Thursday, September 22, 2016

John Ritenbaugh Warns Against False Prophets In COG, Lying False Prophet Bob Thiel Immediately Suffers Major Butthurt




John Ritenbaugh wrote an article in The Berean the other day discussing prophets in church history and COG folk  who set themselves up as prophets in the church even though they have no qualifications.
All of us desire to know the future so we can be prepared for it. We want to be in control of our destinies and not at the mercy of events. However, some have this desire so strongly that they set themselves up as channels through which the future is revealed. 
Such people have misled many. Deuteronomy 18, along with chapter 13, warns against such people. Whether they are called diviners, charmers, spiritists, or channelers, using methods like reading tea leaves, casting lots, or conducting sĂ©ances, they are to be seriously and carefully avoided because there is no godly reality to their prognostications. Those seeking to know are being misguided, putting themselves at the mercy of lying demons, or at the very least, imaginative men and women. 
At other times, simply following a church tradition regarding a prophecy can also mislead a person. This occurs because someone in the past, sincerely believing he understood a particular prophecy, began preaching his belief, and many in his audience then believed without the resources to prove the interpretation wrong. Due to frequent repetition, it came to be accepted as truth.
Today this would apply to many in the Church of God.  Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, James Malm, Gerald Flurry, Will Dankenbring and many others.  It also applies to Ritenbaugh and his hundreds of failed prophecies. Every single one of them have a string of failed prophecies covering the ground at their feet.  Thousands are sucked into this madness and actually believe it is truthful.  Each of these fraudulent men have repeated their nonsense for so long that they actually believe themselves.

Of course the biggest false prophet the church has right now immediately suffered major butthurt. Bob Thiel says that many COG members will fail to recognize true prophets, especially when that prophet is himself.  Who is the true prophet for this age?  Who else has been double blessed and had nightmares where dark forces said he was the chosen one?
While I am not about to analyze all of John Ritenbaugh’s points, the reality is that most real Christians will NOT accept biblical criteria for prophets in this age.
Sadly, many people in the Church of God (COG) have trouble believing that God actually uses prophets or how He would use them today.
According to Thiel, all COG prophets out there right now are false, except of course for himself. They have disqualify themselves because they are liars.  Even id those properties are "at best questionable," they are still lairs.  Apparently the questionable emphasis Thiel makes on countless speculations does not enter this equation.
But first, it should be noted certain leaders of other COGs  have disqualified themselves on certain matters of prophecy, especially when they insist on matters that are wrong, or at best questionable.
Then Thiel gets to the just of his posting.  He and he alone is a true prophet!  LCG said so!
Prophet is an office and prophets are to prophesy. Although the position of groups like LCG is that it has NO prophets (which is likely the case as I stopped attending late on 12/28/12), it should be noted that its top leader had repeatedly taught in the past that God may consider Bob Thiel to be a prophet 
Thiel cannot stand the fact that 99% of COG members think and know that he is a liar.  Because of that he needs to throw out scripture point out that they are wrong:
Contrary to scripture, most end time Christians do not heed the following from the Apostle Paul:
     Despise not prophesyings. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, KJV)
     Do not despise prophecies. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, NKJV) 
Those that deny the prophet status of Thiel are lukewarm Laodiceans.  How can they not know that Thiel is the chosen one?
The fact is that Laodiceans believe that they do not have need to listen to any of God’s end time prophets (Revelation 13:14-18), even if some believe that God uses prophets.
He then lists 36 failed prophecies and false teachings of various COG groups.  Of course missing from all of that is all of Thiel's lies.

The only COG leader out there telling the truth is Thiel.  Even Herbert Armstrong would be agreeing with him, if he were still alive.
Some will come up with their preferred rational as why not to agree with the position of the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) on these matters. Yet not only are they biblical, on most of those points, the old WCG taught what I believe that the Bible teaches on them (on the few that it did not, one is consistent with a November 1979 HWA writing and on the others, a former adviser to HWA told me that HWA would have agreed with me on those as well, as one he had not investigated and some others were not issues when he was alive.
First it was double blessings, double nightmares and self-appointment, now it is the blessing of Herbert Armstrong.  Thiel's comment is quite laughable since HWA would have ripped Thiel to shreds and left him a blubbering mess after publicly rebuking him from the Auditorium stage and in all print materials.  Meredith's rebuke would be baby pablum compared to HWA's rebuke.  So once again we see Thiel lie in order to make himself look set apart and special.

Thiel continues:
It should be noted that leaders in the Living Church of God and/or the United Church of God confirmed to me personally that I was biblically correct on all the above points, despite the fact that their respective churches hold to several of the errors pointed out above. (emphasis his)
No one in the Church of God is more qualified that Thiel!  Kneel at his feet in wonder and amazement!




