For 80 some years now the Church of God, in its many imaginations, have been declaring that the return of Jesus is imminent. The world is so corrupt that Jesus was to return in 1975 an dales every year after that. One lying false prophet after another has made that declaration. From Herbert Armstrong to Rod Meredith, Ron Weinland, to Bob Thiel to James Malm, everyone of them exposed as liars. But who is really to blame for their "jesus" never showing up on time? It is YOU! It is the brethren's fault. They were not ready.
Dave has another reinterpretation, especially after the last three years of failed prophecy...his "christ" has deliberately scheduled "delays" in his coming. He is coming on time, but has delayed his coming...which is really on time...but it is not...because he has deliberately delayed it...though it is right on schedule...though it is delayed...but still on time...though it is delayed...
Watch what’s going on, because you’ll also get some comfort in watching the advance of prophecy, because you know days are ticking down. Christ is not going to delay His Coming. He’s going to come right on schedule…which is an interesting discussion we’ve had. He has “scheduled” a delay. So He’s going to delay, but He scheduled it, because the Bible says “the bridegroom tarried.” We just covered that. But it’s a “scheduled” delay. You think about whether or not you think it’s a delay…remembering that it is the evil servant who says “my Lord delays His coming”…That might help you in your contemplations.
6 comments:
I guess it really does boil down to what the definition of "is"'is. Ol' Billy was right!
BB
Okay, so all the COG ministers are evil servants because they say the Lord delays his coming because the evil brethren are not ready. I guess someone ate a bacon bit.
How can Christ not delay His coming when only God the Father knows when this will come to pass.
This reminds me of editorial remarks by HWA, about world events taking place, right on schedule.
What schedule? Well, once he said it was a schedule he claimed he read when he studied Communism in the 1920s...
I exited the WCG 25 years ago. I consider myself as a recovering cult member. I was recently perusing a book I read in '92. "Last Days Madness: The Folly of Trying to Predict When Christ will Return" by Gary DeMar (1991).
Jim Baldwin
That clock face with no hands is a perfect illustration for this post. Clock hands were designed to provide us continuously updated information we can use to plan activities and meet deadlines. Presumably there is a complex mechanism back there whose sole purpose is to drive the hands, and it is still grinding away, but without the hands it has no function.
Clocks have a long history as metaphors for the universe. Early clocks crafted from wood required frequent repair and tinkering, which readily symbolized a universe governed by a hands-on god who regularly intervened in worldly affairs with signs and miracles. Along about the Age of Enlightenment, when Deism came along, clock technology improved, and the mechanisms became dependable. So deists used clocks to illustrate their idea that their god had carefully designed and machined the cogs that drive the Universe, wound it up, and walked away to let it run on its own. Toward the end of the 1800's a number of intellectuals lost faith in any god but still felt homesick for their previous faith. Thomas Hardy wrote novels full of gloom and confusion. Poet James Thomson wrote "The City of Dreadful Night," with the recurring line, "I strode on austere; no hope could have no fear." A prominent image in it is a clock with no hands: the metaphorical universe is still cranking away, but it has lost all meaning.
In William Faulkner's *The Sound and the Fury* Jason Compson arises one morning, twists the hands off his watch, and puts it back in his pocket. Later that day he commits suicide. In the Ingemar Bergman film *Wild Strawberries* the central character, an old man getting ready to receive a major academic award, has a confusing dream casting doubt on the meaning of his life. In the course of a dream featuring his own funeral, he looks up anxiously at a clock and is shocked to see that it has no hands.
So your use of a clock face with no hands participates in a fascinating tradition. In reference to the COG false prophets, it suggests that they keep trying to persuade us the hands on the universal clock are fast approaching the hour of doom. In reality the clock has no hands and gives out no information at all. The mechanism behind the face may in fact be tick-tocking toward Armageddon, but it withholds the information that would allow us to plan for it.
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