Exit and Support Network has a letter up from an ex-PCG member who discusses how he and his family survived the horrific turn that hit Kentucky and other states over a 240 mile stretch.
He writes about the long held myths Armstrongism, and particularly with Gerald Flurry that those who leave the true faith are doomed to destruction.
As Gerald Flurry has stated countless times through pulpit, print and video, those ex PCG members “who have once been enlightened” (Hebrews 6:4 1) with the “truths” of Armstrongism and the additional special revelation given through “that Prophet” and then who reject these “revealed truths” are under God’s condign wrath and divine disapprobation. If you have in the past been exposed to HWA’s teachings and now Flurry’s new “truths” and refuse to act on what you have heard (called “dangerous knowledge”) then you are marked out for absolutely certain Eternal Death. GF has stated repeatedly in sermons and specifically in his booklet on Jude that Laodiceans who refuse to repent and support him and God’s Work are “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jude 1:12 2). You would be better off going on a long drive next to a lake with Ted Kennedy.
In GF’s “uplifting” booklet on the prophet Ezekiel he gleefully describes in Ezekiel 9 how we rebellious Laodiceans will be special targets for God’s death angels to mercilessly seek out and destroy. We Laodicean men will be violently cut down in midstride along with our children and wives around us. Piles of the slain bodies of Laodicean men, women and children will fill the streets. Are you ready to send in your check to Edmond now? If you refuse to follow Gerald Flurry as “God’s Man” you will pay the ultimate price. As Mr. T told Rocky before the big fight–you’re Dead Meat.
The Churches of God, thanks to Herbert Armstrong, made a cottage industry out of lying to church members over this topic. Fear is the greatest motivator in keeping members in line. The fear of losing ones salvation for refusing to follow a COG leader has been powerful weapon used by many of these degenerate men. They get on the borderline of orgasmic ecstasy when describing the terrible things they want to see happen to ex-members. Their eyes glaze over at the shore destruction they want to see reign down.
The Flurry cult as well as many of the other splinter group leaders take great joy in the suffering they think Joseph Tkach suffered when he was dying of cancer. In their warped minds, their angry god was dishing out pain and suffering on Tkach Sr for daring to get rid of the abusive lies and other false teachings of the church, mainly things that are not required of New Covenant followers of Christ. But they don't care, they are so filled with hate in their hearts that they go into great detail describing the pain Tkach supposedly suffered at the hands of their angry god. Suffering in ways that no one from Tkach's family has ever described told to anyone. Instead these guys lie and lie and lie.
Stories were told to us while we were in the PCG how God would strike down and kill individuals in the church [PCG] who acted disobediently. The most famous one was how Joseph Tkach Sr. was “cursed” with a mortal sickness for telling church members during a Pasadena HQ sermon that it was OK to play golf on the Sabbath. People in the PCG had a lurid mathematical calculation about how Tkach Sr. was slated for destruction the moment he gave that message where he vouchsafed WCG members to tee off on a Saturday. I was told, “It was exactly 42 weeks after Joe Sr. gave that sermon when he was stricken with cancer.” What exactly the significance of the 42 week time period meant I never found out. Very graphic details were given of how Tkach Sr. was eaten up with cancerous sores and lesions from head to toe. Earnest descriptions of Tkach’s final hours, languishing in his hospital bed and under the thralls of unparalleled but well deserved suffering were told. Apparently people who went in to see him came out of his room weeping because of his state. The “rottenness of the bones” in Proverbs 14:40 was cited as absolute scriptural validation of Tkach’s just punishment. The lesson was this: if you rebelled against “God’s Truth” you were in the fast lane to destruction.
The writer then goes on to describe the world the Flurry's imagine happening:
According to “That Prophet’s” twisted theology, when God in the End of Days destroys the luckless inhabitants of the Earth (all who are not PCG members) we rebellious Laodiceans will be finally and deservedly destined to be mere ashes under the soles of the feet of GF and his most loyal devotees (Malachi 4:3). Yes, an Eternal death sentence to those who would dare to not contribute to the fund to fuel Flurry’s luxury private jet. Just imagine the world tomorrow. An endless eternal bliss of Riverdancing, Bible Studies, Spokesman’s Club, and everlasting fundraisers to perpetuate the Flurry dynasty throughout the entire Earth and beyond into the universe. The only TV shows allowed in the Millennium will be the Key of David and Ryan Malone’s Operatic masterpieces.
The writer then describes his experience with the tornado weather:
We live in a modest mobile home that in no way could have withstood the types of wind power that destroyed so many other better built structures that tragic night. It was around 3:30 a.m. when the worst of this storm system hit us. As my wife and I lay in our bed, we heard the howling wind buffet and shake our house. The siding on our home started to violently bang and slap back and forth as it was caught in the wind. I had a real mortal dread that the very sides of our home would be sheared away–exposing us to the elements. Then the large hail storm came and it felt as if it would come through the ceiling. We offered up earnest prayers to God in His Son’s name for protection. Here was the moment. Would God protect us through this storm safely or would Flurry’s dark prognostications against us prevail?
According to PCG doctrine, my family that night should have stood out glaringly to both God’s avenging angels and Satan’s destroying demons alike as prime targets for annihilation. There was not another Laodicean family around for 50-70 miles and for all practical purposes we have bull’s-eye targets painted on our backs!! Worse than that we had a Christmas tree in our living room lit up with all the ornaments on it!! HWA is spinning in his grave! We had a small miniature Christmas village set up on our coffee table just begging for us to be hopelessly wiped out! All the righteous indignation and fury in that storm should have been directly sent in our immediate vicinity as just punishment for our rebellion. Now the butcher’s bill is to be paid. Now we will experience the deadly consequences for rejecting Gerald Flurry as God’s man–the very man who will sit triumphantly in the Eschaton on Armstrongs’ prayer rock and be crowned king of Israel. Woe unto US!!!!
He ends his letter with this:
Friends, Flurry’s curses against those of us who have left the PCG are useless because Christ has become a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). The PCG teaches that all of us who do not keep God’s Mosaic Law as a means to salvation are under a curse. However in that same verse of Galatians is it written that Jesus has “redeemed us from the curse of the law”. Please don’t follow a man. Jeremiah 17:5 tells us that the real curse upon an individual is not a refusal to support Gerald Flurry– but in trusting a mere mortal man for spiritual deliverance and making “flesh his arm.”
Amen to that! No one and I repeat NO ONE will ever fear the wrath of the false god of Armstrongism and its degenerate leaders. None of them have the power to call down any curses on us. None of them will ever be the two witless witnesses. None of them will ever have an end time message that is worth listing to. None of them can ever take away any opportunity of salvation open to those who are followers of The Way.
25 comments:
My life has been blessed beyond anything I could have thought possible since leaving that cult! And most importantly I finally feel like I have a sound mind bit controlled by fear. I can finally plan for a future, something no one in the cult really does because they think they are always about 3 years from Christ’s return.
PCG folks would feel a whole lot better if they'd just spew that s--t out of their butts! They need to come on in out of the cold, warm themselves up by the fire and have a very Merry Christmas!
Flurry is like some despot like Kim Jung IL or Ceaucescu who abuses and terrorized his own people for his own personal gain. The thing he fears most is people who have the courage to confront him with the truth and doesn't fear his backlash. He is a FALSE PROPHET.
Hmmmm followers of the Way. What is "The Way" to the creators of this warpish blog ? You love to proclaim yourselves as ones who don't deny Jesus but I find you to be liars with hate and immature lies in your real mouths.
Good and bad happens to all people, regardless of the intensity of their devotion to a particular philosophy. Nobody gets to live a completely charmed life. According to the law of averages, sooner or later bad happens to everybody.
If you happen to be a member of an ACOG splinter cult, there is no protection against abuse by the ministry. You are highly likely to be manipulated out of your financial blessings. You've thrown away your normal support network ("unconverted" family). Every day, your salvation is in jeopardy, a factor that the ministry never lets you forget. Unless you conceal your beliefs, you will be looked down upon by all outsiders.. And, don't even get me started itemizing all of the badness constantly flowing your way if you are a church teenager attending public schools. Your Constitutionally recognized rights to such things as freedom of speech are rendered null and void by your church. And all of these are on top of the random mixture of good and bad to which all humans are subject.
All thnings considered, the practitioners of Armstrongism lead a much crappier life than your average Joe Blow on the street.
That's a very accurate description of what going through a tornado in a trailer house is like, they left out the house rising off the concrete blocks & how a strong wind will haunt them in the future.
I have bad hips so I couldn't clime down into the shelter May, 6th 2015 so I got to ride out an I think it was the end of an EF3 (it stole our shed and our mailbox never heard hide nor hair of the shed other than a piece in the side of the house & across the street in a tree but someone was nice enough to bring us back the mailbox lol).
I was still in LCG at that time but I escaped in fall of 16.
I sent up a prayer or 2 and then layed in my bed with a hurt hip while mom was loudly calling out to God for help... I liked my solution but then I deal with death weird ever since my step-dad pulled out in front of a car and I knew I was about to die, I was wrong come to find out :) but it left a mark on me where when I get into something that will kill me I get a feeling of well I'm dead, what now?
"Joseph Tkach suffered" [in hospital]
Does jet-setting Fu-Manchu use doctors? Of course he does!
Isn't that a mortal violation of fundamentalist-Armstrongism?
Flurry has elevated & twisted scriptures like the letter to the 7 different churches to the point he is trying to de-emphasize the role of Christ and constantly blather on about "Laodeceians" to in a way to exalt himself. I don't know when it started but the idolatry of HWA started back in Worldwide and has continued on since his death in false churches like the Philadelphia Church of Flurry. Much of this is because little Hitler's like Gerald Flurry lust for the power and prestige of being a dictator. False leaders like Flurry are totally sociopathic in their disregard for the damage and the wrecked lives they leave in their wake. Just read Christ's interaction with the thieves on the cross and that is all you have to know that the gospel of Flurry & HWA and that of Christ are different.
Remember that their own minister, the late Kirk Macdonald, though still in the PCG and a minister as well, died in excruciating pain as he refused insulin till his last hours. Make sure to use that as rebuttal whenever they bring this shit up about leaving the PCG.
Leave now, for those who are still hesitating, and regain true worship by really studying about God and His ways, and not the pagan-mixed teachings of this cult.
In the millennium, allowed TV shows will be similar to 'Leave it to Beaver,' 'Father knows best,' 'The Andy Griffith show' and perhaps reruns of 'I love Lucy.'
Whatever happened to Takach, I have no sympathy for pathological liars like him.
In the millennium, allowed TV shows will be similar to 'Leave it to Beaver,' 'Father knows best,' 'The Andy Griffith show' and perhaps reruns of 'I love Lucy.'
I don't think so. The Andy Griffith Show made a mockery of marriage, as all the main characters were unmarried and the only major married character was Otis, whose lousy marriage drove him to become the town drunkard. Both Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best ridiculed the Biblical family structure, constantly portraying the father as an idiot ripe for subverting by his wife.
I Love Lucy might survive because at its heart it was about a wife who constantly tried to rebel but was ultimately kept in submission by her strong husband. If it is aired between episodes of The Key of David and Tomorrow's World it might be the most popular show on Millennium TV.
9:49 wrote “ Whatever happened to Takach, I have no sympathy for pathological liars like him.”
What a nasty piece of work you are!
9.49 AM
Good thing Ma and Pa Kettle wasn't mentioned. I wonder what the apostle Paul would say about Ma Kettle. Women like her naturally appear in nature.
My family and I recently left the PCG and it was the best things we have ever done. We are so much happier and have been blessed abundantly. Our children are thriving and so are we. So whatever scare tactics they use it’s all crap for sure.
9:49 you are a very close-minded intolerant bigot.
I heard from someone in, it was announced in a sermon they had 36 people leave in a month!
That’s great news! I hope more people can’t shake the chains and the fear tactics and get out and start living! Sheesh, just start putting your “1st T” in an IRA and watch how much money you accumulate for your real future.
@anon 12:22:00 .
Glad you escaped I never did like Flurry back b4 he left wcg & from what I've read he went bonkers after that.
@5:18 if you don't mind, what congregation did you attend with?
Yes it was hard to break those chains and open your eyes but we made it out. Wish more people would wake up. Most see it but are in denial or are scared. Yes I can confirm that 36 left last month and they had about 11 deaths after FOT - most likely from Covid.
@6:02
which congregation had the deaths? same with the 36 that left? may have families/friends there.
It was church wide. I also think the deaths are more than 11.
Glad you got out! In case your interested, Steven Hassan’s book particularly Freedom of Mind was extremely helpful when we first got out. It was shocking to understand what happened and how and to know that this sort of thing happened to other groups really helped in the recovery process.
It was random around the world…..that makes them sound large, keep in mind they are well under 4000.
They didn’t say say which congregations, just that Satan was attacking them and for the members to hold strong
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