One of Gerald Flurry's grand kids is lecturing the slowly dwindling flock of the Philadelphia Church of God on how powerful their mythical satan is.
Vienna Flurry writes about the all powerful Satan who "always wins!"
We, as teens in God’s Church, have in our possession a vast amount of spiritual wealth, just like Atahualpa and Zedekiah had physical wealth. Our adversary is much more dangerous than theirs were, however. Our adversary is Satan, and he is constantly looking for every opportunity to take our spiritual wealth away from us. 1 Peter 5:8 says “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Satan hates the fact that our future is to be a part of God’s Family. He threw his glorious future away, and he does not want us to inherit ours.
What more can you expect from a group that knows little about Jesus. Never once in her article did she mention Jesus, or any of the concepts portrayed in scriptures as to what Jesus accomplished and who or what he conquered. Fear still is the big motivator in the Church of God. Satan is given more power than the god they claim to worshipIt’s easy for us to think we are smarter than the devil, or that we know the kinds of things he does to tempt us. But we have to know that we can’t play his game! He will always win. We can’t think that if we “bargain” with him, he will keep his promises. If we do something wrong even once, he can use that to weaken our character and get us to make the same mistake again. He will never let us go once he has us in his clutches.
On our own, we stand no chance of defeating this roaring lion. Thankfully, we have God on our side! We must do our part by obeying Him and putting Him first in our lives. We must do our part to resist Satan’s temptations. We must do our part to submit to God. And if we do, then God gives us a great promise: The devil will flee from us (James 4:7)!
We have a source of protection that is much more powerful than mere the promise of gold or silver. We have the great God. Make sure you tap into His power.
Vienna, her grandad and her father know nothing of the man they claim to follow let alone the god they claim to know. Morally and spiritually bankrupt people are incapable of understanding any concept of that incredibly inconvenient dude who embarrasses the hell out of them. Their god is no more going to fight some mythical battle with their idea of a satan than Bob Thiel is a prophet of God.
Just in case Vienna hears that her name was mentioned here, and decides to check us out, I'd like to encourage her regarding the ways in which God uses His power so that we don't need to be fearful of Satan's power.
ReplyDeleteHere are some additional scripture references, Vienna:
Hebrews 13:5-6
John 14:18
Romans 8:38-39.
These can be very encouraging at the low points we all experience in our lives!
Blessings to you!
BB
Vienna, her grandad and her father know nothing of the man they claim to follow
ReplyDeleteThis. They believe in the HWA presented by the Pasadena HQ propaganda machine. Because of this, there's little chance they'll ever acquaint themselves with Jesus.
"Vienna Flurry" sounds like a McDonald's dessert.
ReplyDeleteLaughed out loudly. Cult freaks always have weird names.
DeleteThe idea of Satan was invented due to the following reasons.
ReplyDelete1. We wish to believe that whoever is in charge of it all (God) is good and all powerful.
2. We look around and see some "good", but a very very large amount of "evil".
3. No. 2 doesn't support No. 1.
4. Not wanting to discard No. 1, we introduce a counterpart evil lord (Satan) who is "temporarily" in charge of the world now, but will be eliminated.
5. Unfortunately No. 4 presents other logical problems, and the theological narrative continues to be embellished....
Interestingly, COG theology got rid of the distasteful idea of eternal torment for evil humans, but not for Satan, who is still to be tormented "forever and ever".
In my WCG days I asked several ministers/evangelists why Satan had to be tortured forever and it led to much hemming and hawing but no logical explanation.
Of course it can't be logical, since Satan is a rescue device introduced in order to jive personal experience (a world of evil) with the idealism of an omnibenevolent God.
Considering how much credit the COGs often give to Satan for this, that and the other, one could probably argue that they actually worship the Satan character in some sense.
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting equivalent in ancient Egypt. Priests of the Ra cult believed in a sort of "chaos monster", a giant serpent who hid somewhere in the world where the sun went at night, who Ra would battle every night to keep the sun from being swallowed and darkness covering the world. The serpent's name was Apep, and the priests apparentlt spent a lot of time making wax images of Apep that they could spit on, put fire on, "defile with the left foot", stomp on, et cetera in hopes of invigorating Ra for his nightly battle. With all the attention paid to Apep, how much worship did Ra really get?
Vienna Austria Flurry - You need to get saved .
ReplyDelete