Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:
Greetings again from the Five Cities region of California.
Another busy and full week of handling church matters around the world (Matthew 28:19-20), while also working to spread the gospel (Matthew 24:14).
Canadian Matters
We heard back from the attorney regarding the registration of the Continuing Church of God, Canada. While the government of Canada wants more information, this time the focus is more related to how the Continuing Church of God intends to and/or will be able to assist those associated with the Continuing Church of God in Africa.
While this is causing some delay in approval, overall this seems to be a positive sign as it would help the Continuing Church of God to be able to use funds from Canada to support the work on the African continent.
New Zealand Feast of Tabernacles’ Site
The 2015 location for the Feast of Tabernacles’ site in New Zealand has been finalized:
Chantilly’s Motor Lodge Taupo
112 Tamamutu Street
Lake Taupo
Here is information from Chantilly’s website:
A friendly welcome awaits you at Chantilly’s Motor Lodge, one of Taupo’s newest luxury venues where we provide superior self –contained motel Taupo and a top of the range air-conditioned conference and meeting venue.
Our quiet, central location, is just 250 metres to town centre where you will find great shopping and a wide range of excellent cafes and restaurants and bars. A short stroll to the Lakefront, crystal clear waters of Lake Taupo in New Zealand’s central North Island makes Chantilly’s Motor Lodge the perfect location for business, family, holidays, meetings and conferences.
Qualmark Four Star Plus (self contained and serviced), means we offer an exceptionally high standard of service, facilities including outdoor swimming pool, BBQ area, and heated plunge pool.
Chantilly’s Motor Lodge at Lake Taupo offers quality self-contained spacious motel apartment with studio rooms, 1 and 2 bedroom motel apartments and a honeymoon suite – all with lake or mountains views. Free parking on and off street and Free Broadband ADSL, wireless, makes keeping in touch with business or family easy.
Your friendly Kiwi hosts at Chantilly’s, Deborah and Bruce, look forward to welcoming you to the motel and invite you to make contact if you have any questions or special requirements.
For more information on this Feast of Tabernacles’ site, contact John Hickey, email john.h@vodafone.net.nz; his mobile phone number is 021 519 441.
If you plan to go to a site in North America (Denver or Niagara Falls), please email me cogwriter@aol.com.
New Look to CCOG.NZ
When my wife and I were in New Zealand, I was asked if they could make changes to the appearance of the CCOG.NZ website. I said that was fine.
Changes have now been made and it looks great. To see it yourself, simply go to ccog.nz.
We are also trying to take some steps to reduce the manual work to maintain the site and also made progress on that this week.
Radio
Last week I mentioned that we were working on a new radio campaign. Since it involves the promotion of a commercial, though prophetic, book, CCOG funds are not being used to pay the radio publicist company that is involved.
Anyway, the first of the interviews is scheduled for 10:35 am Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, June 12, 2015. It should be on WOCA 1370 am and 96.3 fm out of Ocala, Florida.
Doing secular radio interviews gives us an opportunity to reach people who otherwise would not be as open to hearing the Church of God message.
World News Events
The G-7 met in Europe and some are noticing that Europe is in the process of rising up, while influence from the USA is starting to wane (see G7: The Europeans are gaining influence as the USA’s influence is fading). More and more, world leaders will realize this. The USA is also vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse bomb attacks (see Experts try to warn Barack Obama of EMP risks), more than most believe.
When the group was called the G-8, Russia was part of it. Since the situation involving Crimea, Russia is no longer invited to the meeting now called the G-7 once again. However, in a possible attempt to influence it, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin claimed that NATO did not have to worry about an attack from his nation (see Russia’s Putin dimisses possibility of attacking NATO). The biblical reality is that Russia is not shown to attack any group like NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), so Vladimir Putin’s comments are consistent with that. However, the Bible shows that Russia will LATER, after NATO is essentially no more, attack the European Beast power (Jeremiah 50:41-43). Certain European leaders, however, hope to rearm in order to deal with Russia and become less dependent upon the USA. But, prophecy indicates that their attempts to hold off Russia and its end-time allies will not be successful (cf. Isaiah 13:1-8).
Speaking of Russia’s President, he met with the Prime Minister of Italy as well as Pope Francis yesterday. News reports indicated that the visits seemed to have gone reasonably well (see Vladimir Putin, Pope Francis, and Medjugorje). Pope Francis, while not wanting to offend the Ukrainian Orthodox, wants to have unity with the much larger Russian Orthodox Church, of which Vladimir Putin is a member and major supporter of. The ecumenical movement continues forward.
Over in the Middle East, a RAND study came out which concluded that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians would bring major economic benefits to the region (see RAND: Peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians would mean billions in economic gains). While that is true, a false peace will come to the area (cf. Daniel 9:27), which will be broken after about 3 1/2 years (cf. Daniel 9:27, 11:31). And that will not turn out well for the Israelis.
Related to the Middle East, US President Barack Obama again admitted that he does not have a complete strategy for dealing with the group calling itself the Islamic State (see Obama: USA does not have a complete strategy to deal with the Islamic State). Terrorism will hit the USA harder in the future than it has already (cf. Deuteronomy 32:25; Ezekiel 21:12).
Also related to the Middle East, there was an election in Turkey. The voters there rejected a call by Turkey’s President for more power–instead the vote was somewhat split (see Turkey’s election results in fractionated vote: What is ahead for Turkey?). The Bible tells of Turkey temporarily aligning with the final King of the South (Daniel 11:40-43), but that it will end up more of a supporter of the final King of the North (cf. Daniel 11:26-27).
Speaking of the final King of the South, Stratfor has concluded that the Islamic nations in the Middle East and North Africa do not really wish to become secular states, but that the trend is for them to want to have an Islamic caliphate (see Stratfor: ‘Secularism in the Muslim world appears to be in terminal retreat’). The Bible tells of a confederation of nations in the Middle East and North Africa, that are currently predominantly Islamic, that will form (Daniel 11:40-43, Ezekiel 30:2-8). While many Muslims really want this, as do certain Western leaders, it will not end well for many of the participants (Daniel 11:40-43, Ezekiel 30:2-8).
Suggested Sabbath Service
Here is our suggested format for Sabbath services this week:
- 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 titled: Is There Another View of Evolution? A written article of related interest is titled: Is Evolution Probable or Impossible or Is God’s Existence Logical? 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: Galatians 5 & 6: The Gifts of the Spirit. A written article of related interest is titled: Comments on Galatians. 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 that we list each week.
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 new 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.
Concluding Comments
Consider the following admonitions from the Apostle Paul:
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!
5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)
Brethren, in the Lord always and think on those things that are true.
Sincerely,
Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer
Continuing Church of God