I was looking at Rod Reynold's Church of God Messenger today and at an article about "finding and remaining in the true church". He is just like all the other splinter groups who started a group in direct rebellion against the mother church or, in his case, a double rebellion that was also against the Living Church of God and Rod Meredith.
Every single Church of God splinter group today justifies its existence on its belief that it has preserved the "pure original truth" passed off to it by Herbert Armstrong. None of these guys ever split off claiming they would be exclusively followers of Jesus and The Way. None of them.
There is a different spirit running all of the splinter groups today, and it is not good. They have come preaching "another Jesus" IF he is even mentioned at all.
Reynolds writes:
"Paul warns against those preaching another Jesus. He warns of receiving a different spirit, or a different gospel. “For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!” (II Corinthians 11:4). Or “... how well you put up with these things” (Bible in Basic English). “... then you listen too much” (Bible in Worldwide English). Paul is saying to them that ironically they are more willing to listen to false teachers all too often than to those who teach the truth. As Gill’s commentary remarks, they “receive his doctrine, submit to his authority, and prefer him to the apostles.”"
"There are ministers, or leaders of Churches, who claim that we can have access to God only through them."
"We are instructed, "Go from the presence of a foolish man, when you do not perceive in him the lips of knowledge" (Proverbs 14:7). We are urged to "note those who cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned [that is, the doctrine preserved in Scripture], and avoid them " (Romans 16:17). We are war‐ ned, "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed" (2 Peter 2:1-2). These are those who promise a false "liberty," causing those who had escaped the pollutions of the world to become entangled in them again. "For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them" (2 Peter 2:19-21)."
Tody's COG leaders are men who have caused and continue to cause division and offense contrary to scripture. Men like Pack, Flurry, Thiel, and Weinland are men occupied by a different spirit, a spirit of division and, in most cases, sheer blasphemy.
The idea of a “progressive revelation” that contradicts the teachings of Christ and the apostles and renders Scripture obsolete is a fiction of apostates who reject Christ's teachings.
Each of these guys mentioned above believes they have a direct conduit to God through which he sends endless updates and knowledge to them. Yet, through it all, they have remained nothing more than liars and false prophets. Churches conceived in a spirit of rebellion cannot produce good fruit.
18 comments:
Jeez! The question is whether ANY spirit is guiding these groups! They'd need to be baptized so that they would first receive the spirit of man before they could ever hope to be baptized to receive the Spirit of God!
There’s no doubt the divisions between the Armstrong movement speak against them and are contrary to what we see very clearly contained in scripture.
What speaks very loudly is the, and is puzzling, is the similarities in their message. Yet why the endless division and divide between them. What is even more visible is their declining numbers and ineffectiveness. One of their core tenets has been soundly refuted, that of British Israelism, and those who still ‘proclaim’ it are without excuse in this information age.
To justify his one-man show, Reynolds has to dump HWA's teaching about why people were called into his church. HWA would say that you were called to support the Apostle in doing a worldwide work. By contrast, Reynolds is basically pastoring to a handful of already-in-the-church families, mostly in his physical area. Now, most of us here would say that HWA's teaching about the worldwide work was a bogus teaching, but notice the implications for Reynolds and others like him. To justify their actions, they need to repudiate one of HWA's major central teachings. And if they can repudiate one central teaching, surely they can repudiate OTHER of HWA's teachings as they get comfortable living outside the Borg collective.
And what’s actually going on right now in Britain and the UK is a brain drain, as young people there are expiating to other places due to the economy. So is Germany going to invade Britain in the end? The attitude or zeal decreases with every false prediction.
It's no different than any of the other churches. I can't tell you how many Baptist splits I've been through. A disagreement starts about something so minor that "adults" would brush it aside but it ends up with half of the congregation moving across the street and starting a new church. Things get extra testy when it's time to call a new preacher. Man! Talk about factions! The politicking and recruiting to get as many on your side to support your choice of a new preacher is unbelievable.
I think it's just that people are what they are, no matter where they go to church.
Once again, it must be pointed out that this is a blog about the Armstrongite Church of Gods, not other churches. For a church that claimed to be the one true church, it is now splintered into well over 400 splits since the 1960's with the broad majority of the division in the 1990-2000's. Armstrongism is the church of division.
Baptists think they are it. If you aren't Baptist you're lost.
