Sunday, July 14, 2013

Changing The Lense On How We See Things




In 12 minutes he says more than any minister of Armstrongism accomplishes in 90 minutes.  Its about reorienting our brain to think differently.

Armstrongism has a history of outlining the negative in everything.  All  a person needs to do is  read one of Rod Meredith's letters and you will see that in action.  Armstrongism cannot dwell in the positive.  It cannot dwell in grace.

Dwelling in the negative shuts down the learning center of the brain.  People accept the teachings without checking them out.  Questioning exercises the brain which causes creative thinking which in turn leads to positive outlooks on life.  Armstrongism cannot stand the positive.

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ,

     Greetings from Charlotte, NC! My friends, really bad weather is just ahead! The weather forecasters here in America tell us that several potentially dangerous hurricanes are predicted to strike the East Coast of the United States this late summer and autumn. They may do huge damage. Why?



      In the western United States, the increasing drought is causing massive wildfires to break out in many places—even near huge population areas in Southern California. And a number of news reports have come out describing the growing “dust bowl” conditions in much of the Southwest—causing thousands upon thousands of farmers to suffer heavily and causing many to consider leaving the farming profession for good. Again, why?



      Also, the idea of same-sex “marriage” is growing across America and in many other so-called “educated” nations. Even as I write, the United States Supreme Court is debating how much to get involved in “approving” this practice of same-sex marriage. And now, our government agencies have “approved” the distribution of the “morning-after pill”—even giving young girls only twelve to fourteen years old the opportunity to purchase this pill without a prescription and certainly without any parental approval whatsoever! Now, obviously, the young girls and boys can go ahead with their fornication with more peace of mind and the young men will probably not feel the need to take protective measures—thus greatly increasing the incidence of venereal disease and AIDS! We are certainly making “progress,” aren’t we?



      Meanwhile, lawsuits and investigations are mounting as countless instances of governmental and corporate corruption are being exposed. Increasing numbers of liars and thieves are at the highest levels of our society and are causing growing mistrust of governmental and corporate leaders. And they are costing American taxpayers billions of dollars!



      Do you, personally, “connect the dots”?



      My friends, these seemingly different problems are all part of a Big Picture described by the real GOD of the Bible. For He—and He alone—actually controls the weather. Ultimately, it is not “Mother Nature” but Almighty God who is in charge of the weather. The lying, the thievery and the massive corruption of our entire society—and all our growing sins—contribute to the fact that Almighty God will intervene in the weather to punish our nations unless we repent. Most of you brethren and co-workers already believe that, I am sure. Yet, in the hurly burly of our daily activities, it is easy to forget how involved our Creator is in both our national and personal lives. How involved He is in causing bad weather. How involved God is in the soon-coming enormous earthquakes and the horrifying disease epidemics soon to come. And how involved Almighty God will be in the ultimate destruction of our rebellious society if we continue to turn away from the true God—the God who reveals Himself both in His awesome creation and in the inspired Word of the Holy Bible. We in this Work of the great God are continuing to reveal to increasing millions of people the reality of that true God and the totality of His awesome power.



      Remember, Almighty God caused His Son Jesus Christ to describe the conditions just before the end of this age. Jesus said, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences [disease epidemics], and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:7-8).



      In a dual prophecy given to our forefathers—which not only refers to ancient Israel but to our times today—God warned us powerfully:  “But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror [terrorism] over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Leviticus 26:14-16).



      We today certainly do as a nation “despise” God’s statutes and His laws. We are slowly but surely turning away from almost every vestige of biblical Christianity! And so God tells us that—if we continue to disobey—“I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce” (vv. 19-20). We have already seen the national power and prestige of the British-descended and American peoples go down and down. Even in my lifetime, I have seen the once-powerful British Empire be dissolved. I have seen how the American people are slowly but surely losing their national prestige and the national confidence and sense of purpose—and the “pride of power”—we once had. It is happening! It is all part of God’s prophesied warnings to our people that they are to obey Him and keep His commandments and statutes, or else genuinely bad weather, fires, earthquakes and disease epidemics—plus other catastrophes—would all begin to occur and bring them down. So we, as genuine Christians, must learn to “connect the dots.”



     

      All these things are part of God’s supreme purpose to teach humanity that our own ways and the fruits of our human reasoning will be broken. Only if we turn to God our Creator and obey His laws and ways will we be blessed with good weather, world peace and prosperity—and all the things human beings genuinely want. As you see the terrible things beginning to take place which I have just described descend upon the British and American peoples, then know that God is real, know that your Creator is in charge and that it is He that is bringing about all this because of His specific promises to do so and because of His desire to “shake” our peoples to an awareness of our own sins and finally—in His time—to bring us to genuine repentance for our own good.

      There is one Work on this earth which is proclaiming this inspired warning and the full message of the coming Kingdom of God with increasing power. This is that Work! Most of you are very aware that God has continued to bless the Living Church of God in very meaningful ways as we continue to dedicate ourselves to the Great Commission of preaching the return of Christ and the soon-coming Kingdom of God on this earth. However, there are some self-appointed “prophets” or “apostles” who make big claims and, at the same time, throw around erroneous accusations. Brethren, as the senior evangelist remaining in the true Church of God, let me share with you just a few brief statistics and comments that should help illustrate that we not only remain the spearpoint of the Philadelphian Work, but also that God is continuing to greatly bless this Work. All of the glory and honor goes to God for opening these doors because, as we all know, it is God Who opens doors for His Church (Revelation 3:8). In addition to the Tomorrow’s World magazine circulation surpassing 400,000, many of you co-workers and brethren may not know that the Tomorrow’s World television program is aired on more than 220 stations, not including the massive new Russian satellite network which is comprised of four separate satellites giving us worldwide coverage in the Russian language! This television coverage creates thousands of literature requests and inquiries every single week—often 5,000 or 6,000 or more! 

Additionally, our English, French and Spanish-language Tomorrow’s World Web sites reach multiple millions of people every year and continue to experience rapid growth; with major new Web site upgrades planned for later this year, which will increase the effectiveness of our Internet presence even more! Additionally, as many of you know, our Social Media efforts continue to experience explosive growth! YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are vital ways to reach millions and millions of people who may not otherwise find us on television or by “classic” Internet searches. The numbers speak for themselves. For example, our main @TomorrowsWorld Twitter account is increasingly active and is followed by more than 31,000 people. Additionally, our main Tomorrow’s World Facebook page posts and ads have a total reach of more than 26 million unique people! And, as you can see, our main Tomorrow’s World Facebook page currently supports more than 53,000 unique Facebook fans, with weekly views to the page topping over 1 million on any single day! In fact, some of these Facebook “wall posts” generate hundreds of thousands of views for a single post. For example, a recent post about our upcoming online Tomorrow’s World presentation (scheduled for June 30 at 3:30 p.m. EDT) was read by more than 605,000 people! 

The Internet and Social Media are increasingly major ways that we can reach millions and millions of additional people with the True Gospel—ways we can encourage people to think about the meaning of life, what the Bible really says about God, our ultimate destiny, the end-of-the-age and the return of Christ, how to have a happy marriage, and the other many vital Truths that many of you have come to understand because of this Work. 

      My friends, as we approach the termination of this present society, all of us who have been given precious understanding by Almighty God really do need to stir ourselves and do everything we can to “reach out” to our fellow man and warn our peoples before it is too late. As Almighty God tells us in His Word:  “Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’ does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 24:11-12).

      As God looks down from heaven, how much are you, personally, sacrificing in order to get His final warning message to our peoples? How zealous are you to do all you can to support the very Work which the living Christ is using to preach the full message of His coming Kingdom and His way of life to this world? As I have just demonstrated in this letter, your tithes and offerings are being put to very good use in preaching the Gospel—and this Work has more direct impact than any similar work on earth today! We do thank God—for all credit goes to Him! But we do need to “stir ourselves,” and be able to get on more stations and preach this message with ever greater power so this crazy, mixed-up world begins to feel the real impact of this Work of God before it is too late. May God help every one of you do his or her part. At age 83, I am trying to “go all out,” myself, to give of myself in getting God’s message to the world which He has commanded us to do. May each one of us demonstrate our zeal for our Creator by getting fully involved in the Work of the living Christ right now!

With Christian love                                                           

Rod Meredith

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

COG formula:

See how bad everything is.

Christ predicted this

We are in the end of this age

Where is your heart and how can you help?

Send it in.

It never ends and greatly lowers the quality of your actual and one life you are actually having now.

M.T.Prophets

Anonymous said...

An aggressive depressive narcissist speaks -- and he cannot possibly be a Christian, since he is a false prophet: Dementia waits (but not too long).

Wouldn't we all like to be around happy cheerful joyful people?

The answer for the Cult of Herbert Armstrong is a resounding "No!" because they are miserable and want their lives to end -- any talk of cheer drives them further into depression and while you might think that all the tales of death, destruction, devastation would cheer them up, it doesn't work that way: They just become more miserable and want their sad useless empty lives of negativity to end even more.

The damage these Armstrongist leaders is do is incredible: Making the naïve addicted to their depressing swill is criminal.

Retired Prof said...

Meredith is still saying the same things he was saying in 1959-60, back when Armstrongists were saying America had only a little more than 10 years to go before its total destruction. And here more than 50 years later he's still proclaiming that the warning to the world carried out by "the work" is fulfilling the will of his god.

This is one of the many ideas that persuaded me Armstrongism is horseshit. Meredith claims God wants Armstrong's followers (especially Rod Meredith himself) to warn the world even though both Meredith and god know the world, except for a few suckers, is not going to pay any attention. God wants it done anyway. Mysterious ways and all that, you know.

Calling this activity "the work" is a joke. Work is supposed to accomplish something. Armstrongism's efforts make about as much sense as digging a hole, then filling it in again, emptying it again, refilling it, and so on, for ever and ever.

Anonymous said...

Read that letter's boasting about how much of an impact Rod is having.

Then ask yourself, is LCG growing? Are people really noticing Rod and his message? Is the warning message really reaching people?

Or is it just a welfare program for Rod and his family and friends?

Anonymous said...

Calling this activity "the work" is a joke. Work is supposed to accomplish something. Armstrongism's efforts make about as much sense as digging a hole, then filling it in again, emptying it again, refilling it, and so on, for ever and ever.

With money.

Byker Bob said...

Nothing removes the stench from Armstrongism. Here you have HWA's 1950s marketing technique regurgitated, without embarrassment, and without regard for a litany of past failures. And, then you have new marketing strategies by Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack, indicating that we actually have Biblical figures present with us in these historic times.

It is their false gospel, and their list of "action items" which stink to high heaven, and while marketing programs can often persuade hapless victims to accept and embrace the irrational and unacceptable, victims are also going to know deep down that something is terribly wrong. Buyers' remorse, and deep inner conflict are an integral part of Armstrongism. It's the reason behind the constant "reclosing" in all of the sermons, articles, and letters.

BB

Head Usher said...

The world is filled with nothing but problems. Oh dear.

But don't fret, my friends, Uncle Herb is here with his cure-all tonic. Yes sir, one drop of this amazing tonic will cure every problem anyone could ever have. What's it called you ask? "Pay, Pray & Obey."

That's right friends, Uncle Herb's "Pay, Pray & Obey" is the solution to every problem. That's because the cause of every problem is the lack of Uncle Herb's cure-all tonic. No matter what you think the cause of a problem might be, you're always wrong, because the cause is actually that you didn't use a drop of Uncle Herb's "Pay, Pray & Obey." So pick up a bottle of Uncle Herb's "Pay, Pray & Obey" today and solve all your problems! Sold in 1 oz. and 2 oz. sizes.

"I had lots of problems. Then I tried Uncle Herb's "Pay, Pray & Obey," and just like magic, all my problems went away! Now I'm blessed with no end of trials instead! Thanks Uncle Herb!"

Supplies are limited and time is running out! Get yours today!

Corky said...

Always with that dual prophecy which, supposedly, "not only refers to ancient Israel but also to our times today" crap.

