Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Is Gerald Flurry Preparing His Gullible Followers to Build Satellite TV Stations in Petra?

The two witnesses ready to go forth with the Arab translator.

God's greatest Church of God leader ever (after Dave Pack, of course) is Gerald Flurry.  All knowledge is revealed through Gerald.  His god has personally handed him several books to write and the rest were dictated by him directly from his god's mouth.

Gerald is back today with an article about The Place of Safety, The World Tomorrow in Embryo.

Is Gerald preparing his flock to flee once again?  He did this previously and people sold homes, cars, and businesses to send to the church.  Like Dave Pack's recent epic prophetic failure, Gerald's failed also.  Of course in the 80 some year of Armstrongism every single Church of God leader has been one epic failure after another.  Prophecies have failed over and over through the decades, yet the gullible still give them  money.

Gerald writes:

If you knew God’s people were to be in a place of safety, what would you think they would be doing? God has a great plan wherever He has His people, and He always has a tremendous Work for them to do. This place of safety will not be an exception.

During the Great Tribulation, many people will be hopeless, suffering as never before—and they’re going to need hope. God has a plan to give them this hope, certainly when He begins the Millennium, but also, even during the Tribulation. God has a vision for this world, and the people in the place of safety during the Tribulation will be developing this vision like it has never been developed before on this earth. It will cause the whole world to look and see how to build and beautify this earth—to make it blossom as a rose. This will all begin while God has His people in a place of safety.

Gerald still thinks he and his little group will be the only ones in Petra.  The silly man failed to remember that most other COG's think they will be there too.  Who's going to be over Petra?  Gerald? Thiel? Pack?  Weinland?  The tribulation will be happening inside Petra while they all fight with each other over who is the rightful true leader of the Petraites.

Some COG's have rejected the Petra myth, others like Gerald still embrace it.  Gerald has this to say about Petra:

One thing we know about the place of safety just from reading Revelation is that it’s in the wilderness. Isaiah was written so we could understand this book in these latter days (Isaiah 30:8). Notice this prophecy:

“Let the wilderness of the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar does inhabit let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord, and declare his praise in the islands” (Isaiah 42:11-12). Kedar refers to the Bedouin Arabs. “Rock” in the Hebrew is Sela, meaning a great rocky fortress. Sela translated into Greek is Petra.

Gerald has take the Petra escapades one step further than the rest of the COG's.  Even Dave Pack failed to think of this.  Gerald is going to have electricity, satellite transmissions, and computer technology emanating as a witness to the world from his cave in Petra.  Poor Dave, humiliated once again by another COG leader.  Poor thing!

This passage in Isaiah goes on to talk about the return of Christ. There is a chronology here. God says there is going to be a work going on in this great rocky fortress—this place of safety. His people are in a wilderness where there are Bedouin Arabs. The inhabitants of this rocky fortress are going to give glory to God. This means they know the true God; that’s why they are there. They trusted the true God to take them there, and they are singing and shouting to Him.
While Gerald and lil'Stevie are gallivanting around Jerusalem as the two witless witnesses, a small group of Gerald's minions will be sending out broadcasts from Petra. To do this they will need studios, electricity, recording equipment, Internet access, and much much more.
In this place of safety, this great rocky fortress, God’s people “declare his praise in the islands.” There certainly are no islands in the wilderness areas of the Middle East—especially in the area of Jordan. So there’s some kind of a work going on from the wilderness, something more than just what the two witnesses are doing during the Great Tribulation (Revelation 11:3-12). God has a message and these people are declaring it, probably via satellite and other technological means. A powerful Work will be done somehow.
So who is this great message going to?  England and the rest of Europe, none other that Gerald's lost 12 tribes of Israel.  They will be so in awe of Gerald's fabulous work in Petra that they will know first hand that Gerald is the true one.  Gerald and his minions will be making the desert "bloom like a rose."

Now who will declare His praise in the islands? The Bedouin Arabs? No. God’s Laodicean Church? Of course not. They are spewed out and will go through the Tribulation because of their rebellion toward God and because they were overthrown in the spiritual wilderness as ancient Israel was physically. They had the truth and then they lost it.

God says, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise” (Isaiah 43:19-20). In context, you’ll see this is during a time of great suffering. God is giving drink to His chosen, and He is making the desert blossom as a rose, even before the Millennium.

With Gerald ready to drop millions of dollars in buying a mansion in England for a new cult college, how is he going to fund TV studios, internet access and electricity INSIDE Petra?  Will he be living in the luxury hotels outside the entrance to Petra?  What kind of lies will he tell the Jordanian authorities to get them to do this? The silliness of this myth gets worse every year.

You can read his entire article here:  The Place of Safety: The World Tomorrow In Embryo!


19 comments:

  1. Gerald Flurry and David Pack will find their secret place and safety in the grave looooong before any other place of safety.

    COG types never liked "Hide me in the grave til thy wrath be passed" much. Job 14:13

    Humor me on my prophetic skills...

    HWA is dead
    GTA is dead
    Gerald Waterhouse is dead
    Dean Blackwell is dead
    Hermann Hoeh is dead
    Gerald flurry is...
    Dave Pack is...
    Ron Weinland is...

    I think we can predict a trend here.

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  2. In a way, this is interesting. Mainstream Christian evangelists have been embracing new technologies for some time now, and suddenly we see an ACOG splinter leader jumping on the band wagon, but applying it in an Armstrongish way to Petra.

    I wonder how far he will get in his set up. Perhaps he'll run across some of the Bibles left by the first Petra theorists for the Jews, back in the 1930s.

    BB

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  3. The Petra area has really moved up in the world, and has become fairly well developed.

    Check out this website of high end restaurants, coffee bars, 5 Star accomadations and more at Petra now!

    http://www.moevenpick-hotels.com/en/middle-east/jordan/petra/resort-petra/restaurants/

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  4. Many movies have been shot in Petra. And these Armstrongites expect that going there will save them? It is just madness. Sheer silliness.

    -------

    "All knowledge is revealed through Gerald."

    That is pretty much what Gerald Flurry teaches. He says that God only works through one man at a time. Before 1986 that one man was HWA, now he says it is himself, Gerald Flurry. But he tends to say this in an indirect way that outsiders would not easily see. He even refers to himself as "God's man".

    "This government of God is the hope of the world. This is how
    God would solve all the world’s problems, even today, if they
    would heed His message. IT ALL REVOLVES AROUND FINDING GOD’S
    MAN!" (Gerald Flurry, Jeremiah and the Greatest Vision in the Bible, current version, p. 52.)

    "God's man" here refers to Gerald Flurry himself.

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  5. I hope no one is stupid enough to actually go to Petra because I can't think of any way that could end well.

    For one thing, you can bet your a$$ that Gerald Flurry is not going to foot the bill for any of his followers to make that trip.

    Can you imagine being stranded in Jordan without enough money left to even go home?

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  6. The COG's believe in the "place of safety(Petra)". The main-stream Christians believe in the rapture.

    Free yourselves from all this crazy nonsense.

    This is the craziness that religion offers us.

    Flee to sanity. Flee religion!

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  7. It will never happen, of course, but Flurry can keep the dream alive for purposes of fleecing the sheep with dizzyingly new fantasies about the wonderful world tomorrow in Petra as an interim until they get the good stuff.

    Another Gerald has set the way: Gerald Waterhouse predicted a golf course in Petra (where he would play, of course) during the Great Tribulation -- where the only tribulation he might suffer is losing to a better golfer.

    So all Flurry has to do is embellish the deception. Where is all the water going to come from? You are 'way ahead of me on this one: He will strike a rock and water will flow out of it! Yes, and his engineers will build a hydroelectric plant! That way there will be water and electricity! It's a miracle!

    Then everything will flow (if you pardon the pun) from this water from the Rock! Air conditioning! TV! Irrigation! Power for the power tools to build! Smelting plants! Why it's going to be more industrial than Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union!

    Only one drawback here.

    As has been pointed out, Gerald Waterhouse.

    Well, maybe Stephan Flurry will hold the key to the gates of Hell... uh, Petra for those waiting to enter into the fabulous rich wealthy era of prosperity during the Great Tribulation while the rest of the world is in abject misery.

    But then where will the second witness come from? Does Stephan have a son?

    I think I see a flaw in this reasoning....

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  8. During the Great Tribulation, many people will be hopeless, suffering as never before—and they’re going to need hope. God has a plan to give them this hope, certainly when He begins the Millennium, but also, even during the Tribulation. God has a vision for this world, and the people in the place of safety during the Tribulation will be developing this vision like it has never been developed before on this earth. It will cause the whole world to look and see how to build and beautify this earth—to make it blossom as a rose. This will all begin while God has His people in a place of safety.

