June, 2004

Fred R. Coulter, Minister

June 16, 2004

Dear Brethren,

With the entire nation, we all mourn the death of former president Ronald Wilson Reagan who died June 12 at age 93. As history has already shown, he will be remembered as one of the greatest presidents of the United States of America. From a biblical perspective, since God is the one Who guides the events of the world to fulfill His plan and purposes, there is very little doubt that God used Ronald Reagan, as the leader of modern-day Israel and the free nations of the world in the end times, to help reconfigure the world's nations and powers toward the final alignment before the return of Jesus Christ as prophesied in the Bible. In the same way that Franklin D. Roosevelt felt God used him and Winston Churchill to defeat Hitler and the axis powers in World War II, Reagan himself also expressed that he felt God had guided him to do the things which led to the downfall of Communism and tyranny in many nations. It is true, in order for the prophecies in the Bible to be fulfilled, God has used and is using various leaders, whether good or evil, to fulfill his will. God does these things, "...to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will..." (Dan. 4:17).

While watching all the events on television connected with his death and the various memorial tributes to him and his wife, it was hard to keep a dry eye. One of the most outstanding things in his life was the love that he and his wife, Nancy, had for each other during their sixty years of marriage—a wonderful example for all to follow. Also, as his life and career showed, Ronald Reagan was an example of a great leader in the world because he believed in and lived by many of the principles of God's Word as exemplified by his high moral character. He was able to inspire people to desire to do better and have hope. As a result, people loved him and were willing to follow him. Like all men, he was not without his faults. But his faults were human weaknesses and not the immoral, corrupt behavior as some presidents, or the weak, insipid leadership of others. Perhaps, as with some of the good kings of Israel and Judah, it could be said of him that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." With his passing, there is little doubt that the end of an era in American politics has come.

From the Word of God we know the ultimate outcome of God's plan for the world. As the events unfold in the coming years, we do not know how much longer it will be until the horrific prophesied end will be upon us. But as Jesus commanded, we must be about Our Father's business, move forward and continue to preach the Gospel as Jesus commanded: "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.    And lo, I am with you always, evenuntil the completion of the age' Amen" (Matt. 28:18-20).

The New Website:We are ready to launch the new website Biblical Truth Ministries. Carl Franklin, Ron Cary and I are working on it. It will be a feeder site to our regular church site—www.cbcg.org. On Sabbath June 5, I did the first audio for Biblical Truth Ministries, entitled Lies From the Pulpit # 1—Idolatry. Along with other material and sermons, we plan to have it up and running the first part of July to coincide with the publication of the new book, The Day Jesus the Christ Died which will be finished the first part of July.

In 1983, shortly after we began the Christian Biblical Church of God, we also reserved the name Biblical Truth Ministries for the future when we would be reaching out to the world. All during the years of serving the brethren, we have actually been preparing. Now the time has come to reach out to new people with the biblical truth. Over six months ago we registered the domain name for the Internet under www.biblicaltruthministries.org, .com and .net. This way anyone who is searching the Internet for things biblical, or biblical truth or the true teachings of the Bible will be able to find us.

As I wrote last month, we would continue to preach the undiluted truth of God's Word—the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and all that it means. As God opens the doors, we will preach God's Word. It will be a warning for those who hear it and don't take heed (Matt. 24:14). And it will be a calling for the remnant that God has always reserved for Himself (Isa. 1:9). They will be the ones who are hungering after truth and righteousness.

We hope that in a short time the number of people visiting this new site will exceed the number who are visiting the regular church website—now at 8,000 to 10,000. Once they visit this site, we will have many references and click-throughs to our regular church site where they will find a wealth of information and more detailed biblical truths of God's Word which we have developed over the years. This way we do not have to duplicate everything.

Here is part of the introduction to the new website:

Biblical Truth Ministries

Biblical Truth Ministries is part of

the Christian Biblical Church of God's outreach

designed to present basic biblical truths of

the Word of God.

