Contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered for the saints ... Let brotherly love continue (Jude 3; Hebrews 13:1)
Letter to the Brethren: November 27, 2025

Letter to the Brethren: November 27, 2025

Uncategorized

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Greetings from North Carolina–we are here visiting family members.

Today is the USA holiday of Thanksgiving.

Being thankful is something Christians should be–all days of the year!

Yet. many, as the Apostle Paul wrote, are unthankful in these last days:

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, (2 Timothy 3:1-2)

Do not be like them. Be thankful for God’s plan, your life, God’s blessings, your calling, and your opportunity to be able support the end-time Philadelphian work.

Of course, no Christians is required to keep national holidays, but thanking God is something we should all do (watch also the sermon: Thankful or Complainer?).

That said, we continue to receive additional translations of our English booklet, The Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 24:14 will be fulfilled.

YouTube

Although YouTube and its parent company Alphabet (AKA Google) continue to discourage people from finding our content, we still are reaching many through them.

We continue to get new YouTube subscribers to our videos. As of November 21, 2025, we had 4,104 subscribers on the ContinuingCOG channel–this has increased from 3,745 as of November 22, 2024. This is the channel that has our sermons, offertory messages, and some of our less prophetically-oriented sermonettes.

We have added the following to the About section of that YouTube channel:

This channel is put out by the Continuing Church of God (CCOG), www.ccog.org. The CCOG traces itself from the start of the New Testament church in Acts chapter 2 to present. Unlike many groups that make that claim, we have an apostolic succession list of leaders who held to the original faith in this church age. The CCOG believes the Bible is the source of true doctrine, we need to work to fulfill the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God to the world as a witness (Matthew 24:14) and teach all things Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:19-20), as we prepare for the short work of Romans 9:28. In addition, we provide prophetic warnings of things that will shortly come to pass. The CCOG teaches that God is love, His Ten Commandments are for our good, and that He has a loving plan of salvation wherein most who ever lived will accept Jesus as savior. The CCOG teaches that the reason God made humans was so we can be deified and be able to give love in a unique way to make eternity better.

As of November 21, 2025, we had 6,430 subscribers to our Bible News Prophecy channel. This has grown from 6,343 as of November 22, 2024. This is our main sermonette channel. Our Bible News Prophecy channel sometimes has a broader audience than the sermon channel.

We have added the following to the About section of that YouTube sermonette channel:

“Bringing you news and analysis of world events in light of Bible prophecy.” This is the mandate of the Bible News Prophecy Program, produced by the Continuing Church of God. World events aren’t just happening randomly. When understood in light of properly understood Biblical prophecy, a light bulb turns on with regard to the understanding and purpose of world events. Scores of items warned of, or predicted in, the videos have come to pass. God has been continuing to fulfill Acts 2:17-18, as well as other prophecies, and the Bible News Prophecy Program, through Dr. Thiel, continues to shine the light of Biblical prophecy on the headlines of today’s news.

According to YouTube, subscribers watch more often than non-subscribers and our number of subscribers to these channels has continued to rise. Hence, our audience continues to expand–despite steps YouTube looks to have taken to slow the expansion.

But an unusual development has been that more people seem to be watching our sermon channel and less watching our sermonette channel, despite the differences in the number of subscribers. I greatly suspect that a lot of that has to do with greater ‘shadow banning’ at the sermonette channel by YouTube as well as Google.

That said, YouTube Shorts, which we have mainly made from the BNP videos have tended to be highly viewed.

Let me add that although YouTube videos still tend to get the most views, for many sermonettes, the combined viewership of the other channels we are on, sometimes exceeds the views we get on YouTube.

We are also on other YouTube channels such as CDLIDDSermones (286 subscribers, up from 269), CCOG Animations (266 subscribers, up from 255), and CCOGAfrica (202 subscribers, up from 182).

