Sabbath Message (Audio) for 04/12/47/120 - 01/02/2025

Sabbath 04/12/47/120

Dear Friends

Today is the First Sabbath of the Twelfth Month Adar. We are to discuss two aspects this month. The First is the Commentary on Esther Part I (F017). We will discuss Part 2 (F017ii) next Sabbath and then Part 3 Purim in the Last Days (F017iii) the following Sabbath. That should prepare us for the tumult ahead. It will erupt in the Middle East and then spread to Europe and to China and Asia. It will then engulf the Americas and the Pacific. Then they will all be put to the test.

The Second aspect for discussion is the conflicts in Africa and the capacity we have to cope with those conflicts and CCG churches in Africa to cope with the several conflicts in both the Congo and South Sudan. From our reports it is obvious that CCG is doing more work in Uganda, the Congo DR and South Sudan than we are doing elsewhere in the world. Everyone is working everywhere, and we can only praise God for their efforts. The translation works are also progressing rapidly. God is about to intervene in man's activities and bring them to judgment. We are rather shocked to see the democrats block the bill to save the lives of children who survived an abortion. God is about to intervene and kill every one of these people anywhere in the world. So also, is the world to be cleansed of all these people who do not see the horror and evil of what they do. It seems as though the world has consciences seared with a hot iron. Soon they will need to work frantically to simply survive in their own lands.

CCG has been working in Africa now for Twenty-Five years or more. They held the first Tanzanian Conference in 2005 and the first Pan African Conference at Kisumu in 2009. From there some thirty ministers were baptised and ordained and sent all over Africa. Two established the church in Uganda and others went to Rwanda, Burundi and to Tanzania, Morocco, Ivory Coast and the Congo DR. Other nations followed all over Africa. Many grew so quickly that we had 221 ministers in Uganda alone in a few years. So also, many in Congo DR and elsewhere. Many church groups also joined us in Kenya from all Churches of God and others of different denominations. CCG leaders in Congo DR are Mudimba Muhindo Lene and Jean Paul Niyonzima. Uganda and the Congo DR are the two largest of the CCG National Church Groups in the world. It is very telling that they are also faced with the greatest tribulation in their area from the Sudan to Uganda and into the Congo. It is perhaps because of the trauma they find themselves in that has directed their attention to the service of God. As my American friends say: “there are no atheists in fox holes.” They are about to find that out themselves very soon.

There are many, many thousands of CCG refugees in over six camps in Uganda and one in Tanzania and others in the Congo and other groups in Rwanda and Burundi. We may well have more people in camps in Africa alone than all the other Churches of God together have members in the world. That may well give us an idea of the scale.

Jean Paul has just been forced to flee his own home near Masisi and got to Goma, and he now has to flee to Beni. He says there are thousands of CCG people in Goma, and it is CCG members in Ituli Province that are providing support to CCG in the other areas of the war zone. Mudimba and the North Kivu people are also under threat and the Governor was shot there on the front-line last week. Yet still we have many people waiting for induction and baptism there, and all over Africa. There are over 20,000 people awaiting induction from the Sudan through South Sudan and Eritrea, Ethiopia and into Uganda and the Congo and all over Africa to Mozambique, and also into West Africa. Jean Paul says they have managed to provide $US 72,000 from November to the present from tithes to assist the refugees. It is absurd that only in the war zones are we able to collect tithes when in Malawi the ministry say that they can't afford to tithe. Only where there is faith is there the capacity to tithe and to help one another. Yet unpaid pensioners in CCG are sending substantial amounts to help the refugees. It depends on the desire to serve God in the Faith.

News has just reached us that Goma has fallen to the rebels and I have asked for urgent reports from Mudimba and Bizimana. There was a massive prison fire and breakout also and 3000-4000 prisoners have escaped and there is chaos there. As we see from the report from Jean Paul there are thousands of CCG people there in Goma, including refugees from the surrounding districts, and we are trying to get more information as to their safety and situation.

The war in the Eastern Congo DR will increase and the M23 rebels will consolidate their position with the support of the Rwandans, and it can be expected that they will become a formidable force in the region. We can expect this conflict to increase rather than decrease. Our leaders need to maintain good relations with the governments and forces everywhere.

Bizimana will need to help with the Ugandan officers so that we are able to maintain good relations everywhere.
We need prayers from everyone for the security and welfare of CCG all over the region.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General