Today the Church of God is one of the biggest fractured messes that anyone could have ever imagined. Hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups are now in existence. Almost all of them refuse to cooperate with other groups. Most of them led by men who think they are God's most important leaders ever imagined. Most of these groups are rather benign and are nothing more than neighborly social clubs for members to feel warm and fuzzy about. But then there are the aberrant groups like the Restored Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God and Continuing Church of God. These three groups are led by some of the craziest men we have ever seen in the church. The nut-jobs the came to Pasadena over the decades proclaiming themselves "witnesses," "prophets," "apostles," "Elijah," "Jesus," and scores of other personalities pale in comparison to these three self-appointed debauched reprobates. These three claim God personally appointed them to the position they are in now. Never has the church seen three more humble people to ever lead the members.
Almost Arrested Elisha, Elijah, Amos, Joshua, Doubly Blessed, Habakkuk Bob Thiel is making claims today that he and he alone is the ONLY one that follows and publishes the official list of truths delivered by Herbert Armstrong.
Habakkuk Thiel writes:
The only Church of God group that specifically lists all of those truth, using his list, as part of their official beliefs is the Continuing Church of God.So just what is this glorious list? Notice that Jesus has no part of it. As usual.
1. True Gospel
2. Purpose of God
3. God’s Plan through the Holy Days
4. Proper Church Government
5. Who and What is God?
6. What and Why is Man?
7. Spirit in Man
8. Firstfruits In this Age
9. Knowledge of What the Millennium Truly Is
10. Truth About the Holy Spirit
11. Christians are Begotten Now
12. Born-Again at the Resurrection
13. Identity of Physical Israel
14. How the Identity of Israel Opens Up Understanding of Bible Prophecy
15. Second and Third Tithes
16. Identity of Babylon and Her Daughters
17. Satan has Deceived the Whole World
18. We Are to Be SeparateOh, he may claim that many of his topics point to his "
Almost Arrest Thiel then goes on to name 7 more points as to why he is legitimate and true. Why do all of the con artists that run the COG's have to have endless lists of bullet points and numbered categories "proving" they are the only true believers?
Habakkuk Thiel then continues claim that all COG's in existence today are NOT following these lists an therefore CANNOT be true churches. Apostate Thiel also claims that he is doing a more powerful work than HWA did due to modern technology.
We in the [improperly named] "continuing" Church of God are utilizing 21st century methods for mass communication including the printing press, radio, YouTube television, the telephone, and of course the internet, which can even be faster than the forms of mass communication that Herbert Armstrong used. We have reached multiple millions with the gospel of the kingdom and have the type of proclamation and prophetic truths that Jesus said should be the criteria to know the true from the false in Matthew 7:15-18.Then Elijah Thiel gets to one of his favorite topics. His dreams. He dreamed that he should start a church and therefore his god validated him to do that. He can do it since Herbert and Loma both had dreams. No COG member would have ever expected to see a guy set himself up as a church leader after a night of bad Chinese food that led to some freakish nightmares. Though the word "nightmare" pretty much sums up the state of affairs in the Church of God today.
Other Church of God leaders mock Amos Thiel's dream sequence and that strikes a sore point with Theil. HE is still bitter that his ultimate daddy, Rod Meredith mocked his dreams.
Most groups with leaders once part of the old Worldwide Church of God discount all dreams and have not placed the public proclamation of the kingdom of God to the world as their true initial priority (Matthew 24:14; 28:19), do not fully understand all of the restored truths, and have not valued the truth enough, hence they have shown that they are not the possessors of what has been called the “Philadelphia mantle” (leadership authority). The group with said mantle is also represented by the “woman” of Revelation 12:14-17.Elisha Thiel then claims that his work and his work alone is growing at a rate of 30% a year, something that no God can claim today. That 30% that HWA claimed was a manipulated figure the was not based upon truth. Many in Pasadena have acknowledged this over the decades. It was just one more lie fostered off on gullible church members as a tool to get them to keep sending in money.
