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Christian Biblical Church of God
Post Office Box 1442
Hollister, California 95024-1442
(831)-637-1875
Fred R. Coulter, Minister
March 9, 2005
Dear Brethren,
In February, I traveled to Texas, where I spent four
days with Chad, Rachelle and Jeremy, our grandson.
Then, on Sabbath the 12th, we had morning and
afternoon services in Waco with a great Texas BBQ meal.
This was the eighth year that I have had the privilege
of going to Waco. We had 90 brethren in attendance. I
gave the sermons The Law of Moses without the Veil #
2 and Holidays vs. Holy Days by Whose Authority #
2. We all had a tremendous time, and the
fellowship was great. After services, Glenn
Daniel, with his wife Phyllis, drove me to Houston,
where we stayed at the airport Holiday Inn. On
Sunday the 13th, we had morning and afternoon services
with a meal in-between. Twenty-six brethren
attended. We were thankful that this year there
was no Pentecostal revival bash going on next to our
meeting room.
I was not able to travel as much last year because we
were busy finalizing the New Testament for its second printing and The Day
Jesus the Christ Died. However, this year I
have been and will be traveling quite extensively.
I went to Monrovia, California in the month of November.
In December I traveled to Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada,
where we ordained Norbert Bohnert as an elder. In
January I went to Monrovia, California again and of
course, in February I was in Texas. I will be in
Seattle Washington on March 11-12 and in Spokane on
March 13. On April 9 I will be in Monrovia, and
the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, April 30,
I will be in Phoenix. We will have the elders'
conference in Cincinnati May 13-15 with double Sabbath
services on the Sabbath May 14. In June, I will be
in Georgia and Manchester, NH. Finally, in July I
will be in Tulsa, OK. It is always a great joy to
meet all the brethren and fellowship with everyone.
Each occasion is like a mini-Feast.
Passover and Unleavened Bread: The Passover is only six weeks away. To help you
prepare for the Passover, we have five Passover Preparation tapes along with the Words of the New Covenant.
At one time we had this series on four tapes.
However, I did the series again in February 2003 after I
had finished translating all the Scriptures. The
new series came out one tape longer. If you do not
have these tapes, please write, call or e-mail us, and
we will send them to you right away. Also, we will
post them on the CBCG website.
The Christian Passover Service: We have a complete Passover Ceremony Booklet that you can use as a guide for observing the Passover.
If you do not have one, let us know, and we will send
you one immediately. Also, Wayne Stenhouse has
just finished a new booklet as a guide for The Night to Be Much Observed. We will mail
this new booklet out to everyone in the next couple of
weeks, so you will not have to request it.
Passover/Unleavened Bread Coloring Book for Children: This year we have a wonderful coloring book for
children. This was created by Don and Bonnie
Burrows. It tells the biblical story of Passover,
beginning with Abraham forward to the account of Moses,
Pharaoh, the children of Israel and the last Passover of
Jesus Christ. This excellent work is 84 pages. Please write us immediately, and we will send as many
copies as you need.
The Christian Passover Book: This is the most complete book ever written about the
Passover from both the Old and New Testaments. It
covers every aspect of scriptural and historical truth
about the Passover in the Bible. The second
edition, published in 1999, is 500 pages. Nothing
has been left out, including the erroneous theories of
Judaism. Unfortunately, some ministers of the
various churches of God have accepted Judaism’s false
doctrines concerning the Passover. They fail to
realize that since Judaism has rejected Jesus Christ as
the Messiah, it is left with nothing but traditions and
false interpretations of the Old Testament.
Jesus Christ condemned the traditional practices of
Judaism as commandments of men: “And He answered and said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you
hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors Me
with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me.”
But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men. For leaving
the commandment of God, you hold fast the tradition of
men, such as the washing of pots and cups;
and you practice many other things like this.’
Then He said to them, ‘Full well do you reject the
commandment of God, so that you may observe your own tradition’ ” (Mark 7:6-9).
Every year it seems that some minister will come up
with a different explanation or theory about the
Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. This year
is no exception. I received a paper in the mail
written by a church of God minister in Utah declaring
that the Passover and the first day of the Feast of
Unleavened Bread are combined and should be observed on
the 15th and not on the 14th.
