Letter to the Brethren: March 13, 2025

Posted on Posted in Letters to the Brethren

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Greetings from Grover Beach, California.

Podcast Media

I was able to be a guest on another podcast production on Monday at 6:00 am. The host was a Seventh-day Adventist and it went well. He expects it to go live on March 26th.

Here is a link to a page that has information on my earlier appearance on Monica Hansen’s The Graceful Warrior podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/end-times-unveiled-bob-thiel-on-bible-prophecy-jesus/id1696204454?i=1000698735486

Here is a link to a page that has information on my earlier appearance on Michael Klassen’s 5 AM Podcast: https://5ampodcast.com/ancient-texts-to-modern-times/

Luke was inspired to write:

27 Now when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. (Acts 14:27)

Being a podcast guest looks to be another door which is currently opened.

Feast of Tabernacles

Church services for the Feast in 2025 are to begin at sunset on October 6th and run through (including the Last Great Day) sunset October 14th in 2025.

We had once again hoped to try to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania for our primary North American site, but again some other conferences are going on there which may make it unaffordable and impractical. We also reached out to Oklahoma City, but there was no acceptable proposal–yet.

So, we are also looking into other locations, such as Lexington, Kentucky.

Here is a link to, our in progress, Feast of Tabernacles’ Sites for 2025.

Hymnals and Bibles to Kenya, Bibles to Haiti

We ordered 200 English language copies of our Bible Hymnal from Amazon Kindle to be sent to Kenya. Amazon USED TO also print our songbook for us in other African languages, but stopped doing so for us and others who published in non-European languages (I suspect from pressure from US government authorities).

We had been trying to coordinate this for a while through a Kenyan who used to send container loads to Kenya, but because of his lack of responses, plus the fact that Amazon finally resumed sending literature to Kenya, we decided to no longer wait on him, so we finally found other ways to get certain materials to Kenya.

We also sent funds to Ezekiel Oanda to purchase 60 copies of the Ekegusii Bible (Kisii language Bible) for people in his region of Kenya. He sent the following photos after purchasing them:

 

Also, we received the following report from Pastor Tiongik Sawek from the Rift Valley of Kenya:

Receive greetings in Jesus name. The CCOG church is fairing on well here at Rift Valley Kenya. Chilani women groups are happy for the support from you and the support from the Daughters of King. The Brethrens so far have improved in number.

For the last few months, most of the widows and orphans have been supported well by Chilani women and mostly by visiting them twice a week. They have been doing kitchen gardening which has really helped them in their daily activities and support.
However, the prolonged drought has affected their gardening activities, which in future might disadvantage their farm activities.
We are therefore praying that God intervenes so as to continue with the good work.
May God bless you.
Regards,
Pst. Sawek

The above brought the following to mind from the Apostle James:

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  (James 1:27)

Yes, despite our personal flaws, in the CCOG we have been striving to follow what the Bible teaches.

That said, we are getting more food/hunger requests from brethren in Africa and Haiti than we have funds to support. We did, however, send some funds to Malawi yesterday, to assist with hunger there which was worsened after Tropical Storm Jude just hit. And we plan to provide some assistance to other areas when we can. Please pray about how we can best assist hungry brethren.

Regarding Haiti, we mailed Creole language Bibles to Moise Nicolas in the USA. He plans to give them to someone going to Haiti who is to give them to his father Jeremy Nicolas in Haiti.

We also ordered some French language booklets from Amazon Kindle (Creole is a type of French) to also be sent to Moise which also are to go to Haiti. Shipping directly to Haiti is not, at this time, a realistic option, so we have tried to be resourceful.

The Bible teaches:

2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2-3)

Well, we provide booklets and hymnals which support that preaching and teaching, but getting Bibles into the hands of brethren in their native languages helps us to do this as well.

Mozambique Visit

Pastor Radson Mulozowa sent the following report yesterday:

Greetings from Mozambique

Today I was in Mozambique meeting leaders to discuss about Passover arrangements and baptism
The trip was very successful and am happy to inform you that there were brethren who in the past four months left hope of Israel and they were alone
But today they visited us and have made there decision to join ccog
Deacon Masenga have welcomed them today
Pastor Evans will meet them again during his visit
Best regards
Radson

It is good that more people who made wrong choices are wanting to be part of the most faithful Philadelphian remnant of the true Christian Church of God.

Anti-Small Church Moves in Rwanda

As reported here before, the government of Rwanda required all churches in that nation to own their own church building. We have assisted the brethren there get a small plot of land and provided funds for building supplies. They have been waiting to put on a roof because a government inspector stated that they had to wait as new rules for churches were about to be announced.

They have been and they are terrible.

Without going into all of them, here is one section of the new rules:

(f) a list of at least 1,000 members of the community where the organization intends to operate, supporting the organization with their signatures, national identification or passport, and telephone numbers.

We do not have 100 in Rwanda, let alone 1,000.

