Why do COG leaders have the incessant need to CONTINUALLY threaten members? Scripture is filled with stories of Jesus and other faithful people breaking bread or associating with prostitutes, lepers, menstruating women, eunuchs, tax collectors, and other undesirables or "unclean" people. What we also see is Jesus CONSTANTLY pointing out the evils of CHURCH LEADERS and how they bind people up with absurd and offensive teachings, doctrines, and constant threats of losing one's salvation.
Geerald Weston has a problem with ANYONE questioning his leadership.
COGNews had this up:
...the Sabbath service on August 8th, streamed live to all congregations – sermonette from Wallace Smith and sermon from Gerald Weston – was devoted to explaining why church members are required to obey all leadership decisions, and therefore comply with the new (temporary) normal in hymn singing, i.e. “for those of you at home, you will be singing along, and those at services will be contemplating and humming along as we can.”
Gerald Weston referred to Wallace Smith’s sermonette, noting, “these were not decisions made by lay members, but by duly ordained leaders and judges that God had placed in a position of authoritative judgement. We have a situation today where people are saying, well, if I can’t sing, I’m not going to go where the church has placed its name for the feast. We’re just going to have our own feast. Did God ordain you with the responsibility to decide where Christ is going to place His name? If you do that, you are doing so at your own peril.”
26 comments:
Here we go again...more church government BS... More primacy of Peter doctrine. They are using a bankrupt doctrine to try to prop up themselves up. They keep going back to the same old krapp that Herbert used back in the day. The things HWA got away with would not fly in the present day. He would probably be on several episodes of Dateline or American Greed although he did manage to make 60 minutes. He sounded as if he already been hitting the Bristol Creme.
At the Nuremberg Trials, after WW2, it was established that the excuse of "I was just following orders" was not a lawful excuse for immoral actions, and it has become a standard in International Law.
Tonto
"not a lawful excuse for immoral action" should be "a removed defense that does not relieve a person (officer) from resposibility of carrying out illegal orders."
But I do love you still. I love it when you talk legalese to me.
Nck
According to COGNews, GW said: "Did God ordain you with the responsibility to decide where Christ is going to place His name?"
Did God give you, or anyone, the responsibility? Was it [Jesus] Christ who placed his name? Let's examine the word of God …
Deu 14:22-25, You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before YHVH your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, … But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where YHVH your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when YHVH your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which YHVH your God chooses.
Gerald, show the world where it says you, or anyone, have the authority to place YHVH's name anywhere! Also, show us the verse that it is Christ's name and not YHVH. Show us the proof that [Jesus/Yeshua] Christ is YHVH.
2 Chronicles 6:4-6 , And he said: “Blessed be YHVH God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying, ‘Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel. Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
Gerald, has YHVH's name moved from Jerusalem? Probably you know something which is not recorded in the word of God. What does it say in the future messianic age where the [Third] Temple will be built? NC? FL?
Even the Jews today are not required to celebrate Sukkot in Jerusalem. Some of them are just keeping it in their homes. There's no Temple. Aren't you curious why they are no longer tithing? Do you even follow the word of YHVH with regards to tithing?
"Did God ordain you with the responsibility to decide
where Christ is going to place His name?"
Your damned right He did! It is up to you the members to decide, not pressure from weston to force you into submission. God intended that you make your own decisions. You have the autonomy to decide what's best for you and your family. Don't let this little runt of a man tell you what to think, where to go, or how high to jump. You honestly don't need him or the other abusers.
Grow a set!
Am I sensing the beginning of a church members lives matter movement?
Offences must needs come but ........
If the ministers of the LCG don't care to be fired and the members now have incurred the threat of eternal death over masks/singing in a possible Feast exodus, then at the heart of this matter there is a belief and faith problem.
The question is, what exactly is the belief and faith problem. Obviously there is a a number of people attending LCG who don't believe that there leader and headquarters are in any way fulfilling Matt. 24:14 or secondarily making disciples of all nations. Having come into the WCG in the early 80's with 8 million PT magazines going out a month, hundreds of thousands of books and booklets being sent out and with the radio and television airwaves saturated with the WT program and last we forget, a church leader flying around in a jet 300 days a year visiting prominent heads of state, an edict from the church concerning the need to wear a mask and foregoing singing for a short time would have been met with a unanimous compliance in my congregation without question.
The Living Church of God leadership has a possible big problem on their hands if their members and ministry see nothing but a failure to perform "the commision".
The great Oracle of Omaha has said; "when the tide goes out, we will see which of the swimmers still have their pants on". This pandemic has revealed much concerning the leadership of the LCG. When Mr. Weston wrote his dear brethren letter telling the membership who were locked down or disrupted along with the rest of the world, that he/we are blessed by God because of an unexpected large donation prior to the pandemic that we banked, how many said what the F?
Banking money for personal survival and calling it a blessing from God while the locked down world heard ???????? was a revelation to many. Playing the game of church survival absence of faith is a revelation.
So the issue now for many is if "they" are just playing church, we can too, and on our terms with our faith.
Who would have ever thought that a pandemic, banking money, no faith, masks and no singing would be such a great offence.
Didn't "Christ place His name" on several Feast sites that LCG has scrubbed, due to the virus?
As the late James Malm posted:
1 Jun: LCG- The Feast site in Navarre Florida has been cancelled by the owners who are shutting down for this year. This year’s Israel trip has been canceled.
If it's really God's Feast, how did these cancellations happen?
"I was just following orders"
In Napoleon's military code, a soldier who obeys a "bad" order issued by his superior was considered guilty of any "bad" outcome of that order. Such rulings were also held in the US Civil War and other military cases.
"place His name"
He placed it at Mt Moriah in Jerusalem. Not in Belknap Springs, Jeckel Island, Big Sandy, or any other site some COGleader chooses.
Did you notice Mark Armstrong said the ICG FOT site in Australia was canceled due to Canberra's COVID restrictions? The pandemic that Mark says is fake news, like climate change?
Is it a coincidence that Feast tithes and offerings have always been a significant source of dough to fund the rest of the year??
If members don't physically sit through the soft, motivational "offering" music and hear the call to obey by opening up your chequebooks and Visa cards to avoid 'stealing from god,' then will the often cash-strapped sheep still feel the same obligation to support the cause? It would be like telling shopping malls they can't be open during November and December, that's 50% of their annual take!!
Where is this quote from:
“for those of you at home, you will be singing along, and those at services will be contemplating and humming along as we can.”
If it’s in the video, what time stamp?
Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All NATIVE-BORN ISRAELITES are to live in such shelters (Leviticus 23:42, NIV)
Tonto
The 'I was just following orders' was sometimes accepted at the Nuremberg trials. The soldiers who dropped the poison cannisters into the gas chambers were found innocent. The reasoning was that they would have been shot had they disobeyed. Things aren't always simple.
Weston does not trust members so he resorts to threats - members cannot trust Weston so they resist. It's a cycle of disfunction.
Members should go where they are treated with love. The healthy will seek a healthier environment.
"Just following orders" is a defense if the action taken is lawful but negligent. I believe even if unlawful it can be used to mitigate the punishment.
Anyway, it seems that most of the COGs are outside the law while claiming to be within it. And, claiming to be within the Law, they strain their relationship with Christ. You cannot serve both...
"duly ordained leaders and judges that God had placed in a position of authoritative judgement"
The lay membership of this tiny, apocalyptic Millerite denomination needs to carefully parse and unpack the statement cited above. Like, what makes them think that their authority is derived from God? Placed by whom? Is this constant bluster indicative of some deep-seated insecurity about something? I have been around Protestant ministers and I have never seen this kind of continual, menacing, "I'm in charge" bluster. It is always a cult leader or a debased politician who is flying this banner.
"For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20 This doesn't seem to say anything about "duly ordained" people deciding where God will place His name. That is a matter that God decides and He seems to indicate that if even two or three people gather in His name, He will be among them. The context of this verse is talking about disputes between brethren and the procedure for handling such issues, as we see in Matthew 18:15-19, which by the way seems to indicate the binding and loosing principle in reference to the context being applied to the entire assembly, not just the "duly ordained", among the assembly. The meaning of the Greek word ekklesia in verse 17 would indicate the entire congregation, not just those who are "duly ordianed."
You could also go to the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4:19-24 which seems to indicate that the "place" is not as important as the attitude with which we worship God. It doesn't matter how many "duly ordained" men decide where God needs to be. The fact is that if the attitudes of those who claim to worship Him is not in spirit and truth, He won't be there. So if someone decides to attend another groups' Feast site, or even decides based on their own circumstances to stay home, it is up to God to decide whether He wants to be there or not, just as it is up to Him to decide whether to come in among those who are "officially" assembled in a place chosen by those "duly ordained".
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
Concerned Sister
Gerald old fella, under the old Mt. Sinai covenant God told Israel to worship him "in the place that I shall choose", which was first Shiloh and then Jerusalem. You, continue in the old WCG HWA lie, that the church corporation has the authority to decide where God has placed his name, all the while denying what Jesus said two thousand years ago. Where two or three are gathered in my name I am there. Gerald, you don't have the authority to overrule Christ!
How many Nazis were just following orders?
Blind obedience is NEVER a good thing.
LCG people need to wake up and think for themselves.
Fly free little birds!!!
Christ came as your intercessor. You do not need these morally bankrupt men to get to the Almighty.
Weston Wrote:
"these were not decisions made by lay members, but by duly ordained leaders and judges that God had placed in a position of authoritative judgement. We have a situation today where people are saying, well, if I can’t sing, I’m not going to go where the church has placed its name for the feast. We’re just going to have our own feast. Did God ordain you with the responsibility to decide where Christ is going to place His name? If you do that, you are doing so at your own peril.:
To help the daft Weston, I cleaned up his language to make him sound like a Christian leader speaking to adult Christians:
"We realize you have many choices of where to spend the Feast; but the ordained leaders of the LCG assure you we desire your company at the sites we've lovingly prepared to please you. We appreciate your passion for praising God in song. We need that passion at our Feast sites and invite you to brainstorm with us ways we can glorify God together, while also obeying the local laws regarding safety during this pandemic. We value your judgement, your responsibility, and commitment to praising the holy name of Jesus. We hope you’ll consider being with us in the same place but trust we'll be together in Spirit, as you follow the lead of the Holy Spirit to whichever Feast site you attend."
________________________
Your welcome, Weston!
Statement made by Weston:
"If you do that, you are doing so at your own peril.”
Is he merely saying you are at risk of the Corona Virus if you go to unmasked sites, or is he following the COG tradition of threatening the eternal salvation of the poor sheep?
Regardless of his intent, the constant treats are tiresome and ungodly. Weston and the entire hierarchy of every COG has an extensive history of being overlords, never true shepherds working for the joy of the flock.
2 Corinthians 1:24
Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.
When you take the oath of enlistment into the military of the U.S. you promise to obey all LAWFUL orders. You are taught the laws of War, the Geneva Convention, etc. and you are not required to obey unlawful orders, such as killing of civilians at Mai Lai. The Bereans would not feel compelled to obey an unlawful order from the church leaders. They searched the Scriptures to see if what was being taught was true.
6:49pm How about cleaning up your misspellings? It's you're welcome, not your welcome.
Do you own this blog Anon 1:21?
Yo Westie, you'll keep more tithe slaves with treats rather than threats.
How about treating Feast-goers to shorter sermons?
If you made that promise, your attendance would finally soar.
It's owe not own 1:32! 😂
Nck
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