Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:
Greetings. We hope and pray you had a spiritually profitable week.
We continue to work on matters all around the world.
Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique
Late last week, I received the following from our host in Malawi, Radson Mulozowa:
Dear Pastor Dr Bob,
Greetings from Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique.Thanks for the funds you sent to us to assist in buying food for the needy. The donation has assisted a lot in the way that Brethren has been relieved from the situation they were in. May God bless you for the support and prayer to us.VISITATION I HAVE MADE SO FAR:1. on 12th May I visited Phaloni congregation and it was a wonderful visit and all the Brethren were happy for the visit.2.on 19th May I visited Noseya Bauleni ( Namangale ccog ) to strengthen them and see what they are doing. the trip was very successful.3.20th May I kept Pentecost with Brethren in Mozambique.4. This coming Sabbath am visiting Sunuzi congregation.The attachment pictures is for Mozambique trip and food we bought for the needy:
As of a couple of days ago, I got a second report from Radson Mulozowa:
Dear Pastor Bob,I want to thank God for my safety trip to Gunda and Sunizi congregations which I visited this Sabbath. I was a wonderful trip. I found a widow with 4 children who is in a serious situation because of following the truth and has been abandoned by all her relatives and i have managed to give him some funds so that he can start a business so that he can be able to care the children. Pray for me this Friday am going to another part of Malawi some brethren have invited me to visit them.The attached picture is for my trip to Zomba.Best Regards,Radson Mulozowa
We are pleased to help our brethren in physical and spiritual need. There were flooding and worm infestation issues that affected the crops of our brethren in Mozambique and Malawi.
Rift Valley Report
Pastor Tiongik Sawek sent the following report:
I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. We are doing well here in Rift Valley; we are seeing many brethren joining the gospel of the Lord likewise in Chilani and its groups. Likewise to Bomet, Mau and Njoro and their groups. We are happy with the message you told us that Pastor Ochieng will visit Rift Valley region. I believe that, the only thing which has restrained him is the heavy rains we are experiencing now, we are also praying for his wife to recover quickly, let’s all pray for her.
Concerning the rain, it started pouring heavily way back from March and it has caused a major destruction in our farms destroying many crops that were planted. This has really rendered nothing in our farms, we are there seeing a big famine ahead of us because we are to start again the replanting. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy that was told by our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. We have also experienced serious diseases that have infected some of our brethren one of them is elder of Kabolecho known as Jona,elder Kimeto of Njoro. In my family the wife of my brother was discharged from Longisa hospital three weeks ago, that week also the wife of my son was discharged from Litein hospital after delivering a baby there. The only one who will for checkup in Eldoret is elder Jona thanks for the Lord for these others have now fully recovered. Pray also for Elizabeth who was also admitted to Tenwek hospital after getting a fracture on her thigh, she was operated and bandaged yesterday and still remains in the hospital. Pray for us so that we do not experience such problems again.
On behalf of the Continuing Church of God, I do not have finances now but I was requesting if we can get transport for two people, so that we may travel beginning with Ndiwa, Tenwek, Njoro, if we could kindly get assistance to visit all these brethren could be good.
Because all the brethren want to meet Pastor Ochieng when he comes to rift valley and listen to their issues. We were proposing that the all groups of Chilani to converge at Chilani to meet him. Likewise to the groups of Bomet they will assemble same case to Njoro and Mau.
Pray for us we have a mega service this Sabbath as Chilani groups.
The attached photos indicate the flood experience we are facing at the moment.
May God bless you.
Pastor Sawek.
Floods have been a problem in various parts of Africa this year.
The Bible Hymnal in Serbian
We now have our Bible Hymnal available in the Serbian language.
Here is a link: http://ccog.eu/bible-hymnal-serbian-language/
We also ordered copies to be shipped to our Elder Aleksandar Veljic in Serbia.
We continue to strive to get materials in as many languages as we can.
Serbian Festival Site Change
Instead of having our European Feast of Tabernacles site in Belgrade, it is now being changed to Novi Sad in Serbia.
Novi Sad is less than a one hour drive from the Belgrade airport according to Google maps.
Novi Sad is even less expensive than Belgrade (which is inexpensive by most European standards) and is a popular destination for visitors to Serbia.
TripAdvisor says it has 27 hotels and 256 restaurants.
A European tourist website states (bolding in source):
Novi Sad also attracts the visitors with its neatness, safe embeddedness by the Petrovaradin Fortress – the “Gibraltar on the Danube”, different languages spoken by its inhabitants, and the rhythm so untypical for hasty and chaotic pace of an urban community. The surroundings of the city core marked with baroque, neo-Renaissance, classicistic and Bauhaus buildings, reveals the picnic sites, preserved eco-systems and a complex of Orthodox monasteries settled in the territory of the National Park Fruška Gora. “Salaš“ farmsteads, “čardas“ and wine trails at the outskirts of Novi Sad provide the visitors the possibility to experience all the richness of gastronomy and rural customs.
Novi Sad is the city that provides the visitors the agenda of unbelievably rich content with its urban core and rural surroundings. Each visitor, according to his or her internal feeling for nice and pleasant, attractive and joyful, useful and accessible can create his or her own experience while learning about all the layers of the past and present of Novi Sad.