There's nothing in those, so-called, prophecies that indicates a "dual" fulfillment - that's a Xian conman invention to explain unfulfilled and bogus old testament 'prophecies' that weren't prophecies at all. At least, not prophecies as Xians see them - which is pretending to foresee the future.

But no, that would actually be called witchcraft, wizards who peep and mutter (Isa 8:19), and not prophecy. It's also a stoning offense, like in, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

Prophecies were exhortations of warnings of what might happen if the people did not repent. It was about things that were happening at the time that everybody could see was happening. Things that were obviously predictable. It wasn't about gazing into a crystal ball or some such, and foretelling the future.

When the prophets did try to actually foretell the future, those were the prophecies that failed. What a coincidence, huh?

NO2RCM said...

Outrageous. Meredith talks about the Great Commission when he has absolutely no intention of doing one bit of the Matthew 28 Great Commission. He talks about preaching the gospel (not in Matt 28). He talks about warning (not in Matt 28). He does not talk about making disciples (is in Matt 28). He does not talk about baptizing (is in Matt 28). He does not talk about teaching those disciples he made and baptized (is in Matt 28). To put it simply, RCM glorifies himself while having no intention of doing what Jesus commanded.
It is, however, most effective propaganda, which is all Meredith wants. His people are so duped, they believe LCG actually is doing a better "work" without even questioning what that work should be. RCM does not trust Jesus Christ to deliver people to LCG as Jesus sees fit, so he has to propagandize them so that they won't leave.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic lecture! :-) <----that's me very happy after listening to it! ;-)

I found this comment most helpful: "...We're finding it’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens not only can we change your happiness we can change every...outcome at the same time."

So true about Armstrongism!
I reckon I've gone through (and to a degree am still going through!) several stages of IDK what you'd call it (stages of grief perhaps?) in my gradual withdrawing of all things Armstrong. For instance, I recall as a young, naive and ignorant teen devouring all the free stuff from WCG! Thus my reality began to be shaped via these twisted lens like a "fun house mirror!" It's taken several decades, but now as a 30-something (who began questioning the entire Armstrongist worldview a few years ago now) I'm finally waking up. I've gone through depression and anger mostly as I can't believe how biblically illiterate I truly was (still am to a degree, but not so much as I used to be when I was brainwashed by Armstrongist crapology). This also lends itself to blaming either myself or my parents for not doing more to protect me, wake me up to the reality, or support me to at least check this whole religious thing out sooner since I probably would've rejected it earlier and gone on to do other things IDK. So as my circle of friends have dwindled down as they've all moved on to bigger and better things I'm still grappling with the past and all of the poor choices I've made and am trying to come to a place of acceptance right now. It's difficult, but it's my own personal faith that keeps me going. I'm especially sorry for all those that remain in Armstrongism as I met some really beautiful people along the way who are sincere about their faith, but I'm afraid are SO wrong about A LOT of Biblical stuff. I feel sorry for them since the only orthodox and true interpretation of the Bible to them remains Armstrong's interpretation (eg tithing, wednesday crucifixion, church government, make up, etc) and everything else that deviates from HWA's worldview is a satanic conspiracy. So they refuse to remove those cracked lens to "truly see." I feel sorry for Meredith who I believe was a naive and impressionable boy at the time when he was picked and brainwashed by that sexual pervert and false prophet HWA. But, I'm thankful to God that He has finally opened my eyes to see the painful truth of this whole movement for what it really is; for as Gamaliel said the Work of God can never be overthrown, but the works of men eventually come to nothing. And Armstrong's "work" of "bad fruits" is divinely coming to nothing at long last for all to see who've been hurt by it... (Ps 94).

Byker Bob said...

It is easy to disprove many of the doctrines, and the personal extrabiblical theories of HWA. However, the general world view of negativity, and the depression it often brings require extreme vigilance to overcome, requiring years.

BB

Anonymous said...

At this point I wish we could trump their hand. I say, let's get it on! Put up or shut up! Shit or get off the pot!! The boogedy boo of these old scare tactics sicken me.