Clear Teachings

Received the following email from someone who watch the sermon titled Parting from THE WAY:

Hello Dr. Thiel,

This sermon was really good. Worth listening to a second time. {My husband} has really enjoyed it too.

At one point you said that the (Continuing) Church of God position is what a lot of people call Jewish Christianity and I found that interesting, I don’t think CCOG is very “Jewish”, I’ve looked into other groups or categories that believe similar and I think CCOG is the least Jewish of them, many keep Jewish traditions as a replacement after giving up mainstream Christian traditions, which isn’t right either. …

You’d given me a book on the Holy Days but I was only reading each section as the Holy Day would come. I searched all over the internet to see what this kind of understanding of scripture was even called. What I found is that this type of understanding is growing a lot right now and has many names, The Way, Torah Observant, Messianic, Whole Bible Believer… The thing is, this growing movement I’ve seen on Facebook Groups says they have no leader, and no statement of belief. Just people that say they are being “called back to the way”. As such there is a lot of disagreement. The people in the Facebook groups have a few teachers they recommend to go to to learn (most are Jewish rooted, Rabbis with Jewish traditions), but there is no unity across doctrine other than obedience to God, the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and even that is argued about; the “correct” time the Sabbath starts, how to “correctly” observe it, how to “correctly” observe the Holy Days, how to “correctly” obey the commandments etc. …

While there are some good teachings from some people, I generally prefer yours. I had also prayed about listening/reading to the CCOG teaching, and I had a dream that I was told to continue to listen.

What Micah and I like about your teachings compared to others is you are clear, to the point, have teachings in writing and sermons, quote the bible more than anything else, and try not to follow man’s traditions. We also like that you spread the gospel for free, and give your books for free (there was one church that was charging to learn about the Holy Days and that did not sit well with me). What makes your church unique as well is the church history. None other have this or talk about. It’s an interesting thing and your message made me think of all this to share with you.

Thank you,

The Apostle Paul wrote that ministers should “Preach the word!” (2 Timothy 4:2), and in the Continuing Church of God we strive to do so as our sermons and literature are intended to do that.

And as far as church history goes, knowledge was prophesied to increase in the end time (Daniel 12:4) and the restoration of knowledge about the true Church of God since the 2nd chapter of the Book of Acts has been restored, consistent with Jesus’ words in Matthew 17:11.

North Carolina Visit

As mentioned, my family and I are in North Carolina.

We plan to have Sabbath services 29 November, about 15-20 miles south of Charlotte, NC.

If any would like to attend, please send an email. My email address remains COGwriter@aol.com

Suggested Sabbath Services

Here is a suggested Sabbath day service for our scattered brethren and other interested people for the Last Great Day Sabbath service:

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 cellular 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.

World News Items

There was record heat in Israel, that some suggest is a pre-Messianic sign (see Heat wave shatters 83 year old record: A Pre-Messiah sign?). While the Bible does prophesy high heat before Jesus returns, per Revelation 16:18-19, what has been happening in Israel is not it.

There is an ecumenical meeting that Pope Leo XIV plans to have today and next week related to the 1700th anniversary of Emperor Constantine’s Council of Nicea (see Pope Leo XIV continuing to push ecumenical unity ahead of his 1700th anniversary of Nicean Council trip). This may help set the stage for more of his ecumenical and interfaith agendas.

An important development between the European Union and India has been taking place. They are looking to bypass the US dollar dominated SWIFT system for international payments (see India and European Union linking up to bypass US dollar and SWIFT). Last year, we put out a video warning that the BRICS+ nations, which include India, Russia, and China were working to bypass the US dollar and SWIFT (watch SWIFT end to the US dollar?), now the European Union has gotten officially involved with this. This will not bode well for the US dollar.

Concluding Comments

Jesus taught:

10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:10-14)

Brethren, despite what some may claim or how much some may criticize, Christians faithful to Jesus’ teachings need to endure and support the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God.

Pray and strive to be among the Philadelphian faithful.

And, be thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer