Letter to the Brethren: June 12, 2025

Posted on Posted in Letters to the Brethren

Greetings from the Five Cities Region of California.

Since the last letter, I have been a guest on three different podcast channels.


(Pixabay photo)

This is a proclamation door we have been utilizing.

Notice something that the Apostle Paul wrote:

12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, in 2 Corinthians 2:12)

The late Pastor General of the old Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W. Armstrong ,made the following comment about that:

Now God opened the door for him to go and preach the Gospel. Christ opened the door for the leader of the church. Now in our time God is opening many, many doors. The greatest door that he recently opened up was the Wall Street Journal. In the Wall Street Journal a full page ad gets the attention of everybody. There are only two or three full-page ads in any day of the Wall Street Journal. They will be by big corporations such as IBM. The Wall Street Journal is owned by people who want to own the whole United States or who run and govern the whole United States. In other words the people who own the stock in all the large corporations, they are readers of the Wall Street Journal. A very unique daily newspaper. There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world. It’s a prestigious one. [He didn’t go into detail but only stated that WCG advertised in full page ads in the WSJ]

In the CCOG, we have mainly had advertisements with Google and Microsoft–but with those we have reached computers and/or cellular telephones over a half-billion times with millions of visits from this! We, like Herbert W. Armstrong was, are on numerous radio stations around the world (see Continuing Church of God Multimedia page).

Although the CCOG does not have an advertising budget in the range of the old WCG, we have been effective with what we have. And being a podcast guest has no out-of-pocket costs.

Jesus promised an open door for Philadelphian Christians to do that:

7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,

‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: 8 “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. (Revelation 3:7-8)

We in the CCOG are striving to go through the doors that Jesus opens–and my thanks go out to Stacy Gardner and the rest of the volunteers who have helped make this podcast door available to us.

Thus far, I have been a podcast guest 27 times in the past 3 months.

Podcast Award?


(FeedSpot logo)

On Friday, I received the following email:

Hi Dr. Bob,

My name is Anuj Agarwal, I’m the Founder of FeedSpot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your podcast Bible News Prophecy Radio has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 60 Prophecy Podcasts on the web.

https://podcast.feedspot.com/prophecy_podcasts/

This is the most comprehensive list of Top 60 Prophecy Podcasts on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

When I went to the link, it shows that we are number 33 on that list.

We received something like this before related to our magazine from FeedSpot. And while we are not sure what the criteria FeedSpot used, we are pleased when others will promote our literature, videos, and other biblical teachings.

That said, we suggest caution before any one give them their email address, etc. as we have no real relationship with this worldly organization nor did we submit anything to be considered for their “award.”

The Apostle Paul was inspired to write:

15 Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: 16 The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; 17 but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. (Philippians 1:15-18)

So, whether FeedSpot is promoting us for spreading the truth or for “selfish ambition,” we can rejoice that their promotion of our magazine helps preach the gospel.

Feast of Tabernacles: North America and the South Pacific

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

The site for North America is to be in Oklahoma City as we have a signed agreement to have the Embassy Suites by Hilton Oklahoma City Downtown Medical Center in Oklahoma. Here is its location and mailing address: 741 North Phillips Avenue Oklahoma City, OK 73104. That is where services are expected to be held in North America–note: you do NOT need to stay at that hotel in order to attend services there.

The room rate for that Embassy Suites is $120 per night (plus taxes) and includes breakfast and parking.

The hotel sent the following:

INDIVIDUAL CALL IN: I have set up a booking link (your link is below) for your group to use to make booking their rooms a little bit easier.

Please copy and paste the link below into your browser window:

https://group.embassysuites.com/jq85k6

or

Click Here to Book!

Toll Free Reservations Line

1-800-445-8667

We recommend that those who wish to stay here book early as some prior hotels have sold out of their reserved rooms for us in the past.

If you expect to come to Oklahoma City and have not told me, please email me. My email address remains: COGwriter@aol.com

Do not delay in at least preparing to schedule yourself for attending, wherever that may be.

A Feast of Tabernacles site location has been determined for New Zealand:

Feast of Tabernacles in New Zealand

We are pleased to confirm that we’ve secured a location for services during the Feast of Tabernacles in New Zealand. The gathering will be held at our house accommodation in Pahurehure, Papakura, Auckland. For more details, please contact Ritchie White at aerotriker@gmail.com

We considered this location, due to its close proximity to our Auckland brethren. One who couldn’t attend last year, may be able to join us this time, and there is an opportunity for others in this area, who have shown interest in the CCOG to attend as well.

