Pastor Cox, being offended at our publishing his "open" email, has sought to clarify his words in that email with his follow-up post below. We publish it here in its entirety. We do take liberty also to add any relevant commentary of our own in [brackets].
Recently I sent out a letter to everyone on our mailing list in reference to the ad "Earth's Final Warning" in the Chattanooga paper. Someone forwarded that letter to one of the independent groups. Maybe they will forward this one also.
[Note: Pastor Cox's first "letter" was an attack against "one of the independent groups."]This group [not the one being attacked by Pastor Cox] has placed my comments on their web site and use my comments to say that I admit that the "True Church" will not finish the work. [Pastor Cox's quote was as follows: "Their determination to do things their way will fail, but not before they succeed in making it virtually impossible for the true church to accomplish her mission. No wonder God will have to finish the work Himself!" These words mean that the true church's "mission" is to "finish the work" which will be "impossible" for them to "accomplish". Consequently, "God will have to finish the work Himself."] They play on words in order to further their attacks on God's Church. [Who is attacking who? Pastor Cox attacks this "independent group" which has NEVER made any "attack" on Pastor Cox's SDA Church.] Play all they want. [This is NOT "play". This is "war", and Pastor Cox's SDA Church "fired" first.] Those who have grounded themselves in the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy will not be deceived. [We agree fully!] I just think of what could be accomplished if all those independent cells would unite their efforts towards finishing the work God has assigned us instead of making their goal one of attacking the church. [This is a gross exaggeration. Very few of the "independent groups" present a message or maintain "a goal" of "attacking" Pastor Cox's SDA Church. But when the SDA Church begins to war against fellow Seventh Day Adventists, several "independent groups" PROTEST.] Satan must sit in his living room, or wherever he sits, [Those who are "grounded in the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy" know that ". . . the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He is NOT idly sitting anywhere!] and gloat over the way he causes hindrances to God's work.
[Note: The Eternal Gospel Seventh Day Adventist Church, served by Pastor Perez, is heralding the "three angels' messages" as SDAs have always been taught. The ones who are "hindering the work" are those "attacking" the efforts of God's "remnant" who "lift up their voice like a trumpet", who raise the standard of righteousness, and who warn the inhabitants of coming judgment-- come what may. Read again, please: Revelation 14:9-11.]
Will the Church finish the work? It will finish what God has assigned her to finish. "And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:14 Read what the inspired writer has to say about the work being cut short. She begins with Romans 9:28.
-BC- EW
-TI- Early Writings of Ellen G. White
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" The Lord has shown me that the message of the third angel must go, and be proclaimed to the scattered children of the Lord, but it must not be hung on time. I saw that some were getting a false excitement, arising from preaching time; but the third angels message is stronger than time can be. I saw that this message can stand on its own foundation and needs not time to strengthen it; and that it will go in mighty power, and do its work, and will be cut short in righteousness." [YES, and the mighty power by which the message is going forth is among those such as Eternal Gospel Seventh Day Adventist Church and others of like faith who step forward to be used of God in cutting it "short in righteousness."]
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-TI- Special Testimony to Our Ministers. -- No. 2
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"The suffering Jesus, his love so deep as to lead him to give his life for man, was again held up before me; also the lives of those who professed to be his followers, who had this world's goods, but considered it so great a thing to help the cause of salvation. The angel said, 'Can such enter heaven?' Another angel answered, "No, never, never, never. Those who are not interested in the cause of God on earth, can never sing the song of redeeming love above.' I saw that the quick work that God was doing on earth would soon be cut short in righteousness, and that the messengers must speed swiftly on their way to search out the scattered flock. An angel said, 'Are all messengers?' Another answered, 'No, no; God's messengers have a message."
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"The world is preparing for the closing work of the third angel's message. The truth is now to go forth with a power that it has not known for years. The message of present truth is to be proclaimed everywhere. We must be aroused to give this message with a loud voice, as symbolized in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. There is danger of our accepting the theory of the truth without accepting the great responsibility which it lays upon every recipient. My brethren, show your faith by your works. The world must be prepared for the loud cry of the third angel's message?a message which God declares shall be cut short in righteousness."
-BC- Mar [Pay close attention here. "Had the church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory." (EGW) This fact is also true today, and so, God has "taken the work into His own hands" through the working of those such as Pastor Perez and others of like inspiration.] Those who have hindered the work, both within the Church and those in the independant cells, will have to answer for their failures. The important thing to remember is to stay in the church. [This, of course, is what was said by Roman Catholic leaders all through the "dark ages". 'Stay with the ship' is not a "new" phrase. See "Lessons from the Reformation" by A. T. Jones.] God has not appointed these independent cells to finish the work. [Purely opinion. "Wisdom is known of her children."] He called the church to give the Gospel to all the world and she is doing that even with the hindrances. The Church Militant will become the Church Triumphant. Defective and enfeebled it is still God's Church. I believe the following statements validate this. Read them and see if you agree. May God help us in these last days to focus on the mission and keep our eyes on Christ. [It is important to understand that all Seventh Day Adventists have a "belief" which can and will be substantiated by the following quotations, whether they be in the "mother church" or out of communion with her.] -BC- LDE -BC- AA -BC- HP -BC- LDE
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He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. Rom. 9:28.
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" Has God no living church? He has a church, but it is the church militant, not the church triumphant. We are sorry that there are defective members, that there are tares amid the wheat. . . . Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world that is polluted and demoralized by sin. The church, enfeebled and defective, needing to be reproved, warned, and counseled, is the only object upon earth upon which Christ bestows His supreme regard."--TM 45, 49 (1893)
-TI- The Acts of the Apostles
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" During ages of spiritual darkness the church of God has been as a city set on a hill. From age to age, through successive generations, the pure doctrines of heaven have been unfolding within its borders. Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard. It is the theater of His grace, in which He delights to reveal His power to transform hearts."
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"The church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme regard. .The Lord has a people, a chosen people, His church, to be His own, His own fortress, which He holds in a sin-stricken, revolted world."
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"We should remember that the church, enfeebled and defective though it be, is the only object on earth on which Christ bestows His supreme regard. He is constantly watching it with solicitude, and is strengthening it by His Holy Spirit".--2SM 396 (1902).