September - October 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
Bible Sabbath Association Organizational Profile
Interview With The Joint Church Of God 7th-Day Fellowship
This is the summary of a live video taped interview
conducted by Dr. Sidney L. Davis, Jr. of the Bible Sabbath
Association with Pastor Lael Tikili, President - Joint
Church of God Fellowship May 29, 1999.
Happy Sabbath! I am Dr. Sidney Davis and I am here as a
representative of the Bible Sabbath Association (BSA) in
Toronto, Canada at a convention of the Joint Church of God 7th
Day Fellowship (JCGF) and I am conducting an interview with
Pastor Lael Tikili. We hope from this Sabbath keeping
organization profile to get some important information about
Pastor Tikili and the JCGF.
Please Pastor Tikili, can you tell us something about your
background and the call of God upon your life? I recognize
that we Sabbath keepers happen to be in the minority these
days among the children of God, so sometime we often wonder if
Sabbath keeping is the right thing to do!
I am from Nigeria. My father Bishop Benjamin Tikili was the
pioneer of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Eastern Nigeria,
and of course we grew up in a Sabbath [keeping] family. Then as
a result of studying the Scriptures we came to the truth
regarding the Church of God and so we continued keeping the
Sabbath.
I was a schoolteacher in Nigeria and when I was called to the
ministry I wanted to be trained as a minister. So God led me to
the United States (US) where I received my theological training
and after that I began pastoring churches and doing the work of
evangelism. The fellowship that we have is called the
JCGF. There are about eight churches in the fellowship, seven in
the US and one in Canada. As you see today the convention is
here today in Canada and the church that is one of the member
churches is the host church - the Shiloh Church of God 7th Day
here in Toronto. We have been enjoying our time in the Lord.
The Church of God 7th Day (COGSD) joint effort came about by the
desire of the Churches of God in the New York area and in the
Washington D.C. district coming together to have a common
convention. In the 1970's every local church had a convention
and we would invite one another to our conventions and of course
the five, six or seven churches having conventions would result
in a multiplicity of conventions! So we looked at it and thought
that since we are all children of God and we keep the Sabbath,
it would be good for us to have one common convention where
EVERYBODY could gather and glorify God! And so we did. It has
developed now that we have been incorporated in the state of
Maryland and we have been expanding going beyond having yearly
conventions! Now the JCGF has most of its churches as you have
stated in the US.
Is the JCGF becoming international as well or do you see the
JCGF expanding more into the international arena? What do you
see in the future plans of the JCGF?
We have brethren all over the world and in fact we have received
applications from churches abroad to become members of the
JCGF. We have our newsletter, a copy of which I have in my hand,
and we have been sending this to churches in Africa, to the
Caribbean churches, to Guyana, South America and of course to
[Great] Britain also. Several churches are interested in
participating in our convention being a part of the JCGF, but
the thing about it is that it has not yet fully materialized as
we have hoped. It takes time. Though they have been calling for
us to visit, because of financial problems we haven't been able
to send a delegation to those churches in order to make it
feasible.
Pastor Tikili, the 7th day Sabbath is under attack. We find in
this attack (that) we are facing an attack that is coming from
the outside of the Sabbath keeping fellowship, but we also
find there is an attack coming from WITHIN the Sabbath keeping
fellowships. We look at the most poignant example of this in
the experience and recent theological developments in the
Worldwide Church of God (WCG) who under the leadership of
Joseph W. Tkach has given up the "keeping" of the
7th day Sabbath and has capitulated to a "new covenant
theology" so to speak.
We find this phenomenon is beginning to find inroads in other
Sabbath keeping organizations - the Seventh-day Adventist
(SDA) church being one of those organizations in which it is
experiencing a new attack by former SDA theologians! We are
finding there is a movement within that church to undermine
the Sabbath truth. Joseph W. Tkach seems to indicate that even
within the Churches of God, there are friends of his dedicated
not so much to undermining the Sabbath truth, but to teach
what is called a "new covenant theology" which in
itself is actually undermining the validity and the continuity
of the Sabbath in the Christian church. So, I am interested to
know Sir, How do you view this? Do you feel that you are
prepared to meet the challenge being made against the Sabbath
not only from without but from within?
I am not surprised that such attacks exists. The Apostle Paul
declared that we know the device of the enemy that sometimes he
manifests himself as "an angel of light." And I do
believe that in order to be effective opponents of the truth
would come into the Body of Christ in order to cause havoc. The
Scripture is very explicit in my understanding and from our
studies concerning the Sabbath, that the Sabbath is not only one
of the commandments of God which we believe are for us to keep,
but also [the Sabbath] points to uphold the divinity of God as
Creator. When we refer to the almighty God that we serve, He is
the Creator! And no other commandment highlights that fact but
the fourth one because after creation He rested the seventh
day. He blessed and He hallowed the day! Therefore to
acknowledge that God is Sovereign and He is Creator, there is NO
WAY we can set aside the Sabbath. The theologians who are trying
to bring in this [so-called] "new covenant theology"
in order to annul or weaken the Sabbath, in my view, do not
understand perfectly the implications of the New Covenant. The
New Covenant was ratified in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said
Himself that He did not come to destroy the law and that He
would not remove anything from the law but rather, He came to
establish the law, in fact it was this same Jesus Christ of the
New Covenant who created all things as we know from the
Scriptures. He established the Sabbath in fact He was the first
Sabbath keeper! When He was born and became one of us humans He
kept the Sabbath. Luke testifies to the Sabbath keeping of Jesus
showing that it was His custom to go into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day to worship and so we the followers of this same
Jesus - I believe that we ought to keep the Sabbath!
TSS
September - October 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
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