More from Gerald Weston.
Let the fear-mongering run amok!
Where would the COG be today without its fear-mongering?
Instead of resting in peace with the one they claim to follow, regardless of worldly situations, Weston and other COG leaders live in a constant state of fear and trembling.
Whether the pandemic, war, supply chain issues, or the high cost of filling our tanks, these problems are all self-inflicted, in the context of the world at large, though you personally had little to do with it. Civilization is unraveling, and people see this. It is during times of instability and desperation that leaders come to the fore who can look good at the beginning, but who may take the world down a destructive path. Napoleon, Hitler, and Mussolini came to power as problem solvers, but their leadership did not work out well in the end.
It is comforting to think that mankind will muddle through this time of instability, that we will have a “soft landing” for inflation, or that Russia and Ukraine will cut a deal, and Europe will get back to normal. It is comforting to think that famine will be averted in the Middle East and Africa where Ukraine and Russia supply most grain products. Comforting as such thoughts may be, this is not likely reality.
We do not know every twist and turn along the way to the supreme crisis at the end of the age that will usher in the return of Jesus Christ to save humanity from foolish, sinful ways, but we know that we will see conditions far worse than they are today. The Bible indicates there will be a time of short-term prosperity (Revelation 18), but ultimately, many of us will live to see the greatest time of trouble the world has ever known (Matthew 24:21-22; Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1).
Yet, there is hope for the people of God. Revelation 12 speaks of a time in the future when God will protect His zealous ones in a wilderness place on earth. After Satan tries one more time to knock God off His throne, he will be cast back down (vv. 7-10). He will immediately go after the true Church of God (vv. 12-13), but God will take His people to a place of safety on earth (v.14). This is not a “rapture,” a doctrine in which many falsely place their hope. Heaven is never spoken of as a “wilderness” in Scripture. This is a place on the earth where a small flock will be saved from Satan’s clutches and will experience a deliverance similar to what the children of Israel saw when they fled from Egypt (vv. 15-16).
The last verse of Revelation 12 confirms that the prophecy is not about physical Israel, but about the Church of God. Not all true Christians (and that is far fewer than most people realize) will be protected during the three-and-a-half years of the Great Tribulation and Day of the Lord. “And the dragon was enraged with the woman [the Church], and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (v. 17). Clearly there are two groups of true Christians spoken of in these verses—those who are zealously doing the Work for which they are called (see Revelation 3:8-10) and those who keep God’s commandments and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, but are self-satisfied and complacent (compare Revelation 3:15-19).
17 comments:
I am almost at a loss for words over Weston's latest screed from on high. Some hope you have there, Gerald...going through the tribulation hidden away in some cave in the middle east sure sounds like fun times to me. CHRIST is the place of safety you foolish man! Remember Him? The rapture you deny and denigrate is the Blessed Hope for believers and it is easy to prove from scripture. Even if you disagree with it, it doesn't change the fact that the Lord Jesus is the believer's safe harbor from whatever storms may come.
The theological/doctrinal/biblical malpractice these horrible men commit on a daily basis should be against the law. All of them should be locked up in prison for the rest of their lives for the crimes they commit against God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and scripture, not to mention their suffering members.
How on earth did HWA ever get one person to believe his nonsense, let alone 100,000? How are these men able to continue to deceive thousands of people with doctrines that are so easily disproved by scripture? I will never understand how they can read the same Book Christians are and come away with such a vastly different understanding. God help the poor members in these cults, because the "ministers" sure as hell are not going to.
‘Civilisation is unraveling’.
No Armstrongism is unraveling Gerald.
It’s ‘glory’ days are past, it’s credibility in tatters, it’s doctrinal underpinnings untenable and demonstratedly so, it’s victims many,
It’s ‘outreach’ invisible, and yet untold numbers are coming to Jesus Christ who have never heard of you or ‘the work’, as your organisation and its deeply divided Armstrong sister ‘churches’ decline into total obscurity in spite of the efforts of the ‘faithful’.
Gerald Weston from what I observed, reads the headlines of his favorite political media and buys into the hype. He then tries to cobble that together with some sort of clumsy take on “prophecy .” For being the leader of “God’s” church, I certainly was surprised at how gullible he is, coupled with a low media literacy ability.
Whenever they say "clearly," what follows is anything but clear.
Pragmatically speaking, it does appear that we are at a point of civilizational turning points.
From Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities"...
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
When you give your mind away to another man, anything is possible
I never heard "Hide me in the grave till thy wrath be past" (Job 14:13) as an option to a fleeing to some rather God-forsaken place of speculated the leader's choice and "final training".
I suppose admitting, "it is appointed unto all men once to die...", doesn't work either in the quest to build yet another True Church. Nothing special or chosen about that. "We shall not all die but we all shall be changed" was not what the Apostle Paul experienced either. No one has and actually probably ever will.
The online version of "Final Training Before We Are Changed" is preferable, cheaper and safer in case the training isn't final at all.
This apocalyptic Millerite preacher stated, "The last verse of Revelation 12 confirms that the prophecy is not about physical Israel, but about the Church of God."
No, it isn't. The imagery associated with the Woman in verse 12:1 is the imagery used of the tribes of Israel in Genesis. At the time that the physical nation gave birth to the Male Child, there was no New Testament Church. There was the Church in the Wilderness which was the physical nation of Israel seen from a spiritual perspective. The Male Child had yet to found the New Testament church.
V. 17 is a reference to the fact that the pre-70 AD church was derived from the Judaic roots. Christianity is a form of Late Second Temple Judaism. Jews and Christians used to sit elbow to elbow in the Temple and worship. Most Christians at the time of the v. 17 prophecy were racially Jews. The Gentile church had yet to be inaugarated. V. 17 is an apt description of this condition.
This all happened in the 70 AD period and Armstrongism has failed to exegete a reason why it is supposed to happen again in the Twenty-first Century. My guess is that they base their claims on the idea that since Jesus will return in a Second Coming, there must be a "second" everything. This is a flimsy argument for introducing the duality that makes the type-antitype hermeneutic an indiscriminately used tool - invoked on demand.
And notice that it is the Woman (Israel) who is protected at "her place" (the putative Place of Safety of Armstrongism) and not Christians. And historically this "place" in the wilderness seems to have been the Jewish Diaspora. All v. 17 states about Christians in this context is that the Dragon made war on them.
********* Click on my icon for Disclaimer
DW said, "How on earth did HWA ever get one person to believe his nonsense, let alone 100,000?"
MY COMMENT - I don't know your background in R/WCG (if any) but Herbert Armstrong emerged during the Great Depression and World War II era. He was a charismatic pioneer in radio evangelism. To many during his lifetime, he spoke "The Plain Truth" and produced a monthly magazine by that name in an era when there was no internet. He didn't have a College education, yet he founded a College that had three campuses.
The people who believed "this nonsense" are people like my parents and grandparents. They were good people simply looking for the truth and answers to life's deepest questions like "Why were you born?" I am sure there are many reading this post who can relate and say the same thing about their parents and grandparents.
Since Herbert Armstrong's death in 1986, we have learned many things about Mr. Armstrong that are not good. The internet opened a lot of information that wasn't available to our parents and our grandparents. Frankly, Mr. Armstrongs own words posthumously condemns himself.
Personally, I found your comment rather insulting to our parents. People can be sincere, yet sincerely wrong. That doesn't make them bad people. Like Armstrong himself, they were products of their time, their era in the world that existed in the 1930s - 1980s. Herbert Armstrong was pretty persuasive. Since most of the generation that knew Herbert Armstrong has largely passed away, no one is left to stand up for them and speak for them, so I thought I would.
