As Gerald Flurry recovers from one health issue after another his writing abilities have quickly diminished. The Philadelphia Church of God now pulls old articles he has written.
In yesterdays mailing to thier email list they had an article up that Flurry wrote in 2014 on what they claim is the "True Gospel".
At the very beginning of the article the train wrecks and never recovers. Flurry scornfully mocks Christian belief that's sustained Christians for centuries until Armstrongism came along and dumped those beliefs in the trash can and created a "new" gospel.
Flurry mocks all the things that tick off the legalists in the Church of God movement - Jesus, salvation, grace, the social gospel, and more.
Even within Christianity, there are a variety of different gospels: the gospel about Jesus Christ, the gospel of salvation, the gospel of grace, the gospel of the Kingdom, the social gospel, the Israel message—and many more. Confusion.
What is the true gospel? Even practicing Christians have lost it! And the gospel is everything! That’s what the entire message of the Bible is about!
Flurry then lobs another dinger that he believes invalidates all other Christians except himself, though what he did was invalidate himself but is too blind ot see it.
The Apostle Paul knew the true gospel and preached it. And notice what he wrote to the people of God in Galatia: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9). Paul pronounced a double curse on himself or any man, or even an angel, who preached any other gospel.
We have to know what the true gospel is. We do not want to follow the gospel of men whom God has double-cursed! It is extremely important to get this right! This subject affects our eternal lives.
Flurry and his mini-me son Lil'Stevie a red the ones accused. They preach anything they can to get out of preaching about Jesus, grace, justification, sanctification, and a myriad of other topics related to Jesus' salvational work. They lead their followers to follow the "gospel of men who are doubly cursed".
Even more silliness permeates the article:
Read those words one more time: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Why does Mark mention the Son of God with the gospel? Isn’t “Jesus Christ” enough? No, it isn’t. You need “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That is not an embellishment—it is a critical understanding. We have to understand what this gospel is all about, and the Son of God is a truly important part of it!
If there is a Son of God, there must also be a Father.
To understand this truth, look at the Gospel of John. He begins by describing a time when only God and the Word existed. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Notice, this verse mentions God and the Word, but it does not talk about Father and Son. If you put this together with other scriptures, you see that God became the Father, and the Word became the Son. Why? Because of a great master plan that God has, not only for His Son but also for all the billions of people who have ever lived—even those who, to this point, have never heard the name of Christ!
There was a point in history when the Word gave up His divinity and became a tiny cell, and God begat Him in Mary’s womb (John 1:14). At that point, the Word became the Son of the Father. There was Father and Son—there was family.
Why? What is that all about? It’s about you! It’s a plan for you and for me and for all mankind! “The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” is about the God Family.
The original apostles are rolling in the graves now when they realize what they taught has been perverted to this kind of nuttiness centuries later.
Flurry then resorts to the tired and worn-out mantra of Armstrongism:
Here is where people make many mistakes. “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:4-5). He wasn’t warning about many people claiming to beChrist. He was prophesying that many people would be talking about Christ! They say Jesus is the Christ—they preach a gospel about the person of Christ. But they ignore the good news that Christ brought! The true gospel, the real good news of Jesus Christ, is not about the person of Christ—yet that is exactly where Christianity goes off track. “Manyshall come in my name,” Christ warned. Many have come with a message about Christ, and they have deceived many. This has happened, and it continues to happen.
Logic continues its downhill slide with Herbert's nonsense:
Herbert W. Armstrong knew the Bible like few men on Earth ever have. Five months before he died, in the August 1985 edition of the Good News magazine, he addressed this very subject of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. “And what was that gospel message?” he wrote. “It was the news of the coming Kingdom of God. And what is the Kingdom of God? It is the divine Family of God, ruling all Earth’s nations with the government of God” (emphasis mine throughout).
At some point, when the world is filled with so many gods and goddesses, who is there left to rule over? What's the point of all this silliness? After their so-called millennium is over and everyone is now a god or goddess, what is there left to rule over? Is it to be given a planet filled with other gods and goddesses where you will be in charge? Why would you need to be in charge of other gods? Are they less than those trained in Armstrongism? If you are equal to Jesus in god stature, why does he need to be second in command over the other gods and goddesses? After all, it has been ingrained in Armstrongite followers' heads that they will be gods ruling over others. Armstrongites never think things totally through.
9 comments:
Gospel means "good news". It can refer to more than one message. If you were a Jew, awaiting the Messiah, and Jesus arrived to offer them the Kingdom, then that message would be good news. The Jews responded to this offer of the Kingdom by saying, We will not have this man rule over us. So, the kingdom of God would be delayed until the Jews had a change of heart. Then the message of the kingdom went to the Gentiles. I Cor 15, Paul gave another Gospel message to the Gentiles, that Jesus died for the sins of man and rose again. HWA oftentimes would lift a passage out of context, ignore other passages and declare what he taught as the one and only gospel.
Gerald is copying from Herb's playbook. So everyone throughout human history was wrong until HWA The Great came along. He alone understood the true truth and taught it to his followers and the world. So be sure to join the True Truth church of God, and be sure to bring your wallet.
As a young impressionable Ambassador College student, I really had no backlog of theological or historic information when I took Rod Meredith's First Year Bible Class, for which the textbook happened to be a harmony of the gospels. There were no hard or critical questions to ask, because the sum total of everything I knew was what I was learning every week day in class. In retrospect, it strikes me that that class might have best served as a starting point in my quest for knowledge, one possible set of viewpoints, and not the be all and end all of everything relevant, true, and pertinent. It should have been subject to further investigation, at least a smattering of due diligence, that is if we were really "proving all things". However, back in those days, we took it seriously when they told us not to read materials on Christianity from sources outside the church. We were also admonished by HWA to take every word from "God's ministers" as if it had come directly from Jesus Christ. The assumption was that we were being taught pure and perfect truth, and there was no shortage of students who were really gung ho about it! My own enthusiasm for being groomed to teach or spread it, however, was very lackluster. I had been mostly raised in the church, and had experienced the damaging practical application of Armstrongism, and really didn't want to pass it on so that the next batch of children would suffer a similar fate.
There is no way that the gospel of Herbert W. Armstrong was "good" news. It may have been good news for the recipient of our tithes. He died with the most toys, and had the admiration of many dignitaries and world leaders at the time of his passing.. The level of mind-control Herbie exercised over us, his peons and dumb sheep, was nothing short of criminal, as many of us who realize and understand what he was doing to us with his so-called gospel now know beyond the shadow of doubt. Sadly, others have picked up where HWA left off, and are making things even worse for the people who believe they are serving God by following them. It's kind of like an underarm. Real pity!
Armstrongites never think things totally through.
Who does?
This oldie but goodie from Flurry turns my stomach. How is it possible to deceive people telling them about the person of Christ? Without Him, there is no salvation for anyone, Jew or Gentile.
HWA, Flurry and all the gang never think their absurd ideas through. It is almost laughable (except for the thousands who have been deceived and hurt by these liars) to think that the Gospel ABOUT Christ is not the gospel. Not exactly a plethora of deep thinkers, HWA, GRF, DCP, BT, et al.
That the PCGs "good news" is the family government of God ruling all the nations is a restatement of HWAs "government is everything" teaching. Like the Pharisees who believed that the Sabbath is everything, Herb did the same with government. Christ rebuked this belief. In church culture "ruling" is a code word for stripping members of all their rights and being micromanaged like kindergarten children. This is another example of HWA being a closet Marxist. His hero was Stalin rather than Christ.
The damage caused by self appointed apostles like HWA & Flurry is hard to measure. Obviously they did not take heed to the warning by Christ not to offend or harm others who are "babes in Christ" I remember HWA often referring to most people's be held belief of Christ as a "smart aleck" Well, he needed to go take a look in the mirror. I remember his arrogant behavior down in St. Pete during the feast in the 70's blowing up about people going to the bathroom or mothers with infants going to the diaper change room during his 2 hour sermon in which he repeated the 2 trees over & over. It basically was all about himself.
(Rev 14:6 TS2009) And I saw another messenger flying in mid-heaven, holding the everlasting Good News to announce to those dwelling on the earth, even to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,
(Rev 14:7 TS2009) saying with a loud voice, “Fear Elohim and give esteem to Him, because the hour of His [Yeshua’s] judgment has come. And worship Him who made the heaven and the earth, and sea, and fountains of water.”
Yeshua (Jesus), [meaning Yahweh is Salvation] has come, and with His judgment your salvation.
Is Gerald Flurry Trying To Do A Deathbed Repentance?
When Gerald Flurry started his little PCG cult, one of the very first things he did was do away with the “great commission” to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. Gerald said that Herbert W. Armstrong had already done it, as if it were now over and done with. Gerald said that his PCG had been given a “new commission” for a new church era. Gerald said that the PCG was commissioned to “warn the Laodiceans.” In actual practice, this meant raging away like a bunch of ignorant demoniacs against any Worldwide Church of God people who refused to go with Gerald and help him to suppress the preaching of the gospel. “That (False) Prophet” (and Identity Thief) Gerald Flurry now talking about the gospel of the kingdom of God is about 34 years too late.
This is not the first time for something like that. When Gerald Flurry started his PCG cult, he wanted to be a prophet so badly that he even edited and changed HWA's last book called Mystery of the Ages to allow himself to be a prophet while leading the church. Gerald was so desperate to be a prophet that he did not seem to notice for the first 20 years of his PCG cult that HWA had taught that the church was led by an apostle, not by a prophet. Then, Gerald finally took that title too after wasting so many years of everyone's time making up dozens of other names, titles, offices, and positions for himself.
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