For well over 70 years now Rod Meredith has been bellowing about government, control and authority from the top down. It has always been more important him to use power to lord it over people than to be a serving servant to the people. On top of that he is not even a true shepherd of the flock. He doesn't care about even the least of his members.
Satan always seems to be on the warpath against Meredith for some reason. Of all the hundreds and hundreds of Churches of God out there to wage war against, Satan always has to pick on Meredith and crew.Every few years I hear from some of our men on the West Coast, and elsewhere it's happening – some back in the Midwest – but every few years Satan comes around stirring up people to try to argue about counting Pentecost, or counting the Passover, or they talk about the sacred names or something like that. They manage to get upset about something and it seems like it goes in cycles; a few year will go by then the same thing will pop up that we discussed with Mr. Armstrong, and sometimes even back then the whole Council of Elders, and thought it was all settled. But people get mixed up on these things and we do need to have strong leadership in God's Church, and a strong understanding of these things to keep our balance. Because Satan is going to come at us with all kinds of things to think about and get upset about, believe me.
In his sermon he rambles on with a lot of incoherent babble till he gets to this. Apparently some in the LCG are getting sucked back into the mythology of the sacred names and new moons legalism. This is another one of his reason to enforce authority upon his members and rule with an iron hand. He validates his authority by claiming the scriptures were translated wrong and inserts his interpretation so as to give credence to LCG overlords deciding what is right or wrong.
The weekly Sabbath, coming every seventh day, is a type of the Millennium. The 7,000-year period, a time to rest from sin, it's definitely a type of that. And of course the annual Holy Days picture, step by step, various aspects of the plan of God, and so they "are a shadow of things to come, but the body…" or, "the substance," it says, "is of Christ." And the Greek word here, brethren, in this verse 17 – look it up yourself – is soma, s-o-m as in Mary, s-o-m-a. Now that same word exactly is used back in this same book, here in verse 18 of chapter 1; it talks about Christ being the head of the Church, "He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence." The Greek word is "body." it means the basic physical structure. So it talks about that being, of course, applied to God's Church; we are the physical structure that God is using today. When Christ was on Earth he had his own physical body; he does not have a physical body today, he works through us, we are his body. So don't let any substance or something like that judge you, but the body of Christ. And when you understand it makes sense; the Bible is not translated correctly here, it's talking about the body of Christ. Who judges you? The body of Christ. Who leads the body of Christ? The ministry, as we'll see as we go through this chapter and this whole subject. The ministry leads the body, and so the Church makes decisions as to how we keep – we don't change the Holy Days – but we make decisions about when they're held and where they're held, and we make decisions about what we can eat or not eat, or if we're going to have snacks or not have snacks, or all kinds of things to do with the body and with the Church of God and how we observe these Holy Days. So don't let any man judge you, but the body, the structure, the body of Christ which is the Church of God. And so that's an important thing to understand in this passage: the body of Christ does have that authority and they are given that authority by God.
So there you have it folks! No man can judge you, but the church certainly can! The church has the right to tell you everything you will be doing. There are no exceptions to the rule.
He then continues whining about those that don't bring their doctrinal questions to the church and instead run to others that will actually listen to them. LCG members should never be running to theses people because God has set aside the MEN in the one and only true church to make all the decisions. MEN are to make the judgments in the Living Church of God. That's why Rod McNair, Meredith and others have turned into such tyrannical beasts of prey. They have been set into position of power where they assume they have all the answers and that the lowly members are nothing more than pond scum.
Now let's go to something we often refer to, but I want to talk about this aspect a lot today, turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 1 Corinthians (sipping tea) 1 Corinthians chapter 6 in your New Testament here, and you'll notice in verse 1 the apostle Paul tells the Christians, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?" You're to go before the Church of God when you have a disagreement about how to count the Passover, how to observe the Sabbath, how to keep the Holy Days, all kinds of things, but even if you have personal disputes we're to come there also. "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" Aren't you able to be judges? You're training to be judges forever in God's Kingdom. Know God's Church is to learn that today; all of you in this room are to learn that. "Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" We're going to judge the angelic hosts through all eternity if we're in God's family. "How much more, the things that pertain to this life? If then you have judgments concerning thing pertain to this life, do you appoint…" or some translations have it as applied, "WHY do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church…" Why do you go to outsiders who don't even know the truth; why would you have them try to be your judges? "I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren?" So we are to learn to be wise judges – God has intended that men know that – and that men are able to make judgments in the Church of God
Meredith and crew have the capability to make ALL the decisions in the LCG as to how church members are to believe. None dare question that mode of thinking because to do so is to question god himself.
Then to further intimidate LCG members, Meredith claims that everything he and his ministers do is bound in heaven. He also has the capability of stripping away LCG members salvation and standing with god, just because he says so, his god will do it in heaven. In other words, LCG members are eternally screwed!...we have to make binding decisions as to how to observe the Holy Days, what days they are to be observed upon, and all this kind of thing; whether we should eat or not eat, or how much and so on. So, "Whatever you bind on earth shall be loosed, whatever you loose on earth shall be bound."
In the above quote Meredith also claims to profess that members have the right to go to the church to have their voice heard. Sadly that has never been an avenues most LCG members could take without repercussions. The slamming down of hammer has been swift and severe against those that the church labels as trouble makers. LCG members have never had any recourse when McNair and others go on their purge campaigns. No recourse whatsoever!"Moreover if your brother sins against you…" now this is not just a judgment about Holy Days, this is a judgment about some personal offense; people are causing trouble – John starts flirting and carrying on with Joe's wife, and Joe's upset, what does he do? He could go punch John in the nose, but the right Christian thing to do is to go face to face with him [and] say, "You're gettin' too friendly BACK OFF, that's my wife," and if he won't back off you take one or two leading brethren with you – preferably two, "so in the mouth of two or three witnesses (it) will be established," whatever the offense is. So he says you're to do that and to have two or three witnesses. "And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church." Do you go announce it, do you ask Mr. McNair, "Can I make the announcement that Joe was bothering me?" No you don't do that, you tell it to the leadership of the church, and all the way through the Bible that's in fact what they did do. "Tell it to the church…" they are to make the judgment, "But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector." You don't have regular fellowship with him, he's not in the church anymore, he's deliberately left the church in his actions. "Assuredly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth…" Jesus Christ said, talking to his ministry, his leaders, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And I say to you…" verse 19, "that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name…" you see, to make some judgment, to be used by God. It doesn't mean whenever two or three brethren get together at a movie, or a skating rink, that he's with them in some special way – he's with us all the time – but he's especially those leaders who would be together in judgment. So he says, "I will be with them, whenever two or three are gathered together in My name…" in Christ's authority to make these judgments, "I am there in the midst of them." So Christ guides this as we shall see, and as God did all the way through the Bible, and we do need to clearly understand that.