Richard
I know of not one Biblical reference indicating "prophecy is dual". A minister has stated in the past, now deceased, that Isaiah 41:22 "proves" it but that verse doesn't even come close to dual prophecy: "Let them bring them forward and declare to us what is going to take place;
As for the former events, declare what they were, So that we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming...." (NASB). The Hebrew for "Or" is definitely in the verse. Eze 5:9 is a one time prophecy. The false apostles and prophets today screech "great tribulation is coming" from Mat 24:21 which is another one time prophecy that occurred in the first century, not gonna happen again.
The coming economic depression will convince many that the end is near.
To understand the bible, one must understand the context. Paganism. So one must read pagan works. That makes clear where the bible actually came from.
“LCG: Civilization Is Unraveling! Only Those Zealously Doing The Work Will Be Protected”
The Dying Church of Rod is unravelling. Maybe it should have been zealously doing the true work instead of changing to a two-fold, or hybrid, gospel message (RCM took HWA's gospel OF Jesus and combined it with the Protestant's gospel ABOUT Jesus) and saying that the falling away will be something that happens out in the world (rather than what happened in 1995 in the WCG).
How do these doctrinally unstable old rebels in the Unravelling Church of Rod expect to get away with their bad behavior?
Weston has strayed far from the "truth" first delivered by HWA and repeated by RCM.
Weston wrote:
".... but ultimately, many of us will live to see the greatest time of trouble the world has ever known"
My focus is on the departure from HWA's "truth" in Weston's words "many of us will live to see"
HWA and RCM thundered, thousands of times, ex cathedra, that the "greatest time of trouble" would occur "in YOUR life time".
The in "in YOUR life time" was/is COGdom's doctrine and money raising cause and call.
As HWA and RCM knew nothing of God's timing and plans, Weston also knows nothing.
Weston is being more realistic than his predecessors, who years ago died while still preaching "in YOUR life time".
Despite being more realistic, Weston is as false as his heroes by continuing to preach what he cannot really know.
Weston's statement seemingly acknowledges that some in his aging COG will not live to see his tribulation.
However, Weston cannot know that any, much less "many" will live to see his tribulation.
Weston's doctrine is just a few shades away from Pack's doctrine of Jesus will come tomorrow, or yesterday - yet, Weston's doctrine is still as false as Pack's lies.
COG preaching "the end is near" is a scare tactic to gain obedience and money from the people - so that the people can earn their salvation.
The reality of all the people who have died in the COG, throughout the decades, is that our personal "end" is indeed near.
Weston's call is aimed at keeping his followers loyally working for the LCG.
However, that this is not a call to look to Jesus to save and redeem them.
1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
Others besides Armstrongism believe in typological fulfilment. Below are some examples of typology:
Simple typology
1Cor 10:6 Now these things became types of us, that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted. (Jubilee Bible 2000)
1Cor 10:6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
"A ... category that appeals to pattern or analogy can be called authoritative illustration, or what might be called simple typology. The term itself is reflected in the example of the exodus used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, where Paul explicitly speaks of exodus events as "types" (v.6; the Greek term is typos; in many translations the term is translated "examples"). Here the goal is not prophetic but exhortation. The Corinthians are to learn from a past example about behavior to avoid. The use simply points to past lessons. This makes it distinct from the variety of typological-prophetic categories ... mentioned earlier, where a forward looking element is embedded in the pattern..." (Darrell L. Bock, Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, pp.119-21).
'Horizontal' Type - Antitype
Ro 5:14b [Adam] is the figure [typos] of him that was to come.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
"This is one of only two places where Paul uses "type" in this technical sense (the other being 1 Cor 10:6; see also 1 Cor 10:11). The thought is of a die or stamp that leaves its impression in wax: Paul's meaning seems to be that Adam prefigured the Messiah in certain respects..." (N.T. Wright, The Letter to the Romans, NIB, Vol. 10, p.527).
"Adam is described as "a pattern [typos, GK 5596; NASB, "type"] of the one to come" (v.14). "The one to come" is to be taken from the perspective of Adam and his time and refers to the first coming of Christ... A "type" involves a historical pattern wherein by divine ordination an earlier parallel (= type) resembles a later, parallel similarity (= antitype).
"It may seem strange that Adam should be designated as a type of Christ when the two are so dissimilar in themselves and in their effect on mankind. But there is justification for the parallel. [Andrew] Nygren [Commentary on Romans], 218, put it eloquently: "... Adam is the head of mankind, from which the contagion of sin and death spreads to all its members. Christ is the head of mankind, from which righteousness and life come to all members" " (Everett F. Harrison & Donald A. Hagner, Romans, EBC, Rev., Vol.11, pp.97-98).
Note: "Paul's Adam as first human, who introduced universal sin and death, is not derived from Genesis. It is a creative interpretation [using Second Temple 'exegesis'] of the story of Adam to support the implication that Jesus's resurrection demands..." (Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam, p.182)
'Vertical' Type - Antitype
Heb 8:5b See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern [typos] shown to thee in the mount.
Heb 9:24 For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy [antitypos] of the true one; he entered heaven itself... (NIV).
"... "copy" in v.24 represents antitypon (GK 531), the correlative to typos, "pattern," which in 8:5 denotes the original to which the earthly sanctuary corresponds. This use of the terms by Hebrews is not that of modern typological language (or of Ro 5:14; 1 Cor 10:6, 11; 1 Pet 3:21) in which the "type" is the preliminary model and the "antitype" its later and greater fulfillment; but the thought here operates on a different principle, not the "horizontal" trajectory of historical progression but the "vertical" comparison of heaven and earth... the true ... heavenly sanctuary surpasses its early "copy"..." (R. T. France, Hebrews, EBC, Revised, Vol.13, p.123).
My how you TWIST the scripture to suit YOUR purpose! ! The word “work” is NOT CAPITALIZED anywhere in Rev.3:8-10. This is NOT talking about YOUR so called work!! Please see Deut. 32:4 for starters. HE is the Rock; HIS WORK is perfect for all HIS ways are just......
Your so called Work is a FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION!!
Richard,
Obviously, you had great respect for your parents, and their thinking processes which led them to accept, believe, and follow HWA's teachings. I thought mine were shit-stupid for doing the same. I never understood how loving parents could devolve into monsters who beat the crap out of their children at least three times every day without reflecting on their actions and realizing that something was terribly wrong. For years I tried to convince myself that it was just my parents, and not the church. That line of thinking evaporated when my Dad was ordained as a deacon, and then an elder. So much for God guiding the ordinations! A child loses so much being raised in such circumstances. For one thing, over the years in being raised this way, one loses the capacity for empathy. The best I will ever be is a principled sociopath, who attempts to act kindly and ethically towards others based on logic, law, and the ways in which I have watched normal empathetic humans treat their fellow man. I wish I still had that natural love for others that is innate, but I really don't. I choreograph myself and my responses to others. I force myself to be an actor and try to conduct myself as if I had normal feelings and emotions. That is the only thing which keeps me from being like the horrible, unfeeling and abusive church leaders that we critique every day right here on Banned. I have found a way to break a very bad cycle, and not pass it on, but the normal love that drives other humans to act as I strive to, was killed off in my WCG house while I was a child years ago.
It is quite remarkable that apparently, despite being raised in the cult, you have retained the capacity for empathy, as witnessed by your feelings for your parents. I'm not going to put a person down because somehow an accident happened in which he retained an innately human characteristic that I myself wish I still had. I'm just pointing out that there are the rest of us, whose tools and skills for "getting over it" were killed by HWA's teachings, and the belief by our parents that his church was actually God's church. It would be very nice if there were transformation in this life, a restorative process that gave us back the human qualities which we lost. If it exists, I have not found it yet. I just know where it isn't.
Post a Comment