Select Page

There will be no other disease than malaria that has taken the lives of so many people. Alexander the Great, who conquered the most land throughout human history,  died of malaria at the age of 33. It is said that the cause of death of Genghis Khan, who constructed Mongol Empire, was also malaria.

Oliver Cromwell, the chief leader of the Puritan Revolution in England, died from malaria in Whitehall on September 3, 1658. He was a charismatic leader who led the armed forces of Parliament to victory in the English Civil War in the 1640’s and ruled England temporarily. In fact, there was a treatment for malaria when Cromwell suffered from the disease. About 20 years before his death, the wife of then Spanish Viceroy of Peru had malaria and her life was at stake. However, she recovered from malaria with the help of native Peruvian folk medicine.

The folk medicine was a drug made of bark of a tree found in the Andes Mountains: cinchona. Later, the efficacy of cinchona was clinically proven and it has been used to cure malaria until now. Missionaries in Latin America sent the cinchona power to their homeland when malaria was going around in Europe. However, most British people with “different denominations” refused it at the thought that cinchona was a plot to poison their king. Even physicians scorned it considering it as a mere folk medicine. One of them was Oliver Cromwell who called it “the powder of the devil.” By refusing to take the wonder drug, he succumbed to malaria and died at the age of 59.

Suppose you are dying from a disease. And you heard a report that there is a treatment for the disease. What will you do? Will you refuse it because the treatment was from other religions or denominations as did Cromwell? What will you do if there is a drug for eternal life? Will you refuse it just because of a different denomination?

2,000 years ago, Jesus established the Passover of the New Covenant according to the promise “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:54).”

It’s one of the most frequently quoted verses by the World Mission Society Church of God.  It’s very natural because this Word is the core of eternal life and salvation. Nothing is more sure than the promise of God in the world. God’s promise — “Whoever keeps the Passover of the New Covenant lives forever ” — will inevitably take place.

However, there are people who regard the New Covenant Passover as “the powder of the devil.” Just as the Jews of 2,000 years ago did. What did they say when Jesus mentioned “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”? They scorned Jesus saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They even took the Apostle Paul, who preached the Passover of the New Covenant according the teaching of Jesus, to court saying, “He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect.”

The same uncomfortable history repeats today. Many consider the Church of God that keeps the Passover in accordance with the commandment of God as heresy. They are not different from Europeans who, just because of different denominations, slandered and scorned those who tried to save lives by spreading cinchona. If Cromwell had taken cinchona, he might have led his country longer to make it more perfect.

How foolish it is to argue due to the denominations at the moment when a person’s life is at stake! Jesus wants to give us eternal life and commands us to observe it: What good are the denominations? Are the denominations so important for my soul? God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4.) It’s up to you whether or not you will take the wonder drug of life offered by God.

NOTE: Today, the New Covenant Passover of eternal life is observed by the World Mission Society Church of God (WMSCOG) only according to the teachings of Christ Ahnsahnghong.