One of the things that Herbert Armstrong taught was that we were not to idolize people and things, like so many in the world, did and do. That teaching also had little meaning to many in the leadership of the church and with certain members. HWA himself was idolized, the campuses were idolized, ministers were idolized and especially books were idolized. The church was always great at never doing what it actually preached, so it should be no surprise that the Philadephia Church of God, who has made a business out of idolatry, is idolizing a dirty old rock and one of the most boring books ever published by the church as two of the most important things necessary for salvation.
A reader here referred me to Exit and Support Network's article about a sermon that Brad Macdonald gave in May of 2020.
In that article are the following comments from a sermon summary of things Macdonald said:
BM: [Referring to to a quiz he gave about MOA which was] “to get us thinking about how “relevant that book is; to get us thinking about how “timeless” that book is.”
BM: “I have probably read MOA ten times” and “I am reading it again.”3
[Referring to MOA] “Isn’t that book incredible?” “There’s always more we can learn from and about MOA”; “I want us to consider…our loyalty to this book.”
Imagine your life as a human being so worthless that if you do not read MOA then there is no plan for you in the world tomorrow! This is what he is really saying below. Sickening!
He referred many times to a Pentecost sermon that HWA gave on May 26, 1985 (“Why Firstfruits?) where he rebuked the members and said if they weren’t qualifying to be a teacher, “You are wasting your time”; “You don’t belong in the church.”
MOA THE MAIN TEXTBOOK IN THE WORLD TOMORROW
BM: “The Bible is the main text book of the world tomorrow and then right after the Bible, as we know, is Mystery of the Ages. … How deeply do you love that textbook? MOA.”
[He said in The New Throne of David booklet (p. 52) GF said] “We are getting ready to fill the earth with the truth taught from MOA. … After the Bible, this will be the main text book in the world tomorrow. It is the instruction manual God will use to teach all mankind. This will be the number one book that all mankind will study after the Bible.”
BM: “How much does MOA shape our opinions?” … “how much MOA makes it into our conversations, our term papers, and how much is MOA forming the way we think?”
[In The New Throne of David GF said] “Habakkuk 2:11 is the single greatest new revelation that God has given the PCG so far.” (p. 48) “This beam [in Habakkuk 2:11] is MOA. … MOA connects everything.” (p. 45)
Did you know that your marriage and your very life depend upon MOA?
BM: [The truth in MOA] “holds this church together”; “holds our congregations together”; “holds our marriages together”; “holds our families together and MOA will *hold your life together.* And it will hold your brain and your mind together.” … “If your brain is coming apart, if you’re are struggling with God’s existence [mentions several chapters in MOA] … If you feel like with all this knowledge, you don’t know what is right and wrong, then you need to go back to MOA. The answers are in that book. And MOA will connect it all.”
The only thing this much devotion to the book will accomplish is to send one to a mental institution! It will NEVER give you answers to anything and certainly will NOT connect you to God!
MOA is a book that holds your very life together! It holds your brain together! Your entire personal life is dependent upon this book. Not the Bible mind you, not even the life and teachings of Jesus can accomplish what this book will do for you! This very book explains the Bible for you!
“Now you need more than that. You need to be humble, you need to be objective, you need to be prepared to listen to what God inspires through that book. But that book holds our brains together. That book holds our life together spiritually. That book as it explains the Bible.”
[At this point BM says that he] “doesn’t want to marginalize the Bible at all.”
BM: “So far we have considered MOA as this depository of divine revelation. The most important; the most fundamental knowledge that man can have.”
MOA is the very CENTERPIECE of the PCG (that and the court case) and their very existence revolves around it.
BM: “But there is another dimension to MOA that we really need to consider and that GF teaches us about in The New Throne of David.” [Reads a quote from p. 44 of TNTOD where GF says]” I have come to realize that the beam in this verse [Habakkuk 2:11] is more than just MOA. That book is the centerpiece, but the beam includes everything that happened with that book–all the history of the court case, including all the other writings we obtained in it.”
BM: “The beam is also the story of MOA, the way MOA came about, and then what happened with MOA in the years afterward.” [He called MOA “revealed knowledge.”]
BM: “The history of MOA really is the history of the PCG.”
BM: “From the beginning the PCG Work has revolved about MOA.”
BM: “MOA is at the core of our existence, and it’s the reason we still thrive today.”
BM: “The further we get from when MOA was first published, the more attention God gives us. … The more emphasis God puts on it.”
Jesus, that always inconvenient dude pushed to the back burner is pushed even further back with the following:
BM: “Our spiritual lives really need to revolve around MOA, as MOA is revealing the Bible.”
Jesus be damned! The book is so important that you cannot understand the Bible without MOA.
BM: “The Bible is the #1 textbook, but we really do need MOA to understand it.”
Nothing Jesus ever did, said, or accomplished is as important as this stupid book! It is appalling the depths of theological depravity the COG will allow itself to sink to in order to stroke the egos of degenerate splinter cult leaders!
Macdonald then tells one of the biggest lies ever! Jesus came to earth to save the Mystery of the Ages from the Glendale garbage dump where 10's of thousands of copies were already buried (I know this to be a fact as I was one of the people who helped load the stake bed trucks up with literature to haul to the dump)!
BM: [Reads: Amos 9:1] “Christ had to come to this earth and he had to personally intervene with the affairs of this church because MOA was in real trouble. Because MOA would go extinct and the fight for this book and over the truth in this book, the fight was so intense that Jesus Christ Himself had to come down and intervene.”
He doesn't mention the $3,000,000.00+ that they had to dish out to the Worldwide Church of God after they LOST the lawsuit for those books (See: WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD v. PHILADELPHIA CHURCH OF GOD INC). Money was the deal maker, not some stupid creature that the PCG calls "christ".
BM: “Great things happen when we build our lives, collectively and individually, around MOA.”
That dang Jesus dude, he had to go and influence people into thinking he was more important than Mystery of the Ages!
The blasphemies continue from Macdonald
BM: [Voice gets loud] “Christ has built this Work around MOA and if you build your life around this book; if you strive to live the truth of thisbook, God will bless you the same way. He really will.”
Build your life around a damn book and ignore Jesus, that guy you are supposed to be following. The degenerate state of affairs in the Church of God continues to sink to even lower depths of spiritual depravity. Do that and the magical god of Armstrongism will bless you!
BM: “And if you throw your heart into this Work that distributes this book, then He will give you the physical and the spiritual blessings, just as He has this Work.”
46 comments:
Yep. This is the epitome of cultism. I'm sure the members are eagerly awaiting a payoff that is never going to come. Really, quite a shame.
One of the last scriptures of the Book of Revelation warns against trying to add scripture as fact. PCG does this with MOA. I doubt Ronald McDonald has read MOA 10 times, I could barely force myself to read it once. If he truly did, it shows how unbalanced he really is. It is almost unreadable. They really make HWA a deity and as their messiah. It does not matter what he did to his daughter or other children.
The book "Mystery Of The Ages" is nothing more than a compilation of other booklets that HWA had written before. A book, like all Armstrong writings, belongs in the trash!
Brad Macdonald, another offshoot from John Macdonald. Not really the sharpest in the PCG shed. Every HQ minister just sucking up on a dead HWA or their idol/king Flurry. No critical thinking from this lot. Move along and out of the PCG. Really nothing to see.
Building your life around a book is circling the wagons forever. There's no forward progress when the wagons are circled. Advising this strategy also betrays a lack of trust in their members, and gives a one size fits all approach. By contrast, life was meant to be an adventure. Ancient Israel conquered the nations in the promised land, a type of Christians moving forward. God even criticized them for not completely driving out all the inhabitants.
Btw, in high pressure trials, circling the wagons ie, sticking to fundamentals, makes sense.
Which version of MOA?
The one published in 1985 or any of the subsequent versions that have been substantially edited by PCG published since?
You know, the one that leaves out HWA's statement that there will be no more prophets.
I was at ACBS back in the late 80’s when word was getting out that the WCG was burning all of the MOA books they had left over.
Some GREAT DECEPTIONS in Gerald R. Flurry's Philadelphia Church of Fraud
“Little Book” Delivered by a Mighty US Postal Worker
Crackpot Jules Dervaes mailed his Letter to Laodicea to about 700 WCG ministers, including Gerald R. Flurry, using the US postal service.
“Little Book” Plagiarized, Renamed, and Revised
Gerald Flurry along with John Amos turned the Letter to Laodicea into Malachi's Message and used it to start Gerald's own splinter group called the PCG. Gerald later revised it some more and said that it was the “little book” mentioned in Revelation and that it had been “delivered by a mighty angel.” Gerald claimed that nobody had known anything about it until he wrote it, and expressed his hope that everyone would question anyone who suggested otherwise.
The True Gospel Suppressed (Again!)
Herbert W. Armstrong taught that the true gospel had been suppressed for 1900 years until he and the Worldwide Church of God came on the scene and were given an “open door” to preach it as a witness to all nations before the end of the age would come. HWA wrote that the “great commission” to preach the gospel (meaning “good news”) of the coming kingdom of God was the “true purpose” and the “very purpose” of the church. Gerald Flurry said that HWA had preached the gospel, and that preaching the gospel ended with HWA's death in January1986. Thus, Gerald Flurry immediately suppressed the preaching of the gospel in his own little splinter group called the PCG.
The “New (Non-Gospel) Commission” of the PCG
Gerald Flurry said that the PCG had been given a “new commission” for a “new church era.” The commission was to “warn the Laodiceans” by acting like jerks towards former WCG members and refusing to have anything to do with them. Thus, Gerald Flurry tried to completely change and pervert the commission of the whole church while pretending to be holding fast to everything that HWA had taught. Instead of preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, the PCG taught bad news about causing division among the WCG people.
PCG Flooded with “Much New Revelation” about the Amazing Runt
Gerald Flurry said that the PCG had been “flooded with much new revelation.” Gerald claimed that this did not change HWA's teachings, but only built upon them. Of course, it was all stuff and nonsense that Gerald Flurry had made up about how great he supposedly was and how great his plagiarized and revised “little book” supposedly was.
Herbert W. Armstrong's Writings Edited and Changed
The Devil's apostate Joseph Tkach, Jr. in the WCG sold the copyrights to some of HWA's writings to Satan's false prophet Gerald Flurry. This made it look like Gerald really believed HWA's writings. However, Gerald Flurry then edited and changed HWA's writings so they would not expose Gerald Flurry's doctrinal changes, such as claiming to be a prophet leading the church.
Continued below...
...continued from above
Identity Theft and “That (False) Prophet”
Gerald Flurry pretended to admire HWA by insisting that everyone believe that HWA was the one prophesied to come in the spirit and power of Elijah to restore all things. This made it sound like Gerald Flurry was carrying on with HWA's teachings. However, Gerald Flurry soon went on to insist that everyone must ALSO believe that Gerald Flurry, rather than Jesus, was what he called “That Prophet” of Deuteronomy 18:18-19 that everyone was supposed to listen to. Thus, little Gerald pulled off the identity theft of the ages and promoted himself from drunken runt to That (False) Prophet.
“No Contact Policy” Family Wrecking
In his later years, HWA had talked about turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. So, of course, Gerald Flurry came up with a “No Contact” policy to try to wreck families so that husbands and wives and children could not even talk to each other if they did not all worship That Runt in his satanic imposter cult called the PCG.
The New Throne Stone
Gerald Flurry eventually found a stone that he thought HWA might have prayed at in the past, and lugged it to his PCG cult compound. Soon, Gerald started to claim that it was the new throne stone that replaced the real one from under the coronation chair in the United Kingdom. By this time, Gerald knew that PCG members would go along with anything he made up so as not to get kicked out and have their families and so-called “friends” in the PCG turned against them.
Irish Dancing to Waste Everyone's Time
After getting everyone in the PCG to help him suppress the true gospel, cause division among church people, stay ignorant, worship an arrogant runt, listen to Gerald rather than Jesus, and wreck their own families, Gerald decided to waste everyone's time with Irish dancing.
Truly, you cannot make this stuff up. It takes one of Satan's favorite false prophets like Gerald Flurry to make this stuff up.
Herbert Armstrong was the end-time Elijah & last days Prophet. He was the head of the ONLY TRUE CHURCH! For you people to make fun of REAL CHRISTIANS is evil, and you will eat your words.
I think this is the most anti-Christ, anti-God diatribe I have ever read. It is unexcelled in its stupidity.
John 14:1-15
14 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I AM THE WAY, aAND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE no one comes to the Father BUT THROUGH ME. THE WAY IS NOT MYSTERY OF THE AGES
7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”......
The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves..... (Jesus spoke what he heard the Father say... He did not write a book called MYSTERY OF THE AGES and He certainly did not go to a dump to save the blasphemous book!)
Please, please leave these churches. Leave, rest from the lies and trauma, sit quietly at home and, when you are somewhat recovered, ask Jesus to show you the truth about Himself.
Blessings and peace to all who are so heavily burdened and oppressed by the lies of thesefalse churches.
Didnt Michael Jackson use the lyric "SHA- MOA " in a lot of his songs?
MOA. Isn't that an extinct giant bird? Let's hope the PCG become extinct soon, too!
The MOA were a family of large ancient flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest of the nine kinds found there were about 12 feet tall and weighed in at 500 pounds. They had small heads and were completely wingless, lacking even the stubby vestigial wings of other flightless birds,; they were the dominant herbivores in the area. For millions of years they flourished, then abruptly disappeared, around the time the first Maori settlers reached New Zealand in the late 13th century.
====================================================
I believe in types also as so often used in the COG movements. Ancient MOA are a type of HWA's classic hit, MOA. It too really can't fly either if you goby its failure to survive in going into all the world. The COGs also have small heads and are completely clueless, which is the modern typological word for "wingless". These churches also go extinct as old beliefs are replaced by new realities. :)
Changed my profile pic for the MOA post of me in the theology dept of the Portland Library where HWA "did six months of intense study, not unlike Dave Packs intense study of evolution taking Second Year Bible at Ambassador College, where it was never discussed, 50 years ago. I am reading MOA upside down which is the best way to perceive its reality.
NO2HWA did a great job of underscoring the misguided focus of Gerald Flurry and his Philadelphia Church on Armstrong's Mystery of the Ages. He also made clear that these folks have always sought to minimize the way that Jesus Christ fulfilled both the "physical" and spiritual prophecies relative to the promises made to Abraham, Israel and David (they're all really spiritual). Finally, the obsession with books is both idolatrous and blasphemous (we do that every time we make something other than God the final authority and/or the object of our worship and devotion).
However, we should also note that the theology of the book itself is very flawed relative to every one of the seven "mysteries" discussed in its pages. For example, it's clear that HWA did not understand the nature of God, that his narrative about angels and evil spirits was wrong (angels never had man's potential, and God didn't have to come up with a plan B), that his failure to understand God and angels means that he also failed to fully understand the nature of man and God's plans for him, which means he also failed to understand human history and the factors which influenced the development of human civilization, and twisted both the genetic heritage of Englishman and this caused him to fundamentally misunderstand prophecy related to Israel and other nations, he also twisted both the biblical and secular history relative to the Christian Church (along with its proper structure, governance and mission), and Armstrong failed to fully comprehend the meaning and message about God's Kingdom! Hence, it is clear that ALL SEVEN of HWA's "mysteries" were flawed!
So glad I did not read MoA LOL
Irish dancing that originated with the Celtic Druids!
They might as well all celebrate Halloween, same origins.
Have you never done the research, and seen for yourself all the failed prophecies?
And there we have it.
What was discussed in this ‘sermon’ is rather easily shot down by the scripture.
We eat sleep breathe and have our being in Jesus Christ, as it is written, not in moa.
A more applicable title to MOA (misery on arrival?) would be Mystery, Babylon The Great.
Stuff like this is what turned me off to Seventh-Day Adventism.
Some SDAs seem to idolize Ellen White, quoting her during services and including her writings at least once a week in the quarterly Sabbath School lessons.
So far, LCG seems to be avoiding taking the same approach with the writings of Dr. Meredith. May it continue to do so.
"My Bible and my Bible alone...." - COG7 pioneer Gilbert Cranmer
The $3 million probably didn't include the cost of insurance.
People here are just as brainwashed by the media as BM is by HWA.
Only ten times? Is he new?
Trey,
God regards Herbert Armstrong a traitor. He was trained in free market advertising, but embraced Marxism instead. For example, it's church culture that ministers micro manage every members life. This permeates all of the splinters to this very day.
What a shame it is, that Jesus' own disciples never had a chance to read M.O.A., and so won't be in the Kingdom!
And what an honest, genuine shame it is, that some people actually believe the idea that God would have left His Word unknowable for such a long time, before finally getting someone to write the allegedly "necessary for understanding and salvation" decryption key.
THINK, PEOPLE!
Stop with all these lies! The PCG is God's church!
And the fact that God used HWA as an apostle with the supposed ability to bind and lose….so when he said in MOA that here are no more NT Prophets that’s binding. UNTIL the new Prophet/Eligja/Apostle/King flurry comes along and sneakily erases that from MOA until he is called out for it and uses his “powers” to unbind it.
God must be the author of total confusion
Blogger Phinnpoy said...
MOA. Isn't that an extinct giant bird?
Well, yes, you're right. But here within driving distance of Minneapolis/St. Paul, I automatically translate those initials to "Mall of America." Distracting.
No worse, though, than the repeated reference in the post to Brad McDonald by the initials BM. Sort of suggests the worth of McDonald's opinions.
Trey, for you own sake, go look up all the failed prophecies and predictions HWA made. Read "1975 in Prophecy" he made numerous predictions most of which all failed and were swept under the rug. Read about his marriage to Ramona. These things are indisputable facts. Read your Bible and note the message the apostles were preaching and compare that to the message of "some unseen hand from someplace" HWA was giving to leaders he was seeing on his trips. They are completely different.
What specificity do you believe to be lies?
Armstrongism has always been about members saving their own asses. So, when Flurry and his ministers tell the members to spend more time on M.O.A, members say to themselves, "OK, here we go again! Better read it one more time if I want to save M.O.A.!"
Ha ha! 11:36 PM. Do you really think if Flurry and his ministers say "go do" that members think "Better read it..."
I am glad MOA exists. It is the closest thing Armstrongists have ever produced to a systematic theology. It makes the core of Armstrongist theology readily accessible. It does represent only a fraction of the total Armstrongist theology but it is an important fraction. Research into Armstrongism would be much hindered without MOA. I have a copy on my shelf.
******* Click on my icon for Disclaimer
"Don't believe me, believe your Bibles" - HWA
The MOA is a renunciation of this principle. Much of it's theology hinges on believing that HWA is an Apostle and that he received a special revelation from God.
******** Click on my icon for Disclaimer
It should be pointed out that MOA was written by several ministers rather than by HWA himself. When he frequently stated that he felt like he didn't write the book, he wasn't lying.
9:54
HWA never lied!
I see you are one of the persons who could have understood the point I have been making during my decade stint here.
Good observation.
Nck
Yes, most do, they are that brainwashed, unfortunately.
Yah, he did, nck. He didn't want the church ladies selling expensive stainless pots and pans to the brethren, kind of like the Tupperware parties they were putting on. They were telling their prospects that aluminum in aluminum pots and pans broke down into the foods cooked in them, causing health hazards. Said that when he sold aluminum cookware back in the early twentieth century, his competitors selling stainless steel made that claim, so his employer had a lab make comparative tests, and found no evidence of aluminum in the food. So, any woman selling stainless cookware whom he found out made that claim would be put out of the church. Most of the people like myself probably remembered having cooked stewed tomatoes in an oxidized aluminum pot, and later noticed that the pot was now shining brightly, since we had eaten the oxides in our tomatoes. But nobody was going to stand up to HWA and confront him with the truth.
It was getting closer to 1975, and I just chuckled to myself, because I had been already realizing that HWA was a total liar. Now, he had been caught in a more blatant lie. But, I suspect that splinter people will be denying that he lied clear into the next century. That's what followers of gurus do. And that's what they are, because if they were seekers of the truth, they would believe their shiny aluminum cookware rather than the words of a failed guru.
Herbert Armstrong didn't even write the whole of MOA, over the years different ones have given hints that they wrote huge chunks of it. One of them allegedly is Aaron Dean amongst others.
10:11
Wow. Gods Apostle had an opinion on aluminum pots and pans too.
I remember my mother and granny making a fuss about aluminum, especially with spinach. We used it for cooking eggs.
I wonder if Gods Apostle ever spoke out about egg cookers or pans being better.
I have to ask my minister what would be the biblical approach for cooking eggs.
Nck
Even though I never read MOA,based on what the AR said about his health, especially his near blindness, I felt it was impossible for him to write it, even if he dictated it to others.
Given his physical and mental condition at the time...
Ha ha they would love it if you would counsel with them on that! If you are unable to make that decision on your own then they have done their job right!!! Mission accomplished.
Printed at the beginning of the book MYSTERY OF THE AGES by Herbert W. Armstrong:
I want to extend my gratitude to Aaron Dean,
who collaborated in the writing and preparation of this book.
Without him, since my near loss of eyesight, this book
could not have been produced.
Below are some quotes about Apostles and Prophets from the book MYSTERY OF THE AGES (MOA) by Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA).
(Be aware that Gerald Flurry's edited and changed version of MOA has deleted some of these sentences. In fact, Gerald Flurry was so desperate to be a prophet that he did not even seem to realize for about the first 20 years of his PCG cult that HWA had taught that the church was led by an apostle, not by a prophet.)
MOA, p. 174: “Meanwhile, an individual few in Old Testament Israel did obey God and by becoming God's prophets, they became part of the very foundation of the New Testament CHURCH OF GOD. The Church is built on the solid FOUNDATION of the prophets (Old Testament) and apostles (New Testament), Jesus Christ himself being 'the chief corner stone' (Eph. 2:20).”
MOA, p. 230: “And Jesus, immediately after qualifying by overcoming Satan, began calling out his future apostles. They were to form, with the prophets, the very FOUNDATION of the Church, under Christ who himself is the real foundation and HEAD of the Church (I Cor. 3:11; Eph. 5:23).”
MOA, p.232: “Through the years from Abraham until Christ, God had called out of Satan's world begotten and prepared PROPHETS, as the preliminary co-foundation of God's CHURCH! Jesus himself is the main foundation.”
“During Jesus' 3 1/2 year earthly ministry, he called out, chose and trained, to begin with, the second co-foundation, his original 12 apostles.”
MOA, p. 233: “The FOUNDATION for the Church of God had been laid. Christ himself is the Head and chief cornerstone--the main foundation. His apostles, with the prophets, formed the remainder of the foundation.”
MOA, p. 244: “To administer these many operations, God--not a vote of the members--'hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers.' Or, as stated in more detail in Ephesians 4:11 (RSV): 'And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.'”
MOA, pp. 244-245 (bolding added): The prophets set in the foundation of the Church are those of the Old Testament, whose writings were used to form a considerable part of New Testament and gospel teaching and functioning. No prophets are mentioned as having either administrative, executive or preaching functions in the New Testament Church.
MOA, p.350 (bolding added): “There was no such doctrinal committee in the first century Headquarters Church at Jerusalem. All teaching came from Christ through the apostles--and a few times Christ communicated to apostles via the prophets (of which there are none in God's Church today since the Bible for our time is complete). God's Church today, as in the first century, receives its teachings from the living Christ, through an apostle, just as in A.D. 31.”
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