Gerald Weston has an article up on the Living Church of God member site (Choose life over lentils) trying to encourage LCG members to "fight the good fight" and stay loyal to the LCG, otherwise, you most likely will be eating Satan's lentil soup.
How many have we known along the way who dropped out of the race? What form of lentil soup were they pursuing? What difficulty was so great that they would toss in the towel and give up eternal life? Clearly, they lost the vision or never had it. Sadly, most never realized the gravity of the choice they were making. What about you? Do you recognize how the little decisions each day—whether to pray, whether to study, whether to fast, whether to give of yourself for others—all add up to whether you are choosing eternal life or lentil soup?What Weston fails to realize is that those who leave the LCG are NOT turning their backs on eternal life, or freedom in Christ, or any other thing you want to call it. The fact is their very life may depend upon leaving LCG! Sanity and human dignity are required by many to make that choice compared to remaining shackled to the legalistic mumbo-jumbo that the church passes off as "truth."
Weston starts his article off in typical COG fashion, continually ingraining in members that their salvation is forfeited if they leave the church.
Weston goes on to state that those who leave the church have no vision in their life, who gave up on the church and therefore have turned their back on Weston's god.Make Your Decisions with CareThe Bible reveals that the decisions we make today should be made with care, as they may carry with them long-term consequences. Esau realized too late that his birthright was of far greater value than a bowl of soup. He was tired and hungry. How could he know? Then again, how could he not know? God tells us he despised his birthright and, “afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears” (Hebrews 12:17). As we are told in Genesis 27:38, “And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.” The die was cast! Imagine what it will be like in the resurrection when he realizes, to a degree he could never understand in his lifetime, the value of that bowl of lentils: the incredible real estate later given to the sons of Joseph!
Yet there are those who have little vision and who trade away the Kingdom of God for today’s lentil soup. Luke 9:57–62 gives three examples of men called to follow Christ, but who apparently chose to act on other priorities. While the rewards of discipleship are wonderful beyond our imagination, the immediate cost can be significant to mere humans such as you and me. This is why we are told we must “count the cost,” and why we normally review Luke 14:26 and the verses that follow prior to baptizing someone. For Jesus declared, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” We understand that “hate” here means to “love less by comparison,” yet some have been forced to choose between a spouse and obedience to God. Others have had to make a choice that disappoints and angers their parents. And how many have lost jobs or been passed over for promotions for following God’s Truth?The church has always held up as "spiritual martyr's" those that leave spouses or their jobs in order to belong to the church. If the church was actually a new covenant church then this would NEVER be an issue. These so-called "martyr's" ruined some part of their lives because they followed men who placed more importance upon the rules and their own man-made interpretations than following a life of grace, mercy and freedom. Freedom is anathema in the Church of God. How dare people want to be free from the shackles of the law! How dare they might possibly screw things up in life and move onward without fear, instead of wallowing in guilt and shame. Damn Jesus for ever giving a hint of the concept where grace, mercy and love trump the law.
Then Weston makes the following absurd statement:
None of this should come as a surprise to those who read the scriptures, but did we ever hear a sermon on this subject in the churches that some of us once attended? I never did! And what about this passage? “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:34–37). We should never take these words lightly or think that Jesus did not mean them!I don't know what planet he was on, but this has been the ongoing message the church has pawned off on members for decades. The god that the church has always preferred is the god who was coming with a sword, the god that is eternally pissed off, and the god who is filled with extreme wrath.
Be damned the good Samaritan who helps the person by the side of the road. Be damned the person who reaches out a hand to the prostitute and makes them a person of worth. Be damned the person who cooks a meal for a homeless person on the street. Jesus screwed up the picture and COG leaders are not happy about it.
Because Weston and his cronies have turned their backs on new covenant understanding, they have to continually be in a battle fighting for their salvation. It is exhausting work for these guys, as they have been doing it for 40/50/60 some years. For a person who understands the new covenant they know that the battle has been fought, victory has been accomplished and peace is found in being at rest, knowing they no longer have to fight. The good fight has been fought and won.