Armstrongists think they are it. If you aren’t one of them you are condemned to the lake of fire.
Contemporary Christian Churches are culturally incestuous, so I don't believe mentioning other denominations is inappropriate. Reading other denominations dissident sites gives clarity to many of Armstrong's deceitful ploys. For instance, the. Jehovah's Witnesses claim that God speaks exclusively through their governing body, hence any disagreement with their teachings is "just human reasoning" and that their members need to "live by revelation rather than human reasoning." But Herb's splinters use these same expressions. They differ by pulling their punches by not explicitly claiming that God communicated exclusively through their leaders. They fear Moses fait when he pulled this same stunt.
Armstrongism is culturally incestuous. Not only that, but the church elite married into each other's families to avoid the lowly everyday church members.
Aahhh12:22 Marriages of state a practice that has ruined many a church and many a Christian.
The never ending allure of power, prestige and alliances that are created.
Such situations create no desire to actually achieve anything. Why would it? When everything is automatically yours anyway church becomes your gossip playground to play gods over the peasants.The 'lowly everyday church members' are viewed as worthless competition that have to be nullified.
How has Jesus Christ viewed this over the decades? Do we think he doesnt know? What has God done in such situations in scripture?
That's not true at all and if you've ever looked into their teaching you would know it.
Is there a different spirit running today's Church of God's?
Well, let us have a look at some of them:
Church of Ted, International: Run by demons of rebellion.
Intercontinental Church of Teddy the Dink: Run by spoiled demons of immorality and rebellion.
Graceless Community of Iniquity: Run by the Devil, after he ran the Worldwide Church into the ground.
disUnited Church of Godlessness: Run by fallen, unrepentant, unconverted demons of division.
Living Church of Rod the Dead: Run by demons of competition and pet so-called “doctrinal upgrades.”
Philadelphia Church of Flurry the Fraud: Personally run by Satan to see to it that everything gets edited, changed, warped, mangled, perverted, and done wrong.
Restored Church of Pack the Thief: Personally run by Satan to experiment with how outrageously he can lie and steal and yet still have some followers.
Church of Weinland – Preparing for the Kingdom of Weinland: Run by demons of fiction.
Continuing Church of African Scams: Run by demons of the mentally challenged.
Church of Billingsley: Foolish Old Flock: Run by demons of dementia.
And so it goes.
Not looking good here.
Same old Satan the Devil and his demons running all of them.
All the above church leaders are professional liars. They're worse than car salesman.
Run by the Devil, after he ran the Worldwide Church into the ground.
>>the Devil did not have to do much I reckon as all the little groups running around and being convinced only they knew the Truth quickly unraveled the system. The Armstrong church was a fraud from the beginning and I think Satan would have been pleased with its effects on people.
Spot on in your description of the various groups. They are all led by the spirit of error.
HWA was a false apostle, exactly what Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 11:13 & Acts 20:29. Everything that followed is a derivative of the Synagogue of Satan, which invaded the church during the advent of the Philadelphia era through HWA.
Anon, Monday, November 11, 2024 at 12:04:08 PM PST, concluded writing:
"...And so it goes.
Not looking good here.
Same old Satan the Devil and his demons running all of them..."
******
Nothing new under the sun, so it seems, but how is there a different spirit running today's Church of God's?
There are hints:
"Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" James 4:5
Are there any bad fruits mentioned there?
Could these hirelings of the former WCG have been snagged, snared, somehow? Another hint:
"And [that] they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." 2 Tim 2:26
Might the hirelings be caught up in sin? Another hint:
"He that committeth sin is of the devil;..." I John 3:8
Is there any hope for these hirelings who fled from the former WCG?
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;" Hebrews 2:14
Well, that's some good news, but not yet reality today.
Reading the rest of I John 3:8,
"...for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
Yes, there is a spirit working in the lives of all of these hirelings of the former WCG, but when will these hirelings "wake up" and look forward to the day when those works of the devil (e.g.
preaching some "very soon" return of Jesus to reign on earth for 1,000 years, preaching some Mickey Mouse Millennium, and preaching about phrases not found in the Bible such as "unpardonable sin," "second coming," etc.) within their lives is finally destroyed?
Time will tell...
John
I pointed that out a few times. And one response I got from a 'church' member was "They are still appointed by god and nobody is perfect".
Needless to say that response left me speechless..
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