    Again to reiterate:

    As long as there is the PCg and Gerald Flurry's tyrant so called ministers NOT following Christ's teachings there is NEVER going to be hope FOR ANYONE ON PLANET EARTH, only suffering...forever!

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  9. "...something more than just what the two witnesses are doing during the Great Tribulation (Revelation 11:3-12)."

    Flurry's arrogance is making chopped liver out the two anointed ones well before their time.

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  10. It's easy:

    The Flurrys are liars.

    They lie without any conscience whatsoever and will continue to do so as long as they keep apparently avoiding any consequences for their abject lies.

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  11. >>Where is all the water going to come from? You are 'way ahead of me on this one: He will strike a rock and water will flow out of it! Yes, and his engineers will build a hydroelectric plant! That way there will be water and electricity! It's a miracle!<<

    And the stone in question will be the Stone of Destiny. The one used in the coronation of the British Monarch. Flurry says it is the pillar Jacob anointed while he was fleeing to Laban.

    In his booklet, The Key of David, Chapter 7, Flurry speculates that PCG will keep the Stone of Destiny for safe keeping during the days of the Great Tribulation.

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  12. Yes, Petra -- the wilderness location so remote that it's practically unknown anyone -- has its own website, complete with hotel and restaurant guides, a currency converter, entertainment information and more. Why, the locals refer to it as "Petra Park," not unlike Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon:

    http://www.visitpetra.jo/

    I'd give odds that the battle for the "Place of Safety" - at least in the mind of the two witlesses -- will come down to Edmond and Wadsworth.

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  13. Oh, well, you know, Art Braidic of the Eternal Church of God has the solution:

    When the time comes, angels will pick up the people destined to be in the Place of Safety and will safely deliver them there.

    I'm not sure, but after watching Syfy's Dominion, I have some questions....

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  14. Thanks for some great comments on this post. I guess the ever moving mythical “carrot dangling in front of the tithe slave dumb sheep” strikes a nerve with all us. After all, wasn’t Petra – a place of safety – the reward of the Philadelphian era “elect” accounted worthy to escape the Great Tribulation and Devine protection? Didn’t the WCG preach that those who would be accounted worthy to escape all these things would be taken by the wings of an eagle to Petra Place of Safety?

    Here is the Plain Truth:

    Sometime in the 1950s, Loma D. Armstrong (Herbert’s 1st wife) saw a picture of Petra’s caves on the cover of a National Geographic Magazine. She made the offhand comment that Petra would be a good place for God’s place of safety during the tribulation. Someone over heard the comment, repeated it and through time Loma’s comment became the Radio/Worldwide Church of God’s Petra Place of Safety doctrine. It’s amusing to me that an offhand fantasy comment by Loma Armstrong in the 1950s is still being promoted by the Herbert Armstrong “wannabees” almost 70 years later as if Petra itself has stayed stagnate all these many years just like the minds of the Armstronites themselves. Petra has been developed as Connie Schmidt points out.

    The truth is “a place of safety” can be your own home – wherever it may be located on the planet!

    Richard
    Lake of Fire Church of God

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  15. Loma is the cause of two major COG developments.

    The nightmare she had is what started HWA into is mind boggling 6 months of "bible" study where he discovered the lost message that he found could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The other is the Petra malarkey. If it had not been for her nightmare the COG would never have existed and HWA would have been just another failed salesman.

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  16. Funny how the place-of-safety proponents always skim over the critical verse concerning who will be taken to the place of safety, Rev 12:13: "the woman who gave birth to the male Child." If you think that the church of God gave birth to Jesus, you are an idiot. If you think the Philadelphia era of the church of God gave birth to Jesus, you are a complete idiot. The church of God is the saints mentioned in verse 17 (compare to Rev 14:12).

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  17. Once again, there were contemporaries of HWA and Loma who either held to this same belief, or had originated it.

    nabataea.net/mfp.html

    According to military experts quoted on the Nabataea site, tactically speaking, Petra is very vulnerable, with very shallow caves, not even viable as a place of safety or refuge.

    The concept of Petra is just as outdated as British Israelism, or the idea that one can actually avoid unclean meats.

    BB

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  18. In a PBS special that aired last month, Petra's many caves are tombs. How fitting.

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  19. Petra the place of safety? They would be sitting docks for terrorists.

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