Over the decades there have been various crackpots that have come up with all kids of pet theories, wild speculations and outright lies. It is this same legacy that has allowed Bob Thiel and James Malm to flourish and find a few gullible members to join them. Liars have always found fertile ground in the Church of God. We have had lying false prophets that knew the exact timeline of prophetic prophecy.
We have had crack pots that claimed the egret found in front of he Auditorium were going to come alive, four of them would pick up the auditorium and the fifth would lead the way as they flew it to Petra. This idiot actually had people who followed him out of the church over this.
One of the crazy things that was swirling around Pasadena when I came to college was the belief by some that God had personally placed his name on the campus. That belief gained traction because of the street names surrounding the main campus.
Green Street
Orange Grove
Del Mar
St. John
When you take the first letter of each street you come up with this, "GODS," God's campus. God's church, God's college. You name it and some idiot claimed God was behind it.
That belief is still in existence today, even though God apparently abandoned the property a couple decades ago.
There is a new crackpot claiming to be God's mouthpiece, just like all the other COG face prophets out there. This guy is Lee Clark.
The streets cry out!As long as we're here let's apply the principle of using names to identify who Jesus is talking to in this letter. Notice that in verse 12 the word God is used exactly four times. Now did you know the following interesting bit of trivia? The Worldwide Church of God's Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, California, is bordered by four main streets. On the north is Green Street. On the west is Orange Grove. On the south is Del Mar. And on the east is St. John. These are all names of streets. Streets are places. Now if you take the first letter of each of the streets that border the campus, starting at the north and moving counterclockwise, they spell G-O-D-S. GODS!!!
Most will say that this is just coincidence. Is it?! I can heap so many coincidences like this on top of each other that after awhile anyone with a converted mind will only be able to conclude that God Himself is so powerful and intelligent and detail-oriented that He planned all these "coincidences" out some time long ago in the eternity that He inhabits and that when Jesus, who had been God in the flesh, dictated these letters to the apostle John, He knew exactly what He would raise up in the future. He knew down to names of the streets that He would have a Worldwide Church of God in Pasadena, California, USA, eighteen-and-a-half centuries down the road. And He named the streets this way to remind us of our destiny!
The guy is grasping straws for money.
ReplyDeleteAmbassador College? Isn't that the college where its leader Herbie, kept teaching the give way. That is, the responsible do all the giving, and the losers do all the getting.
ReplyDeleteYes, God makes mention of such Pharisee Colleges in Jeremiah 22.
Jeremiah. 22:13 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not his hire;
Its 'graduates' are stilt trying to shake off all the mis-programmimg and come to grips with concepts like rights.
The guy is all wet! The first letter of the four border streets should be Y,H,W, and H. The word "God" is much too generic.
ReplyDeleteBB
The "S" in the story, which is St Johns's. Was only extended to the Auditorium in 1971 when the highway was built. Before that the road behind what is now the Auditorium was called Vernon St I believe. (I could be wrong about the name Vernon but St Johns ended until 1971 a few blocks down the road. It is an old street but new behind the campus.
ReplyDeleteNow if there is any significance in St John it might be that the patron saint of the Masons had a street extended to the Auditorium at the moment "Micha's temple" was finished.
So perhaps this person can make some money investigating my claim above. Than he can truly strike the pot of gold.
nck
He is reading the street names in the wrong order. Should be read clockwise, starting with Del Mar. Then it becomes DOGS.
ReplyDeleteComment was made saying: "...I can heap so many coincidences like this on top of each other that after awhile anyone with a converted mind will only be able to conclude that God Himself is so powerful and intelligent and detail-oriented that He planned all these "coincidences" out some time long ago in the eternity that He inhabits and that when Jesus, who had been God in the flesh, dictated these letters to the apostle John..."
ReplyDeleteJesus, who had been God in the flesh?????????? What is that? Some human-God?
Jesus was 100% flesh.
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 1 John 4:3
The individual writing about coincidences is not of God, but is a deceiver. How do we know? The Bible tells us so.
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Jesus could not have been God in the flesh.
Now, how could Jesus possible be human-God?
Has anyone ever tried to mix oil-water?
Has anyone ever seen a dog-cat?
They just don’t mix, and neither does human-God.
And time will tell...
John
God's way is NOT the counter-clockwise way of confusion.
ReplyDeleteThe correct answer is: DOGS
God was revealing the character of the leadership to us all along.
Of course, you have to assume the possessive, rather than puzzle as to why the coincidence gives you a plural noun.
ReplyDeleteLet's see what other superstitions we can come up with.
ReplyDelete1. St John Avenue is a one-way street. If you want to drive the perimeter of the campus in the legal direction, you have to do Del Mar, Orange Grove, Green, St John, which works out to DOGS. Is that what really what the campus has gone to?
2. The reason St John Avenue is a one-way street is because there is a southbound freeway exit entering from the left. If you want to drive the perimeter in the GODS order, legally, you could change the laws of the land so that people drive on the left; it would be changed to a northbound street. That would make the USA like Britain, or New Zealand. (This makes me think of the late Gavin Rumney; I sure miss him and his writing.) So the left is the divinely-ordained side of the road to drive on. But you can walk the perimeter in either direction; this means that maybe cars are not divinely approved at all.
3. Before 1973, St John Avenue was Vernon Avenue. The name was changed because there was another Vernon Avenue somewhere else, maybe the freeway exit in Azusa east of Pasadena. Also in 1973, the Auditorium was under construction. This means that it was not GODS campus before the Auditorium was there.
Those are some that I can think of. Any others?
P.S. I see on Google Maps, where the Student Center was (is?), is marked "Worldwide Church of God & Ambassador...".
an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign.....
ReplyDeleteAnother interpretation is that God was warning everyone to stay away from Ambassador College in Pasadena because it was filled with false gods.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Bible, "Hear O Israel, God is one God" and not hundreds.
Everyone should have taken that warning to heart and when Herbert Armstrong declared that we would become God as God is God, everyone should have left on a dead run to avoid God's Wrath for the idolatry and taking His Name in vain.
So we can establish another scenario: God intervened to disprove Armstrongism by completely destroying the campus.
What do you say to that, you gods, you?
(An anagram is a word, phrase, or name formed by rearranging all the letters of another)
ReplyDeleteAN AMAGRAM FOR "AMBASSADOR COLLEGE" ...
"A BAD MORASS EGO CELL"
Armstrong declared that we would become God
ReplyDeleteNot God, as HWA claimed, but as adopted sons. Just as "the church" didn't supersede Israel; Gentile members are "grafted in" to Israel.
The idea of "trinity" was an attempt by Augustine and others to reconcile "God is one God" and Father, Son and Holy Spirit being God. So HWA (independently from the Mormons, apparently) comes up with "God Family".
ReplyDelete“There is a new crackpot claiming to be God's mouthpiece, just like all the other COG face prophets out there. This guy is Lee Clark.”
Are you sure that he is a new crackpot? He might not be anything new under the sun. He might be an old crackpot.
All this moniker stuff is moot, there is no campus anymore.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed no shortage of Kooky Kristians on the interwebs with all sorts of Holy-Spirit inspired keys claiming to unlock 'hidden codes' and 'secrets' of the Bible.
ReplyDeleteSadly and of course, there's no shortage of people who will fall prey to Biblical kookiness, as long as it helps them feel "above others" in their "superior understanding" And, that's why such Kooky Kristians arise to screw with such peoples' soft brains.
And heck, doesn't everyone want to have a "converted mind" - one that's more in alignment with God's?
I'd never heard of Lee Clark's "G.O.D.S. campus/church/streets" teaching before, but I'm not surprised in the least.
His kind of schlock has a long history within Christian maniacs who say, "Pssst! Let me tell you a secret!", in order to inflate their own egos, delusions (and possibly bank accounts).
Wow, I didn't realize anyone was even reading my blog! Thank you! I wrote that article almost twenty years ago. I need to edit that. I didn't know I was claiming to be God's new mouthpiece. I guess that is kind of a coincidence with the street names and all. And yes, it spells "DOGS" too. Clearly there were a lot of those running around the campus. I was kind of an HWA idolater.
ReplyDeleteMy latest article is a rewrite on the seven churches, and that reflects what I think now. I'm not in it for the money, and I didn't ask for any. I have a regular job. If you figure out who God's new mouthpiece is, let me know because I have been looking. I checked out Bob Thiel. Nope. Jame Malm? Not. Pack? Not. Flurry? Not. Wieiland? Please. Meredith? No. Did I leave anyone out? I do think John Ritenbaugh of CGG is pretty right on most of the time. I love to listen to his messages.
I did fall into that trap of being dogmatic about my opinions, like HWA was. That's a mistake, because I was wrong about a lot of things. The most embarrassing was Y2K, and I was hoping no one would ever mention that again, but, alas ... Yes, that was pretty dumb. Now I try to preface my assertions with, "I think," or "I believe." Because that's what they are, beliefs and opinions. God wrote down what we needed to know. I have received no "Thus saith the Lord" messages from God.
I think there are a lot of people who are in a sense "speaking for God" now. People do speak under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and I find many of them on the Internet. It's a wonderful resource in that way.
Honestly, I used to visit Pasadena in the 80's and 90's. And I was really upset when Tkach and his ilk basically stole the WCG and gutted it. And I wanted it back, but it's too late. I saw they tore down the Hall of Admin. That place was an eyesore, anyway. I'm more focused on the future now and not on material things. Yes, I would have liked to live in a mansion on Orange Grove. Reminds me of Grosse Pointe where my Mom grew up. I'm a materialistic American brat just like some of you.
HWA amassed all this wealth from good-hearted brethren, and I think he basically owned it all. The "members" had no share of that. And HWA did not take the proper steps to have it preserved for us. So thieves were able to break in and steal it all. We got royally ripped off. Follow the money. I appreciate companies that offer profit sharing. HWA could have given us shares in the corporations. That would have been the right thing to do. But he didn't.
I enjoy trying to interpret or decode prophecy. I don't know if any of you are still watching, but we are supposed to. Luke 21:36. I think things are going to get really, really bad probably sooner rather than later. I do care about God's people and I hope you will avail yourselves of the protection that He offers.
PS: I like the concept of profit sharing (not prophet sharing). HWA could have given us all shares in the corporations. That would have been a good thing to do. But he didn't. HWA was a little like Solomon, who amassed enormous wealth to himself, against the explicit instructions of God. Greed! Israelites don't like getting ripped off, so they staged a tax revolt after his death, and I don't blame them one bit. Things don't change much. Israel did the same thing in 1776.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, for all those who want to take shots at me, go for it. Theoretically, it's still a free country.