USA Tells Religious to Support LGBTQ+ Abortion).
In Israel, a new religious member of its parliament (called the Knesset) has called for Jewish control of the Temple Mount. This occurred just before the release of a report by the Human Rights Watch organization declaring that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians the past several decades amounts to the ‘crime’ of apartheid (seeKnesset member Itamar Ben Gvir vows full control over Temple Mount; HRW blames Israel for crime of apartheid). While the time will come when religious Jews will be able to resume animal sacrifices, this will be short-lived (cf. Daniel 9:27,11:31,12:11). The situation will ultimately change in Israel (cf. Isaiah 22:6-8) in ways the Israeli’s will not like.
Late Tuesday night, the European Parliament approved some ‘final’ trade rules and procedures related to the British exit from the EU (see ‘European Parliament Approves Post-Brexit Trade Deal With Britain’). While some are optimistic about this, there are concerns that there may be conflict. Let me assure all that there will be. The situation between the UK and EU may appear to improve from time-to-time, but ultimately this will not end well for the UK.
Concluding Comments
The Book of Esther contains the following questioning statement from Mordecai to Esther:
14 … Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)
Well, yes, we know that God had Esther become queen because of the time of threatened destruction of the Jews in that Med0-Persian kingdom.
Brethren, God also knows that you have been called to prepared for His coming Kingdom.
Esther accepted her role to support the work that needed to be done then (Esther 5:1-8, 7:3-4)–even at the risk of death (Esther 4:10-11).
Christians are to do no less.
Sincerely,
Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer