Letter to the Brethren: November 28, 2024

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Greetings brethren around the world.

Today is the USA holiday of Thanksgiving.

Being thankful is something Christians should be–all days of the year!

Yet. many, as the Apostle Paul wrote, are unthankful in these last days:

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, (2 Timothy 3:1-2)

Do not be like them. Be thankful for God’s plan, your life, God’s blessings, your calling, and your opportunity to be able support the end-time Philadelphian work.

Of course, no Christians is required to keep national holidays, but thanking God is something we should all do (watch also the sermon: Thankful or Complainer?).

That said, we continue to receive additional translations of our English booklet, The Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 24:14 will be fulfilled.

Rwanda Construction

Moise Nshimiyimana sent me the following today from Rwanda:

Dear Pastor Dr Bob ,

Greetings from All members of Continuing Church of God in Rwanda.

Dear Pastor I’m happy to thank you very much for the support you have given us to start building a house of worship. So after preparing the materials in the past days , today Thursday we started to construction work as required by the laws of our country .I hope that next week I will send a photo showing where the work will be and slow by slowly it will be better by the grace of God .

Attached , there is a photo of the builders today .

God continue to bless you ,

Sincerely,

Moïse.

As mentioned here before, Rwanda law requires all churches to own at least one building. We provided funds for the land this past Summer and earlier this month funds for some of the building materials. The work in Rwanda is moving ahead.

Visit to Mozambique and Malawi

There was a negative report posted at the anti-Church of God Banned by HWA website that basically stated that the Continuing Church of God did not have thousands attend our Feast of Tabernacles sites, but that the Hope of Israel group did. Hope of Israel can do what it wants, however, they did not have the numbers that post had (which it did not make) from all we investigated.

The Book of Proverbs teaches:

4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

16 The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. (Proverbs 26:16, KJV)

Because of Proverbs 26:4, I do not respond to most of the lies and false accusations at the Banned By HWA site, but because of Proverbs 26:5, I sometimes will.

Here are excerpts from the post at Banned I was referring to:

I’ve seen reports on Thiel’s website claiming 4-5 thousand in Malawi, this is simply not true.

I’ve questioned locals and they all report the same thing, they only have seen this year at Migowi maybe 100 or so people who showed up at Radson Molowzoa’s Church during this Feast …

The only really good reports I heard about in Malawi concerning the CCOG is a man by, I think, the name of Sosten whom the people say mainly good things about him and that he cares for them,…

I don’t know what kind of game Bob Thiel is playing in Africa, but it is sadly all a lie. …

Hope of Israel, everywhere I go, people are praising them and saying how good they are, and it’s been reported that their Feast site in Mulange and Zomba had daily numbers of around 2000 persons. Reports in Mozambique, where I’ll be traveling tomorrow, attendance was around 400 plus.

Then the webmaster at Banned posted the following this week:

Thiel … Africa is conning him Big Evans and Radson. … and witch doctors spell.

Those two posts reminded me of the following from Jesus and the Apostle Peter:

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 5:11-12)

43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? 47 He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” (John 8:43-47)

12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. 14 If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. (1 Peter 4:12-14)

Satan wants to discourage all of us in the Continuing Church of God with reports like that one at the Banned site.

So, what is the truth?

First of all, before seeing that at Banned, I had NOT reported that we had 4-5,000 attend our Feast of Tabernacles sites in Malawi in 2024.

However, after seeing the Banned post, I emailed Sosten Libungwa, the man who the Banned person praised and who is with CCOG. I sent him the post from Banned and asked him about what happened with attendance in Malawi. Sosten then sent me the following report:

I had 8 feast sites in Malawi,7 feast sites in Malawi and one was in Mozambique,at my feast site in Migowi was attended by 650 people, brethren you all know that I have a big church at Migowi than every Church leader in Malawi interns of this 3 churches I have mentioned, brother Wahera ,brother Radson and brother Evans from Kenya knows this very well including Pricilla, some of my feast site was attended more than 300 people, if you can calculate you will see that more than 2500 people attended the feast sites this year as my group, so if we can add with the group lead by Radson who both of us are working with ccog,you can see that may be Radson had 1500 or more that attended the feast in Malawi,if you can add you will see that only in Malawi, more than  4,000 people attended the feast this year only in Malawi,…,I want to thank God

Now, the reason I did NOT claim at least 4,000 attended with us in Malawi was because we have NOT yet vetted those Sosten said are claimed to be affiliated with us there. Yet, since that Banned poster praised Sosten, I felt I would share what Sosten said.

Secondly, I am not playing any kind of game in Africa nor lying about it. Any one suggesting that is bearing false witness.

I have repeatedly investigated accusations and continue to report results.

Third, me, Evans, and Radson are not being conned. As far as that witch doctor nonsense, check out the following: Can Christians Actually be Cursed By Witches or Witch Doctors?

Fourthly, Evans and Radson met with one of Hope’s leaders for Malawi and Mozambique, John Machemba several days ago. He said that Hope had 350 attend their sites in Malawi, not 2,000 as posted at Banned. Furthermore, according John Machemba some were not in the Church of God and, also according John Machemba, Hope had no one attend in Mozambique.

Anyway, Evans Ochieng met with John Machemba in Malawi to confirm some matters there as part of the trip he made to Malawi and Mozambique.

Here is what he sent me:

Pastor Dr Bob,

Greetings from malawi.

The trip to Mozambique was very fantastic. The growth in Mozambique is beyond what I was expecting. Let me tell you pastor that GOD is really working in Mozambique. I didn’t expect that in Mozambique.

Yesterday I was in service with so many brethren from corners of Mozambique plus 4 chiefs who decided to join continuing church of God. One of the chiefs is our host in one of the Congregations in Mozambique. The chiefs were very excited. They promise to keep the church in Mozambique safe and guard. They really appreciate the work which CCOG is doing. What surprised me, there is nothing like hope of Israel church of God in Mozambique. So those people who were saying that they kept feast of Tabernacles in Mozambique, I don’t know where they kept that feast. Even before I went to Mozambique, machemba confirmed to me that there was no feast site in Mozambique. But I confirmed from the chiefs that nothing was there like feast apart from the feast of CCOG. I don’t know the reason why people are out to lie even those who are pretending to be christians. I’m happy of what’s going on in Mozambique. And I want to assure you pastor that always my going to Mozambique is having a lot of benefits and very fruitful. So please let’s pray that we get means of visiting Mozambique frequently.

We talked much about 2024 youth camp in Mozambique and malawi. Youths in Mozambique are so many. They will have youth camp in Mozambique.

My photo with a senior chief in Mozambique and other two chiefs

Evans

Now, I did not post this to blast Hope. If they want to believe otherwise, that is up to them. My point is that 1) we in the CCOG continue to grow in Africa, 2) we have been investigating matters in Africa, 3) reports at by naysayers should not be believed, and 4) we have youth camps planned for next month as we are to work “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, (Malachi 4:6).

Anyway, I have always been truthful about Africa (and other matters we report about).

The Continuing Church of God remains the fastest growing x-WCG COG in the 21st century and Satan does not like that. Hence his minions continue to post falsehoods about us.

Do not practice or love a lie like many have (cf. Revelation 22:15)–support the Philadelphian work we are doing in the Continuing Church of God.

We continue to get new YouTube subscribers to our videos. As of June 6, 2023, we had 3,376 subscribers on the ContinuingCOG channel–this has grown to 3,745 as of November 22, 2024. This is the channel that has our sermons, offertory messages, and some of our less prophetically-oriented sermonettes.

We have added the following to the About section of that YouTube channel:

This channel is put out by the Continuing Church of God (CCOG), www.ccog.org. The CCOG traces itself from the start of the New Testament church in Acts chapter 2 to present. Unlike many groups that make that claim, we have an apostolic succession list of leaders who held to the original faith in this church age. The CCOG believes the Bible is the source of true doctrine, we need to work to fulfill the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God to the world as a witness (Matthew 24:14) and teach all things Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:19-20), as we prepare for the short work of Romans 9:28. In addition, we provide prophetic warnings of things that will shortly come to pass. The CCOG teaches that God is love, His Ten Commandments are for our good, and that He has a loving plan of salvation wherein most who ever lived will accept Jesus as savior. The CCOG teaches that the reason God made humans was so we can be deified and be able to give love in a unique way to make eternity better.

As of June 6, 2023, we had 6,145 subscribers to our Bible News Prophecy channel. This grown to 6,343 as of November 22, 2024. This is our main sermonette channel. Our Bible News Prophecy channel sometimes has a broader audience than the sermon channel.

We have added the following to the About section of that YouTube sermonette channel:

“Bringing you news and analysis of world events in light of Bible prophecy.” This is the mandate of the Bible News Prophecy Program, produced by the Continuing Church of God. World events aren’t just happening randomly. When understood in light of properly understood Biblical prophecy, a light bulb turns on with regard to the understanding and purpose of world events. Scores of items warned of, or predicted in, the videos have come to pass. God has been continuing to fulfill Acts 2:17-18, as well as other prophecies, and the Bible News Prophecy Program, through Dr. Thiel, continues to shine the light of Biblical prophecy on the headlines of today’s news.

According to YouTube, subscribers watch more often than non-subscribers and our number of subscribers to these channels has continued to rise. Hence, our audience continues to expand–despite steps YouTube looks to have taken to slow the expansion.

But an unusual development has been that more people seem to be watching our sermon channel and less watching our sermonette channel, despite the differences in the number of subscribers. I greatly suspect that a lot of that has to do with greater ‘shadow banning’ at the sermonette channel by YouTube as well as Google.

Let me add that although YouTube videos still tend to get the most views, for many sermonettes, the combined viewership of the other channels we are on, sometimes exceeds the views we get on YouTube.

We are also on other YouTube channels such as CDLIDDSermones (269 subscribers, up from 204 on June 6, 2023), CCOG Animations (255 subscribers, up from 173 on June 6, 2023), and CCOGAfrica (182 subscribers, up from 160 on June 6, 2023).

Hacking Issues

Last week I mentioned that we were working on issues because our Bible News Prophecy International radio site hit by a targeted hack that shut down our Bible News Prophecy International multi-language internet radio channel and has made it not possible to currently update.

While working on that, we also noticed that our ccog.eu site was hacked and taken offline. Plus, a hack affected out Spanish language site. We found 1,700 pieces of malware on just one of the sites!

So, we have been working on these matters, as well as taking steps to protect more of our websites from being hacked.

Satan does not want Matthew 24:14 to be fulfilled as that is an important sign of the end, which will lead to the countdown of his end. Since Satan is the “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2), he has directly or indirectly, influenced one or more of the disobedient to attack our websites.

Suggested Sabbath Services

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

• 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: Donald Trump & Globalism’s 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.
• The suggested sermon is: What happens after death? Other sermons are also available at the COGTube channel on BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogtube/
• Final hymn.
• Closing prayer.