Saturday, June 11, 2022

COG Groups To Add New Hymn to Their Hymn Books For The End Times

 

This new COG hymn is sure to send Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack into Endtime orgasmic fits. What a perfect scenario!

Friday, June 10, 2022

Crackpot Prophet Claims You Can Overcome Fear By Watching His Videos And Reading His Literature


 
The greatest theologian in the history of humanity is back telling us how to overcome fear. The world is a dangerous place right now and people are running around scared and fearful...at least in Elijah, Habbakuk Amos, Bwana  Bob Thiel's hometown.

After quoting Herman Hoeh and Selmer Hegvold as some kind of authorities over something, the great Bwana continues with this:

Add to virtue knowledge. Study the word of God, study CCOG literature, pay attention to sermons (ContinuingCOG YouTube sermon channel) and sermonettes (BibleNewsProphecy YouTube sermonette channel).

After giving you different methods of casting fear out of our lives, he goes on by adding this craptastic nonsense, stirring up more fear and anguish in people.

Is the USA prophesied to be destroyed by 2028?
Are there prophetic reasons to believe that the USA will not last two complete presidential terms? Yes. There is a tradition attributed to the Hebrew prophet Elijah that humanity had 6,000 years to live before being replaced by God’s Kingdom. There are scriptures, writings in the Talmud, early Christian teachings that support this. Also, even certain Hindu writings support it...


4. And if we can presume that the “last days” of a 7,000 year prophetic week began AFTER the middle day (day 4), then the last days prior to the “sabbatical” time, which some would refer to as the millennial Kingdom of God would last two thousand years.

5. And if when Peter referred to being in the last days (Acts 2:17-18) and since Hebrews 1:1-12 teaches that “God … has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.”

6. Then adding 2,000 years to a period of time leads to the end of the 6,000 years no later than 2031 (and it could be earlier than that).

7. Since the Great Tribulation is expected to start 3 1/2 years prior to that (cf. Revelation 12:14; 13:5) subtracting 3 1/2 years from the Spring of 2031 would be late in 2027.

8. Understand that the U.S.A. is prophesied to be taken over near the rise of the Beast and start of the Great Tribulation (cf. Daniel 11:39; Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 24:21-22).

9. Therefore, since the end of two full U.S.A. presidential terms would end in January of 2029, these prophetic understandings point to the end of the U.S.A. prior to two full presidential terms.

10. This is also consistent with certain Hindu and Roman Catholic prophetic writings as well. This video gives more details and quotes which point to the destruction of the United States of America by 2028.

Never has the Church of God had a self-appointed prophet who spends all of his time reading Mayan/Catholic conspiracy crap and the writings of other religions supposedly predicting the end times.  

Being such a shallow prophet and being so afraid to ever take a real stand and go out on faith and trust this god, the Great Bwana has to spend his time in the waffle house waffling around endlessly.





 

 

LCG Members Told Only Those Who Overcome and Persevere Will Make It Into Kingdom

 



Friday Night Smackdown. LCG members apparently are not persevering or overcoming and have to be reminded about this. Oh, and many of them do not have self-control. Just once, can Winnail or Weston ever just praise the members and say, We know it's thought at times, but job well done!" Is it really that hard to practice some grace?

Importance of Perseverance: When Winston Churchill urged his countrymen to never, never, never quit, he was echoing biblical advice. When Joshua took over after Moses, God said, “Be strong and of good courage”—trust and obey Him and don’t be afraid, and you will succeed and prosper (Joshua 1:5–9). Jesus told His disciples, “he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Paul told Christians they must control every thought, resist temptation, and finish the race to win the reward in the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 9:24–27; 2 Corinthians 10:5). The Apostle Peter advised early Christians they needed to develop courage, self-control, and perseverance to obtain the precious promises of God (2 Peter 1:4–8). John wrote that only overcomers who persist in their mission will receive a reward in the Kingdom (Revelation 3:7–13). Let’s remember this important advice to persevere in our calling so we can reign with Jesus Christ in His coming Kingdom.
Have a profitable Sabbath, Douglas S. Winnail

Dave Pack's Ministerial Conference Kicks Off

 



Here is a preview of RCG’s 2022 Ministerial Conference: 

“The Keynote Address” – 

Former ministers and former members are evil and want to murder the church and want you dead. Exciting new prophetic understanding is going to be explained ad nauseam. Daniel has been unsealed…again and again. Revelation has been unsealed…again and again. The series is over…again and again. The math, the math, the math. Please do not remember “the Gateway Prophecy” or the W’s or all the other rock-solid metrics from all the other theories. “The State of the Work” – Is bad. No new literature, but outdated literature is still plentifully available. No new World to Come programs, but the Media Center is now a wonderful museum of ancient history. No “Behind the Work” for the Feast, but RCG produced a whopping 9 minutes of new video content in a 12-month period. No significant social media “buzz” or new campaigns, but endless meetings still cause the day to pass by quickly. No new “Personal From David C. Pack” actually written by David C. Pack for years. No significant membership growth, but the turnover rate remains pretty high. Oh and lastly, no “actively” preaching the gospel to the world, but we’ve got hundreds of hours of Dave to enjoy.

Marc Serbian

RCG’s David C. Pack: Challenge Accepted! (Kinda)

 



RCG’s David C. Pack: Challenge Accepted! (Kinda)

 



Some COG folks know Dave Pack has a long-standing reputation for being “ferociously competitive” and his very-public passion for failed prophetic teachings is no exception.

Read the following humorous observation in the article, David C. Pack Admits RCG Is A Hazardous Work Environment:

 

“This message was delivered the day after David C. Pack’s Pentecost failure. That’s three dates set within a 30-day period. May 15. May 30. June 5. He still has time to roll out a quadruplet.”

 

Dave gladly accepted that challenge.

 

In Part 373, he preached the 1335 begins on Tuesday, June 14, 2022 — Kinda. Or maybe not.

 

Read this succession of quotes and see if you can feel Dave wrestling with his own mind:

@ 1:17:06 “But it looks to me, it looks to me if we’re gonna know anything, there is a group that gets to the 1335 and it looks like it says they just ‘touch’ the day. Like they get to the start of the day. That would be about midday next Tuesday. If it’s this month. That’d be what it would be. So, does Christ come a little before that? Or does He come right then? And then maybe there isn’t any slop in there, the 84 hours gets pushed a little bit because we got right to the edge of that and then the 84 hours gets pushed a little bit further because we’re blessed ‘cause we got to this moment. It looks maybe we’d know the hour, maybe we wouldn’t, see?” 
 
@ 1:27:03 “Because I know when it starts. And I know it ends at the end of the month or you don’t have two evenly halved parts of a a big kingdom, seven year kingdom. It’s perfect. Can’t be argued with. People can argue with with it because somebody, ‘Mr. Pack, what if it doesn’t happen next Tuesday?’ I’ma watch one day every month for the rest of my life because you can’t argue with that. The fact that it didn’t come this month, and of course I think it will, of course I think it will. But, I’m just saying it it it you can’t argue with that. That has nothing to do with which month it is. That’s when it happens in the month of God’s choosing. It’s inarguable. And I’m not saying that as a prophet. I’m telling you math. It’s inarguable.”

@ 1:28:44 “So, that would be Tuesday midday, but I’m not sure. I’m not, I mean, I don’t know exactly the hour. I’m not I I I just can’t say that exactly and I’m not. And and and and I’m I’m just gonna say, I’m gonna be on right record saying this over and over and over: I am not saying it is next Tuesday. What I believe is one thing. I am not telling the church it’s next Tuesday.”

What a fascinating progression of thought patterns here. He is telling them on the one hand “it’s inarguable” and “it’s math” but on the other hand “I’m not sure.” How are the folks in RCG supposed to digest that? Have mercy on them because they had to listen to just over five hours of this stuff…just since Monday.

Dave is not a prophet, but a biblical mathematician.

 

A note for the ministers who read this blog to Dave, please tell him: You cannot continue calling something “easy-peasy,” and still keep getting it wrong.

He seems even more torn in Part 374:

 

@ 1:32:49 “So, if it’s true that I am Elijah the prophet now, then this is a lock for next week. It’s an absolute lock. If somehow if these are just “the last days” of my sermons and I it’s it’s just a charge I’ve filled before I become Joshua, I I I’m just trying to be heart to heart with you. It’s a dilemma. You heard what I said as recently as yesterday, I’m telling, not foretelling. But if if if the there’s I don’t see a way outta this. Now, if if if this means it’s locked and we have under six days to go, it’s wonderful. If there’s some other reason to believe, I’ll be the first prophet [while also part of the God Family] since the Garden, since the world began who was never a human prophet, but was an apostle, but I’m somehow like Moses, but Moses went as a human being and, you know, okay, he was raised, so then I’m raised for a period of time, uh but never never as a prophet…”

@ 1:34:18 “…And how do I explain the fact that I would eat the book [in Ezekiel] after God executed hundreds of millions of people when I’m supposed to sound before they die? See the problem? So, I I I look, you know my heart. As recently as this week, I’ve gone I’ve said, ‘No no no no, I’m not I’m not Elijah.’ I still wanna say I’m not. But I am left with those problems. And if there’s another way to explain the verses, okay. Then maybe it’s not as certain next week. But if it’s engraved in stone and I’m ‘rushing to call it out,’ which sounds like ‘the last days of my voice’: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and we’re waiting for the 1335 and now it’s solid, it looks suspicious. It looks suspicious. So, I leave you with that. It is what it is. Am I telling or foretelling? I guess I could say, ‘not sure.’”


More back and forth followed, but then he ended with the much-expected, “…the series is over.”

This coming week, RCG ministers get to gather in Wadsworth, Ohio (and live stream all over the world) for the 2022 Ministerial Conference to watch Dave waffle in real-time while they sip their coffee.

Perhaps this will dawn on a few of the attendees:

The Restored Church of God is no longer a church that “actively preaches the gospel to the world,” but is a Dave Pack sermon machine. That seems to have become their primary objective considering how much time, money, and resources have been siphoned away from “the work” to devote to Dave’s endless biblical fraud.

Rest assured…it will be endless.

 

Bonus Flashback – August 28, 2020 – Part 262 @ 1:21:09


“They [the Splinters] know nothing of what you’ve heard for the last 530, you know, what is it? 532 hours, I think we’re up to. I’ve preached up here in this series for 32,000 minutes. Almost five years...say 532 hours when I end today. So, uh that’s an astonishing amount of knowledge…”

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Glynn Washington: End time prophecies? Memorizing the bible? Required church vacations your family can't afford?


The link isn't working, but you can listen to the podcast here


Episode 39: End time prophecies? Memorizing the bible? Required church vacations your family can't afford? Snap Judgment host and creator Glynn Washington shares his experiences growing up in the apocalyptic religion the Worldwide Church of God. He tells the girls about believing the end of the world was imminent, the white supremacist roots of the group and how he was forbidden from dating outside of his race, and the book that began to change his thinking.

The Reason Dave Pack's "Jesus" Has Been Unable To Return




 Notice the last line


From a  reader

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Dave Pack's mind of death never quits. These recent "enemies" will be cut asunder.



Anonymous WHAT ABOUT THE TRUTH said...

"But in spite of all of my trying, a handful of our people - with their lies have made our lives impossible. There is no way to detach ourselves from what happened today".

"Not only are we in a compound situation, but there are those that have left and committed the betrayal of the century".

These are a couple of opening statements by Jim Jones before he some 45 minutes later murdered over 900 people including 300 children.

Dave Pack has no way forward period. He can't produce Jesus Christ when he says he can produce him. He can't establish one revelationary narrative and stick with it however how long it takes to come to fruition. He can't trust anyone in his presence going forward. There has been no worldwide announcement of just who he is. There has been no final message from his own mouth for the world to contemplate.

Dave Pack's mind of death never quits. These recent "enemies" will be cut asunder. Three men (COG leaders) will die by fire. He will set up fiery ovens across the world in the Kingdom to burn up the enemies of ....? Everyone that has gone against him has presumably died or become incapacitated. He will go, according to him, with six of his fellows and murder vast millions with the edge of the sword in the not too distant future.

Jim Jone's mind had this to say to his followers on that fateful day in 1978. "Now what's going to happen here in a matter of minutes, is that one of those people on that plane is going to shoot the pilot - I know that! I didn't plan it, but I know it is going to happen.

The mind of death in this world is of one spirit, and it certainly isn't God's. There is the very real reality that Dave Pack himself could die at any time. And what would be his legacy and what would be written for an epitaph? It might read something like this: Dave Pack spent the last 10 years of his and his member's life expounding from a theological rat's hole of events that never came to be. To fund his fake and dangerous kingdom, he caused the financial death of all of his followers. He caused the death of many marriages and family units to further fund his enterprise. He caused the spiritual death of many, who lost any and all orientation of the one true God. He wished death upon all of his perceived enemies in the present time and spoke often of his participation in the future deaths of multiple millions of people. In the end, he is just a footnote in history and to a degree, his likeness is like that of other men in the past who gained notoriety for their acts against the innocent.

God help the members of the RCG!

LCG solves the issue about speaking in tongues

 


Living Church of God has solved the problem of speaking in tongues in the church. Technology and the internet accomplish that job. Who knew?

Plus, Jesus was starting his church then and needed it. Now that we are a dying church we no longer need it, especially since our gospel seems to have no deep impact on people.


Necessary Today?

Why don’t we speak in tongues in the Church today? Because God has additional methods of preaching the Gospel, as His servants can now use technology to fulfill the purpose formerly achievable only through tongues. With the tools of mass communication we can send out telecasts, radio broadcasts, and the written word translated into different languages with an ease that was not available to people in the first century.

Remember, too, that Jesus was starting His Church then. There was incredible excitement for those who were witnesses of these miracles—so much so that there was no small stir created wherever Christ inspired His followers to go. It was an effective way for the Gospel to have a deep impact on those who heard it and saw the miracles that accompanied it.

As we have seen, speaking in tongues was a powerful tool that God used to bring many to repentance. Those who had this gift did not experience the same out-of-control display of emotional fervor that comes upon many in some religious circles today. God is not capricious—He has a purpose for what He does. He uses different methods at different times, but His purpose is the same. Let us be thankful that we have an opportunity to be a part of that purpose for this age in whatever way He chooses.  The Purpose of Speaking in Tongues

David C. Pack Admits RCG Is A Hazardous Work Environment

 



David C. Pack Admits RCG Is A Hazardous Work Environment

 

The Greatest Unending Story! (Part 372)

June 6, 2022

 

@ 44:51 …and I’m gonna say something to you and you’re just gonna have to take it for what it’s worth. The most vicious, evil wicked-hearted men I have ever dealt with, I’ve dealt within this church. Literally. As the age’s gone on, people are worse you we brought them here, we put’em in paradise. We give’em beautiful offices…the college, the the products that we we publish. Unbelievable. And they’re the most murderous, lying, thieving people, in many cases, that have come into our ministry. I didn’t think it was possible to get worse than Worldwide and Global proved to me it can. And I, “Whoa, that was that was unbelievable.” But the worst have been here.

 

@ 46:33 So it’s it’s it’s it’s a curious anomaly that you see the ministers who’re supposed to be teaching the truth abusing, lying, stealing, things that would just curl your hair ten times over if I told you. But the brethren: wonderful and sweet and kind and happy, evermore so. 

 

            Now the ministers we have at this point look to be as wonderful as any I’ve ever worked with. Now, I’m not talking about the ones we have here. But there are people that can speak lies in hypocrisy, so you never really know. 

 

            I’ve learned to sit in that room up there, we talk about doctrine and know that I might be sitting across from or next to a minister who’s gonna try to destroy this church within an hour. So he’s he’s able he’s able, literally, he’s able to feign obedience, alright. Talk about feigning obedience…Some of these guys are really really good. They’re utterly murderous, lying thieves and I know what’s gonna happen them when Christ comes, they’re gonna be cut asunder.

 

@ 51:23 “And no man can shut it.” [Revelation 3:8] Now, why do You say that to us? Now, I’ll tell you I you just do not understand our enemies, they want to murder the church. You don’t understand that. These are the these are deeply satanic men. They want to shut the door of this church so you can’t be fed and so we can’t reach anybody else.

 

@ 57:09 Now, the worst people today are the ones who left us. Not so much in the Splinters, they’re lukewarm and, you know, kinda floppy. They are what they are. There’re some bad bad people over there, too. But they’re not really plaguing us. It’s the people who come among us and you shower all this goodness on them and they just want you dead. And it’s a most amazing thing but Satan is the author of murder and lies.

 

@ 1:39:26 The worst possible people keep leaving and poisioning the well out there.

 

 

This message was delivered the day after David C. Pack’s Pentecost failure. That’s three dates set within a 30-day period. May 15. May 30. June 5. He still has time to roll out a quadruplet.

 

It’s quite an amazing thing to watch a human being stare perfect failure in the face and still absolutely KNOW he is right.

 

 

Bonus Flashback – September 11, 2020 – Part 266 @ 33:43


“I don’t see any possible way, none, we’ll talk about this at the end, no possible way without fighting and trashing and rejecting the scriptures, I’ma give you my opinion, then you can decide whether I’m the ruler Christ appointed, where this can happen after Trumpets. I see no way, none. And you’ll and you’ll be your own judge, because we all live by our own faith.”

 

 

 Marc Cebrian

 

 

Monday, June 6, 2022

Cancellation of Salvation in the COG

 

Archetypal Moses

A Bedouin from Sinai, ca. 1930 – a Hebrew descended from Joktan the son of Eber, 

the progenitor of the Hebews

Moses looked much more like this than Charlton Heston

 

 

The Theoretical Cancellation of Salvation 

in the Classical Armstrongist Model of the Law

By NeoDromos

The reason why people turn to Jesus is because through him they are offered salvation.  If that offer is not present or is impaired, then there is no reason to turn to Jesus.  If a belief system inadvertently nullifies the offer of salvation, there is a need to revisit the theology that underlies that belief system.  Because Jesus did, in fact, bring to us the Gospel of salvation so something is awry.  In this writing, I present the case that classical Armstrongism denies salvation to all comers in the way that it models the Law of Moses.  I do not believe that this was intentional.  I believe it is the inadvertent product of an incomplete soteriology.  Therefore, I have classed the denial as “theoretical” only.  I will refer to classical Armstrongism – the Armstrongism of documents written in the middle of the last century.   I do not know what modern denominations derived from the pre-1995 Worldwide Church of God believe on this topic.  I would hope that their soteriology is now much more mature. 

Acne and the Armstrongist Legal Model

“What are these statutes and laws? The Ten Commandments formed the basis of God’s Law given to his people.” – Herman L. Hoeh, from his article titled “Which Old Testament LAWS Should We Keep Today?,” 1971. 

The classical Armstrongist view is that the statutes and judgments of the OT are based on the Ten Commandments, that they existed before the Old Covenant so that the change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant would not affect them.  They are still in force today and they magnify the Ten Commandments.  This means that if you transgress the statutes or judgments, you transgress the superordinate Ten Commandments from which they are derived.  Read carefully his section in the article cited above titled “Other Laws Based on the Ten Commandments.”

Let us consider the following case from Leviticus 13:45,

“And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.”

This law is contained in the same section of Leviticus that states the dietary laws.  Hoeh refers to these as binding “statutes and laws.”  So, for people who follow Hoeh’s reasoning, it is critically important to salvation to understand precisely, if possible, what this law means.  In the interpretation of this law, the preponderant point of obscurity is the term “leper.”  Leper is a translation of the Hebrew word tzara’at which does not refer to Hansen’s disease.  This is what the Jewish Study Bible (2nd Ed., Oxford University Press, p. 222, Notes) says about this term: 

“This has sometimes been translated as “leprosy” (or “leprous affection”), but the disease today called leprosy (Hansen’s disease) was not known in biblical times and the description given in the Bible is not consistent with it.”

If anything this term was broad scope.  It seemed to include natural and supernatural effects.  It had to do with a pathology that blemishes the surface of things and, principally, the human skin.  In modern times a broad class of common and uncommon skin eruptions has been identified with tzara’at.  But nobody knows, and certainly not the King James translators, what this pathology is.  So much for Biblical literalism.  So, it is likely that in an abundance of caution that this broad definition would arise:

“The Talmud maintains that Leviticus 13:1 et seq. refers generally to any disease that produces sores and eruptions on the skin (Sifra 60a).”  (Jewish Encyclopedia, Funk and Wagnalls, Volume 8, Page 10, 1904.)

This means that Leviticus 13 encompasses common acne as well as many other skin afflictions. 

A  Hypothetical Case in Point

Assume an Armstrongist minister, who is exemplary in following classical Armstrongist theology, has a teen-aged daughter with a little acne.  The Jewish Study Bible interprets the prescription in Leviticus 13:45-46 to mean that the teen should keep her hair in a disheveled state, clothes in disarray and should warn others by shouting “Unclean.”   Recall that Hoeh asserted that such laws were a part of God’s eternal moral law that pre-existed the Old Covenant.   Hoeh wrote in the section of his article titled “Other Laws Based on Ten Commandments”:

“Notice! Here again are the statues and laws of God existing before the old covenant.  As they existed before the old covenant, they could not be abolished when it ceased to exist.  The old covenant could not destroy what it did not bring into force.  The old covenant was merely an AGREEMENT to keep laws that were already in force.”

This statement by Hoeh assigns a striking gravitas to Leviticus 13:45-46 within Armstrongist theology although I doubt that Hoeh was thinking about tzara’at.  And although I have seen many people with skin afflictions in Armstrongist congregations, I have never known this law to be kept. 

The Pro Forma Cancellation of Salvation

This model unavoidably results in the cancellation of salvation.   I think that this was probably inadvertent.  Hoeh was avidly pursuing the hermeneutical integrity of the Sabbath, the holy days, dietary laws and tithing and shot salvation dead as an innocent bystander.  There are many laws in the Old Testament that are classed by Hoeh as God’s pre-existing, eternal, moral law that are disregarded or gratuitously modified by modern Armstrongism.  These laws are as much on the critical path to salvation as Sabbath observance is in the Armstrongist legal model. This means that under Armstrongist theology, there is a soteriological formula, it is just that nobody observes it and it is not taught as being a requirement and, hence, it does not result in salvation for anyone. 

What is lacking to make the Armstrongist view defensible is a Doctrine of Selectivity.  Why is the law concerning the Sabbath important to salvation but not the law concerning tzara’at? There must be a reason and it is certainly not found in the writing of Herman Hoeh.  Armstrongists argue themselves into the loss of salvation. Armstrongists make the keeping of the Law a requirement for salvation yet they do not keep it in its entirety. They observe it selectively and in a modern implementation (staying in a hotel rather than a brush arbor for the FoT, for example). And they have not asserted a well-exegeted Doctrine of Selectivity to underpin this viewpoint. Essentially, what they have done is issue a new rendition of the Law of Moses through the WCG Church Administration Department (CAD). So when you spar logically with them you must recognize that they are not talking about the Law of Moses, they are really talking about the Law of the CAD. And the CAD, further, is based on post-70 AD Rabbinic Judaism (sans Temple) and not the Law as observed in Second Temple Judaism which was based on the OT.

Summary Argument

 Paul, in contention with the Circumcision Party, stated, “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” If you are going to make keeping the Law of Moses an adjunct condition to the salvific work of Christ, you must keep all of the Law.  It is a unified body of legislation.  I would assert that classical Armstrongism and likely modern renditions of that theology do not provide a clear path to salvation.  And this is lost in the clamor of trying to prove that the Old Testament laws are still in force.   I would strongly advocate that, instead of a pre-occupation with predictive prophecy, Armstrongists should revisit the concept of salvation that is fundamental to any rendition of the Gospel and define a Biblically based soteriology that makes the good news, good news. 

Mark your Calendars! You won't be disappointed!!!!!

 


Remember this? 

This is why NO ONE believes the current liars masquerading as prophets in the 

Church of God


Submitted by a reader...

Sunday, June 5, 2022

Dave's Latest Pentecost Statement…The Math Is Perect! Unless Its Monday...

 


Come Monday morning the crap will hit the fan if Pentecost was not the day...

Listen to it here:


Watching and Waiting In Wadsworth, Ohio For The Return Of Christ


 

178 years ago one of the forefathers of Armstrongism whipped up a frenzy along with Samuel Snow in upstate New York that Jesus would return sometime between March 21, 1843 - March 21, 1844. Miller finally set the date of October 22, 1843. Like clockwork, Jesus did not return and his followers were disappointed. 

Tens of thousands of devoted followers solid their homes and business to await the coming of Christ. Many of them sat on their rooftops and surrounding hillsides trying to catch the first glimpse of Jesus returning. The press made a mockery of them for that:

 

October 22, 1843 was the date Miller predicted after he carefully dissected prophetic passages in the Holy Bible. In order to be saved from the eventual destruction of Earth, he ordered his followers to find higher ground and wait for a cosmic sign that would signal the coming of the lord and savior. 
 
In the days before the event, the Millerites gave away their material wealth, said their good-byes to loved ones, and gathered on top of hills, roofs and other higher grounds to await salvation from a world that was about to end. But, October 22 came and went… without incident. William Miller and the Advent of the Second Coming

Snow later went on to take Miller's calculations to set a precise date of October 22, 1844.


As usual, Christ failed to return then too. Tens of thousands of people were affected by this apocalyptic frenzy. Tens of thousands left his group. Some left the church altogether and some went on to form the Advent, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other groups that are in the family tree of the Church of God.

Reaction of Millerites to the Great Disappointment[21]
What Happened on October 22, 1844?Attitude toward ProphecyReactionNumbers of MilleritesCurrent groups
No Second Advent1844 date invalid
prophecy invalid
Abandoned their beliefsTens of thousandsMajority left Christianity
Minority rejoined former churches
No Second Advent1844 date invalid
prophecy valid
Jesus coming soon
Some set other dates
Many hundredsAdvent Christian Church,
Jehovah's Witnesses
Second Advent occurred – Spiritualized1844 date valid
prophecy valid
Short lived “holy flesh” movementHundredsJoined Shakers
Date not about Second Advent1844 date valid
This interpretation invalid
Cleansing of Sanctuary meant
Pre-Advent judgment
Second Advent still coming
DozensSeventh-day Adventist Church

As easy as it is to mock those deluded followers of Miller in the mid-1800's we are no better off today in 2022. Thanks to the ongoing epic failure rate of Church of God prophets down through the last 8 decades, hundreds of thousands of followers of Armstrongism have passed through the doors with many never setting foot in a church again or went on to form even more appalling splinter groups. (When the Worldwide Church of God was imploding in the late mid to late 1990's the church estimated that throughout its lifespan that over 500,000 people had passed through its doors. Many find that amount to be hard to believe, but if you include coworkers and contributors, that would swell the ranks.)

Sadly, COG leaders and many ministers never learned from Miller's mistakes nor from the false prophecies of hundreds of COG leaders down through the decades. This brings us to 2022 where we are witnessing modern-day "William Millers" make absurd prophecies that continue to fail every single day. 

In the Church of God movement in 2022 we have some of the most egregious liars ever imaginable: Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, Ron Weinland, John Rittenbaugh, and Alton Billingsley. Each of these men claim God is speaking directly to them revealing in dreams and visions just how things will shortly be. Every single one of these men has been proven to be liars and yet a remnant few remain loyal to them.

Today, in Wadsworth Ohio, the devout are waiting in eager anticipation for Christ to return and usher in a glorious new kingdom where they will be transformed into gods and will be teachers of humanity in the truth of God. Like William Miller's followers, these people have sold their homes, and businesses, cashed in retirements and insurance policies, and have given the money to Dave for some kind of mighty push.

Come Monday morning, June 6, Dave will make a new proclamation and set yet another date. If he keeps to his word, which he never has, he will declare Pentecost 2023 as the next date and remain silent till then, but we all know Dave can't keep his mouth shut and wait that long. More sermons and special announcements will be made.

If these people genuinely followed the Christ they claim to then they would have no need to worry about dates and prophecies that Dave and other COG leaders espouse. Instead of resting securely in faith in Christ as millions of Christs do every single day, these remnant believers live lives of constant dread and fear over present situations. They so desperately need that kingdom to come to be proven right. While Christians also wait for a kingdom to be coming, many work today in the world to help bring it into fruition by doing good works, without expectation of reward, to bring a foretaste of what that heavingly banquet will be like.

The COG movement has isolated itself from those around them, creating an insular movement that looks inwardly at itself where goodness and all truth are perceived to be dwelling while all around them, even in the midst of trouble, goodness and truth preside.

It is my hope that after tonight that some will wake up in the Restored Church of God and leave and find true freedom, but sadly we know this will not be the case.