Dennis Says: The Apostle David C. Pack is NOT Spoken of in the ...

...or anywhere else in the Bible for that matter.  

It is hard for me to personally fathom any current living human being looking into the Old Testament and , sure enough, seeing themselves spoken of by the prophets.  We all are familiar with the "look back into the Bible" approach and like millions before us, have been deceived by the ego centric Bible Babblers and our own desire to believe, do and practice the correct things in the true church.  It takes only the study of reality, history and an open mind to realize there never was one true Church, ever.  The splits over the who and what of Jesus started before the body started to cool.  If you believe the characters in the New Testament , Peter, James, John and Paul all spoke the same thing and even tolerated each other at times, you would be wrong.  The men and on occasion, women, who have seen their times and themselves spoken of in scripture probably runs into the tens of thousands over the past 2500 years.  Mental hospitals are filled with every character you think of from Adam to Moses, Joshua to Jesus.  As I have said before, I have met 23 of the Two Witnesses of Revelation in my lifetime.   Most in mental hospitals or out on farms.

!00% of them were 100% wrong 100% of the time to date.  Their time will run out as well and then they can be added to the list.  I'll throw good intentioned in there to be kind, but what kind of a man sees HIMSELF spoken of in the scriptures?  That is simply an amazing study to me in all sorts of aberrant thinking, the outcome of which gives birth to even more skepticism in the minds of people who at least can learn from such insanity.

Old Testament Prophets always speak to their own times.  They are trying as best they can to explain what has happened to their nation.  In the case of the Nation of Israel, the prophets took the opportunity to blame the sins of the people and rejection by God for it all.  Actually the armies of the surrounding nations were bigger and better.   If you have ears to hear, the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah was not Jesus of the New Testament.  It was either Israel or Isaiah himself as he viewed his role in being a "major" prophet in Israel.  I realize that showing New Testament writers used a writing style called Midrash , which is looking back into the past to explain the confusing present, as the technique  they used to cobbled the New Testament story together, but that takes a desire to realize things are not as you have been taught. 

Try this for starters if you are interested at all in learning the bigger picture of how the Bible was constructed and the stories put together.

For example,the Gospel writer Matthew, puts together the entire birth story of Jesus by seeking out Old Testament scriptures he can weave a tale into about a birth he actually knew nothing about.  In his "thus it was fulfilled" stories of Jesus, Matthew misrepresents the original meaning of the Old Testament to make it mean what he wants it to mean to tell a story.  His Virgin Birth story, taken from Isaiah  is an example of this classic cut and paste method which leaves Matthew open to much criticism and skepticism.  Isaiah 7 has NOTHING to do with Jesus. It had everything to do with Isaiah's time.  ( Luke's story of Jesus birth was totally different and you can see he NEVER read Matthew's tale before he wrote his.)   Matthew is good at this proof-texting until he gets to misquoting the OT and having Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two donkeys rather than one.  No problem.  The other Gospel writers saw his mistake and corrected it.  That one story alone proves the Gospel stories of Matthew are made up from Old Testament scriptures and were nothing he actually knew or witnessed.  But hat's another story.

The unknown story of how Jesus died was well served by Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 neither of which had anything to do with Jesus at the time nor were ever intended to.  But they were great for mining and Gospel writers did it often. All that came later in the form of Midrash. If you don't know what Midrash is, you OWE it to yourself to understand it. You'll never hear it explained in church.

Back to Prophets.   All OT prophets speak to their own times.  They don't speak to times in which none of them will live to see. They may project hope into the time to come as do and did we all, but they speak to their own times. 

Church of God members are so used to thinking, "well yeah, that was a type but the fulfillment is what is happening in my Church and today," that they just can't see the point.  They also don't see that there are many failed OT prophecies and explain them away with "well, they just haven't happened yet."  In the Church of God, soon, shortly, the time now is, the day is far spent and so on, do not mean what they mean.  They get a 2000 year hiatus before they mean in this time yet again it is short.  "This Generation" doesn't meant that generation.  It means MY CURRENT GENERATION, which it didn't back then. The mind is a trickster when it comes to making things mean what one needs them to mean rather than what they actually mean and meant.  Since it didn't happen for them, it must mean us.

Hard facts to accept at face value:

Jesus was wrong about himself at times and how it would all work out for him and his  disciples.

Peter, James and John were wrong about it would all work out for them and their communities of believers

Paul was terribly wrong about "we who are alive and remain..." and much of the advice that the sincere took literally which disrupted their lives and relationships was also wrong advice.

The Book of Revelation, written by Jewish Christian for Jewish Christians in the siege of Jerusalem was wrong about how it all would work out for them.  The Romans won and did it in 8 months not three and half years.

Now I know well the need for us in our time to fall back to "it was a type," but back then, it was never envisioned to be a type only for the far distant fulfillment.  One must make the leap from their reality to our hope their reality was a mere type to do that. 

Now to the heart of the matter.  Apostle Dave Pack is NOT spoken of in the Minor Prophets.  Nor is That Prophet Gerald Flurry nor was HWA or GTA....EVER. Certainly Non-Prophet Robert Thiel isn't.  (I, however am.  I am a scoffer but only because I am an observer of what does not happen and is not so).  I know what's coming in the Apostle Dave's yet to be explain presentations.  I have reread the these minor prophets and it's obvious what is coming. Anyone who has any history with WCG can read Haggai and Zachariah and see exactly what's coming.  I can tell you who is going to end up as who in this upcoming tale weaving and how all the types, fulfillments and delusions are going to be explained.  The actual stories are about Israel coming back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity but hey....great stuff to be manipulated over weeks of wear you out letters and sermons to make it mean what it never meant and doesn't mean.  The stories have lots of room for the mistaken idea that all the splinters will come back again into one place, the Restored Church of God and under one leader, Apostle David C Pack.  Nice analogy.  Totally bogus.  I can't speak to sincerity of belief or teaching, but I can speak to ignorance.

I no longer feel sorry for Restored or Philadelphia Church of God hangers on.  There is so much information available to you outside of your small circle and one man shows that there is no excuse to get hooked into something that simply is not so.  Has the Apostle Pack sought council and advice on his views?  Has there been a multitude of counsel in which lies safety over these ego centric, "Yes yes!!!  The Bible speaks of me right here!" musings soon to be truths for you?  I doubt it.  What kind of men would put their stamp of approval on such malarkey?  Has one stood up and said they don't buy it and been allowed to stay?  Doubt it. 

So here is what is going to happen.  Like you being convinced "And yes, I am an Apostle," which took hours of type, analogy and self promotion before that was proclaimed, you better hold onto your sore butts again.  The wear you down with more analogies, types and Mr. Armstrong this and that is underway.  You are going to be numbed into acceptance, unless of course you aren't going to accept it and I advice you not to based on the real meanings, background and history of those books you will be soaking in.  It can sound plausible if you take any of the Minor Prophets actually leading up to the Apostle David.  But plausible is a slippery slope. Ten thousand religious guru types could and probably already have used the very same arguments to make the same erroneous points about their own ministry and mission.  Most are dead now. 

A scripture can never mean what it never meant.  You are about to learn the truth of that statement in spades as you see scripture wrestled into doing just that. 

Why do I bother with this.  I honestly can't question anyone's sincerity.  I believe Ron Weinland probably believes his own misguided, misspoken and misinterpreted views about the Bible and himself.  He's paid dearly for his foolishness in taking people's money to do his work.  But i hate ignorance and manipulation that leads to pain and suffering for yet more sincere people who trust too much, study outside the box too little and believe everything one human being over them tells them.  How many times do we have to learn that lesson? 

I have known Mr. Dave Pack since he was 20 years old.  Winning is everything and it actually is all about the numbers.  

 I personally believe that some of the OT prophet types were probably mentally ill  and what today we call schizophrenia , temporal lobe epilepsy and a host of other human conditions , they called "inspired."  Strange people and behaviors in history could easily be mistaken for spirituality then, but illness today.  I believe with all my heart that a man with mental illness can hide much more easily in a church setting than in a corporate setting.  Visions and interpretations of scripture can be seen more as obedience and spirituality rather than the actual mental disorder they may be.  Dictators who would be either highly promoted in the corporate world (by those like them) or cast out can hide better in ministry as their quirky and maddening ways can be seen as some kind of weird Bible strength.   "Well Ezekiel cooked food with his own dung laid siege to a frying pan, so I'm just like Ezekiel," really doesn't work well today.  Making oneself correct by analogy is not the same as actually being correct.

So, whatever the Apostle Dave presents will be well presented.  It will be done meticulously over many  weeks and finally hours.  And it will be wrong.  The Minor Prophets never spoke of Herbert Armstrong no matter what he or Gerald Waterhouse speculated about.  Dave is only an Apostle because he has claimed he is. NO ONE ELSE outside of himself thinks that is so. Any new titles such as "And yes brethren, I am Joshua," is just silly.   The Minor Prophets are not speaking to or laying any groundwork for the Apostle Dave to appropriate to himself and use yet again to promote himself as special and his sliver as the one true church on earth. 

That is just nuts and I hope you will do your homework well before you end up a few years from now writing about your incredible and painful experience as I do today about my own.    In my view, those who become most skeptical had once been the most sincere.  If you are going to have an experience you may as well share the lessons learned.  Experience is not only the best teacher, it is the only one. Everything else is hearsay.  I just don't like seeing others get hurt in the process of outgrowing foolish beliefs and being discouraged from being yourself in this life.  You do not have to ever filter your life, thoughts or beliefs through another human being or see the world only through their eyes.  History warns us of that mistake.

IMHO

denniscdiehl@AOL.com