Weston ends using one more dose of fear. Anyone that dares to leave the church will be wailing and gnashing their teeth over that decision at some point in the future.
There are several references in the New Testament describing a future day when some will weep and gnash their teeth over the poor decisions they made. They will only understand after gaining a glimpse into what they traded away. Right now, we do not know all that God has in mind for His faithful children. How can we know? We are physical, mortal beings. God is Spirit and eternal. But we can trust our Heavenly Father. And we can do as Moses, who chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward” (Hebrews 11:25–26, KJV).Weston and his ilk in the COG want church members to continue to trust like Moses instead of trusting like Jesus did. They never seem to say much about anything the dude did, but sure love to talk about Jewish heroes. Because that misplaced devotion is on rules, Weston and the LCG cannot for upon spiritual and eternal things that make new covenant Christians perfectly at peace and perfectly comfortable LEAVING the LCG.
No one's salvation is at stake for leaving the Living Church of God. God is not going to damn you to the lake of fire. In fact, your very life may depend upon leaving the church, given the bloody track record of LCG history.
Disgusting picture. Esau did not have long hair! You Laodicean liberals have to pervert every story out of the Bible.
ReplyDeleteOh? Is the drawing THAT offensive to your very thin skin, or are you so old that you were there and can tell us exactly what Esau looked like?
Delete11.29 AM
ReplyDeleteYep, it's inconceivable that a guy who sold his birthright for a bowl of soup, would have long hair.
We understand that “hate” here means to “love less by comparison,”.
ReplyDeleteI see. You still love your family, just a little less by comparison. Probably the same way you "hate" sin, you still love it, but just a little less by comparison.
Nemesis of Pack
Mr Weston,
ReplyDeleteIn your article you create the package deal of "pray..study..fast" and "give of yourself for others." Anyone familiar with church culture knows that the givers are the winners, and the 'others' are the losers. In most developed countries, most citizens pay near 50 cents in the dollar tax. Surely this money carters for the biblical poor. But no, this socialism/communism isn't enough, so you propose more communism with your 'giving of yourself.'
I remind you Mr Weston that communism is lentil soup, as is the game of the unjust steward that you are playing inside your church.
Again with the rules already! Judaism keeps far more Torah-derived laws than the COGs, as well as the Oral Law, traditions, etc. And yet it's estimated that 3-5 thousand Gentiles convert to some form of Judaism each year. However, the most common reason for conversion is marriage.
ReplyDeleteAnd in modern Judaism, as there is no Temple, and no active priesthood and Levites, there is no tithing... And if there was, it would be on agriculture based in Eretz Israel...
LCG is totally confused. Different LCG speakers contradict each other all the time.
ReplyDeleteOne recent screwup is HERE
Basically, they are saying that the slim and trim LCG leadership is more righteous than the chubby HWA. Does this reflect infighting between some chubby LCG leaders and some slim ones? Where is Christ in such nonsense?
1:46, they did make one good point:
ReplyDelete"The moral of the story is that we all need to be careful not to believe or buy into all that is said or written. We need to check things out for ourselves."
Hear, hear!!
If I am going to sell my birthright, don't give me lentils. I want SPLIT PEA AND HAM!
ReplyDeleteWeston is wildly speculating. Of course it is his job to argue that LCG is God's one and only, and that the birthright of the members is to rule with a rod of iron in the kingdom. The old gatekeepers routine.
ReplyDeleteActually, many of us here would not be weeping and gnashing teeth over the missed opportunity to enforce Armstrongism for all eternity. Eternal life is only as good as the quality of that eternal life. If I'm resurrected to see HWA and RCM walking, talking, and smiling with Jesus, getting their attaboys so to speak, I'm going to be really looking forward to opting out through the Lake of Fire.
But, I don't believe those are the only choices. Armstrongism is way out of balance. They attempt to practice TGCOL 1 to the exclusion of TGCOL 2. That is so wasteful and selfish. Also, it's the same blindness of the Pharisees that kept them from realizing who Jesus is.