In The Christian Passover, this topic is
covered in great detail, showing why God’s command to
observe the Passover on the 14th is correct,
and why Judaism errs in observing it on the 15th.
Remember, Jesus Christ warned us to beware of the leaven
of the scribes and Pharisees, which are their false
doctrines (Matt. 16:11-12). Two of their major
false doctrines are a 15th Passover and a
Sivan 6 Pentecost. Most of the false teachings
coming from supposed ministers of a church of God are
only a rehash of these false doctrines of Judaism.
Since The Christian Passover was first
published in 1993, no one has been able to refute even
one thing in it. In fact, no one has been able to
disprove any scriptural answer presented in it.
There have been some that have condemned or reviled it,
but they have proved nothing that would change anything
in this book. The Christian Passover is the only book
that explains that the Passover actually began with
Abraham and not with the children of Israel in Egypt.
If you do not have this book, please request it, and we
will send it to you. If you have not read it for
several years, it might be good to review it again
before the Passover comes.
This Year’s Passover and Feast of Unleavened
Bread: This year is one of those rare years when
the first day of the Feast falls on a Sunday, and the
last day of the Feast falls on the weekly Sabbath.
In the last century there were eleven years when the
first holy day fell on a Sunday and the last holy day
fell on the weekly Sabbath. In this century, this
sequence occurred in 2001. Within the next twenty
years, the same sequence of days for the Passover and
the Feast of Unleavened Bread will occur in 2005, 2008,
2021 and 2025.
When the days fall in this sequence, the “morrow
after the Sabbath” during the Feast of Unleavened Bread
is the first holy day. Therefore, the first holy
day, which falls on a Sunday—the first day of the week—
is also the wave sheaf offering day. While
for some this may be hard to understand, it can be
simplified by remembering that: 1) the wave sheaf must
be offered during the Feast of Unleavened Bread—not
after. 2) New grain was to be eaten during the
feast as well; therefore it had to be waved during the
feast—not after. 3) Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of
the wave sheaf offering ceremony that was conducted at
the tabernacle/temple on the first day of the week
during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 4) Jesus’
acceptance by God the Father in heaven above as the Lamb
of God. Who takes away the sins of the world must occur
during the feast. (The Feast of Unleavened Bread
pictures the removal of sin, which only the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ and His resurrection can do.)
Because the wave sheaf must only be offered on the
first day of the week during the Feast, it must be
offered on the first Sunday. If it were offered
after the last holy day, which falls on the weekly
Sabbath, it would be offered on a Sunday that occurs
outside the Feast. Thus, we would not be able to
eat of the new barley harvest until after the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. Furthermore, the Feast of
Pentecost would be a week late.
Some ministers have completely misunderstood these
important facts and have developed false explanations to
make their theories appear true, but they all fall short
and end up in error. It has been my observation
that when ministers and brethren observe the Passover on
the wrong day (on the 15th instead of the 14th)
or at the wrong time of the day (as God commanded and
Jesus kept), they always come up with other false
doctrines. It never fails to happen because “A
little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
The false doctrines of men always cause confusion.
However, God is not the author of confusion. He
does not want us to be in doubt. Therefore, God
inspired the record in Joshua Five of the Passover
occurring on a weekly Sabbath and the wave sheaf being
offered on the first holy day. There the sequence
of events shows us that in the year the twelve tribes of
Israel entered the Promised Land, the wave sheaf was
offered on the first holy day during the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. To help you understand this
vital truth, we are sending you a tape The Wave Sheaf
and Joshua Five that fully explains all the details
and reveals why any other time is not correct. We
have enclosed this tape in this mailing. Along
with this sermon tape we have included a chart that will
clearly show the chronology of events before and after
the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as
recorded in Joshua Five. Joshua Five clearly establishes
that when the first holy day of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread falls on a Sunday, that day is the wave sheaf
offering day; hence, it is the first day in the
fifty-day count to Pentecost.
Very few brethren realize that the children of Israel
did not eat bread for the forty years that they wandered
in the wilderness. They had manna—bread from
heaven—to eat. Note that the command God gave them
concerning the wave sheaf offering was that it was not
to be offered until they had entered the Promised Land.