33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Give Bitter Bob a little credit. At least his site has put up some national news about the Charlotte riots. LCG has nothing about this event occurring in their own home office town, but does have a video about putting up a wall in Calais, thousands of miles away. How out of touch LCG's Trump supporters are in their news priorities!

DennisCDiehl said...

Bob doesnt knoe it but he actually runs a Non-prophet nottareal church

Anonymous said...

Wow.....using one COG, "I have to be in charge now that I've gotten a taste of the power" minister (John Ritenbaugh) to denigrate another. I'd give very little credibility to JR either, as he too has many of his own, very off the wall teachings, has set up his son, in true WCG fashion, as the heir apparent (even though he used to say he would just allow God to work it out once he was gone) and has a pretty nice family business er, church that pays nice salaries to family members.

The problem when you start giving much credibility to one COG minister, without looking at all things he teaches or believes, against another, which one should really get any credence?

Miguel de la Rodente said...

Why this is about like George Wallace writing an article warning about segregationists! I mean, seriously???

DennisCDiehl said...

You haven't lived until you gave sat through John Ritenbaugh's 35 consecutive sermons on "How to keep the Sabbath". My transfer to Greenville spared them but Charlotte took the hit.

DennisCDiehl said...

"have sat"

Anonymous said...

Bob Thiel is nothing more than an astrologer, palm reader, fortune teller, or other sort of cold reader.

His "prophecies" are generalized statements about often mundane things that it's not hard to forecast based upon the past or upon current trends, couched in metrics so vague you'd be hard pressed to say if many of them had come true or not. He carpet bombs with a couple dozen of these so-called "prophecies" and then waits for 6 months, a year, two years or more, until he can arguably say this one or that on "came true." Of course, it's so vague there's little basis to say so one way or the other for sure. But as long as he can crow victory eventually over 10 or 15 of them, that's all that matters to Bob. The rest he'll keep quiet about, and hopefully those who notice the failures won't be enough to notice. You'll certainly never find Bob admitting to having uttered any "prophecies" that turned out to be false. It's kind of like prophesying that the price of an ounce of gold or a barrel of oil will hit $x. Sure, given enough time, it's bound to happen sooner or later. And when it does, does that make you a "prophet"? Of course not!

If Bob really were a prophet, that is to say, receiving information from "beyond" about the future, he wouldn't need to resort to these well-known cold reading techniques. No, he'd be making highly specific predictions about things that matter, that shift the balance of power in the world. And he wouldn't need to carpet bomb. He could pronounce them one at a time, and he could predict the timing as well. And he could nail every single major event without missed opportunities or missteps. Instead his "prophecies" have the grubby fingerprints of a hoax all over them.

But not Bob. No, Bob is a "prophet" in the same sense that a "magician" is one who works "magic." He's not breaking the laws of physics, there's nothing supernatural about it, just sleight of hand. The only difference is that a magician deceives people honestly, for entertainment purposes. Bob deceives people dishonestly, to enrich himself at other's expense. Bob has to know there's nothing supernatural about his deliberately vague and often inconsequential prognostications.

DennisCDiehl said...

Dear Bob
"The eye that sees can't see itself"

Go learn thee what that means

Unknown said...

Overheard conversation of JR to Boob Thiel...

"I'm better than you,
na-na, na-na, boo-boo,
stick your head in doo-doo.
My false prophetic predictions are better than your false prophetic predictions. "

Senior Citizen said...

Sorry Thiel, there are no prophets in the end time.
Christ said so, and even HWA said so.
You are out of luck but I imagine you will make money off those who believe you.

Anonymous said...

Hey Bob!

You're so vain
You probably think this blog is about you
You're so vain
I bet you think this blog is about you
You're so vain

Connie, maybe you could finish the lyrics for us.

Ronco

Hoss said...

If Bob chooses to respond to your article, I would expect to read statements like, “anti-COG”, “accuser of the brethren”, “wouldn't know a true prophet if he came up and predicted in your face.” Actually, Bob reminds me of myself when I was younger – at times, I've been an arrogant know-it-all, and thought that everything I said was correct, regardless of facts. My mother thinks I'm still like that - it must be in the genes...

For myself, I don't consider blogs such as this one to be “anti-COG”, but rather “COG-critique.” While there are the odd stones thrown and unsupported claims, I prefer to look for cognitive dissonance, poor scholarship, unsound exegesis, false assumptions... I think you get the picture.

Back in his LCG days, I did give Bob a list of what I considered invalid doctrinal arguments. To answer why other LCG members went to Rod rather than talk it out with Bob was obvious – he seemed unapproachable and appeared condescending.

While I don't lose sleep over which COGleader has the most biblically-correct take on the end-time sequence of events, interpretations dependent on BI, Church Eras, and the COG form of supercessionist dispensational theology are, at best, questionable.

Anonymous said...

Oh yee of little faith.Woe to you doubters.Do you not realise that "doublely blessed" Bob is his own gift........to anyone who will listen.
Bob I do not doubt your sincerity or your faith but I do not doubt that God did not send you.And I do not doubt that you are full of your own self importance.Did not Moses say,"Who am I that I should go ......." Well Bob ,who are you?

Hoss said...

Anonymous 12:18 wrote: He carpet bombs with a couple dozen of these so-called "prophecies"...

Exactly! Like shooting a target with a blunderbuss, something will hit the target, and you can ignore the pellets that missed. Back in my earlier days in IT, this was called the Monte Carlo Method.

and ...he'd be making highly specific predictions about things that matter...

Yes, anyone can be a “Hindsight Prophet” like David Pack: Katrina struck New Orleans because it was a wicked city. Prophets are meant to warn people about specific events – this going to happen, or if you do this, then this is going to happen. One of Bob's hindsight predictions was the California drought was a punishment for legalizing same-sex marriage. Too late. If someone said, if California legalizes same sex marriage, there will be a terrible drought then they could say “told ya”.

DennisCDiehl said...

Bob is an incredibly annoying and self absorbed man. He seems so desperate to prove himself important and "a prophet" which seems to me to be a rather strange kind of human being to be known as.

No one actually knows the future or can know it. The future unfolds moment by moment and then every future moment becomes just another present one. What is the point of knowing the future? Did it ever help anything or change the actions of people? And if there is a predetermined future to discern, then are we not all just bit players in some theological drama with no say and no input as to outcomes? Are we not left without our free will? And who wants to live in a world where it is all predetermined and getting the predetermined combination just right is all our job is. No one has got it right yet as if there actually was anything to get right in the first place.

Art Mokarrow wrote a book called "God's Puzzle Solved" Of course he did no such thing and why would any God need to have a puzzle to be solved in the first place? Art chided me during our debate in Tyler for sounding like I "knew everything." Of course, I don't know everything but I am confident when I feel I am and can change when I feel I have been mistaken. Personally all I ever wanted to know was and is what is true. Evolution? Creationism? Bible Origins--Sunday School version or Historical version? When I pointed out to him that he had claimed to solve God's puzzle in a written book, he quieted down. After all, if you have solved God's puzzle you seem to be saying you know everything.

Neither Pack, Flurry nor Thiel have or ever will solve those puzzles no matter how many magical titles they bestow upon themselves.

Bob Thiel is no more a seer of future events at the behest of the Deity than Dave Pack is really spoken of in the Old Testament. Both are forms of delusional religious obsessions and , for whatever reason, ideas that both men need to hold for some deeply seated reasons, which probably are some form of a mental illness or profound personality disorder. As Stanley Rader told me once, "I don't care what you say about me as long as you spell my name correctly." These men crave so much attention, they can take whatever you dish out. Well Bob can't as seen in his long winded justifications and appeals to praise some have heaped on him not knowing then it would go to his head now.

Bob, Gerald and Dave all got a double portion of baloney and that's about it.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps someone could gift a copy of this book to Bob Thiel...

Anonymous said...

God is not offended. Bob Theil does not speak for God. This is just Jazz Hand's narcisstic injury raging. Bob, if you think you are a prophet, then do it! Convincing others that you are, doesn't make you one. And basically, that is all that needs to be said.
Put up, or shut up.

DBP

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Bob was on Dave's short list for fire to come down and devour him? However, that prophecy was for 3 years ago and still hasn't happened. I wonder, when Dave claimed that his prophesy would come to pass, he must have meant in 3 to 5 years. We still have 2 years left! And now Pack claims to be "That Prophet", what is left for Theil? I wonder who prayed over Pack in the back room and pronounced his double portion of spirit? Maybe it left Bob, and travelled over to Dave?

Someone needs to build an alter, pour water on the wood, and gather all of the COG prophets in one place!

DennisCDiehl said...

Think about it. All these men, Flurry, Pack, Thiel, woke up one morning and declared themselves to be Apostles, prophets and Clown Jesters. No one actually passed the meme along to them from another previous Apostle, Prophet or Clown Jester. Well the a Clown Jester maybe if dragging the meme of "And yes brethren, I am a __________" into the mix counts.

Even the Apostle Paul seems to have just popped up one day as, "The Apostle Paul". Certainly Peter, whom Paul detested, James (same) or John put the double whammy on him.

All someone had to do with Bitter Bob was pay him a complement on something he said , let is stew and simmer in his mind for a time, be rejected when he reminded everyone of the compliment , get rejected again and viola'! "Ok, I'll take my compliments and mix them with my own oil and anoint myself."

Dave, Trail of Tears, Pack never got many compliments ever, so just usurped the titles for himself based on the principle of "Since I can't work for or with anyone and they haven't put me in charge yet, I'll just have to do it myself." He is none of the things he has imagined in his own mind himself to be either.

Bitter Bob, as a naturapath (I believe that is correct), is by nature mystically minded and while the philosophy of it all sounds good and real, if taken as the only way to be and to treat disease , is considered idealistic and quackery. It can also kill you unnecessarily if other realities are ignored.

As a young, naive pastor in 1974, I believed God "healed." I also had my kids vaccinated and made a beeline to the hospital for febrile seizures which I did not understand then. Today I have a successful Therapeutic Massage practice, but don't magically believe in all the "modalities" that come along with it, some of which are stupid.

The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) has stated that "naturopathic medicine has its own unique body of knowledge, evolved and refined for centuries" and is "effective in treating all health problems, whether acute or chronic." [5] According to a 1989 AANP brochure:

"The main difference [between naturopathic and conventional medicine] is in philosophic approach. Naturopathic physicians treat patients by restoring overall health rather than suppressing a few key symptoms. Naturopathic physicians are more concerned with finding the underlying cause of a condition and applying treatments that work in alliance with the natural healing mechanisms of the body rather than against them. Naturopathic treatments result less frequently in adverse side effects, or in the chronic conditions that inevitably arise when the cause of disease is left untreated." [6]

You can see why Bob might be drawn to the original WCG. HWA oft repeated "The is a CAUSE, for every effect". Coupled with the WCG teaching on "healing" and medicine, and you have a formula for the magical thinking to take root more and more ending up with yet another "prophet."

DennisCDiehl said...

..."unique bodies of knowledge" are dicey. WCG and HWA always claimed a "unique body of knowledge" which has proven to be uniquely wrong. Joe Tkach and Jr. rediscovered a less unique body of knowledge called "reinventing the wheel," and now Joe has a good retirement but no actual draw. Telling the Old Old Story of Unseen Things Above can get real old in this day and age. One may love to tell it, but we should know better 3500 years later.

Dave Pack makes claims the ultimate "unique body of knowledge" in the COGs with himself as the most unique of all being spoken of personally in the scriptures. Why all can't see the stupidity and mental delusions of that is beyond me. I guess those who follow him are unique in themselves. Both are also uniquely wrong as time will show. It already has shown this fact quite often already but neither they or their few followers can see or admit to this for some reason save, "God is giving us more time."

Anonymous said...

You haven't lived until you gave sat through John Ritenbaugh's 35 consecutive sermons on "How to keep the Sabbath".

Ritenbaugh was our pastor for a couple of years and he was extreme about faith and the Sabbath. One sermon on the Sabbath I didn't sit thru was when he said "If a mother came to my door on the Sabbath with her child having a broken leg and need a ride to the hospital, he'd say no, because it's God's Sabbath". I got up and walked out furious because we had another nut job as minister. I went to people with connections and had him "transferred" to Pasadena.

He also beat everyone over the head with faith, faith, faith. Not one sermon on LOVE. He never touched I Cor. 13, which says the greater of the 3 faith, hope and love, was love.

DennisCDiehl said...

John is a bit extreme and narrow in focus on some topics from my past experience. He told me at a church baseball game in Charlotte where I was wearing sunglasses that the eye is the lamp of the body and should be avoided. Of course, at the moment, playing ball with the sun in my eyes in the South in summer, I opted to keep them on. One needs about 10,000 lummens a day of light directly in the eye to keep the brain and nervous system running well, but not 10 million. BTW, the average office space with florescent lighting provides about 300, from what I hear, and thus the whackos at work. lol
.
John means well and his comments on prophets is quite good actually. I think he must have had Bob in mind

Anonymous said...

Ritenbaugh loved baseball and we played together on a Church championship softball team. He was the pitcher and I played first base. Softball is a time and place for men to have fun and shoot the breeze together.

Not John. He was all business. No small talk. He wouldn't comment on the game or just reach out as a regular Joe. He was like a religious robot.

Miguel de la Rodente said...

Sheesh. Only a COGlodyte would attack sun glasses on a Biblical basis. Flurry won't let people take Passover if they are using glaucoma meds. If the eyes are the mirror to the soul, then it behooves people to take care of them, using proven modern technology where appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for providing the barf bag.

I pray that it has double capacity due to the double-barfs that Bob Thiel is known for eliciting.

DennisCDiehl said...

A Baptist minister saw me reading a physics book and asked me what it was about. I said it is a book about science well done. (It didn't pay to actually tell him what it was about) He said, Huh...the Bible is the best science book ever written." I said, "Hardly" and he just stared at me. LOL. The Bob Jones crowd in Greenville majored in the minors like no WCG type ever dreamed of. Well maybe some dreamed of it but didn't enforce it. Bitter Bob probably dreams of it while waiting on a revelation from on high.

Anonymous said...

The most telling thing about Ritenbaugh is his absolute control he exerts over his family. The only one he bows to is his wife (and the whole family is even more scared of her than even him) and he allows her to find his newest subjects to speak on, usually from some secular book and then he's off to the races on his MANY, MANY part series that seem to never end.

I even heard one story about one of the grandkids who brought their potential mate to a family gathering (and they all seem to come or else) and Ritenbaugh spoke to this individual. After he left the room, the family that was left in the room said this person should feel very honored, since JR was such a man of God and he'd spoken to this person.

Another telling thing about the "family comes first" belief in CGG, is neither his son Richard or son-in-law, Martin are ever allowed to attend another Feast, except the one where JR is at, including other CGG sponsored sites. Complaining does no good.

Richard is the only son, so he is deemed every bit as special in the eyes of their family as GTA once was to HWA, who can also be every bit as egotistical with his intellectual prowess and many part sermons as his dad is.

Anonymous said...

And yet... and yet....

How is it that John Rittenbaugh allowed a man who seduced 16 teenage daughters and 8 of their mothers in the WCG, continued his ways in Global, to end up as a minister in GCC? It was so bad that one minister bought a box of the first of "Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths" and distributed them to those who had him as a minister.

When a minister brought this the headquarters, the reaction was "But he gives such good sermons".

This should tell us a great deal about ACoGs who don't bother to vet their ministers and don't pay attention to Scripture while selecting them. There are too many ministers who are stalkers and pedophiles. A little qualification (as in "having a good report of them that are without") would go a long way.

But what can you expect: The CGG is just another cult of the ACoGs whose existence is all about the .1% at the top. Well, if the congregation is small enough, the 1% then. Or in some groups it's the 2% or 4% (one of which was mentioned recently in this blog).

Why doesn't The Journal report these things?

DennisCDiehl said...

John was sent to Greenville , SC, he even bought a house there, but then to Charlotte instead and I went to Greenville. Greenville owes me! lol

Anonymous said...

I've been power-watching "The Americans", an FX series on some Russian KGB spies living as a family in the USA during the Cold War.

A young woman working off her sentence for treasonable acts committed during her stay in the USA is explaining to another prisoner how you break the power of the communist officials. You don't accept anything they give to you, including their help. You don't allow them to get close. They then have no leverage, and they know it. This actually works in an Armstrongite setting, as well. It is how I was able to break my family's power over me. The reason Ritenbaugh's family is enslaved as described by 10:13 is most likely that they still believe that John has a special relationship with God and speaks for Him. That myth is what gives all of the Armstrong despots their power over others.

Anonymous said...

And on and on we go, Take a breath Dennis.

Anonymous said...

It is as I've said, 2:10. Dennis is obsessed. He has a different perspective from Malm, Thiel, Flurry, or Pack, but he too has his message and agenda, and often grasps at straws.

Anonymous said...

I spoke to someone at the Feast 2016 who has a true, credible ministry with Kenyan brethren. He gave a presentation last night as part of the Feast. He leaves his wife and children at home and goes there at least once yearly for a few months at a time. He told me today that he once asked for some financial assistance from CGG to help with his ministry and was refused, even though CGG apparently has something like $200K+ in the bank as well as stocks and bonds. He was told they would not be able to help him because he was not a member of their group. This was very shocking to me and my wife. This also brings to mind the totally Un-Christian and greedy behavior of virtually all the corporate churches. It also reminds me of these scriptures:

Prov. 21:13 Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard. (MKJV)

Matt. 25:41-45
41 Then He also shall say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink;
43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; I was naked, and you did not clothe Me; I was sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me.
44 Then they will also answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to You?
45 Then He shall answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. (MKJV)

The corporate churches, including CGG, are in terrible shape. They are all dying a slow spiritual death and will be held accountable for their lack of love and lack of compassion for those who are in grave need, both physically and spiritually.