Dear Friends,

By now we will have all returned safely home from the Feast. We trust that you all had a pleasant time and learned a good deal of new material or recapitulated on the basics whatever was important to each area and its Feast teaching requirements.

From all reports so far the Feasts were a great success. The US and Canada sites were active and involved. There were new baptisms at several sites including US and Canada. We hope the Nicaragua church was able to hold the Feast as a new learning experience for them all. The French work is expanding as is Europe generally, and some people are finding the Feast site in France a great travel destination. Africa will need more attention over the next year due to significant growth. Malaysia and the Philippines had productive Feasts and Malaysia has offered to assist the Philippines in the El Shaddai recordings. They are helping with the web structuring also, as are other National Conferences.

More work will be done on the websites between now and next Passover. The Children’s Bible Studies will also receive a new impetus with a number of new papers under planning.

The Sons of Ham series was received with enthusiasm. We have allocated research tasks for the Sons of Japheth series. We hope to get that series done in the next few months. The DNA maps and charts will also be done by then hopefully. That will provide the ongoing basis for the History of the Nations website at www.HistoryofNations.org. Many in the Church have contributed to our ongoing research and we are making good progress in isolating the relationships and origins of the various national groups.

The Sons of Japheth series will cause some people a deal of interest and wake a few people up to just what is happening in Bible prophecy – both now and at the end of the Millennium. One cannot really understand the Bible until one understands just who is involved as what nations and tribes and how they are affected by prophecy.

Many of us were struck by just how fast the Feast went. It becomes obvious that when God’s people are dwelling together in harmony the time is so enjoyable and so peaceful that it is over all too quickly.

Most of us learn as much as we can for the Feasts and in that way we get the most out of it that we can. We have so little time so make the most of each Feast. There are two eight-day Feasts, and one two-day Feast, so use the time as efficiently as you can to learn and promote harmony and peace in the Church.

The Church is our family and we should strive to be with them. It is an important occasion for us all. Many families see each other only at the Feast as their leave is limited and they need to meet together. Make the most of the opportunities given to us all through the Faith. I hope that you remembered those who could not be with us through ill health or infirmity. The children love to see their families and need the encouragement to face life.

We also noted that the access to the papers on the website dropped over the Feast period. That can be taken as an indicator that many people are now keeping the Feasts while studying with CCG. We hope they are all working well and growing in the Faith.

The Feast is over. It is now time to think forward to the Passover. We have five months and we begin the Sanctification process. There is much to do to complete the work we have been given to do.

Remember John 4:34: “My meat is that I should do the will of Him who sent me and finish His work”.

We are all commissioned to do the work of God through Christ and to work to the end of days. There is a time coming when no man can work but it is not just yet. We are not allowed to bury our talent but we are required to combine the strength we do have and finish the work that God has given us to do.

It does not matter if we are in charge or simply helping in each nation or group. Many who are first will later be last (Mat. 19:30). It is possible to be a leader in the Resurrection and simply be a virtuous invalid that simply prays for the elect and the work of God.

Many will fall asleep and rise to meet the Christ on his return. Each of us will face our own weaknesses and criticisms. Some of those who embraced the Faith may find themselves in the Second Resurrection. The result is not critical, rather that we learn from our mistakes and go on to the tasks God has given us to do in our own time. Some of the widows of the Faith may attain higher tasks and authority in the Resurrection. God is building holy righteous character and the dedicated and faithful will be rewarded in the end. It is better to be one day as a gatekeeper in the House of God than a thousand years without.

When Christ sits on his Throne of Glory in the Regeneration and the twelve Apostles sit on their thrones, so too will we be rewarded. Everyone who left houses or brothers or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for Christ’s name’s sake shall receive a hundred-fold and shall inherit everlasting life (Mat. 19:29).

The reorganisation that follows this inheritance is where we are entrusted with our new lives and tasks and our future families of spirit-begotten sons of God. Many people have gone before us. Our task is to continue the work on until the Witnesses take over and restore the nexus of the Law (see the paper The Witnesses (No. 135)). Once that happens it will be a new and different affair. When the Witnesses are killed, after three days the resurrection will occur, and those of the First Resurrection will all be taken into the chambers of God under Christ and protected in peace until the time of the end is accomplished and everything is brought into subjection to Jesus Christ, and the Earth will no more cover her slain (cf. Isa. 26:19-21: see the paper The Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143)). It is written: "I said ye are gods (elohim), every one of you"; and Scripture cannot be broken (Jn. 10:34-35).

It is important to realise that everyone will become elohim in the Resurrection and we are destined to rule the universe (see the paper The Elect as Elohim (No. 001)).

This Feast is to remind us of the future under Christ, until the City of God comes to us, and then our task on into the future, which we can only dimly comprehend.

Let everyone who thinks they are something reflect on those who have gone before them. Let our righteousness be as dirty rags and esteem others as better than ourselves.

All things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

God set the work in train under Christ and the Apostles, and the work was carried throughout the world. Some of our ancestors were used unwittingly. Many of the Faith were used unwittingly.

For example: I am an R1b1c Celt of the Britons, but one of my ancestors was a warrior in Ireland who had a number of wives and concubines. He was declared High King in Ireland at Tara. He invaded Britain and renamed Alba as Scotland, after the Milesian ancestress Scotia. He then invaded Europe and was almost responsible for expelling the Romans from Gaul. He took 200 captives in chains to Ireland after killing many people. He himself was later murdered by the son of the king of Leinster. One of the 200 prisoners was a man named Patrick of Tours, nephew or son of Martyn of Tours (accounts vary depending on denomination). Patrick paid Neill back by converting his grandson to the Christian Faith. That man was named Columba. He went on to consolidate the Christian Faith among the Irish Celts and Scots. He was the greatest Sabbatarian Churchman of the Celts and became Saint Columba of Iona. He went on to train those such as Aiden of Lindisfarne and the Sabbatarian Church was developed further through them, even though the councils saw the Celtic Church falter after 664 at Whitby.

We might venture to say that Patrick did not want to go to Ireland in chains but when he did he made the most of it and later returned to establish the Faith there. Neill had no idea that what he was doing would change Ireland forever. God used them all for a purpose. Columba got on with the Faith even though he no doubt would have been more powerful and wealthy with a sword in his hand, but not more lastingly famous. He prophesied his own death on the Sabbath.

Another ancestor was called Bran the Blessed who was asserted by the historians/genealogists to be the son-in-law of Joseph of Arimathaea, and his wife Anna was asserted to be the cousin of the Virgin Mariam and one of the Desposyni. The mention by Geoffrey of Monmouth that Marius, alleged son of Arviragus, married the daughter of Bran the Blessed is a confusion of name as Marius was the Latinised form of Arviragus. Geoffrey says he lived in Rome for a time. Their son Coel married the daughter of Cyllin, son of Caradog, his second cousin. That is our family line. The problem is discussed in Mike Ashley, British Kings and Queens, Carroll and Graf, 1999, p. 78).

Caradog was a Briton of the Cantii (40 CE), Catuvellauni and Silures (43-51) that fought the Romans. He was first defeated in Kent. His brother Togodumnos was killed at the head of a second army somewhere in Hampshire. Togodumnos is thought to have been the Chief of the Dumnoniae of Devon and Cornwall (i.e. Tog y Dymnaint whose real name may have been Guiderius, although it is suggested as Arviragus the elder also).

The Emperor Claudius, with the army under Aulus Plautius, captured Caradog and Arviragus after the great defeat in Wales, and his betrayal by Cartimandua of the Magogite Brigantes of Lancashire. Claudius took the whole family in chains to Rome. Caradog literally talked his way out of being executed and was spared along with the family. He and the whole family were baptised under the Apostle Paul. His son Linus seems to have already been baptised by the Apostles and, according to Hippolytus, Linus was appointed one of the Seventy. He became the first bishop of Rome (see the paper Origin of the Christian Church in Britain (No. 266)). He would thus have gone to Canaan with the father of his aunt Anna, namely Joseph, at the time of Christ. Joseph was understood to be a trader in metals with Britain.

After Caradog (or lat. Caratacus) died, reportedly poisoned at the same time as Claudius in 54 CE, Cyllin and Coel, his son-in-law and family, returned to Britain to take up the work commenced by Aristobulus, bishop of Britain and one of the Seventy sent out from Rome. They became subjects, or client leaders in Britain, of the Romans and were able to consolidate the Church. Linus was martyred in Rome along with many of the early Church.

So, we can deduce that even though Caradog and the Britons did not want the Romans there and many died to prevent it, the opportunity was used by God to establish the Church in Britain. Paul was able to use Caradog’s family, including that of Arviragus, to establish the Church both in Rome and in Britain. Rome was used to consolidate Britain and prepare it for the years ahead where the Reformation would occur and then later the message of the Last Days would be promulgated from its people who were to be spread worldwide. The Celts were able to withstand the paganism of Rome and remain free Christians for centuries.

The Church established Sabbatarian Christianity in Britain and planted it in France against great opposition.

Each time some of us think we have it tough, remember our predecessors. Look at what they did and what they endured and what they accomplished for the Faith. The destruction and enslavement of peoples were routine in those days. They endured it and came out under God’s protection. Many died for the Faith. God used each occupation of Britain to strengthen it and establish it. That continued on through the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman occupation, and even though their religion was corrupted God used them to form the basis for the preaching of the Gospel in the Last Days.

Keep our minds on the Faith and do not let the accusers of the brethren discourage us. Blessed are you when people revile you without cause for the name of Christ. Be refreshed by the Feast and look forward to completing the work in the time ahead of us.

May God bless us and keep us and lift up the light of His countenance upon us. May He give us peace.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General