Novi Sad, the city on the Danube, the city with the European history and tradition and Balkan hospitality is the experience you must not miss. https://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/destinations/novi-sad/
Here is information of the location we expect to meet at:
“Hello, I will send you address of the house, we are on the other side of the river Danube, so they can find Hotel in the centre of town…we are 10 minutes from center, just cross the bridge and than by car is 3 – 5 minutes… I can recommend brand new hotel with great and not expensive apartment-Hotel Arhiv, that is hotel of my friend, you can find them on (Website hidden by Airbnb)
The name of my street is Ribnjak gornji put 32a..”
My family and I intend to attend the first half of the festival in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2018 and the last half in Alexandria, Virginia.
Feast of Tabernacles Reminder
The Feast of Tabernacles (including the Last Great Day) will be here relatively soon: starting the evening of September 23rd until sunset October 1st in 2018.
The USA sites are Alexandria, Virginia and Wichita, Kansas. For Canada, a site is likely to be somewhere in Quebec.
Those who plan to attend in the USA, should try to let me know where they plan to attend as soon as they can.
My email remains cogwriter@aol.com
Information on our Fall festival sites around the world is in the article: Feast of Tabernacles’ Sites for 2018.
Man of Sin
A CCOG supporter wrote and asked me about the ‘man of sin’:
Just a thought. It seems so strange that God’s people are separated as they are in this end time. It is hard to understand and they all get the man of sin wrong. They all think it is the false prophet. It is very easy to see the truth. Why do they all get this wrong?
My short answer to him was:
Yes, you are correct that the ‘man of sin’ doctrine is easy to understand, yet all the other COGs {I am aware of} officially have it wrong (leaders in both LCG and UCG have told me we are right on this, but their groups have not changed to what is correct). As to why, part of it is pride (they can’t switch to this because they taught it differently and do not wish to look like they are following CCOG’s lead) and part is a limited love of the truth.
Jesus taught that most end-time Christians would be in Laodicean groups (Revelation 3:14-18), hence we see Christians scattered that way, as well as physically in the case of our non-African Philadelphian supporters.
The reality is that the non-Philadelphian COG groups have a variety of prophetic misunderstandings, and unless they change they will not know when the Great Tribulation will begin (hence will not think it is necessary to flee when it is (cf. Revelation 3:10, 12:14-16) until it is too late (cf. Revelation 12:17).
As far as details on the ‘man of sin,’ check out the following:
Who is the Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians 2? Is this the King of the North, the ten-horned beast of Revelation 13:1-11, or the two-horned Beast of Revelation 13:12-16? Some rely on traditions, but what does the Bible teach? Here is a related link in Spanish/español: ¿Quién es el Hombre de Pecado de 2 Tesalonicenses 2? Here is a version in Mandarin: N;ÿ Œf/’Y’jNº’ÿ Here is a link to a related YouTube video, in English, titled Who is the Man of Sin?
World News Items
Last Thursday, I mentioned the EU’s GDPR. The next day, the rules went in for enforcement and some major USA newspapers no longer were able to be viewed in Europe (see EU’s GDPR enforcement now in, LA Times & Chicago Tribune currently out). European ‘standards’ will affect more and more in the relatively near future–despite there being concerns about Europe’s financial unity (see EU’s GDPR enforcement now in, LA Times & Chicago Tribune currently out).
As far as Europe goes, some are concerned about its future viability (see Cracks in the Eurozone? and Reuters: Soros warns US-Europe alliance ‘destruction’ may cause major crisis). Our latest recommended sermonette covers some of this: End of the Eurozone?
Speaking of cracks, the USA is wondering about possible cracks in its Five Eyes espionage alliance with New Zealand because of reported Chinese influence there (see US Congress questions if New Zealand should remain one of the ‘Five Eyes’ due to Chinese infiltration). New Zealand has tended to rely on international ‘good will’ and the USA to defend it. Irrespective of what happens with the Five Eyes agreement, ultimately the USA will NOT be able to save New Zealand–it (and other nations) needs national repentance. And as that does not look likely, ultimately New Zealand (and the rest of the Five Eyes nations: USA, UK, Australia, and Canada) will be taken over.
Over in Rome, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke and again promoted the false gospel of the Vatican’s environmental, social, and ecumenical agendas. This agenda will bring about destruction. The major religions of the world need to believe the Bible and instead accept true Christianity and the real Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
Suggested Sabbath Service
Here is a suggested Sabbath service for 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. The one suggested for this week is: End of the Eurozone? 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: Great Monarch in 50+ Beast Prophecies. 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
Notice the following account from the Apostle Paul:
14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”17 Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.”18 “I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
Brethren, as the ecumenical and interfaith movements go forward, consistent with the ride of the first horseman of Revelation 6, we will be considered outliers, outcasts from the world. While that is expected (cf. Isaiah 16:1-4), expect more improper and negative criticism of the CCOG.
Yes, we know Jesus said that was expected:
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:10-12).
20 If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20).
2… yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you (John 16:2-4).
But trials are often difficult when we go through them, even though we spiritual are to benefit from them (Hebrews 12:11).
Sincerely,
Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer