Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
If what Gerald Weston says below is true then why are LCG members and especially HQ staff/ministry been so inept at conquering sin COMPLETELY? Like clockwork, Weston mocks Christians outside the LCG while his own people are just as sinful or worse than the Christians he mocks? The difference is that Christians know they rest assured with their standing with God through Christ while LCG members have to be continually working for an unattainable goal that not one single COG member has ever been able to achieve...well, maybe except for Rod Meredith how ludicrously claimed that he had not committed a major sin since baptism. Minor sins are perfectly ok, but major ones? Oh, hell no!
Most professing Christians today believe that God’s law was “nailed to the cross” when Jesus Christ was crucified. They will say, “Jesus led a perfect life in your stead—there’s nothing at all for you to do except believe!”
We in God’s Church, however, have precious truth that mainstream Christianity ignores or rejects. We understand that God has given His people the motivation and the means to come out of sin. But are we using the tools He has given us? Are we really striving to come out of spiritual Egypt, as pictured by the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread? We must strive to conquer sin completely!
Like the Masons, LCG members are constantly working to progress up the ladder through various stages till they reach sinlessness.
Peter’s personal exodus from sin almost failed here because of his doubt, but Christ saved him. Each of us in God’s Church is on an exodus of our own, leaving sin behind and progressing toward righteousness.
Weston claims the world and worldly Christians find the true Christians in the LCG to stink of "the aroma of death" while LCG members are a fragrant aroma in the nostrils of their god!
To the world, genuine Christians are “the aroma of death.” To those who are perishing in their sins, Christ’s righteousness in us is an affront to their way—and they do not know that their way leads to death. But to God, we are the aroma of life, a beautiful fragrance. It reminds us of the incense coming up before God’s throne in the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8). And it is an aroma of triumph.
Weston hurls the favorite epitaph of the COG toward all Christians outside their righteous circle, "those people may be sincere, but sincerely wrong!" We have 8 decades of the Church of God being "sincerely wrong" in so many things.
Many call themselves Christians and profess to love Jesus. But are they truly Christians? Jesus Himself gave an answer: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me’” (John 14:23–24).
These people may be sincere. But they are sincerely wrong. It is one thing to be grateful for Christ’s forgiveness of sin when we repent. But it is another—and a grievous error—to make the false assumption that we can keep on sinning and expect God to ignore our conduct. As Paul reminded the Romans, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Romans 6:1–2). Such licentious, antinomian people are shamefully crucifying their Savior again and again (Hebrews 6:6).
Grace, that 5 letter swear word that so many in the COG mock. Only COG leaders are capable of understanding grace. If that were true then why has the COG been such a graceless church for so many decades?
So rest assured brethren there is no other COG on earth that is filled with as many progressing Christians as we have in the LCG, who apparently are just a couple rungs short of pure sinlessness.
Trumpeting for plagues worse than just rain or ants on your picnic this weekend, RCG’s Inept Prophet plans to kick down your sand castle by July 4th. Or maybe starting in the afternoon on Sunday (July 3). But maybe tonight (Saturday July 2) at dusk. We’ll see. Hard to say.
David C. Pack compelled his staff to stop working yesterday but paid them to listen to him blather for almost 90-minutes as he delivered The Greatest Unending Story! Part 380.
Ponder the many empty seats despite staff attendance being mandatory
His side-splitting opener is for the ages:
@ 00:14 Very little is going to change. The picture you have is literally picture perfect except I’m gonna make it a whole lot better.
You mean “better” than already having Jesus Christ return this past Wednesday night? The fact that there were no guffaws and giggles in the Main Hall was purely miraculous.
Since Dave loves to brag about how he never leaves the campus, the following analogy will be lost on him: Imagine you book an airline flight and the airline sends you an email update: “Very little is going to change. Your flight is now next Thursday instead of tomorrow. This makes it a whole lot better.”
@ 01:31 I suspected beginning Tuesday [June 28] that maybe we would be here, but Iwasn’t sure until the days past and and and, of course, here we are.
Even when RCG’s Inept Prophet is clearly wrong, he loves to find an angle in which he is right.
Perhaps Dave is not much of a sports fan, so he will also not understand this: When the buzzer sounds on the basketball court and you still have the ball in your hands, that means the game is over.
He quoted Yogi Berra throughout the message. Being inspired, I also found some interesting quips:
“We made too many wrong mistakes.” — Yogi Berra
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” — Yogi Berra
“I never said most of the things I said.” — Yogi Berra
The further you get away from the RCG gaslighting, the more clearly you are able to see it.
@ 05:05 We’ve got the right month. We’re right on time.Wait’ll you hear what I’ve got to tell you. Now I began wondering on Tuesday if we could go into Tammuz. Some verses suggested we did.
Commuter trains have a set schedule. Imagine you get to the platform just before the doors are supposed to close when you hear an announcement, “Today, all trains are right on time. Come back in a few days.”
@ 07:53 And I’m gonna give you absolute proof that I didn’t quite have last time. We got the picture right but did we get the number of days right? And if so, what might change? How can the picture get a whole lot better when, so far, it means we’ve had to wait a couple more days?
See, people who flee from The Restored Church of God leave because of impatience, not because of biblical fraud perpetrated by a false prophet and false apostle. No biggie.
Like physical comedy, you have to see this one to get the joke.
In what dialect of the English language does this shuffling around remotely appear to be “very little” change to anyone?
Note to MPS: The audio is out of sync. You either need to restart the audio delay component at the sound table or someone used the wrong video path for recording. Camera 3 is crooked and soft focus.
A new date was set for everyone to write down in their notes.
@ 32:15 Is there any way we can know that we’re waiting for July 14th? Let’s just be blunt, July 14th is the Day of the Lord. Could you know that? You can’t argue with the month. If somebody wants to argue with the year, then I guess it wouldn’t be July 14th in some other year. But I’m just saying this year, let’s be dramatic, let’s just lay it out. Is it possible that the Day of the Lord is the 14th of July? And that the first day of the Kingdom, it’d be kind of interesting, be the 4th of July. Is that possible? Maybe, maybe not.
Hopefully, they used pencil because the message was far from over.
@ 41:16 Now, there are other things that line up. And they’re perfect.I’m not done here. We’ve got this lockedand I’m gonna show you, it’s locked. The Man of Sin arises on a Sunday. Only by placing the the the the ten days from the 5th to the 15th [of Tammuz] does not only the Man of Sin arise on a Sunday, his season for three and a half weeks, Nebuchadnezzar, not only is that true and it would not be true if you delay it. If you say, “Well, maybe God means 1334 or ’33 or ’32.” No no no no, if He said [1335], that’s a hard number. And it happens to feed perfectly to “the Man of Sin arises on a Sunday” just two weeks before we thought he did because the second half of the month dudn’t play. Not only is that important, but God would likely, I’ve often thought, God would likelystart His work at the beginning of the work week, a Sunday. “Now, wait a minute, the fifth [of Tammuz] is Sunday night, Mr. Pack.” We’re gonna have to talk about that because it might be I’ve got even a little bit better news than what I’ve said so far.
I guess I missed what the “good news” was in this first 42 minutes. Isn’t God’s kingdom having already arrived in the past tense better than the future tense?
@ 49:52 It’s perfect. It’s perfect. It’s just it’s so exquisite. But, if you say that the ten days moves on, you blow up all of that. Every one of ‘em.
Every Dave theory is prophetic Jenga. When you move even one piece, the entire thing comes toppling down. He doesn’t just build his house on sand, he builds it on all the marbles he keeps finding on his pillow each morning.
One mind-bender you have to keep straight the whole time while listening is that Tammuz 5 is actually July 4 and Tammuz 15 is actually July 14.
Follow the math for a moment. July 14 minus ten days equals July 4, but the Hebrew day begins at sundown the night before, which brings you to Sunday, July 3rd. But…
@ 1:12:35 …but I actually don’t think we get to Sunday night. So, lemme tell you what I think, but I’m qualifying it. I’m qualifying it. Sunday at at at at dark Sunday at dark at dusk, if it’s ten days ‘till you touch the 15th from when the start of the 5th [Tammuz], that’s ten days, if that’s what it is, then that would be sometime mid-day Sunday here. Wherever you are in the world, brethren, you’ll just have to calculate your time zone, but it will be a little before 1 o’clock Sunday here if that’s if it gets that far. Now, it could go ever further because you gotta a bunch of other verses that say things start at dawn.
Despite bringing up the concept of “irreducible complexity” (Do we thank Brad for that?), when you listen through the whole insufferable message, all you can conclude is: Wow, what a convoluted mess.
Tammuz. July. Sunset. Sunrise. Jerusalem time. East coast time. It couldn’t be more simple.
As the message wore on, Dave’s certainty started to sound more uncertain. But don’t just take my word for it. Here is a sample of “simplicity in Christ”:
Have you ever heard a more wishy-washy “inspired preaching” about Jesus Christ’s return in your life? Perhaps this latest string of failures has Dave so spooked, he is now ready to claim the title, The Most Namby Pamby Prophet on Earth.
The explanation that followed to explain the details of this explanation sounds like Dave started to speak in tongues but used English as the chosen language. Everyone in the room put their pens down at this point.
@ 1:26:12 Could it go next year?I see no way. But I see the day approaching. It’s a massive coincidence, I see no way.I don’t see it could go to the next day. And and I will not stand up here, brethren, and have to stand up and lie to you. If we go if we go very far, past the range we’ve talked about, I’m not gonna stand up and tell ya it’s off. If for some reason, it’s not this picture, I will not bend it, I’ll tell ya that now.Have to be an oracle. I’d have to have Gabriel in this ear and Michael in this ear telling me to change it in some way. And maybe Christ Himself for something.
He sounds pretty convicted this time around, but where exactly do I pin this on my calendar?
·MAYBE Jesus Christ returns Saturday night, July 2 at sunset.
·MAYBE Jesus Christ returns Sunday morning, July 3 at sunrise.
·MAYBE Jesus Christ returns Sunday afternoon, July 3 at 1pm Eastern time.
·MAYBE TBD
Why should we be certain about this?
@ 1:03:15 So is this prophesying to you? I guess, maybe it is. It’s inspired preaching. I didn’t hear God talk in my ear but I’m coming out of His word.
Says Past-Tense-Elijah That Prophet. “I guess” and “maybe” are my favorite words uttered from a prophet’s lips.
Every member of The Restored Church of God needs to revisit this opening comment:
Very little is going to change. The picture you have is literally picture perfect except I’m gonna make it a whole lot better.
Sometime around 2000/2001, Darryl Henson, a former Church of God minister had a nightmarish vision to start a community of Sabbatarian believers close to Zion National Park. He ended up buying land in the Arizona Strip, just down the road from Warren Jeffs, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints communities of Colorado City and Hillsdale, AZ. The Arizona strip has been home to several cults that have made it their home base due to the isolation of the area far away from the bureaucratic eyes of government officials in Phoenix and out of reach from Salt Lake authorities.
Henson had a vision where Sabbatarians would dwell together in unity as they prepared for the end times.
No one will need to stretch their imagination too much to know that this would never have worked, especially given the fact that by the year 2000 the Sabbatarians of the Worldwide Church of God movement had already splintered into hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups. Unity has never been the truth that the Church of God believed in or shared as we see evident 22 years later in 2022.
The Journal: News of the Churches of God had this about his commune when he started it:
Darryl Henson of Kanab, Utah, pastor of A Congregation of God: A Free Church, has bought land in nearby Mohave County, Ariz., and offered to lease it to his parishioners. Mr. Henson divided the 110- acre (45-hectare, or 450,000-square- meter) tract into 96 lots and has offered to long-term-lease some of them to members of the group.
(As reported in THE JOURNAL of Dec. 31, 2002, relatives of some members of A Congregation of God said they were upset with Mr. Henson when many of them made the move from other areas of the country to Utah as a preparation for Jesus’ second coming.)
A letter Mr. Henson wrote to supporters dated Jan. 10, 2003, described the progress in the construction of a church building on the property. He reported that he expected to develop 38 of the 96 lots, and already “34 have been spoken for.”
Included with Mr. Henson’s letter was a plat and a tentative lease agreement. The plat shows a church hall on one lot, with a ball field on one side of the meeting hall and a “shop” on the other side. The lots are approximately one acre (40,000 square meters) each.
To lease a lot with a residence on it costs each church family $4,500 upfront, plus monthly payments of $75. The leases are for 49 years each because, Mr. Henson said, “that equated to the Old Testament instruction concerning jubilee.”
A lot without a dwelling commands a lower up-front cost: $2,500.
“For those who are able, we appreciate the up-front money,” said Mr. Henson, because “it is being utilized to develop the land as it arrives. For those unable to pay upfront, a payment schedule fitting your budget can be arranged.”
Mr. Henson said the brethren “cast lots” to decide who receives which land parcels. Lot allocation is “by a lottery system.”
Mr. Henson, referring to his wife, said that “Marla and I purchased the land in our names, hence we are included in the beginning of the lease as owners.
“We plan to transfer official title to A Congregation of God: A Free Church once the allocation of lots is done and we are established on the land.”
The property is about 35 miles south and west of Kanab, Mr. Henson told THE JOURNAL, just across the border in Arizona. The church building is “between 50 and 60 percent complete.”
“Optimistically,” he said, “we are hoping to have our first service there on Pentecost [in June], but it may be July or August.”
Materials for the metal buildings for the 50-by-110-foot meeting hall and a “mechanical and wood-working shop” of about the same size arrive at the site and are assembled by volunteer church members.”
As more and more people came to join the little group and purchase land, many of them started realizing that Henson was giving them the shaft. By 2016 there were major issues in the group.
Henson wrote:
I made the decision to buy the land for God's express purpose of preparing a place as He had instructed in the dream. We are a Free Church, not a worldly 501c3 corporation, which is overseen by corporate law and the state, even to the point of closing some churches who teach against abortion or homosexuality, etc. The State has no jurisdiction over a Free Church. So we have no board of directors and board of deacons who hire and fire ministers. I was commissioned directly of God to prepare a place near Zion. As the one given the direction, He also placed me in charge of the operation and I formed A Congregation of God, A Free Church to fulfill His purposes on the piece of land He provided.
It is amazing how many men God has placed in positions in the splinterdom. Each and every one of them claimed their god had appointed them and placed them in positions of authority.
I was deeply committed to preserve it in a way that outsiders could not buy lots and move in on us. The Fair Housing Act has a clause that states churches can discriminate in this manner. Additionally, I determined that it should not be sold as it was a gift from God for His purposes. The church and the land were inextricably bound together to accomplish what God instructed me to do.
On the day of closing the purchase, Dec. 7, 2002, I wrote a letter to all members in Utah and around the country offering anyone who desired, a lease on one acre each if they wished to move out and join the project. The letter mentioned a lease several times, not once hinting at a purchase option, which I had not intention at all of offering so as to prevent future sales of lots to non-members. I prepared a lease that was specifically designed with that in mind. The lease was for 49 years with the intent of giving security, but also preserving the land intact for God's use. No offer of eventual ownership was made as people understood why it should be that way.
None of use expected (expect) this age to continue that long in any case.
As you will see below we have another crackpot who thinks god spoke to them in a dream. Apparently, Henson and Thiel use the same god to deliver their nightmares.
Henson claims he has the right of apostolic succession to form his group, something Bob Thiel does not have and will never have. Poor Bob, always a dollar short and a day late to everything.
Anyway, on with the show...
Immanuel the Christ personally directed me via dream, vision and scriptural instruction to find a place for Him to use. He led and directed me to form A Congregation of God, A Free Church as a continuing part of the original church He founded while on earth with the apostles as its directors.I was duly ordained into His ministry by Herbert Armstrong in apostolic succession. Therefore as founder under Christ, pastor and signatory from its beginning, I declare that the original intent for purchasing this piece of land in Cane Beds, AZ to prepare for the gathering of Christ's remnant was to keep it sacrosanct from the infringement of the world at large, reserved for God's own remnant.
The original intent of the lease I wrote was to prevent subdivision and sale of any portion of the land. Those present in the church at the time, read, accepted and signed the lease, most of them in late January 2003. Others signed and accepted later. All have lived under the lease, most have complied with its financial stipulations and accepted it as their security for a 49 year period, short of their violating its terms.
Some, in recent months, have lost confidence in me as pastor of ACOG and left its fellowship, not attending and withdrawing any verifiable financial support of the church, such as tithes, other than the lease stipulations. Now, after adhering to the lease all these years, they suddenly “remember” that they were promised ownership at the beginning. Most of those protesting for ownership were not even here at the beginning. How would they know what was originally promised? They also read, accepted, signed and lived by the lease, but now are lobbying for ownership and subdivision which was never offered and appears on no documents in any form.
I do not wish to air our dirty laundry in public beyond this, but feel a statement which will be posted on our website, is now necessary to establish original intent, as evidenced by letter and lease documents, that this hierarchical church, governed solely by God through His ordained ministry and not “majority opinion” intends to preserve the land purchased for God's purposes to be retained for those purposes. A subdivision with potential sale of land, has never been a part of those purposes. The church and its purpose cannot be separated from the land and its purpose. They are one and the same. Of course, since the land is in the name of the church, some are trying to take over the church to obtain the land.
There is no example in the bible, anywhere, of the nation of Israel or the New Testament church having a matter resolved by a majority vote of its members. All decisions have always been made by the patriarch in charge or the ministry in terms of the New Testament, first apostles, then prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
Paul states clearly in the book of Hebrews that the members were to OBEY them that had rulership/oversight/governance over them. The ministry.
The history of ACOG is not finished so I will stop here. But be warned that any who seek to take over God's land and His church may be found to be fighting against God Himself as indicated in Jer. 11 concerning a rebellion at Anatoth. I am truly frightened for any who might dare go there. This is not about Darryl Henson, a human and a sinner. It is about Almighty God in heaven and The Lord of Hosts and their purpose for this land. Darryl Henson's Sabbatarian Community In Arizona Strip Is Having Huge Issues
The love of the brethren is such a wonderful thing to see, particularly in the Church of God! Imagine that, COG members who REFUSED to OBEY those in rulership and governance over them! What a novel concept! It has never happened before in the history of the church, has it?
The turmoil in Henson's church reached such a fervor that Mojave County officials had to step in and started interviewing people who had bought land leases from Henson. This sent Henson into a fit. He soon after shut down the official website for his church and started a new one detailing the extreme harassment he believed he was receiving from County officials and many of his followers.
Henson writes:
Christine Ballard and Jenny Nelson from Mohave County Planning and Zoning met with mere renters of my property to discuss ownership issues of zoning without the owner of the property present. Does anyone know of other instances where P&Z discussed ownership issues with renters??? Please contact me if you know of other issues where P&Z has violated ownership/renter rights, civil rights or any other unethical or criminal activities. Christine will likely say she did not know who the signatory was, but she did. I have corresponded with her for over 10 years about compliance issues and she never had trouble knowing with whom to correspond. P&Z even sued me over compliance issues and she had no trouble knowing who to sue as the owner.
There have been many instances in recent years of courts ruling in the favor of disgruntled members of hierarchical ( top down authority) and even congregational (bottom up authority) churches resulting IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CHURCH PROPERTY BEING TURNED OVER TO EX-MEMBERS.
The current situation, if it stands, REPRESENTS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE OWNERS OF EVERY RENTAL PROPERTY IN AMERICA—EVERY MALL, APARTMENT BUILDING, STORAGE UNIT, MOBILE HOME PARK OR ENTITY THAT RENTS LAND OR SPACE TO THE PUBLIC!!!
In this case, people who rented land in a church-owned trailer park staged a rent strike that resulted in over $45,000 being extorted from the church and the theft by extortion of 41.35 acres of land from the church. These renters HAD NO LEGAL CLAIM TO OWNERSHIP WHATSOEVER—no purchase contract, no purchase option, ZERO documentation to represent an ownership claim. Yet they used six of the nine elements of extortion to achieve ownership. (Only one element is required for conviction of felony extortion).
This they did by illegally withholding rent, which was legal property of the landlord A.R.S. 13-1804(A)(5), by intimidation and threats A.R.S. 13-1804(A)(4), false accusations A.R.S. 13-1804(A)(5), accusing me of killing my wife and burying her in the backyard A.R.S. 13-1804(A)(5), reporting numerous points of gossip to the Sheriff Dept. and my neighbors A.R.S. 13-1804(6), the illegal use of public officials from Planning and Zoning A.R.S. 13-1804(7) and with their Settlement Agreement they obtained a Tenants in Common which was not freely given due to the fact it destroyed the Fair Housing Exemption for the Church’s mobile home park,A.R.S. 13-1804(A)(8).
It all adds up to classic blackmail!
What really added fuel to Henson's fire was this:
THERE IS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL COURT PROCEDURE THAT HAS NOW BEEN ADOPTED BY AT LEAST 45 STATES, including Arizona—AND ANOTHER, NEW MEXICO, IS CURRENTLY IN THE PROCESS OF ADOPTING IT, THAT VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF HIERARCHICAL CHURCHES SUCH AS THE PRESBYTERIANS, CATHOLICS, MORMONS–AND PROBABLY INCLUDING YOUR OWN! It is called the “neutral principles of law” and sounds harmless at first glance. BUT ITS PURPOSE IS NOT NEUTRAL!
It is more like NEUTERING, CASTRATING, MAKING POWERLESS AND DESTROYING CHURCHES IN ITS EFFECT! It gives the world-wide and national fight to destroy any form of Christianity new legs!
WHY? Because it violates the First Amendment. Government cannot make any laws affecting a church!
Things just keep getting worse for Henson:
Yet Judge Conn of the the Mohave County Superior Court, accepted an action with its stated purpose of claiming it was an “association” in order to allow ex-members and others to have the court make them members of the church, give them its assets and then dissolve the church! Was the court going to baptize them by immersion or sprinkling, pray tell??? The court was being asked to interfere in the government of the church, change its doctrines and then totally destroy—dissolve—it! EVERY PART OF THIS COMPLAINT VIOLATED THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF FREE CHURCHES AS CLEARLY MANDATED BY THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.
Now I am back in court, representing myself, as a way to resolve the injustice forced upon A Congregation of God a Free Church.
Three of Henson's followers took their case to the Mojave County officials:
This pushed Henson's buttons further:
At this link is a YouTube video where 3 ex-members of the Church convinced the Mohave County Planning & Zoning officials that they didn’t approve of the Church’s mobile home park zoning. Amazingly, they succeeded in halting the zoning approval for rental spaces in a Church owned mobile home park. What they did was pretend (commit fraud?) that the Church was congregational and the members needed to approve the zoning application.
And, Gordon Gueller takes issue with paying tax on the entire 110 acre parcel but at the time all residents had access to the entire parcel for four-wheeling, shop building, church building, picnic area, nature walks, etc. When a church member quits or is disfellowshipped, their access to the Church building stops. Truth of the matter is that the Church was and is hierarchical and the pastor made the final decisions. When one knows two very simple facts, the whole situation takes on a new meaning.
BTW, rent on a one acre dwelling space was $100/month. Additional acres for raising goats, sheep, chickens, etc were $25/month per acre. Apportioned property tax on the 110 acres was about $60/month for most households. But the renters wanted more, much more. They thought they owned the place!
Henson had to settle with his renters which has infuriated him to no end:
How Rental Leases Became Ownership Deeds Beginning with a Rent Strike
A Congregation of God moved our headquarters from Colorado to a low population area near the Southern Utah/Northern Arizona border in 2001 to buy land and provide a place for like-minded people to gather and live together in godly harmony in order that “iron might sharpen iron” and enhance our spiritual development.
Unfortunately, the works of the flesh fight against the fruit of the Spirit and we had a rebellion that was generated via false accusations against the pastor, a rent strike and a lawsuit that asked the court to make ex-members and never-ever members (which were adult family members of ex-members), actual members of the church! And then to turn the land and other assets of the church over to them and dissolve the church!
That action was settled out of court via a Tenants-In-Common agreement that gave each of the rebels an ownership share in the residential area of the property. Yet they persist in extortion efforts obviously aimed at a complete take-over of church assets and removal of the the pastor from the church’s land.
The pastor and the still-faithful membership have filed a lawsuit asking that the rebels be indicted for theft by extortion of 42 acres they obtained by a rent-strike, intimidation, false accusations, attempted bribery, blackmail, lying and fraud–all felonies under the official definition of extortion in Arizona statutes.
Helping “Prepare the Bride” for Christ’s return is our first and overall quest. He is ready for the marriage, we are not. We need to do all we can to give our hearts entirely to Him and be as much like Him as we can be by the time we die or He returns. He wants a bride totally committed—heart, mind, body and soul to Him and His purposes.
The Church of God movement has NEVER at any point in its history ever tried to "prepare the Bride" for Christ's return. Most of them deny the very "husband" they claim to be "marrying". What we have seen is hundreds and hundreds of splinter group leaders with their own agendas lying and deceiving brethren to follow them. There is no unity at all in ANY of the Churches of God and there never will be!
We are entreated to think as He thinks (let this mind be in you…), walk as He walks, to live by every word of God. The reason we, (World-wide Church of God a.k.a. WCG), were all spewed out was lack of heart—lukewarmness. The zeal and “doing everything with our might” was missing. It was not primarily doctrine, apart from the Tkach debacle, but an attitude that put us where we are today—scattered, confused, frustrated. Or on the other hand, blissfully unaware that anything is wrong “in our group.”
It is the aim of A Congregation of God to look first at ourselves and fix our own attitudes and conduct. If we can be a light to others, well and good. If by sermons we post, we can help others along their spiritual road to the Kingdom of God, so much the better.
The following mantra is tired and worn out and frankly boring as hell in 2022. We have heard this malarkey for decades. None of them are doing any "end-time work" or preaching a gospel message.
Under WCG, many were called, and now a few are being selected to finish the end-time work of God and round out the 144,000 selected as the bride. Herbert Armstrong fulfilled Mat. 28:19-20—calling many disciples.
The two witnesses and the remnant soon to be gathered (read Haggai and Zech 1-4, Rev. 11) will fulfill Mat. 24:14. That is, preach the gospel around the world and then the end shall come. The end will come 3 ½ days after the two witnesses are killed in the streets of Jerusalem at the end of the 1260 day great tribulation.
This record has been skipping in place in the COG for decades. No COG member should ever look to a minister or church leader as preparing them.
Even the two final witnesses are told not to go to the world at first, but to the church. Compare Rev. 11:1-2 and Zech. 4. God’s concern NOW is for all of us to repent of Laodiceanism. Herbert Armstrong told the ministry just before his death that “my job is finished (preaching to the world), now get the church ready.” Once the church is prepared, power will be given to go to the world (Rev. 11:3-4)
We had a peaceful community for years until human nature reared its ugly head. Now our quest is to restore peace and “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Immanuel)” Phil 3:14. Again, the prize of the first-fruits is to be the bride of Christ and we must fight past any distractions in preparation for that high calling.
This is a pipe dream that will never happen in the Church of God. If they cannot get along now how in the world can we expect them to get along if they end up in Petra together? The infighting and constant bitch fests will be endless. Imagine Bob Thiel, Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, and Gerald Weston all converging on Petra at the same time and the giant pissing contest that would go on as to who would be in charge! Which leader would get to have their HQ in the Marriott or other luxury hotel in the area as their sheeple languish in dirty caves and staggering heat?