Why? Because there were no grain fields in the
wilderness from which to harvest any grain! This
is why this command could not apply until they had
entered the land: “And the LORD spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto
them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto
you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye
shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest
unto the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before the
LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the
sabbath the priest shall wave it … And ye shall eat
neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until
the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto
your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout
your generations in all your dwellings” (Lev. 23:9-14, KJV).
The account in Joshua shows that they ate the new as
well as the old grain on the morrow after the Passover,
which was on a weekly Sabbath. Not only was the
old grain used (from the stored harvest the previous
year), but the new grain harvested that year was also
used for the wave sheaf offering. Remember, they
could not eat grain of any kind—old or new—until the
priest had offered the wave sheaf on the morrow after
the Sabbath after they had come into the land. The
new grain that was used had been planted by the
Canaanites in the fall before they entered the land, but
the children of Israel harvested it because they had
conquered that portion of the land east of the Jordan
River where there were grain fields. “And the
children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the
passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in
the plains of Jericho. And they did eat of the old
corn of the land on the morrow after the passover,
unleavened cakes, and parched corn [new grain] in the
selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow
after they had eaten of the old corn of the land;
neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year” (Josh. 5:10-12, KJV).
The Scriptures state that they ate of the fruit of the
land that year. They did not wait until the next year as
a minister in a church of God has claimed. This is in
accord with the command that God had given them in
Leviticus 23, “When ye be come into the land which I
give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof”
(verse 10). It clearly says, “the harvest
thereof,” not “the harvest you have planted,” or “your
harvest.” This means that they were to harvest the
grain fields that the Canaanites had already planted.
They entered the land on the 10th day of the
first month, which was in the spring. That was the
only time they could have harvested the new grain to
eat! Please listen to the tape in its entirety and
follow along with the chart. This will clearly
show all the details of the first Passover and Feast of
Unleavened Bread that the children of Israel observed
when they entered the Promised Land.
Manna Was the Bread Used for Their First Passover In the
Land: All during their 40-year wanderings in the wilderness,
the chilrdren of Israel ate manna. It was God’s
bread from heaven which He sent daily, except on the
Sabbath. Since they could not eat any grain during
this period of time (Lev. 23:9-14), for those who kept
the Passover [as only those men who were circumcised
could partake of the Passover], they had to use manna
for the unleavened bread for the Passover and Feast of
Unleavened Bread. Finally, for their first
Passover in the Promised Land, after the second
circumcision on the 10th day of the first
month, they used manna for the last time—then all
partook of the Passover. After the wave sheaf was
offered by the priest, the next day the manna ceased:
“And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the
morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched
corn [new grain] in the selfsame day. And the
manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the
old corn of the land [and the new grain]; neither
had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did
eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year” (Josh.
5:11-12, KJV).
Websites Activity: The number of visitors to our websites has been
increasing every month. At the present rate, more
than 330,000 people will use our websites this year.
The total number of visitors to CBCG.org in January was
23,556 and in February, 21,907. Biblical
Truth Ministries logged 1,119 visitors in January and
3,865 visitors in February. The dramatic increase
in visitors was due to the advertisement for The Day
Jesus the Christ Died. We are adding new
material to BTM all the time. To help visitors to
the BTM site learn about our other site, we have click
throughs to the cbcg.org site, where they will find a
wealth of information.
We have had a good response to our advertisements for
the book offers for Harmony of the Gospels and The Day Jesus the
Christ Died. In February, we mailed out nearly
1,500 Harmony of the Gospels and over 2,200 The Day Jesus the Christ Died.
We have had many good comments about these books from
the new people. We are sure that from these people
God will add brethren to the Church. When we first
started to listen to the radio program or the television
program World Tomorrow, it took us some time to prove
all things before we answered God’s calling. In
the same way, it will take some time for new people to
prove all things and answer God’s calling. God is
the one Who does the calling. We will preach the
Gospel, casting our bread upon the water, and God will
prosper it wherever it goes.
Once again, brethren, thank you for all your love and
prayers and continued support in reaching out to new
people as well as to brethren who are in need.
Together we are making a difference and preaching the
truth of God’s Word to the brethren and to the world.
May God’s love, grace and blessings be upon you and
yours.
With love in Christ Jesus,
Fred R. Coulter
FRC
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