We expect that those from Australia will hook-up online with New Zealand for 2025.

Now, we are looking at the possibility of having a site in Australia in 2026. If so, it may be in the Brisbane area. If we do that, we likely would also have two North American sites in 2026. One would probably be in Southern California, with the other probably being somewhere in the Midwest of the United States–but no specific sites are now in serious consideration. But, we thought we would let you all know what we currently thinking.

As far as elsewhere in the South Pacific, as mentioned in a prior announcement, Joe Lumpay sent the following from the Philippines:

Dear Dr. Thiel,

Happy to inform you that The Continuing Church of God – Philippines, has found a place where to put God’s name in this year’s Feast of Tabernacles.
The place is one of the Villas of a resort compound in the municipality of Lila, province of Bohol, a part of the Visayas Islands.
The island of Bohol is widely known tourist destination for its famous Chocolate Hills, that sits on two municipalities, an approximately one-hour ride from said feast site.
We already have sent our reservation fee and subsequently received a confirmation.
Please see facebook link below.
Happy Sabbath.
Warm regards,

For further details, contact Joe Lumpay, email is joecags_lumpay@yahoo.com

That said, for a list of planned and tentative festival sites around the world for 2025, check out: Feast of Tabernacles’ Sites for 2025.

Future Baptisms

Over the past month or so, Pastor Ezekiel Ombassa Oanda has sent me photos and information about people he has been visiting with in Kenya. He is expecting to meet with many who may be baptized on the 14th of June. He requests your prayers for this.

Sermon Clarification

In the recommended sermon for this week, Daniel 1-3: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, I made a comment that could be interpreted incorrectly. When I stated that the Dead Sea Scrolls were translations, I was specifically referring to those passages in Scroll 4Q114 which was a translation from Hebrew to Greek. The vast majority of Dead Sea Scrolls that have been found were written in Hebrew, and I do not want any to misunderstand. Sorry, for my lack of precision on that point.

Gentile Kingdom Beast of Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
(Photo from Pixabay)

That said, in that sermon  there were various statements about the image of the Gentile Kingdoms that Nebuchadnezzar dreams about. The late Pastor General of the old Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W. Armstrong, was cited for his view that God gave a Gentile leader the opportunity to implement God’s government on the earth after Israel and Judah failed.  That is something many do not realize.,

Suggested Sabbath Service

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

The have been destructive protests in Southern California (see City of Los Angeles is full of violence–riots and protests show a house divided–Donald Trump orders troops to LA). US President Donald Trump ordered the California National Guard and the US Marines to assist (see Protesters, Police, and Military in Southern California, and elsewhere). Protests are planned in something like 1800 locations across the USA for June 14th (see ‘No Kings’ protests scheduled across the USA for June 14, 2025–Could this be consistent with a prediction from Garner Ted Armstrong?). These type of matters were not unexpected, but with the divide in the US matters worse than these will come (cf. Luke 11:17).

While the protests have not affected us in Grover Beach, California, there are protests planned for neighboring San Luis Obispo, California, this Sabbath (which we, of course, will not attend).

Many have been protesting the Trump Administration’s policies towards migrants. Some have raised concerns about the number of Mexican flags involved in the protests (see Mexican flags in protests consistent with Chicano hopes Mexico will regain ‘Aztlán’ territories taken by the United States)–the USA will one day have its land divided consistent with the prophecy in Daniel 11:39.

Let it be understood that there is something else that the Trump Administration intends to do which will give the government more data from private companies (see Could Palantir-Type Surveillance Help Turn Much of the World Into a Digital Prison?). It is likely that the coming European Beast will do something like that when ‘666’ controls are put in place consistent with Revelation 13:16-18.

Concluding Comments

The Apostle Peter wrote:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls.

10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, (1 Peter 1:3-10)

Brethren, we need to be thankful for God’s mercies.

And yes, those who are begotten of God will be brought “to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” We should rejoice, despite the fact that we will face many tests and trials.

We are also to be thankful that we can see more of what the prophets of old only hoped to see.

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer