Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Restored Church of God Exit Letter by Steve Bell From England


 


The following Restored Church of God Exit Letter by Steve Bell in England was given to exrcg.org with permission to share publicly.

 

 

January 14, 2024

 

My Dearest Brethren,

 

Greetings from the Northwest. I hope this email finds you all doing well and keeping warm.

Thankfully, spring will be here before we know it, which means warmer weather.

For 14 years, my family and I have been blessed with the ability to have broken bread and have fellowship with you. We thoroughly enjoyed all the time that God has allowed us to share together on the various Holy Days, and we long for that fellowship daily.

I know I don't write to you very often and haven't emailed you all in a long time. I suppose life gets in the way. Being in my mid-forties with a little one who keeps my wife and me on our toes and exhausted at the end of each day, a lot of time passes without noticing it. It seems like only yesterday that we were at our first Feast of Tabernacles, where we met most of you for the first time. It’s funny how time passes so quickly the older one gets.

I write to you from a place of genuine love and concern because we all are being deceived, and for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, I'm certain that most, if not all, of you have at least thought about this yourselves. We have been listening to a great heresy for many years. We have been hearing incredibly confusing messages, and yet Scripture tells us that “God is not the author of confusion but of peace and a sound mind.”

We have been given failed prophecy time and time again by Mr. David C. Pack. From March 2022 to today, we have been given 78 false dates for the return of Christ/God's Kingdom, and each one of those dates has come and gone without consequence.

I don't know how many more dates were given before then, but I know there were many.

Deuteronomy 18:21-22

And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: you shall not be afraid of him.

The word “afraid” in the Hebrew means “to sojourn or abide with.”

2 Peter 1:20

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.

“Private interpretation” in the Greek means “one's own solution or explanation.” And yet, the men at Headquarters sit behind closed doors and privately interpret them, and they fail. God's prophecies NEVER fail.

Another recent heretical teaching is that Christ will take the Passover on the 15th of Abib when Scripture clearly states time and again that the Passover is the 14th of Abib. Ask yourselves, would our Saviour “unlawfully” take the Passover a day late?

Also, we have learned that Christ isn’t the Branch, although YOU KNOW HE IS!!! This is absolute wickedness and heresy. Scripture is being perverted to mean what it doesn’t mean!

God admonishes us to trust NO MAN, put your trust not in mortals, TRUST GOD!!!!

Also, consider the new “new moon” doctrine, which is absolutely unscriptural. The ONLY new moon that is to be observed is The Feast of Trumpets.

Isaiah 1:14

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

Scripture also tells us:

1 Thessalonians 5:21

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

Yet, I remember four or five years ago, a letter was sent to Headquarters regarding the prophecy series from a brethren stating this verse to which this response was given:

“You’ve already proven all things, you’re in the Church, that’s all you need to prove.”

The word ALL in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 is “pas” in the Greek. It means literally “everything, the whole, every kind of, all things.”

REMEMBER YOUR FIRST LOVE

We have all been betrayed and lied to. You should not abide with that false prophet any longer.

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that my family and I are leaving the organization of The Restored Church of God. I know that you will be told we have left “the Church” or “the Truth.” We are not leaving the Church or the Truth. We are leaving an organization where lies and wickedness abound.

Brethren, we genuinely love and care for you all. We hope and pray that at least some of you will not cut us out of your lives. You are our family and friends, and we are thankful for that. Never in my life have I known such genuine and kind people.

May God continue to guide and bless you all for all your days. I look forward to the day when we all see each other again.

All Our Love,

Steve Bell & Family

 


Courtesy of marc Cebrian

See: RCG Exit Letter: Steve Bell

42 comments:

  1. Members are noticing that Dave Pinocchio Pack's nose is unusually long.

    ReplyDelete
  2. “We have all been betrayed and lied to.” -- Steve Bell

    You got that right!!!

    David C. Pack did a satanic BAIT & SWITCH scam on everyone with his RCG splinter group of the GCG splinter group. Dave Pack originally promised to restore all of Herbert W. Armstrong's teachings as they were at the time of HWA's death on January 16, 1986. Dave Pack claimed that he had “been either put on trial, fired, or demoted a total of twelve times solely on issues of doctrine and principles of truth,” and had proved his faithfulness to precision of doctrine and to the truth. Dave Pack claimed that his Real Truth magazine was going to bring responsible understanding rather than reckless speculation.

    After using this BAIT to attract HWA's former followers and their money, Dave Pack then betrayed everyone and did the SWITCH to giving everyone his own heretical nonsense instead. Part of the switch was to Dave Pack's “COMMON” teaching that everyone had to obediently send him virtually everything they had -- “or no salvation if you don't.” Another part of the switch was to weekly, WRONG, prophetic date guesses that quickly fail.

    The reason that David C. Pack is so satanically brutal to his followers is that Dave is the second-worst FALSE PROPHET (after Gerald R. Flurry) that Satan ever sent against the Worldwide Church of God people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a relief to read of Steve Bell & wife & family now living free from Dave Pack's mini version of N. Korea theatre of grand gaslighting & guilt.

    If Steve still has a Passover post-RCG, he will have no guilt about leaving the hierarchy leadership he once trusted. Dave is a lot like Ramses I, & anyone else can exodus from there like Mr. Bell has, Dave has no Pharaoh chariots to chase anyone who leaves.

    What a joy to hear of another escape from the RCG pyramid scheme!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dave is wearing blinders, & is navigating with corrupt GPS directional system. If he is not careful, he may accidentally end up sitting in the Cathedri Petri black chair 🪑...& get jolted by an old-school wind-up joy buzzer zapping him when he sits bzzzz-zzzz-tttt    zzz-apppp-ttt

    or whoopee cushion too    ff-fllluupp-pttttt

    Dave has been spiritually placing a rotten apple 🍏 on top of all the RCG folk & they have his corporate blindfold on, & they are trusting Dave to play WILLIAM TELL. Watch out as the jittery archer Dave shakily takes aim from the podium each week...toinnnggggg-fff-lllttttt 🏹

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazing! Some can actually leave the man who caused the confusion and bad in their lives. But, somehow they remain in the shit that caused the man! It's the system, people! The man is just the manifestation, the fruit the system has produced. This has been shown to be true time and time again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True to a degree. I also left one of these groups similar to Pack's for the very same reasons, but anything that I had learned from the past that I could prove in scripture, I kept. There is nothing wrong with that approach. It was not all crap as you said, you just have to know how to, and have the desire to sift through it to understand. Be a Berean.

      Delete
    2. If you ever meet a Messianic Jewish person, you could see that there are groups who live comfortably in a system free of the HWA abrasive ego & free of COG leaders' pressure of gaslighting scam & scheme. It's possible to keep a different set of Christian holy days other than the days kept by your local church denomination down the street.

      Since anti-Semitism is not approved of or has anything polite about it, then there are generally no sites where it is easy to trash Jewish lifestyle or Jewish people. Professors Kornbluth, Gay, & Magill found it wise to curb their anti-Semitism, but it took them a little too long & they lost their prestigious tenure over it. Not even COG has a history of hassling Messianic Jews, so we wouldn't want to stoop "lower" than that kind of bullying, would we...

      Can't Jewish Christians & their friends & guests also feel protected from anti-Semitism tinged bullying & live free?

      Delete
    3. I fully expect that sometime in the foreseeable future, I'm most likely going to get the crap beat out of me for defending a Jewish friend or acquaintance from some ignorant anti-Semite.

      Delete
    4. Ahh Matzo man I can hazard a good guess who you are.

      Delete
  6. Even when one leaves one of the ACOG's, there's still a lifetime of rooting out all the lies and distortions that were planted in ones mind. The hardest part is not being conscious of all these irrational beliefs, since ones sense of normalcy was twisted as well.

    ReplyDelete
  7. “We have been given failed prophecy time and time again by Mr. David C. Pack. From March 2022 to today, we have been given 78 false dates for the return of Christ/God's Kingdom, and each one of those dates has come and gone without consequence.” -- Steve Bell


    It is time for the brain-dead, prediction-addicted, RCG cult members to smarten up and stop supporting Dave Pack's evil behavior.

    Fool me dozens of times, shame on you.

    Fool me more than 78 times, shame on me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know Steve personally. He stopped listening to Pack nearly 4 years ago. He stayed for the brethren.

      Delete
    2. Of course he did....how many are actually in northwest of England? Dozens? Maybe NO2HWA could say.

      Delete
  8. A person needs “eyes to see, and ears to hear”.. If not, they will stay trapped in the cult that is RCG forever.

    I’m seeing it with my loved ones. Still there, glued to the screen every Saturday, listening/watching every lie Dave the Packman is telling them. They KNOW he’s wrong with the dates. They KNOW he’s playing a guessing game.. They KNOW it’s a scam.
    Yet they stay. Because they’ve invested all their time, all their money and they’ve lost every normal healthy relationship.

    “And what is waiting for us when we leave the church?”, is the answer to my question when they will stop listening to the Packster.

    Good for Steve and his family! May many follow their example.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the ones still there are playing musical chairs when Dave snidely shifts the aisle seating around for camera view of false attendance shell game

      🪑🪑🪑🎹👪🪑

      Delete
  9. Speaking of false prophets, Flurry is busy trying to spin away his "Because a Biden presidency is contrary to Bible prophecy" foulup so he can recycle his "Trump is both Jeroboams" biz for the coming US elections.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Messianic organizations have all kinds of problems too. They use differing calendars. They are obsessed with moons, barley growth, and blowing a shofar. Their is a lot of focus on many physical things. I have family that has been involved with them for about 13 years. They go from group to group, but never find a place where they are happy. They are about as mixed up as any COG member.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Messianic organizations are basically trying to do what the ACOG's are doing. They're larping, live action role playing. They believe they're reconstructing the early Church. What they won't or can't understand is that stage of the Church only lasted for little over a decade. The continued keeping of the Mosaic Law would've put the Church in a strait jacket that would've hindered it's growth among the Gentiles. Also, most of the Old Covenant laws were meant only for people living in the Middle East. The annual festivals are tied to the harvest cycles of the land of Israel. They make no sense outside that environment. The law about kindling a fire on the sabbath is another one. The Middle East is a warm place compared to most parts if the world. To keep a law about not starting a fire in a cold climate would be ridiculous, not to mention inhumane.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous at 12:08 AM said...“I know Steve personally. He stopped listening to Pack nearly 4 years ago. He stayed for the brethren.”

    Realistically, the fake RCG “ministers” might have stayed in the RCG cult for the paychecks too. But the paychecks of those fake RCG “ministers” reportedly disappeared recently. So, no more reasons to stay.

    If someone like Dave Pack is going to be betraying people and lying to them, he had better be paying his fake RCG “ministers” to go along with it. Hirelings will not stick around without a paycheck.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Questions and Answers

    What Did Jesus Actually Say?

    A. Financially support false prophets.

    B. Listen to false prophets.

    C. Forgive false prophets.

    D. Beware of false prophets.

    __________________________

    Answer: D

    ReplyDelete
  13. Members of a satanic imposter cult do not care about the bad examples that they are setting or about the harm that they are helping the cult to do to other people who might be deceived and robbed by it.

    Frankly, members of a satanic imposter cult can be very ignorant, stupid, selfish, and godless. They are ignorant of the truth, they stupidly go along with completely heretical nonsense, they selfishly help false prophets to deceive and harm other people, and they do not care about the truth of God.

    Being part of a satanic imposter cult does not make them good people. It makes them bad people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It just means they are blind guides leading blind people. And yes, that’s dangerous. They will fall into a ditch, but they need the gospel just like every other human being on this earth. The good news that salvation is by faith alone by grace alone. Many have never heard the truth. They’ve been deceived and blinded to it. They aren’t bad people as a whole.

      Some are absolutely aware of the deception they are pushing. Most, I think, are just victims of a cult, false teachers, false prophets and false doctrine. And even if they think that’s a possibility, they are too scared to look into anything negative about their respective group. Because that’s how they’ve been trained to behave.

      Delete
  14. Wait a minute. This Steve Bell guy just coincidentally grew a conscience immediately after Dave took him off the payroll? That's as obnoxious as Rod Meredith starting his new church within weeks of WCG settling the Leona McNair lawsuit.

    I mean, I'm glad Bell is out, and if he can motivate others to leave it's nothing but a good thing. I just hope Bell doesn't become another of the mini-me Daves who start their own micro-cult after they leave Packland so that they don't need to have a real job like the Apostle Paul did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm going to be clear about this!
      I, Steve Bell am not nor have I ever been a minister, nor have I ever been on rcgs payroll. I am nothing and I'm ok with that, just another man trying his best to be a good man, husband, father, & Christian. Deceived like the rest

      Delete
    2. Steve isn't a minister or on the payroll

      Delete
  15. Many in the ACOGs.ministers and members, will privately admit to friends and family that they've come to realize that Jesus is very understanding about the different ways people worship Him, so it doesn't matter whether they practice their Christianity in their ACOG or in a Baptist church. And since their friends and family are in the ACOGs, and in the case of ministers their paycheck is in the ACOGs, they might as well stay put, as Jesus will accept them just as He accepts Messianic Jews and Baptists, and Methodists, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Why, Why did it take 75+ false prophecies before you realized he was a FALSE PROPHET?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I honestly believe David Pack could announce that he was Hosea, and that God had instructed him to go gay, and he wouldn't lose a single member!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He would gain members

      & they'd fill the empty Wadsworth chairs

      Delete
  18. I see others have already commented on Steve Bell NOT being a minister.

    The anonymous commenter from Friday Jan 26 @ 12:19PM misread the other comments and jumped to conclusions.

    Boy, I'm sure that person is glad they didn't attach their name to their public opinions. How embarrassing that could have been...

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Glad for the clarification that Steve Bell wasn't a Pack minister. The comment up-thread about his "staying for the brethren" gave the wrong impression. There are brethren in all sorts of ACOG groups, as well as independent unaffiliated brethren, and staying just for RCG brethren isn't what one would expect of a lay member who had stopped listening to Pack four years earlier, unless he was still drinking the RCG koolaid about RCG members being better than the members of other groups.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I want to know more about this claim, "The ONLY new moon that is to be observed is The Feast of Trumpets."
    The provided verse does not make that claim. ISA. 1: 12-15 is about God expressing His dislike for the way the Jews were treating His commanded worship practices. Sabbaths are mentioned, and prayer, and sacrifice and incense. In verse 13, God appears to include New Moons as 'sacred assemblies'.
    So, I would like to know more about how Mr. Ball came to his conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
  21. You'd think that RCG teenagers would figure out how to foment a flash mob of Armstrongite youth, but in order to do that, members of the flash mob would have to think that they were taking part in something cool. Rock radio still plays the Beatles' "Revolution", so there's that timeless antidote.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The teens could get inspired to exodus from Davy if they watch the podcast series of Ashleigh & her brother Mattie : https://thecultnextdoorpodcast.com/pages/the-cult-next-door-podcast-episodes

      Whoever leaves RCG can be brave like the separatists & pilgrims who set sail on the Mayflower in 1620 for freedom.

      Watch some escape artist videos ⛓️ & be excited to leave the Packster :  https://youtube.com/shorts/kLJkDeMSWb0?feature=shared

      McD & Walmart have $12. hr entry level jobs but try to stick with church group roommates awhile out there if the RCG Dads kick y'all out.
       
      And some Pink Floyd songs also show how to extinguish the RCG gaslight.

      (just make sure your Mayflower won't land in Chappaquiddick, so-to-speak)

      Delete
    2. Got a theme song for the teen-age flash mob rebels! We'll get Tonto to modify the Browns' "Old Lamplighter", make it about Davey P, and call it "The Old Gaslighter!"

      Delete
  22. In Lev 23 listing moeds (verse 2 - Hebrew for mistranslated word "feasts"), the fixed/set times of 3 feasts (Ex 23:14-16 - chags) and sabbaths, the only moed/fixed/set time on day one of a month, a new moon, is the memorial of noise, commonly called today the Feast of Trumpets, but the occasion is not a feast but a sabbath, and trumpets are not specified. It looks like God added the holy day, not commanded in Exodus 23, for Israel to make noise, including with trumpets if wanted, so God would remember them (the memorial part). Herbert's effort to link this day with the second coming and trumpets in Revelation is far, far, far, far fetched.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Discard the "Book Of Pack". It is as useless & non-canon as the grimy "Book Of Enoch", which was promoted onto a group a few years ago by a fella who passed away since. T'was a fella that was esteemed surprisingly highly by the otherwise know-it-all minister. The hierarchy barely lifted a finger over the guy's Enoch heresy.

    Straightway call Fireman Montag/Oskar Werner, the Fahrenheit 451° bookburning fireman, he'll rush over 🚒 & stop Dave from super-imposing the vile Book Of Pack into fusing deceptively into the Book Of Acts. 📚🔥    ⛽  (watch out for Book Of Flurry also)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous at 9:05 AM said...

    “I’m seeing it with my loved ones. Still there, glued to the screen every Saturday, listening/watching every lie Dave the Packman is telling them. They KNOW he’s wrong with the dates. They KNOW he’s playing a guessing game.. They KNOW it’s a scam.
    Yet they stay. Because they’ve invested all their time, all their money and they’ve lost every normal healthy relationship.”

    “'And what is waiting for us when we leave the church?', is the answer to my question when they will stop listening to the Packster.”



    RCG members should worry more about what is waiting for them if they stay inside the RCG satanic imposter cult even longer and continue to listen to the Pack-of-lies.

    Understandably, many RCG members and former members might be feeling totally crushed and destroyed by Dave Pack's scorched-earth SCAM that leaves people totally deceived, robbed, betrayed, and destitute. No doubt, that is precisely what Satan wanted to achieve.

    However, the current and former RCG members do NOT have to give up on life or on biblical truth. It is Satan and his vicious false prophet klepto-Dave Pack-of-lies who want them to feel utterly helpless and hopeless.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Dr. Gene Scott used to teach from the Book of Enoch, but he had the intellect and decency to refer to it as "apocryphal"

    Glad Steve Bell was not a minister. Those dudes have more long term baggage to deal with when they leave than us former lay members. Can't be easy!

    Remember that the first four letters of "minister" are "mini", and just be thankful that there's no such thing as a maxister!!!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Glad he is not a mini stir, but why put up a verse as to debunk a TRUTH that all nations followed a lunar phase natural system untouched by Man. There are only 2 great lights, Sun and Moon. (YOUR MOONS He despised because they were doing it wrong. Not HIS appoited Moedim.) They were treading HIS COURTS Isa 1:12. This Man stayed for 14 years of lies and leaves due to Moon keeping, which Pack of lies will never keep, only trying to collect more money and will fall right into the Saturn worshipping. There are hundreds of verses to prove watching a Moon phase. Stop being lazy and look up words. Are you entering HIS COURTS on your fixed Saturn to Saturn? A likeness is IDOLATRY.

    ReplyDelete
  27. uhhhh, HWA is guilting of all those very same things... keep waking up, you've got more work to do.

    ReplyDelete