Biblical Truth Ministriesis dedicated to preaching and teaching the truth of God's Word in a world that is in the grips of deception and lies. In today's world a diabolical, deceptive, guiding spirit has taken hold of every aspect of life—from the cradle to the grave. It is a universal problem affecting all nations, peoples and religions of the world! This worldwide phenomenon permeates nearly every institution of government, the electronic and printed media, nearly all schools, universities and religions on the earth.

In this postmodern world, most people do not know the truth or even what it is. They have been taught that "truth is whatever one believes." Therefore, it is reasoned, everyone's opinion is supposedly true because he or she believes it is true. Hence, one's opinion is equally valid with all others. Consequently, truth is no longer truth that is provable and stands alone as absolute truth. Rather, truth has been exchanged for personal opinion, emotion, illusion, fantasy and lies. Christianity has fallen victim to this sinister deception.

Through the centuries, after the death of the original apostles of Jesus Christ, various denominations of Christendom have developed their own religious traditions, doctrines and dogmas. In establishing these beliefs, religious leaders have used some scriptures from the Bible and blended them with the traditions of men grafted in from pagan philosophies and religions. These distorted, erroneous, entrenched teachings—counterfeit "truth"—have been dogmatically taught and accepted by their followers as the true doctrines and teachings of the Bible.

Furthermore, very few religious, church-going people ever take the time to study their Bibles in order to prove whether the teachings of their churches are actually the true teachings of the Bible.. They have assumed that their priests or pastors would surely only teach the truth from the Word of God. Little do they realize that most of their churches' teachings and doctrines are actually a blend of pagan religious beliefs and philosophies. As such, most of what is taught is contrary to the true teachings of the Bible—yet, it is done in the name of Jesus Christ. As a result, very few people understand that what they have accepted as true Christian teachings are only myths—fabricated by men. Little do they realize that when these teachings are compared to the Bible, fully fifty to ninety percent of what they believe is not true—they believe lies.

Because they have believed a mixture of truth and mostly error for so long that when they hear the true Word of God preached or read their Bibles, they can hardly believe it. To make matters even worse, for centuries most of the true teachings of the Bible have been branded as "heresy" by the leaders of paganized Christendom.

Consequently, today, the Christian world is upside down! Truth has been branded as error and lies. Error and lies have been accepted as truth. As Dresden James once noted:

"When a well-packaged web of lies

has been sold gradually to the masses over

generations, the truth will seem

utterly preposterous and its

speaker a raving lunatic."

As this proverb relates, you will be utterly astounded at the true teachings of the Bible. At first, you may think that since such teachings are contrary to what particular well-established Christian denominations teach, they cannot be true. However, in order to begin to understand the real truth of the Bible and the New Testament in particular, you must set aside all religious myths and lies of men. Then you must recapture the original teachings of Jesus Christ and His original chosen apostles—the true original Christianity, also known as "Primitive Christianity."

However, men have created many stumbling blocks to keep people from understanding God's truth as contained in His Word. The greatest stumbling blocks are various corrupted versions of the Bible itself. Too many men, claiming to be experts and scholars have taken upon themselves to destroy the true Word of God by producing translations that are made from corrupted Hebrew and Greek texts, and rendering translations in modern English that utterly change the meaning of the true teachings of the Bible. Therefore, before you can begin to sort out the biblical truth from the errors of men, you must have a Bible that is a faithful translation of the true Word of God. (End of First Section).

The next section tells how to know which Bible contains the truth of God's Word, where we will direct them to the King James Version and The New Testament In Its Original Order—A Faithful Version With Commentary.

The Sleight of Hand With the Word of God

In the Bible, God commands us not to have other gods before Him because they are all false gods. The true God as revealed in the Bible is the God Family of God which now consists of the Father and Jesus Christ. Whenever people reject the true God to serve false gods, they embrace idolatry. This is why in the true second commandment God Himself commands us not to make or have any idols, nor to bow down and worship them: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments" (Ex. 20:4-6).

However, in Orthodox Christendom, in order to justify the use of idolatry, all Catholic catechisms, the true Second Commandment has been edited out. In the Catholic catechism book My Catholic Faith their edited version reads:

"The Ten Commandments of God:

1.  I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me (Ex. 20:2-3).

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain (Ex. 20:7).

3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day (Ex. 20:8-9).

