We have been watching the mental meltdown of Dave Pack over the last few months as he sinks further and further into spiritual depravity. Still, lest we forget, the church has other men like Bob Thiel, Ron Weinland, and Gerald Flurry who are as equally disturbing, in their own ways.
As his mind deteriorates from old age and a spate of falls resulting in head injuries, Gerald Flurry handed in an article the other day to his son to be published about prayer, and it's as crazy as you can imagine.
Flurry writes about the Church of God's version of the prosperity gospel.
God wants you to be bold when entering His throne room in prayer. Cry out to Him. God isn’t kidding—pray boldly! Don’t just sit back and wait for God to help you; go get help. Let God know all about your thoughts, concerns, worries, cares, hopes and dreams. Ask Him for the things you need and the things you want. Hold Him to His promises in His Word. Take action through fervent prayer to change your life. He will fill you with the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5)—with hope, faith and holy, righteous character.
The Apostle Paul showed the Hebrews—and us today—how to avoid the big mistake of limiting God and Christ. They want us to be bold the way they are!
Fill your mind with Christ? In a COG? A church that rarely ever discuss the dude and takes great pleasure in killing him year after year in a school gym or a highfalutin concert hall where they leave him till next year because everything about the guy damages the teachings of the PCG.
Flurry continues with three points:
1) That you may enter the holy of holies where God the Father dwells.As baptized, converted Christians, our citizenship is not on Earth but in heaven (Philippians 3:20). That is why we do not vote in local or national elections: We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ and for a spiritual nation (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are citizens of new Jerusalem. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says; the Bible says we are God’s very elect because we stay loyal to God and the throne of David.
There has never been COG yet who has remained loyal to the God they claim to follow. Division after division has decimated the church just so vain men can build their little empires. COG members' citizenship is no more in heaven right now than they are ambassadors for Jesus Christ. How can they represent a guy they know nothing about and that church leaders deny?
We need boldness to operate in this scary world. Noah spent a century faithfully building an ark for God even though there were no physical signs that a worldwide flood would ever come. By displaying the faith of Christ, Noah condemned the world for mocking him (Hebrews 11:7). By doing God’s Work today, we also condemn the whole world. Sure, the Philadelphia Church of God is a small loyal remnant, but God commands us not to despise the day of small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10).
What "boldness" is any COG doing right now in the world. 99.99 % of the people in the world even know who these guys are. No one cares for messages devoid of the man they claim to represent. they don't condemn the world but wallow in it trying to impress it with concerts, expensive video productions, beautiful buildings, and archeological digs.
2) Because Christ can now live in you. You want to be able to say, like Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). With Christ in you, you can have the very faith that sustained Christ throughout His physical life. With this kind of faith, you can impact the whole world. You could stand alone against a massive army and, in terms of power, still be in the majority!
This was the case when the Prophet Elisha boldly confronted the Syrians (2 Kings 6). Physically, the situation seemed dire. But God’s army of fiery, invisible angels had the Syrian army surrounded! (verse 17).
A Christ they mock by denying grace, justification, sanctification, and mercy as they whore themselves to the law, their real god. Basic Christian beliefs about Jesus are totally absent in the COG movement, particularly in the Philadelphia Church of God.
They only need their "christ" to gather up their "bold prayers" and reprocess them into something that just "might" impress their god since the intimate words of PCG members are top profane to bypass Christ's ears before God hears them. His purpose is to intercede before a pissed-off god eager to destroy humanity, which includes church members.
Also, in their spare time, they sit around discussing you and your pathetic little lives. Your future husband wants to know everything about you. Being the powerless gods they are, they need to figure out how they can help you.
3) Because Christ now intercedes for us. He is a living Savior. He actively works as the middleman between the Father and us, repackaging our prayers to be more presentable to God. God and Christ have discussions about you. Your Father and your future Husband want to know everything about you. They are working to know exactly how to help you.
If you tried to explain this astounding truth to those in the world, they would laugh at you! It is impossible to explain this to a mind not opened by God. No one can come to God unless the Father calls him (John 6:44). Because you are reading this message, you are either called by God already, or else God is probably working to call you. “For many are called, but feware chosen” (Matthew 22:14). We must come boldly before the throne of God to be chosen. We must let Christ lead us to proclaim God’s message to this world, or God will not choose us today!
It is pretty evident in COGland that God has not chosen most of them to do any work or even speak on his behalf. Not all COG's are like this, a few small local churches are doing good in their communities helping youth and families, but there is not a COG with a current official headquarters that speaks for God. Not a single one!
Instead of following the one who breaks the chains of condemnation from the law, they prostrate themselves in front of the law and hope it intercedes for them.
12 comments:
The reason one has to shout, beg, plead and be very fervent is because no one or no thing is actually listening
I am gobsmacked. Where do you even start with unscrambling the misinterpretation, application and twisting of Scripture to end up with Flurry's god? Not every verse in the Bible is for everyone, broadly speaking. The context determines that. But if you don't belong to Jesus, your prayers are simply spitting in the wind. If his measly little group, doing nothing that could be recognized as or by Christianity, is not proof enough to him that he has never known God, it is likely too late.
Oh, Gerald. Go back to bed, stick with your rubber ducky, because your destruction slumbers not.
5.30 am
Ha, ha, ha. A funny comment.
The reason people, shout, beg, plead, etc, but no one listens, is because God is far from the wicked. It's simple cause and effect my funny friend.
This is not surprising. Gerald and all of the ACOGs practically have adopted censorship as one of their primary founding principles. It is hardly shocking that he would think that Jesus has to censor our prayers!
Nothing in there about repentance or obedience to Christ. I guess they don't need it.
It's OK to go boldly to the throne of grace but don't you dare come boldly with any issue to the ministry because that will be a "sign" of aggression and a bad attitude. Hypocrites!
Why should Christ have to "repackage" our prayers before the Father? Is He more concerned about the outside of the box rather than the inside, as a hypocrite would be?
Again, he says, go boldly to the throne in heaven but don't you dare come boldly to the church office. There's no mediator there waiting for you! (Hint, hint)
Their prayers are useless, just look at how many people are sick and dying and have died just this last year alone! God doesn’t heal them. It’s so sad.
I've noticed that the PCG's latest issue of The Trumpet magazine, ie, the February edition, uses yellow high lighting in their articles. Could it be that they learnt this from Banned?
Your descriptive sentences on the Passover is very revealing NO2HWA. VERY. Says more about you than anything else.
I suppose remembering the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a huge joke to you...an excuse to be overbearingly obnoxious to others.... to be extraordinary loud, obnoxious and revved up as if on illegal substances....
I think No2's comment about Jesus being left on the gym floor or auditorium stage is spot on. That is one of the few times of the year that many of these churches ever mention him. They make a big production bout his sacrifice and then ignore him and the world accomplished the rest of the year in deference to keeping the law.
Christ is "repackaging our prayers to be more presentable to God."
This is so ridiculous. This is the church culture of treating members as children. Also if Christ has to repackage prayers, God messed up in the design and programing of humans.
ACOG ministers have traditionally behaved as if they are the middlemen between man and God, so teaching this in a different form via "repackaging," is unsurprising.
Growing up in Worldwide and attending LCG on occasion afterward I noticed how the story of Christ's birth and his life were really glossed over and de-emphasized and it seemed as if the the focus was placed on church government, legalism and the particular leader of that ACOG.
"...takes great pleasure in killing him year after year in a school gym or a highfalutin concert hall..."
"and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' " (2Cor 11:24, ESV)
A direct instruction from Jesus Himself isn't authoritative enough for you, ace? Just what WOULD you accept?
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