Where would the modern-day Armstrong Church of God movement be without yet another self-appointed teacher popping up with all the answers they deem necessary for salvation? Hundreds and hundreds of these men have declared themselves God's spokesman over the decades. A few gained traction and attracted a few followers and others bang endlessly on a keyboard in their kitchen pretending they have a huge following. Yet through it all, each and every one of them have ultimately been failures, even the doubly blessed ones.
That still does not stop more narcissistic men popping up and declaring themselves to the church. One of these men is Gary Stowers.
This is how he describes himself and his mission:
There are thousands of people who have websites offering their religious opinions and teachings to the public. Some have some good information, but mixed in with some false opinions; others have what I am persuaded to be mostly a lot of deceptive ideas and opinions. So why should you bother to read my literature?
Most of the religious websites have a bottom-line desire to enrich themselves by gaining membership and your tithes and offerings. I am not interested in any of that. My purpose is to give you the precious truth that God has given to me. I have not been ordained by any man or organization. I have been called by God into the truth back in 1979 and was baptized into the body of Christ in June 13, 1980.
Now again I ask: Why should anyone spend their time reading my literature? Friends, of my own self, I would not have anything worthy of your time reading my literature. But when God began getting my attention, he drew me to “The Plain Truth” magazine, which was published by Herbert W. Armstrong. Through reading that magazine and another of Mr. Armstrong’s magazines, “The Good News”, I began to learn of God’s wonderful purpose that he had for my life. This gospel was not only for my life but for all humans that will believe and surrender to obey God.
Like any good COG self-appointed prophet, Stowers says you will not be able to understand him unless God has opened your mind. How much have we hared that over the decades? That is the typical COG prophet's easy out.
I can’t take time or space in this brief introduction of myself and this website to explain all of the precious knowledge that I would like to share with you concerning this wonderful hope in Christ; so I will put many different articles or booklets up on my web-site. One important truth that I must let you know of in this writing is: God is the only one that can make a believer out of you. Unless God is calling you, then you will not have the faith to take action to obey God and his Commandments. Unless God is calling you, then you will not even believe the wonderful good news about God’s plan for your life in his family and kingdom, even if it is shown to you in the Holy Bible. If you don’t truly believe then it would seem foolish for you to surrender to obey a God that you don’t even believe. Yes, God must spiritually act on your mind to call you and give you faith in his Word, and he will do that in his own time. No man, by any means, can make a true believer out of you. Not all people are called to be “First-fruits” into the kingdom of God. There will only be 144000 first-fruit Christians that will be redeemed from this world at the time of Christ’s second coming. Read of this in Revelation Chapter 14. Many people have lived and died in this world who thought they were true Christians; and yet they were only deceived by men teaching false teachings that appeared to be what the people thought was Christ’s teachings. Satan has sent his ministers out to appear as angels of light but they were in fact only deceiving the people. Most people will not have their calling from God until the second resurrection; which is resurrection back to mortal human life, after the 1000 year rule of Christ and his saints on this earth.This prophet does at least think you should get proper medical care when needed.
I write these things to you so that you may have a general idea about what I stand for and believe, and what you can expect to find more information about in all of my other writings. One thing I want to let you all know upfront: I do believe in the doctrines that God used Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong to teach us from the word of God. However, there is one doctrine that I am persuaded by the word and Spirit of God that Mr. Armstrong was in partial error, that doctrine is the healing doctrine. I do believe that God has and does still heal people of sickness and disease; however, I have proved to my own satisfaction that God is not jealous of us using our own knowledge, skills, and abilities to treat ourselves with the medical help that men are able to give and do. There is much that man can’t do to give good medical help to people, but there is also much that men have been able to learn how to care for and treat, to aid in healing and just giving medical aid and comfort to help sick and diseased people.Oh, and Herbert was a TRUE apostle. That record is still skipping in the same track after all these years.
God does not expect us to refuse to give or receive medical care when it can help. Love will lead us to follow the example of “the good Samaritan”. Some of my writings will help to explain my beliefs on this subject more in detail. With this having been said, I do believe that Herbert W. Armstrong was a true servant and Apostle of Christ and God, and most of the truth that any of us true Christians have is a direct result of God teaching him from the Holy Bible, and him teaching us. Many of the splinter groups and ministers that have branched away from the Worldwide Church of God seem to try and distance themselves from him and refuse to recognize that it was Herbert W. Armstrong that God used to raise up the sixth horn of Christ, the “Church in Philadelphia”, and to restore the true teaching of Christ and his apostles in the Church of God, and also to preach and publish this truth including the true gospel throughout the world in all nations.If the red flag did not go up when reading the above information, it should now. He was a former member of the apostate Gerald Flurry.
Now since this is supposed to be a lead article to help introduce you to myself and my web-site; I will let you know that I stood up for the truth that I love, early on in 1991, and was disfellowshipped for talking to other brethren about the departure from the truth that was taking place by the whole ministry in the Worldwide Church of God. I attended the Laodicean Church that Flurry was leading for several years and was eventually disfellowshipped from that organization also when I let them know that I disagreed with the doctrine of not using medical care for the sick and diseased people. I have proved that doctrine to be wrong in a paper that I wrote, and they refused to acknowledge that they were wrong, so they just removed me from their fellowship. Seeing how far off course they have strayed since then, I realize that they only did me and my family a favor when they cast us out.Like other COG guru's, his wife and kids don't share his new found interest.
Since being disfellowshipped from the Laodicean organization, I have continued to hold on to and teach God’s truth to my family and anyone else that I am able to reach. At the present time I am mostly alone. My children and wife are not interested in keeping God’s Sabbath and Holy Days any longer. God has not gotten their attention yet, but I hope and pray for them.From his latest article on church eras:
God has awesome things in store for his children who love him! I don’t have many brethren’s address’s, so I plan to put my literature on the Internet, and anyone who desires to, can copy and publish these booklets, but only if they are published in their entirety, and don’t add to them anything, and don’t take away anything from them. This truth should not be distorted or destroyed. I pray that God will protect this truth from wicked men. I Gary Stowers have written this booklet with my own hands-on my computer, for our edification and as is necessary for correction, but out of love for all of us that truly are God’s people in this Laodicean Age. Time is short; let us yield to God as never before I Gary Stowers claim all copyrights to this booklet, as well as all of my literature; but only for the sake of making sure that some evil person doesn’t try and prevent anyone from having access to this truth. I desire that no person or persons can hinder in any way the publications of these booklets, by anyone who desires to publish these booklets, in their entirety, and with no additions to them.
A true friend and witness of God and Christ,
Gary Stowers Janaury 19, 2020
Only 144,000 resurrected Christians at Christ's return?? Revelation states 144,000 PLUS a great multitude. There's indications that there are two lots of 144,000. The first is the group that come down to Mouth Zion with Christ. Then the second inferior group that's the minimum from the twelve tribes of Israel.
ReplyDelete'yield to God??' The old 'obey, yield, surrender, submit' mantra. That's the wording of being passive and lorded over by control freak ministers. Obeying God involves being assertive and putting out effort resisting this worlds evils way.
Two red flags folks.
"God is the only one that can make a believer out of you. Unless God is calling you, then you will not have the faith to take action"
ReplyDeleteAnd no die hard armstrongite will say "I'm not called" will they? Deceitful.
If God "called" you once, why do you have to play musical church every time some ass-hat think's he found the "truth?"
Just another money grubbing so called "PROFIT" of gauud.
"God is the only one that can make a believer out of you. Unless God is calling you, then you will not have the faith to take action to obey God and his Commandments. Unless God is calling you, then you will not even believe the wonderful good news about God’s plan for your life in his family and kingdom, even if it is shown to you in the Holy Bible. If you don’t truly believe then it would seem foolish for you to surrender to obey a God that you don’t even believe. Yes, God must spiritually act on your mind to call you and give you faith in his Word, and he will do that in his own time."
ReplyDeleteHe's right, it does seem foolish. It's like applying to college, getting rejected by Admissions, but sitting in on the classes anyway, doing all the work, but never enrolling, so at the end, everyone else graduates with a degree, but you don't. They can go out and get decent jobs, but you can't.
I was always told that because both my parents were in the church, that I had an automatic "calling."
1 Corinthians 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
But what made my parents think that they were "called" in the first place?
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
What made my parents think that they could just "come" to god? They may have assumed that the father was drawing them, but what if they were wrong? Just because you sign up for a church, and you decide you want to be a christian, does that mean god has to cooperate?
What if god is picky? What if doesn't want just anyone to be a christian? What if, from god's point of view, christianity was never an option available to me?
Matthew 7:14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
If there is a christian god, he certainly never had any interest in me. And it says right there in the bible that my fate was never under my control anyway, and that the odds were stacked against me because the Admissions department is incredibly selective. People always told me that I had beaten the odds, but they had no reason to know anything about that one way or the other. Too bad god's Admissions department isn't courteous enough to send out letters at least letting people know they were rejected.
I gave it everything I had to give it from childhood until middle age when I began to realize this was among the possibilities that would explain why I couldn't find god. Maybe he's making himself unavailable because he doesn't want me to find him?
So why bother to kick against the pricks? Why keep trying to twist god's arm to get him do something if it isn't his will? Why not just accept that the christian god isn't interested in me, and let it go at that? If he changes his mind, he knows where to find me, right?
Either 1 Corinthians 7:14 is wrong, or if I was never sanctified in the first place, wouldn't that mean that god never accepted them either, even if they never wanted to face up to it? God's not gonna force you to stop going through the motions just because he's not interested in a relationship with you, right?
Or maybe he doesn't exist? That would also explain everything.
ReplyDelete“I attended the Laodicean Church that Flurry was leading for several years and was eventually disfellowshipped from that organization also when I let them know that I disagreed with the doctrine of not using medical care for the sick and diseased people.”--Gary Stowers
In January 1995, Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. (who was urged on by his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. and his accomplices) did the Great Apostasy in the Worldwide Church of God. JWT, Sr. threw out of the WCG virtually everything that Herbert W. Armstrong had taught. He turned the WCG into a Sunday-keeping church. JWT, Sr. died within a year of doing this. His son Joseph Tkach, Jr. took over and brought back tithing and changed the name of the WCG to Grace Communion International.
This was only part of what the Devil had in store for the WCG people.
Another part was that the Devil had raised up his own false prophet Gerald Flurry to pretend he was holding on faithfully to everything that HWA had taught even while he actually perverted the major teachings of HWA. Preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God was immediately discontinued. Gerald Flurry, rather than Jesus, became “That Prophet” of Deuteronomy that everyone had to listen to. Gerald Flurry said that the PCG had been “flooded” with much “new revelation.” Amidst the great confusion of the Devil's apostate Tkaches destroying the WCG, some people did not notice that the Devil's false prophet Gerald Flurry was also perverting HWA's teachings in major ways.
A 72-page booklet called The Plain Truth About Healing (copyright 1979) by Herbert W. Armstrong said on the last page:
“I have made it plain that God's Church does not condemn medical or other doctors—nor sit in judgment of those who are weak in faith and rely on MAN. There is much doctors can do for us today.”
and this:
“God does not expect his ministers to make your decisions for you -- and God's Church will not sit in judgment of you if you go to a doctor. But GOD says one of His BENEFITS, for which He makes no charge, is that He offers you the loving services of a MIRACLE WORKER -- the living JESUS CHRIST!”
ReplyDelete"Or maybe he doesn't exist? That would also explain everything."
Or maybe:
2Th 2:10 - And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2Th 2:11 - And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
Gary, how do you find these people? WHY do you find these people? Reminds me of years past when Fred Coulter was writing his book on Passover. He found, brought up, presented people and arguments virtually no one had ever heard of, or their beliefs, and then he proceeded to destroy whatever their teachings were. I don't doubt that he did a good job of it, but to what avail? Look at this straw man I can destroy!! You seem to be doing the same thing, as I never heard of this person and doubt that I ever would. Apparently there is a need to keep this blog, website or whatever, going by these means.
ReplyDeleteI cruised around his website, and didn't find any kind of solicitation or form for giving money.
ReplyDeleteHe also does not claim to be some kind of "Biblical Character. So I will give him some small credit
on this first "sniff test".
We shall see how long this lasts!
The COG market is more crowded than the Micro Brew Beer market it appears. In both cases, anyone with a bathtub
and a computer can be a "brand"!
So many believed that they had some sort of special calling or mission. It was ingrained in most of the members. For years, I kept the doctrines as best I could, while also making a concerted effort not to be cultic about it. In the end, I realized that you just can't separate the two. Plus, if you didn't act cultic, the rest of the brethren didn't trust you. They saw you as not being all in.
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism has always had a statistically negligible influence on the gen pop. I'd speculate that within the next twenty years, once the tail end of the baby boomers who felt as if they had a special calling start to die off, it will all be forgotten. At least that's my hope.
BB
ReplyDelete“My children and wife are not interested in keeping God’s Sabbath and Holy Days any longer.” -- Gary Stowers
Going weekly to listen to Satan's false prophet Gerald Flurry and the fake PCG “ministers” that he set up is NOT really keeping the Sabbath the way God intended. He should let his wife and children really rest for a change from all that evil noise.
The Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W. Armstrong had quoted the real book of Malachi (NOT the plagiarized and revised Malachi's Mess. by Gerald Flurry) in the Bible saying, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6, KJV).
That is why Satan's PCG cult is all about wrecking all normal family relationships and promoting sexual immorality. Gerald Flurry is the anti-Elijah.
" God is the only one that can make a believer out of you. Unless God is calling you, then you will not have the faith to take action to obey God and his Commandments. Unless God is calling you, then you will not even believe the wonderful good news about God’s plan for your life in his family and kingdom, even if it is shown to you in the Holy Bible. If you don’t truly believe then it would seem foolish for you to surrender to obey a God that you don’t even believe. Yes, God must spiritually act on your mind to call you and give you faith in his Word, and he will do that in his own time."
ReplyDeleteSounds like the story about the emperor's new clothes.
Wish I had realized this many years ago.
ReplyDelete“Apostate PCG Member Believes He Is God's Vessel For The Truth”
Anyone who has been in Gerald Flurry's PCG cult for as long as Gary Stowers will have seriously warped ideas about all sorts of things without even realizing it. He will not remember what HWA had actually taught. He will know only what Gerald Flurry has taught.
Gary Stowers is just another one of those guys who simply is unable to admit that he got fooled by Satan's false prophet Gerald Flurry into joining and supporting the satanic PCG imposter cult. After wasting so many years in the PCG, he wants to pretend that it was somehow the right thing to do even though nothing but evil ever came of it.
Anon@4>57 pm. "Gary, how do you find these people? WHY do you find these people? "
ReplyDeleteI have people send me all kinds of stuff like this. I don't need to search it out. On those times I do, something pops up within minutes with something crazy some COG leader has spoken. People are tired of these people claiming to be prophets and teachers and tired of family members being caught up in their lies. Armstrongism does NOT hold the key to salvation and never will. These men went never being accountable for their untruths, now they cant get away with it.
Anon4:46PM said...
ReplyDelete"Or maybe he doesn't exist? That would also explain everything."
Or maybe:
2Th 2:10 - And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2Th 2:11 - And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That's easy, 4:46...
"If there is a christian god, he certainly never had any interest in me...Maybe he's making himself unavailable because he doesn't want me to find him?...What if, from god's point of view, christianity was never an option available to me?...If he changes his mind, he knows where to find me, right?"
If this god wanted me to believe, wanted christianity to be an option for me, it certainly would have been easy, would still be easy, for him to set the record straight.
You'll have to explain it to me how being clear-eyed and honest about the fact there's a range of possible things that could be going on, and I don't know which it is, is "being deceived."
I generally observe that people who use terms like "god", "church", "cross", "christ", "heaven",and "pentecost" (etc) are people who are confused and really do not understand what they are talking about...kind of like DD, who is the mouthpiece of satan, as he likes to catharsize (vomit) all over us here at Banned, because he is a bucket of hot mess.
ReplyDeleteTalk about going from the frying pan into the fire.
I guess this madness has gone on for as long as our species of primate had enough intelligence to invent language and organize ideas then narcissistic individuals set out to be the one with all the answers and got enough followers to reign in luxury and splendor at the dumb sheep's expense.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a source link for this guy?
ReplyDeleteSeveral of us who left the WCG in the late 80's and early 90's were WISE enough to see what the Tkach administration was doing. Unfortunately, we were FOOLISH to go with GRF.
ReplyDeleteGary Stowers and others who try to be teachers since leaving PCG are no exception. He is wasting his time. If his family won't listen to him, very, very few outsiders will.
Armstrongism failed when the ultimate proof failed in 1975. That is when God passed on validating HWA's lifetime work. People have been trying to slightly modify the Armstrong package of doctrines to get just the right combination ever since, and God keeps right on passing on the validation part. This is why the movement is impotent and splintered, with no single splinter as a blessed standout. The so-called independents are no exception, because they don't just have severely limited end time messaging capablility, they have zero messaging capability. Surely it is time to scrap it and move on. Nobody knows jack about prophecy. It appears to still be locked. Even the huge number of Evangelicals have gotten it wrong. They say it's the endtimes, yet laud Donald Trump as their president who will restore the USA to its former glory.
ReplyDeleteBB
ReplyDeleteTonto at 5:06 PM said...“I cruised around his website, and didn't find any kind of solicitation or form for giving money. He also does not claim to be some kind of "Biblical Character. So I will give him some small credit on this first 'sniff test'.”
It stinks!
Sniff harder, Tonto. Sniff harder.
It stinks!!!
ReplyDeleteEX-PCG at 4:15 AM said...“Several of us who left the WCG in the late 80's and early 90's were WISE enough to see what the Tkach administration was doing. Unfortunately, we were FOOLISH to go with GRF.”
The APOSTATE Tkaches did their Great Apostasy in the Worldwide Church of God in 1995 by openly throwing out virtually everything that Herbert W. Armstrong had taught. Many former WCG members then wondered where to go.
Thousands of former WCG members got suckered into the PCG splinter cult by Gerald Flurry using HWA's name and photograph all the time. This was at a time when other splinter groups like the so-called “United” Church were trying to do their own Work without ever mentioning HWA's name at all. It did not help that the Devil's APOSTATE Tkaches sold the copyrights to some of HWA's writings to Satan's FALSE PROPHET Gerald Flurry, since Gerald just edited and changed HWA's writings to suit his own doctrinal changes.
The better people eventually either smartened up and left the PCG or got kicked out of it. Several hundred of them, in their search for a man to follow, went on to fall for Satan's other deranged FALSE PROPHET, David Pack. David Pack had initially said that he was going to restore everything that HWA had taught at the time of his death in 1986. Then, David went totally crazy with greed and vanity and doctrinal changes.
After finding out that Satan's FALSE PROPHETS like Gerald Flurry and David Pack are nothing but evil continually, some of their former followers had no interest in any real religion that simply obeys God without worshipping crazy FALSE PROPHETS and their satanic lies.
Anonymous quote, January 31, 2020 at 5:42 AM said...
ReplyDeleteTonto at 5:06 PM said...“I cruised around his website, and didn't find any kind of solicitation or form for giving money. He also does not claim to be some kind of "Biblical Character.
Shit stinks even if it is Bob's website.
All these add-ons to Christianity make it sound like the ccog is a cult.
So if it stinks of cultism, sounds like cultism, it most likely is a CULT!
6.34 AM
ReplyDeleteIt's the WWCG banning adulthood and reducing members to an infantile state, that has resulted in them being financially and spiritually butchered by Dave Pack and similar.
Herb and his ministers have a lot to answer for.
Wouldn't it be nice if the Kotex company got into religious products and came out with something called "Cultex"? Kind of plugged the culties up so that their "issue" didn't get out and cause uncleanness?
ReplyDeleteBB
You all can say what ever you desire about me, but my interest in God and his family that he is building, is only for the well-being and hope of the masses of people on this earth, who will get a chance to know their Creator and his eternal love and mercy that he does and will show to all of us sinning people when we are able to believe his word.
ReplyDeleteYou all can say what ever you desire about me, but my interest in God and his family that he is building, is only for the well-being and hope of the masses of people on this earth, who will get a chance to know their Creator and his eternal love and mercy that he does and will show to all of us sinning people when we are able to believe his word.
ReplyDeleteGary, I have no doubt what you are teaching is the Truth. God has Done a very special work with you. Glad to see your dedication and stead fast to God and no man. All these Negative comments we once the dooped people they claim you to be. The Real God has your attention and it shows from all the literature you have wrote. God be with you brother! God speed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gary’s Teachings. God will spew out the PCG like he says in the Bible. Hold stead fast Gary, God be with you.
ReplyDeleteGary Stowers has not updated his web page since 2020. Some leader he is! Just shows how little he cares for the brethren,
ReplyDeleteIf you only knew big guy!
DeleteFrom my understanding Gary no longer has the means to publish his articles that he writes . He had a person putting up his articles on the internet.Seems like a very faithful servant of Christ . Any man that can stand alone in his faith , has a well trained mind. I believe this gentleman has a good heart and hold to true teachings of God!
ReplyDelete