Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Monday, August 21, 2017

Do Dreamers In Africa Validate Apostate U.S. COG Splinter Group Leader?



In his never ending quest to make himself look legitimate in the eyes of his African followers and a hundred or so U.S members, Almost-arrested and jailed Bob Thiel is trotting out another man in Africa who claims to have dreamed about him as PROOF he is a legitimate prophet of God.  If he really was a true minister of God, a prophet, an apostle, and any of the other names he has taken for himself, he would NOT need some disturbed individuals dreaming dreams about him.  His words would be the lightening rod that stirs people up. People would either be enthralled at his works or be raging against him. But for some reason, all we hear is a little escaping toot from the guy who seems to be attempting to hold his gas in.  No one in the world takes his message seriously.  No prophetic warning has brought people to repentance.  No government is persecuting him.

Amos Thiel knows that people realize he lied about his dreams and that Gaylyn Bonjour had no intention of doubly blessing him as an "ordination" in order to set up a splinter group.  He had to realize things were bad when even Gaylyn Bonjour denied his interpretation of events.  Ever since Rod Meredith crushed Elisha Thiel's dream of being a recognized prophet of the church, Thiel has been scrambling ever since to make a name for himself.

His fellow "brethren" from LCG look at him as a laughing stock and a certified liar.  They know what he was like while part of the church.  Word quickly spread about him through the COG when he apostatized from LCG.   Since 99.99% of the COG turned their backs on him he has had to resort to other tactics in order to gather a following.

Never fear, Africa comes to the rescue.  Never one to let an American church ministry go to waste, the Africans jumped at the chance to join with Thiel, hoping for money, seeds, computers, and more.

Habakkuk Thiel then ordains some of his followers in order to have them ordain him as a prophet of some thing/creature he calls god.

Still being ridiculed, he has to resort to conning his members to dream about him.  After all, dreams are a sign from his god and his idols Herbert and Loma Armstrong had dreams.  What more could a prophet want?



Dream Report
Many of you are aware that a two-part dream preceded the start of the old Radio Church of God and some dreams preceded the start of the Continuing Church of God (details are in the article Dreams, the Bible, the Radio Church of God, and the Continuing Church of God).
A while back, when I was last in Kenya, I was told that Frederick Ochieng had a dream related to the Continuing Church of God. He sent me an email on it that somehow never made to me, so he again sent information about it yesterday:
Dear pastor
Greetings pastor.  I believe you are doing good though you are having great thrust of fulfilling Matthew 28:19 of which we must do before the return of Christ. …
I had two dreams
1. Before our family joined CCOG my father was then working with voice in the Wilderness Church of God. When I was sleeping I had a dream and in my dream I saw a light and the light was not normal, the one who was standing by the was You pastor Bob according to my dream. Then I had voice shouting, “Arise you who are sleeping, for the Lord is near.” I again I heard another voice shouting, “Come up Evans and let us do the work we are called to do.” I then saw a man dressed in white clothes join hands with my father walking together towards a very big lake then I woke up.
2: In my second dream some weeks after my first dream and in my second dream I saw almost the same dream and now this was in New Zealand. I did not know about the CCOG group in New Zealand before I had the dream.
Fred
Related to the first part of the dream, his father, Evans Ochieng came with the Continuing Church of God in March of 2014–with him, etc. we had about 260 people in Africa. His father told me in 2017 that Frederick also said his dream showed that we would have much growth in Africa. As of late 2017, we have around 3000 in Africa. So, that part of the dream was confirmed.
As far as New Zealand goes, the first congregation that came with the CCOG was the group in New Zealand. When I asked Frederick Ochieng about New Zealand he said knew nothing about New Zealand and any connection with the CCOG prior to his dream. While we have not have much membership growth in New Zealand itself, those in New Zealand have been heavily involved in doing the work to reach people around the world. They have been the primary editors of our church publications, have developed a website, put up and managed our Bible News Prophecy Flipboard page, and have produced our Bible News Prophecy online radio. His dream may have been telling him that I (Bob Thiel) was working with those in New Zealand to help fulfill Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19-20 to reach the world.
While few dreams are from God (cf. Ecclesiastes 5:7; Zechariah 10:2), the Bible shows that God has often used dreams (Genesis 20:3-7, 28:10-17, 31:10-13, 31:24, 37:5-10, 40:5-18, 41:1-32; Numbers 12:6; Judges 7:13-15; 1 Kings 3:5-15; Daniel 2:3-45, 4:4-27, 7:1-28; Matthew 1:20-25, 2:12, 2:13, 2:19, 2:22; Acts 16:9).


10 comments:

  1. I noticed that soon after you posted this that the maps on the right were on fire in Arroyo Grande. You are going to get in trouble for dismissing The Chosen One, once again.

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  2. This was the first thing that came to mind. I'm sure Connie can dream up some alternative lyrics...

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  3. SING ALONG TIME! - Sing to the tune "All I have To Do Is Dream"
    (Everly Brothers -1958)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbU3zdAgiX8

    Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
    Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

    When I want you , in my church...
    When I want you, to stop your search ...

    Whenever I want you, all I have to do is...
    Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

    When I hallucinate in the night...
    And I need you ,as my acolyte...

    Whenever I want you, all I have to do is...
    Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam


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  4. Loma's dream was fake and it just goes to prove she was in on the scam.

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  5. Connie, he's dreaming his life away... and his credibility... with his Afreican Dream and California Dreamin'.

    Now I don't know if I mentioned this before, but some weeks ago Bob appeared in one of my dreams too. We were in a meeting, and Bob was on my left; I said something related to my avoidance of Christmas, and he made a suggestion. That's all I can remember.
    And sadly, Bob reminds me of myself some 40 years ago. I can imagine myself in his place, making the same mistakes. So I like to think his effort is still fixable, but, in reality, that's an Impossible Dream...

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  6. I dreamt that I ate a large marsh mellow.
    When I woke up, my pillow was gone.

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  7. Anybody who thinks dreams have meaning are suffering from mental health issues.

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  8. It would be more Thielalistic set to "California Dreamin"

    You know..."All the dreams are dumb..la la la la..
    And it's not okay......la la la la
    You'll get taken to the cleaners...la la la la
    Every single day la la la la

    We'd be safe and warm..la la la la
    If he'd go awaaaay..la la la la
    California Dreamin' la la la la
    Every sing day .........."

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  9. I bet David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Marshall Applewhite all had "dreams" too, like "lets all drink poison and go to the spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet" kind of dreams...insanity

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  10. Former Tithe Slave Of RCG said on August 22, 2017 at 3:14 AM, "Anybody who thinks dreams have meaning are suffering from mental health issues."

    Well, yes and no. Dreams don't predict the future except by coincidence, and they can't be used to validate a person's claims of prophethood. Also, they probably don't provide a dependable index to the deepest level of a person's psyche, as some Freudian psychologists claim. A few of them can have meaning of a shallower sort, though.

    I dreamed the other night that my dog had escaped from his kennel and appeared at the back door of our house. This dream repeated, more or less, a scene that had actually occurred a couple of nights earlier. The dream probably merely meant that I was concerned about whether the repair I had made to the kennel was holding or not. No deep revelation, but relevant to my life at the time.

    I used to have a recurring dream about a second-hand store somewhere in eastern Oklahoma. I never knew the exact location, but had the impression it was somewhere northwest of Heavener and southwest of Poteau. In the dream I was always traveling north, and the shop was on my right just on the northern outskirts of some town or another, at a gentle double curve in the highway. I would stop and go inside to look at all the fascinating stuff offered for sale: tools, guns, fishing tackle, household goods.

    After many years of experiencing variations on this dream, I was traveling south on U.S. 69 across Oklahoma with my daughter after she graduated from college. Just on the northern outskirts of Pryor (northwest of Heavener and southwest of Poteau), at a shallow S-curve in the highway, I glanced to my left and yelled to my daughter, "That's it! That's the place!" Then I had to explain what I meant. She said we ought to stop and go inside, but we were expected at our destination by a certain time, and I saved the visit to the place (actually a pawn shop, not a second-hand store) for a later trip. That time I went with my mother. Mom explained that when I was a kid, the family had traveled that road many times. I had apparently often yearned to stop at that shop, and had long been disappointed that we never did.

    Both my dreams had meaning, you see. They reproduced experiences that held significance in my waking life.

    If my experience can be extrapolated to Bob Thiel's situation, his dreams probably don't reflect happenings in his waking life. Instead his night dreams match his daydreams. They reflect not his experiences but his ambitions. Furthermore, I expect they have no more prophetic value than mine did. My dog did not manage to escape from his kennel again. And no matter how close my dreams matched the outside of that shop in Pryor, which I had actually seen, the interior did not look at all like any of the versions in my dreams.


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