At this moment, we cannot put a roof on the building nor officially function in Rwanda.

Please pray about this situation and that we will have the wisdom to properly handle it.

Michigan Sabbath Services

My family and I are planning on coming to Michigan in May. We are looking at having Sabbath services on May 24, 2025 in a location to be determined. We have met in Wixom as well as Almont in Michigan in the past. Wixom currently is the most likely location, but we will not know that for a couple of weeks.

Anyone who wishes to attend can email me. My email address remains: COGwriter@aol.com

Suggested Sabbath Day Services

Here is a suggested Sabbath day service for our scattered brethren and other interested people:

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 mobile 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.

In case one or more of our video channels are unavailable, down, restricted, or ?, understand that we are on multiple platforms.

For sermons in English:

ContinuingCOG YouTube channel. Dr. Thiel has produced video sermons for this channel.

Also available at BitChute COGTube https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogtube/

For sermonettes in English:

Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel BibleNewsProphecy https://www.youtube.com/user/BibleNewsProphecy.

Bitchute Prophecy https://www.bitchute.com/channel/prophecy/,

Vimeo at Bible News Prophecy https://vimeo.com/channels/biblenewsprophecy

Brighteon Bible News Prophecy https://www.brighteon.com/channel/ccogbnp.

Rumble https://rumble.com/c/biblenewsprophecy.

DailyMotion https://www.dailymotion.com/dm_e24c8ac0050c5e7445cd5573711869c6/videos

For animations in English:

CCOG Animations YouTube channel.

Also available at BitChute COGAnimations https://www.bitchute.com/channel/coganimations/

Sermons and sermonettes in Spanish:

CDLIDDSermones channel.

African videos:

CCOGAfricaYouTube channel.

Also available at BitChute COGAfrica https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogafrica/

Audio messages:

Bible News Prophecy radio. This is an audio version of the Bible News Prophecy videos on one of our internet stations as well as our radio broadcasts in English. The BibleNewsProphecy.net website also has information about our international radio presence for Europe, Asia, and North America. That page is also available as a mobile app.

Bible News Prophecy International radio. This has links to our non-English language online radio station as well as materials in multiple languages.

There is also additional information at the Continuing Church of God Multimedia page.

World News Items

Although the Israelis and the Trump Administration have rejected an Arab plan for Gaza, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (which has 57 member nations) and the European Union have endorses it (see Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation and European Nations endorse Arab plan for Gaza). Throughout the years, we have seen European nations taking a more pro-Arab position than the USA. In time, that looks to be one of the reasons that the Bible shows that it will be a European leader who will confirm some type of seven year deal per Daniel 9:26-27. Although the USA often acts like it is the only important player, biblical prophecies point to Europeans being involved in many significant matters.

US President Donald Trump has  been shaking up nations around the world with his tariffs and tariff threats. Canada’s expected new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has asserted, “In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win” (see Canada’s new PM & hurting feelings of foreigners via Donald Trump’s presidency). This may be a bit bold on his part as Canada is much more dependent on exports to the USA than the USA is on exports to Canada.

Euronews reported that European leaders met to discuss rearming and to discuss if Europe should consider if the USA is still an ally (see EU meets to militarize and ask/discuss ‘Should Europe still consider itself a US ally?’). The Bible prophesies that one who was great among the nations will be conquered by friends who became enemies (Lamentations 1:1-2)–the USA is helping turn European allies into enemies. Furthermore, more Germans are calling for Europe to replace the USA as the global leader –and Volkswagen, who made weapons in WWII, is looking to possibly do so again (see Germans want Europe to replace America as global leader).

The European Union has put in its own retaliatory tariffs in its response to what many have referred to as Donald Trump’s trade war. But a significant development, from a prophetic perspective, is that the EU is now taking more steps to make trade deals with places other than the USA, such as with Latin America (including the Caribbean) and India (see Trade war escalates as European Union hits back against Donald Trump’s tariffs). The EU is getting closer to becoming the end time Babylon the Great trading power that the Bible warns of in Revelation 17 and 18.

Let me add that Germany’s next expected Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, wants Europe to have more nuclear weapons (see Germany’s Friedrich Merz Wants European Nuclear Weapons!).

There have been, and will be, many consequences of Donald Trump’s presidency that will help lead to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies.

Concluding Comments

Notice something recorded in the Book of Esther:

13 And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

Many do not see how that is a message for end time Christians today. There are many actual Christians who think that they will escape the coming ‘hour of trial,’ yet they do not think that they need to support the work of the end time Philadelphian remnant.

Those that do not support have falsely concluded they will escape–but that is a false hope.

We in the Continuing Church of God are not being silent at this time and are reaching people in person as well as in many forms of media (see Continuing Church of God Multimedia page) as we strive to support the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14 (see The Final Phase of the Work) as well as prepare for the short work of Romans 9:25 (see also Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word).

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer