Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Dennis Leap: All Children Outside of the PCG are Cut Off from God



Of all the people in the Philadelphia Church of God for some reason, Dennis Leap is the one who writes about children the most.  This time his is expounding on the PCG's stance on children of members and their standing with the god of PCG.  Like almost every article that PCG publishes, Leap uses old worn out comments by Herbert Armstrong is if they were some kind of "gospel truth."

Unable to ever make a theological decision on their own, they have to rely on HWA's public library training as the foundation for their "truth's."

PCG believes that their children and only their children have access to God.  All other children who have the misfortune of not being born into the PCG are cut off from access to God, or at least the god of the PCG.  Even then there is a qualification for PCG members, only children of TRULY CONVERTED PCG members have access to that god.

All of those cute little babies of UCG, LCG, RCG, COGWA and the improperly named "continuing" Church of God are damned to utter destruction during the end times for not being PCG.  The god of PCG only loves PCG babies and none others. Even Bob Thiel's double blessing cannot save his follower's children.
We need to take in the significance of what Christ has established through Mr. Armstrong. This truth holds incredible meaning for our children. Our children are not cut off from God. They have access to God. This means that our children are in a different category than all other children on the planet! Of course, God loves all the children in this world—John 3:16 tells us that—but God is only working closely with our children at this time.
Mr. Armstrong wrote, “While other people—not members of the true body of Christ—and all other children are cut off from access to God, your children—if you are a truly converted member of God’s Churchcan believe in Christ—are not cut off from God—and much of God’s truth, even though as yet too young to be converted. But they are a special treasure to God!” (ibid). Do we get what Mr. Armstrong is teaching here? Children of members can have a relationship with Christ and come to understand God’s truth because of their parents’ calling. Mr. Armstrong adds that they are a special treasure to God. How inspiring, exciting and thrilling! Do we realize what a sacred treasure our children are? Our Sacred Children: How well do you understand what God has given His Church concerning child rearing?
Part of the reason so many children are cut off from God is that Satan entered their mind as soon as they were born and now controls everything they do.
Here is the revealed knowledge necessary to deeply understand child rearing. Mr. Armstrong continued in the same article, “To understand, you need to know all about the spirit in man and how it operates. You need to know precisely what is human nature. You need to know how Satan operates—especially on children. You need to know in what manner God has set you—and your children—apart from this world.
“You need to know at what age Satan gets into your child’s mind. You need to know whether your child has access to God ….” You will not find these truths explained in any book from a bookstore. These are the deep thoughts of God that have been graciously given to us to use (1 Corinthians 2:10-12). We must study, believe, think about and learn to apply each of these in our family life.
The "deep thoughts of God?"  Seriously?

Mr. Armstrong stated, “Now see how that applies to the children of converted parents. It does not mean they may be converted while still too young. It does mean they are not, like children of unconverted parents, cut off from God. It means that they may be taught about God by the believing parent” (ibid). Teaching about God and His purpose for mankind is the most important aspect of child rearing. Let’s expend some effort to understand the magnitude of this statement.
Here’s the point. Why should our young children be taught about God? Because God makes it possible for them to understand the truth! Do we get it? Our children can grasp the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Our children can know that God is a family into which they can be born. Our little toddlers can be taught to realize that God is offering them the opportunity to rule the universe. People in this world have such great difficulty accepting these wonderful truths of God because their minds are full of religious error. When parents faithfully do their part, a little child is able to grow up without being subjected to Satan’s religious deceit. Keeping our children’s minds free of error gives them an incredible edge in preparation for the Kingdom of God.
Mr. Armstrong continued, “Your children are in a special (consecrated) category. You may teach them about Christ—about the things of the Bible. Their chances of being converted when sufficiently mature are multiplied!” (ibid). Are we giving our children the full advantage that God wants them to have? We must never leave this kind of teaching to chance, or expect that our children will somehow get it by themselves. It takes vision, preparation and effort. All parents must have an organized plan for instructing their children.
I guess no parent outside the COG can teach their children about Jesus and God.  More idiotic malarkey. I know a gay couple who's kids know more about Jesus than 99.9% of the PCG members do.

Even with all of their self-righteous chest thumping, PCG admits it is unable to keep all of its youth in the church:
From time to time we are confronted with young people who leave the pcg. This is a hard thing for parents and the ministry alike. We must all examine ourselves to see where we can do a better job. It is true that every child will not necessarily come into God’s Church. God has given every human the freedom to make a choice. Yet we must ensure that our teaching is not the cause. We are the last-hour generation. It is the time of Satan’s greatest wrath (Revelation 12:12). We witness the evil of man coming to its full expression, bringing tremendous pressure on us and our children. It is not an easy time. This is reality.
Their solution to this is to publicly mark the children or teen or tell its parents to take it to the mall and leave it behind.

Yet there is still marvelous hope. Mr. Armstrong wrote, “Although Satan is going to influence your children, almost from birth, toward his selfish and rebellious attitude, you may counteract this by teaching your children the truth about God! And when sufficiently adult they will be called. None of this is true of children outside truly converted parents!” (ibid). We should be as positive as Mr. Armstrong. Let’s never forget that we have the power of the Almighty God behind us and our children!
Being the last-hour generation gives us some incredible advantages. With so many prophecies being fulfilled and such excitement in the Work, we are not at a loss for rousing examples to teach our youth. We can easily demonstrate how God works both in this world and in His Church. Do you see that we have a unique opportunity to make God real for our children?
How can a personality cult like PCG claim to make God and Jesus real to their children when they ignore Jesus as a church?

Dennis Leap's nonsense is just as big a lie as the one promoted by HWA and others that claim there are no real Christians outside the Church of God movement.  Sadly many COG members to this day still believe this malarkey.

12 comments:

SHT said...

Unrelenting arrogance and uncompromising bull. This is the same stuff that Armstrong would preach at SEP to that generation. Who grew up. Who have children. And grandchildren.

That whole load of crock "Yes, Jesus loves them, but they're cut off" - absolute trash. The man has no clue what he's talking about, speaking out of unjust pride and delusion. He's throwing all the children under the bus that Jesus said "Let them come to me."

I'd "leap" away from that church as fast as possible.

Anonymous said...

So all of Bob Thiel's little African babies are now lost too. What a bummer!

Anonymous said...

What? Children are influenced by Satan to be selfish and rebellious. How dare they not sacrifice themselves for the Fatherland and blindly obey the FĂĽhrer. Zieg Heil.

Anonymous said...

The PCG are the ones "cut off from God"!

Anonymous said...

"exclusiveness" is quite common amongst the many religions of the world....

believing something doesn't make it true.

Anonymous said...

Their official position is that everyone who isn't part of their church, has fallen away. They must know this to be untrue, a lie.

Unknown said...

BUT THAT DOES NOT MATCH UP WITH THE SONG!???...


Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world
Jesus cares for all the children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus cares for the children of the world
Jesus came to save the children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
They're all precious in His sight
Jesus came to save the children of the world
Jesus came to save the children of the world
Jesus came to save the children of the world

SHT said...

Connie -

I can absolutely hear HWA in my head at that song.

"Oh, what POPPYCOCK! Jesus is NOT trying to SAVE THIS WORLD! This world is CUT OFF from GOD! GOD has sentenced manking to 6,000 YEARS CUT OFF FROM HIM! Now, God IS working with the children of the PARENTS of the Church. But those who are NOT in this Church will have their opportunity later! And those of you who think differently simply do not understand GOD or what He is DOING!"

And then he'd go into a diatribe as to how evil children are from birth, and do not have God's Spirit, and cannot know God, and how God is only working with a few, and how the only children God are concerned with are in the Church. Continuing with my imagination:

"YOU CHILDREN of the CHURCH are special! You've been set APART! In a few years, YOU will be helping to reshape this planet! YOU have a PURPOSE in bringing forth the wonderful WORLD TOMORROW! All the other children do not have the opportunity you kids in God's Church HAVE! So I'm telling you now, so you can either accept this opportunity, because that opportunity isn't given to anybody out in the world. GOD HAS GIVEN THIS OPPORTUNITY TO YOU TO BRING FORTH HIS KINGDOM!"

And all the other children are worthless, pity-brained, wild animal like creatures under the spell of the devil - so he'd like us to think.

Jesus Christ meant nothing more to Herbert Armstrong than a messenger who only came to say what he's going to do 2,0000 years later - and would send Herbert Armstrong right before he came to warn the world, completely ignoring and whiting out everything he accomplished on the Cross. Herbert Armstrong denied Jesus, and counterfeited Jesus' plan for a "master plan" of his own mind. All the children AND adults of the world are important and invited for salvation through God's Spirit - no matter what Herbert, or Gerald, or anyone out there in that Oklahoma cesspool says.

P.S. Whiteout is an old thing people used to do on their typewriters when they had to delete something they typed and type over. There was no double entendre intended.

Anonymous said...

These ACOG members must surely realize that their churches do inflict personal damage. When are they going to realize that the damage far outweighs the good, and their church can never deliver on the “carrot” items they promise in the first place?

Anonymous said...

Dennis Leap (and others from PCG who come here to dip their holy toes in our amazing waters),

I found this quote from the article to be rather amusing:

"From time to time we are confronted with young people who leave the pcg. This is a hard thing for parents and the ministry alike. We must all examine ourselves to see where we can do a better job. It is true that every child will not necessarily come into God’s Church. God has given every human the freedom to make a choice. Yet we must ensure that our teaching is not the cause."


As one who left your organization as a young person (and who has interacted with many more young people who have left too), your teachings are the very reasons we left. If you really wanted to examine yourselves to see where you can do a better job, perhaps offer exit surveys to folks leaving? Or at least try not to be so cruel, mean and evil to anyone who leaves. Figure out why they are leaving and then trying to have outreach programs for them instead of cutting them off completely might actually help you retain more young people and in the process, fix up your messed up teachings (hopefully)!!

Anonymous said...

Another lie that the ACOGs teach 'under the table' is that in the kingdom, the 144,000 will follow Herb where ever he goes. Not Christ, but Herb. God the Father and Christ will be figureheads like todays queen of England, with the real power residing with Herb and his minions. These ministers will tell Christ to mind his own business and go fishing. A repeat of Israel rejecting God and asking for a king.

Anonymous said...

PS, the proof of post 3.19 PM is that church literature has never mentioned (I've been reading it since the mid 1960s) Christ directly leading individual church members. That's the significance of the veil in the holy of holies splitting in two on Christ's death. No middlemen ministers are required. In fact, following Christ's direct lead is part of a persons baptismal vow. Again, hidden by the ministers. All that the members get from the church is some water downed 'you are following Christ by following/'obeying' the minister/church leader.' Christ's authority was usurped by Herb and his henchman, and still so to this very day.
So members get endless 'obey, yield, surrender, submit,' but Christ has been pushed away. So they are not 'administering Gods government.' They are only administering their own power lust.