4. Honor your father and mother (Ex. 20:12).

5. You shall not kill (Ex. 20:13).

6. You shall not commit adultery (Ex. 20:14).

7. You shall not steal (Ex. 20:15).

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Ex. 20:16).

9. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife (Ex. 20:17).

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house (Ex. 20:17)" (p. 194).

As you can see, completely missing is the true Second Commandment.

As a result, in the name of Jesus Christ people are lead away into idolatry. Instead of serving the true God, they serve idols and false gods. Since idolatry is the heart and core of Catholicism, they deliberately removed the true Second Commandment from their catechism's listing of their version of the Ten Commandments. Yet, as a witness against themselves, they still retain the true Second Commandment of Ex. 20:4-6 in authorized Catholic Bibles.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God shows the futility of serving idols and trying to make a likeness of God in a graven image: "To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?" Isa. 40:18-21, KJV). And again, "I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods" (Isa. 42:8, 17, KJV).

God instructs us not to have anything to do with idol worship, which is the hallmark of false prophets. This is why Jesus warned the apostles and disciples, time and time again, to watch out for false prophets and teachers. They would come in Christ's name but He did not send them: "Be on guard, so that no one deceives you. For many shall come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ'; and they shall deceive many" (Matt. 24:4-5).

Jesus also revealed, in spite of the fact that the false prophets used Jesus' name, they were the servants of lawlessness: "But beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, for within they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. They do not gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, do they? In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a corrupt tree produces evil fruit. A good tree cannot produce evil fruit, nor can a corrupt tree produce good fruit. Every tree that is not producing good fruit is cut down and is cast into the fire. Therefore, you shall assuredly know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but the one who is doing the will of My Father, Who is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy through Your name? And did we not cast out demons through Your name? And did we not perform many works of power through Your name?' And then I will confess to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who work lawlessness' " (Matt. 7:15-23).

In the years that are ahead of us we will see this system of "Christian" lawlessness reach its pinnacle—"the Mystery of Lawlessness." It will be manifested in the coming Beast—the coming world ruler—who will be proclaimed as "God in the flesh." Or perhaps, as the book The Da Vinci Code portrays, he may even claim physical descent from Jesus Himself through Mary Magdalene!

There will come a day when this false Christ will even enter into the temple of God, which the Jews will build in the near future, and proclaim to the world that he himself is God.   As the apostle Paul wrote, the mystery of lawlessness was already working when he wrote to the Thessalonians: "Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken in mind, nor be troubled—neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle, as if from us, saying that the day of Christ is present.

"Do not let anyone deceive you by any means because that day will not come unless the apostasy shall come first, and the man of sin shall be revealed— the son of perdition, the one who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is an object of worship; so that he comes into the temple of God and sits down as God, proclaiming that he himself is God.

"Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you understand what is holding him back in order for him to be revealed in his own set time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working; only there is one Who is restraining at the present time until it arises out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed (whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth, and will destroy with the brightness of His coining); even the one whose coining is according to the inner working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth, so that they might be saved. And for this cause, God will send upon them a powerful deception that will cause them to believe the lie, so that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but who took pleasure in unrighteousness" (II Thes. 2:1-12).

As Revelation 13:4 shows the whole world will worship the Beast, which is actually Satan worship. When people serve and worship idols they are led away into Satan worship. This is why there are so many warnings against idolatry throughout the Bible.

It is amazing that this entire false Christian religious system is the result of changing the order of the Ten Commandments by removing the true Second Commandment from their teachings. As the apostle James wrote: "For if anyone keeps the whole law, but sins in one aspect, he becomes guilty of all" (Jas. 2:10). The apostle John warned of their fate: "And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, and from the holy city, and from the things that are written in this book [the whole Bible]" (Rev. 22:19).

Isn't it amazing what changing on the Second Commandment of God has done to lead people into sin? Just as the New Testament teaches, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump."

Brethren, once again thank you for your love, prayers and continued support. May God the Father and Jesus Christ give their love and blessings to you in order to keep you spiritually strong and vigilant, always growing in the grace and knowledge of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

With love in Christ Jesus,

Fred R. Coulter

FRC