BB
"Choose life over lentils"
ReplyDeleteLOL, how about choose demonstrable reality over a childish imaginary friend.
"How many have we known along the way who dropped out of the race? What form of lentil soup were they pursuing? What difficulty was so great that they would toss in the towel and give up eternal life? Clearly, they lost the vision or never had it. Sadly, most never realized the gravity of the choice they were making. What about you? Do you recognize how the little decisions each day—whether to pray, whether to study, whether to fast, whether to give of yourself for others—all add up to whether you are choosing eternal life or lentil soup?"
Yep, I threw in the towel and decided to give up the pot of gold set at the end of the rainbow by the leprechauns because there aren't any leprechauns, there isn't any gold, and trying to arrive at the "end" of an optical effect like a rainbow is a wild goose chase.
However, there is gold for the ministers like Meredith and Weston who've sold their souls for the con, but it doesn't come from leprechauns, it comes from the sheep they're shearing.
In real life, Esau would have just stolen the soup, along with a few of Jacob's sheep. And, maybe paid him back later with a few sheep and an beer. Esau wasn't stupid. Nice story though.
ReplyDeleteLOL Anon 9:17, you're probably right. You know how brothers do. Esau was probably like "WTF ever, Jacob, don't be playin. Gimme that damn soup or I'll whip yo ass right here."
Delete"We understand that “hate” here means to “love less by comparison"
ReplyDeleteThat is NOT what the word means. It means hate. Look it up. They are putting their own meaning into it. Yet they condemn others for rejecting scripture and putting their own meaning into it.
Well, this talk of lentils reminds me of an old joke. This guy is driving along the Boulevard, and suddenly sees a gorgeous hitchhiker, dressed to the nines. As she gets into his car, he says "Uummm! What's that??" She replies, "Chanel #5, $150 per ounce!"
ReplyDeleteA little further down the road, the lady suddenly holds her nose and asks "Yuck! What is that??? The driver replies, "Campbells Pork and Beans, 95 cents a can!"
When we were kids, my mom learned about lentils from the church. So, of course she dutifully fed them to us, and you had to eat everything on your plate. Our church approved diet caused some real embarrassing moments in class. It was the diet, too, Everyone at SEP and Ambassador College had a horrible gas problem.
In the days when I accepted BI and other fallacies of national identity, my boss and I visited the home of a Turkish colleague who served us some lentil soup. At Sabbath services, I joked with a friend how a descendant of Esau served lentils to descendants of Jacob.
ReplyDeleteIf the LCG doesn't want members to choose the lentils, maybe they should stop stirring the pot.
I am one of the many who have given up. Except I haven't given up on God or myself. What I have given up is LCG. I have given up the backstabbing, the gossip and the hypocrisy. I have never felt more at peace in my life. One day Meredith, Weston and all their yes men and women will have to answer for how they lived, as will I. I am perfectly at peace with that concept.
ReplyDeleteEsau lost out cuz there was ham in the lentil soup.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd have to guess that people throughout the Kingdom of the ACOGs are all imagining that Meghan Markle is a kind of pot of lentils for Prince Harry. If Rod Meredith thought it was a disgrace for Jackie Kennedy to marry Aristotle Onassis, his tone-setting opinion on this more current event would be quite predictable.
ReplyDeleteGotta feel sorry for such blind people. They're really robbing themselves!
BB
Gerald Weston is morally bankrupt. LCG lost its hold on me when Weston agreed to honor Rod Meredith's dying wish. Meredith said that before he died he wanted to see his son Jon baptized. Weston complied, even though Jon is as worldly as they come. LCG will deny baptism to sincere, converted people who speak honestly about problems they see in LCG, but will baptize a carnal young Meredith simply because Rod Meredith said so. The LCG ministry has no fear of God. They are hypocrites and social climbers and make a mockery of God's Word. They should be shunned.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Meredith has passed away.
ReplyDelete