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- PDFHelmut Burger—December 6, 2025
Hello, brethren and friends, I am Helmut Burger, the South African-based elder of the Christian Biblical Church of God. I was ordained many years ago by Roy Assanti when he visited me. I just want to explain something, and that is because of my cultural upbringing, I cannot call Mr. Coulter by his first name, Fred. I just cannot. In my Afrikaans culture, one does not call a person who is much older than yourself by his or her first name. In a formal setting, you address him or her as Mr. or Madam. In an informal setting, you address, in the case of a male, him as ‘Uncle,’ and in the case of a female, her as ‘Auntie.’
That having been put away, Mr. Coulter has several times before urged me or suggested to me to contribute to the Go to Meetings. Two obstacles prevented me from participating.
I have very unreliable access to the Internet because I live on a farm in the rural area of the Free State Province of South Africa.
I must admit, I was a bit scared to preach. Apart from conducting funeral services and marriages, I’ve never actually preached, that is, apart from having discussions with people about the faith.
Mr. Coulter’s encouragement, nevertheless, kept haunting me, and after much soul-searching, I recently decided that the time has come and I informed Steve Durham accordingly.
So, here we go. Steve asked me to, as an introduction, to share a bit of background of myself with you. I am a practicing attorney in a rural town in the Free State Province of South Africa. I am also, at the same time, a commercial farmer. My practice is in town, but I reside on my farm, and that’s 20 kilometers from town. I am an Africana, that is a white South African of European descent.
My people, the Afrikaners, are composed of the intermixing of Dutch, German, French, Huguenot, and some minor input by English, Scottish, and other Western European nations like the nations of Scandinavia. Our language, Afrikaans, has its main origin in Dutch, with contributions from all the other languages that our ancestors spoke when immigrating to the then Cape of Good Hope, which is now called the Cape Province, with its capital being Cape Town.
The language evolved into a brand new language, officially the youngest language in the world, which is still considered a Germanic language. I myself have Dutch, German, French-Willow, Scottish, and even German-Jewish ancestors. A real mix-up!
I do not want to ponder on the history of my country and what is going on at the moment. I do not see how that would be helpful, at least for now. If there is an interest in wanting to know more about the history of South Africa and all my people, the Afrikaners, or myself, I would be happy to expand in future, God willing, in sermonettes.
Some personal information about myself. I was born in Namibia, at that time called South West Africa. I matriculated in 1979. At the time, South Africa had a compulsory military subscription service policy, in terms of which young white men leaving school had to do military training for a period of two years. I joined the South African Army on a permanent basis as a career soldier. I became an infantry officer, a (inaudible) infantry branch, and served for 12 years, resigning with the rank of major when it became clear that the revolutionary African National Congress was to be unbanned.
During my time in the Army, I participated in many operations, military operations in Angola, against the communist MPLA party, the defense force, the FN. I became an infantry officer, a (inaudible) infantry branch, and served for 12 years, many of which were spent in combat in the Angolan Bush with the communist regime of Angola and communist revolutionary movements who were supported by them.
I resigned with the rank of major when it became clear that the revolutionary African National Congress, or ANC, was to be unbanned, and I logically concluded that if that happens, it would be the end of civilized South African society. I then started farming, and commenced my studies in law. I was admitted as an attorney in early 1997.
I am currently 63 years of age, married to my wife for 36 years. I have three children, two girls and a boy. I have 13 grandchildren. I am grateful that I was able to put all my children through tertiary education. My eldest daughter is also an attorney. My second daughter is both a music teacher and a biochemist, while my youngest, my son, is a medical doctor.
Okay, let’s get to the message I want to bring today. Mr. Coulter has this saying, and I paraphrase, that some Protestants have some knowledge of the truth of God. I agree! Growing up in a very strict Protestant home in the 60s and 70s, being a member of the most staunch, conservative and largest denomination among Afrikaners, the Dutch Reformed Church, viewed the Protestants as closer to the Truth of the Word of God than the Roman Catholics, whom I and my fellow believers in the Dutch Reformed Church have always considered as outright idolatry.
Must be one of the reasons that there were never Afrikaners in the Roman Catholic Church. Sad to say though, most Protestant denominations the world over have lost even their little knowledge of the Truth that they once had. That is a pity because having lost the basis of their beliefs in opposition to the beliefs of Roman Catholicism, beliefs that shielded them from typical Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, they are now vulnerable to accept as truth ‘new doctrines,’ formerly taboo and anathema to the Protestant belief system.
If one considers the number of visitors to the CBCG’s website and sister websites, one can only conclude that many, if not most, visitors are not in a Church of God, but mainstream Christians, and I submit that a great proportion of them have been Protestant denominations, and from Protestant denominations.
For this reason, I have decided to dedicate this message to the Protestant visitors to our websites. In this message, I want to urge them to at least return to the Truth, albeit relatively few, once held by Protestant denominations. Many of those, if not most, are people who are lost spiritually, but are seeking Truths, and the Truth that I want to bring to them with this message is that Protestants are in grave danger, and are being drawn into the (inaudible) belief system, doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, by means of the ecumenical movement driven by the Roman Catholic Church.
I submit that the attack on traditional, sound beliefs will soon become fiercer. Now, the ecumenical movement is nothing new. It has been around for a long time. The Roman Catholic Church, seeing themselves as the only Church of Christ, is the driving force behind it. It got new life with Vatican II. It had good impetus on the Pope Paul, but took a sideline thereafter. But this is about to change with the new Pope Louis XIV.
I submit that ecumenism is Satan’s mechanism to unite, not only Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and other professing mainstream Christian denominations, but also other religions. Yes, the driving force behind the one world religion, who will worship the Beast. Being led in this by the False Prophet will be in all probability the pope at the end-time.
The new pope is pushing the ecumenical agenda harder. He has even gone as far as to extract Catholics not to, as it has been the case for centuries, consider Mary as co-redemptrix. This move is clearly an attempt to appease many Christians for example Protestant denominations, who have held that the practice of venerating Mary in such a capacity is idolatry.
One cannot help but to get angry with a righteous anger at these deceitful antics by the Roman Catholic Church. It is right for us, like Jesus, to actually have some righteous indignation for false systems. These days, the Protestants have lost most of that fire.
For the first time in their 500-year history, there is an increasing number of people who are trying to join evangelicals together. What has been happening between Protestants and Catholics, I see as two trees on the side of a riverbank, and each side is trying to bend their tree really, really far, straining doctrines, definitions and theologies, so that they finally touch in the middle, so they can say, ‘Look, we are the same and we can be together.’ Clearly, they are not!
While you Protestants and Catholics do share some similarities, you are nobodies—that is Protestants. Protestant beliefs and Catholic beliefs are different, and they should not be together. Some understandings that ecumenists use to entice Catholics, and Protestants in particular, into buying into this idea of unity are, for instance:
despite differences, there is a common mission shared between the two
Don’t you want to see unity?
you might be thinking that if the Catholic Church is false, then there was no church for a thousand years
you know a Catholic who is safe; you think therefore, the Catholic system is okay
Protestants, but also non-Catholic Christians in general, should lose all of these and other misunderstandings. Let us see what the Bible teaches. There are so many Scriptures that one can look at, but I’ll tackle just a few.
John 17:17: “Sanctify them in Your Truth; Your Word is the Truth.” Jesus is Truth!
You cannot love and serve God without Sincerity and Truth. God doesn’t define Truth. He doesn’t go seeking for Truth. He actually is Truth. He’s the source of Truth. He wants us to be Truth-seekers, He doesn’t want us to overlook stuff. He wants us to be unified in Truth, because IF there’s no Truth, there’s no actual unity.
2-Corinthians 6:14: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? And what fellowship does light have with darkness? And what union does Christ have with Belial? Or what part does a believer have with an unbeliever? And what agreement is there between a Temple of God and idols?.... [I just want to interject here that the Catholic Church is an idol-worshipping institution] ...For you are a Temple of the living God, exactly as God said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (vs 14-16).
2-Corinthians 11:4: “For indeed, if someone comes preaching another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept, you put up with it as something good.”
One could actually say, put up with it readily enough. Paul, being really sarcastic in this context, is telling the Corinthians: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! One who doesn’t believe and partner with every assumed supposed truth, every story, every theology, or everybody who has a mere semblance of Christianity. ‘Hey, they believe in Jesus, so that’s enough.’ It’s not enough! There’s more to credal Christianity than just believing in Jesus. There is, in the doctrine of justification. Now, the Biblical doctrine of justification is monstrously big. The difference between imputation and infusion. These are the hinges on which Christianity swings. And the Roman Catholic, consequently, is absolutely busted.
2-Peter 2:1: “But there were also false prophets among the people, as indeed there will be false teachers among you, who will stealthily introduce destructive heresies, personally denying the Lord who bought them, and bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many people will follow as authoritative their destructive ways; and because of them, the way of the Truth will be blasphemed” (vs 1-2).
You could go on and on with the warnings about false teachers. 2-Peter is dedicated to the subject. The entire book of Jude talks about false teachers and false teachers. This is not something to trifle with.
The Protestants should not, but indeed have, become passive in this. I know it sounds really mean. I don’t want to sound mean, but it’s far more meaner to promote false teaching. There are even more explicit Scriptures.
1-John 4:1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
1-Timothy 6:3: “If anyone teaches any different doctrine, and does not adhere to sound words, even those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine that is according to Godliness, he is proud and knows nothing. Rather, he has a morbid attraction to questions and disputes over words, from which come envy, arguments, blasphemy, wicked suspicions” (vs 3-4).
All Christians, whether those in the Church of God or mainstream Christians like the Protestants, are to mark those who cause division and avoid them, not partnering with them. There is absolutely nothing to be learned from the Roman Catholic Church!
The ecumenical movement precisely causes division, division among non-Catholic denominations, purporting to bring about unity among all mainstream Christian denominations, but in fact, pitching them against one another. For example, poking their deceit by asking the seemingly noble question: Don’t you want unity? If the answer is yes, it is not correct, because unity based on unbiblical doctrines is unity destined for hell! It’s like everybody thinks that there is one Jesus, and everybody has the same doctrine of Jesus. In reality, the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, as I’ve already quoted earlier:
Corinthians 11:4: “For indeed, if someone comes preaching another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept, you put up with it as something good.”
This is exactly what is happening, and will continue to happen, among mainstream Christians, slowly, but surely, incrementally.
So, just because somebody says, ‘Oh, you love Jesus, I love Jesus,’ doesn’t mean you believe in the same Jesus! And you love the Gospel, and I love the Gospel, doesn’t mean you and I understand the same Gospel!
These days, with all the falsehoods being preached and believed, words need defining, rightly dividing the Word of God! When you consider Church history, and what were the early skirmishes about Christology and Soteriology, understanding Jesus rightly was a major issue!
If you don’t get that right, you’re damned, no two ways about that! The Bible clearly teaches:
Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this especially is not of your own selves; it is the gift of God.”
That is not what the Catholic Church teaches. They teach salvation by works; human invented works. To non-Catholics, yes, to your Protestants, I refer you to
Romans 11:6: “But if the election is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.”
Not to misunderstand me, there are publicly required works that the true Christian must practice.
Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, being created in Christ Jesus unto the good works that God ordained beforehand in order that we might walk in them.”
Those good works are the things God wants a true Christian to do. But this is not a physical work, be it by men, but the kind of works being a natural result of faith! The kind of works that James talked about in:
James 2:18: “But someone is going to say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ My answer is: You prove your faith to me through your works, and I will prove my faith to you through my works.”
On this topic, I invite you to visit our website, truthofgod.org, and search the site using the keywords, ‘good works that God ordained.’ You will find several comprehensive teachings on this subject.
Galatians 1:6: I am astonished that you are so quickly being turned away from Him Who called you into the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which in reality is not another Gospel; but there are some who are troubling you and are desiring to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But if we, or even an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel to you that is contrary to what we have preached, LET HIM BE ACCURSED!” (vs 6-8).
The Roman Catholic Church teaches another gospel, one far removed, as far as east is from west, from the true Biblical Gospel! Thank you.
Scriptural References:
John 17:17
2-Corinthians 6:14-16
2-Corinthians 11:4
2-Peter 2:1-2
1-John 4:1
1-Timothy 6:3
2-Corinthians 11:4
Ephesians 2:8
Romans 11:6
Ephesians 2:10
James 2:18
Galatians 1:6-8
Scripture referenced, not quoted: Jude
HB:bo/po
Transcribed: 12/11/25
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