The [improperly named] "continuing" Church of God has exceeded the 30% growth per year that the old Radio/Worldwide Church of God used to claim it had for decades. Many of those that we have with us did NOT have a WCG background as we reached people others had not.Almost Arrested Thiel is the man! THE man to lead us to glory. Maybe it is time we all get on board...
8 comments:
Okay, I'll accept that by satisfying his own criteria of legitimacy, Bob is the sole heir to HWA's Philadelphia mantle. And HWA was the sole legitimate heir of ?
“The [improperly named] 'continuing' Church of God has exceeded the 30% growth per year that the old Radio/Worldwide Church of God used to claim it had for decades. Many of those that we have with us did NOT have a WCG background as we reached people [in NIGERIA that] others had not [wanted to get used by].”
Bob has not reached them. Rather, they have reached Bob. Any more of this “30% growth per year” in NIGERIA and Bob's CCG could go bankrupt.
All the splinter groups seem to have this same problem. Even though they all started off by rustling former WCG members, they have always wanted to pretend that they are growing and attracting brand new people who had never even heard of Herbert W. Armstrong. Consequently, they desperately welcome in just any old unconverted weirdo who comes around. Existing members who do have a WCG background are expected to put up with the strange new freaks “to show love to them.” The problem is that the demons who send the occasional new unconverted weirdo their way HAVE heard of Herbert W. Armstrong.
Of course God has sent no replacement leader. To learn how to ride a bike, one needs to ride the bike. To learn how to dance, one needs to get on the dance floor. Meaning, people need to exercise their God given talents in order to grow as a Christian. Herbie and his henchmen robbed church members of these talents, so no more oppressive, unified church. Note Herbies famous 'beware of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' saying. Actually pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is what's commanded in the parable of the talents. The person that failed to so that was called wicked by Christ.
So finally members are free from the shackles of oppression of Herbies tyrannical henchmen (called 'administering gods government'), free to grow and reach their full potential.
Well, in ACOG churchspeak, they are already well into their second 19 year time cycle of the splintering. The emergent putter of Humpty Dumpty together again has failed to materialize, so it is open game (to some people) to create an illusion that they are this unifier. Not a single one has been able to put on a convincing act, and especially not Bob Thiel.
What would we see in such an emergent one? Effortless operation on a higher plane. Not just words, fake statistics, lamentations, and excuses. Those four things are the hallmarks of a pretender.
Of course, it's all hypothetically based on the idea that HWA was special or God-sent in the first place. Way too many red flags about that line of thinking!
BB
NOBODY has a right to call himself a prophet, tell lies to other people, and steal their money. Nevertheless, many perverts do it anyway, and many people fall for their dirty trick.
Bobs 18 truths, as well as Herbs 'restored truths' is useless academic fluff. The core of Armstrongism was obey, yield, surrender, submit, meaning allow yourself to be dominated by Herbies ministers. To their credit, not every minister did this. But most did. And not forgetting, give, help, s-e-r-v-e, meaning allow yourself to be robbed blind by church losers and crazies.
Allow yourself to be dominated and exploited was and still is the core of Armstrongism. Is God supposed to bless such demonic filth.
Theil is still going on about that 1983 sermon? I remember reading him when he first wrote about that December 17, 1983 sermon by HWA which was entitled "Mission of the Philadelphia Church Era." In that sermon HWA presented a list of eighteen "restored truths" and then Theil got his hands on this sermon and noted that the list of "truths" mentioned differed from the list of 18 that is commonly used among the COGs which is derived from a 1986 article. That was long before he broke away from LCG.
The 19 year cycle (half the wavelength of the golden rectangle of 38%) is in fact heavy mathematics. There are expensive computer programs on timing. The ministers, especially people like Herbie, did not have the training in maths to do such calculations. Even doing it manually, you would need a good spread sheet. And at the end of the day, it still amounts to probability, since timing can conform to a multitude of geometric patterns. Only hindsight tells which pattern is the right one.
So all these claims that this or that year is the beginning of the tribulation, is an educated guess.
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