The Importance of Patience: Today, our societies are focused on instant gratification. Yet God has a different priority, and we are to develop His perspective (Philippians 2:5). The Scriptures reveal that God places a premium on developing patience (Luke 8:15; Romans 12:12; 1 Peter 2:20), because He is patient (1 Peter 3:20) and patience is one of the fruits of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:2). God uses trials to help us develop patience (James 1:3–4). As part of God’s plan to prepare them for their future roles, Abraham and Sarah waited decades for a promised son (Genesis 12:4; 17:17), Joseph spent years in prison (Genesis 39:20; 41:1, 14), Moses herded sheep for 40 years (Exodus 2:21–25; 3:1), and David endured persecution (Psalm 37:7; 40:1). We need to remember God’s promise that “those who wait on the Lord… shall mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). Let’s strive to develop real godly patience, because that is what God is looking for in each of us.Have a profitable Sabbath,Douglas S. Winnail
Nothing substantial is wrong with the content on patience itself. The verses cited are accurate, the biblical examples are real, and the call to develop patience as a fruit of the Spirit is standard Christian teaching. God is patient, trials produce endurance, and waiting on the Lord is repeatedly commanded. That part is fine.
The problems appear in the source, the framework, and the closing line—especially when measured against the New Testament’s teaching on the New Covenant.
“Have a profitable Sabbath” is not a neutral greeting. In Living Church of God / Armstrongism it functions as a doctrinal marker. It assumes that the seventh-day Sabbath remains a binding covenant obligation for Christians today. Under the New Covenant that assumption does not hold:
- Colossians 2:16–17 treats “a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” as “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
- Romans 14:5–6 allows freedom of conscience on days.
- Galatians 4:9–11 warns against returning to “weak and worthless elementary principles” that include calendar observances.
- Hebrews 4 presents the true “Sabbath rest” as entering God’s rest by faith in Christ’s finished work, not by weekly calendar-keeping.
LCG teaches that the New Covenant does not do away with “the law of God” (understood to include the weekly Sabbath, annual holy days, clean meats, etc.), that Christians enter it at baptism by covenanting to keep those commandments, and that what we experience now is only a “foretaste” for the firstfruits. That framework turns even a good topic like patience into something that sits inside a performance-oriented system. Patience becomes one more quality you must “strive to develop” while also carefully observing the right days, the right diet, and the right calendar—exactly the kind of external measuring that the New Covenant was designed to replace with the internal work of the Spirit (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10; Galatians 5:22–23; Romans 8:2–4).
Armstrongism has always been slow on patience. It has a long record of date-setting, urgent timelines, and “this is the final warning” rhetoric that repeatedly failed (1972/1975 expectations under Armstrong, later adjustments in the splinter groups, etc.). Preaching patience while living in a culture of prophetic urgency and tight hierarchical control is inconsistent. True New-Covenant patience rests in the certainty that Christ has already secured the future; it does not need constant recalculations of “how much longer.”
The paragraph on patience is biblically sound. What is wrong is the theological package it comes in: a system that keeps the form of Old-Covenant Sabbath observance while claiming to be under the New Covenant. That package confuses shadow with substance, external day-keeping with the rest that is already available in Christ, and Spirit-produced fruit with law-regulated performance.
Under the New Covenant, the call is simpler: walk by the Spirit, and the fruit—including patience—will grow. You do not need a weekly calendar check-in to make it “profitable.”
Silent Pilgrim
13 comments:
How offensive is it for a man paid more than $150,000 per year (plus generous expense account), who's main job duty for that pay is to travel the world, to exhort struggling working-class LCG members to have a "profitable" Sabbath?
Oh do give it a rest. You nit pick every word. Pick pick pick constantly away at others but never yourself.
Winnall may have used it without real thought, he may have been in a rush.
When we speak of time and date-stamped, many people may not realize that it is a concept which applies not only to Armstrongism and the Bible, but also to a great number of other fields. As an example, these days, through Youtube videos, an aspiring young guitar player, having already figured out Pentatonic leads, can also quickly learn how to play Mixolydian leads, which chords to play them over, and which classic, thrash, indy rock, or country songs contain them. Back in the 1960s through '80s, most kids listened to a record over and over again until those who didn't become exhausted by the process nailed the guitar parts on their $25 Japanese Kawaii or Teisco guitar, played through the family stereo while the parents were out Although it then sounded good in a garage-rock band, all playing through the channels in your buddy's amp, people who were really into the music immediately recognized the shortcomings. Now, you have graduates of Berklee College of Music doing tutorials on Youtube, or in some cases, the artists themselves. It is just incredible the resources for knowledge and experience which we have available today to get things right!
What's true is that Armstrongism gets dinged for not correcting its errors to correlate with new knowledge, and it also gets dinged when it does. I don't know where you go from there, but the very fact that that is happening is pretty much its own time and date stamp! What edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica did HWA always say was the most accurate? I'm thinking his stated preference was either 1911 or 1913.
BB
Yea patience sounds good, but according to their monthly literature, year after year it’s:
PROPHECY, GERMANY, GERMANY, PETRA, PETRA, IN THE NEXT FIVE TO 10 YEARS, RED HIEFER, THIRD TEMPLE, GERMANY, GERMANY, ISRAELITE NATIONS, WATCH EUROPE, WATCH EUROPE, PLACE OF SAFETY, WAY OF ESCAPE, ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION, ASSYRIA, ASSYRIA, MIDDLE EAST IN PROPHECY,GREAT TRIBULATION, ISRAELITE NATIONS, LAODICEAN, WE HAVE THE PROPHETIC WORD MORE SURE, GERMANY, GERMANY, BRITISH PEOPLES!!!…
They don’t have the patience like Simeon and Anna at old age who waited on the Lord. Just rest in the Lord, but it’s hard LCG with your approach.
The ACOGs are not building patience! They are building patients, as in mental patients!
"Walk by the Spirit, and the fruit—including patience—will grow." Jesus walked by the Spirit, being born with it. He told us that we could also receive this power and do the same as He did. One of the things He testified of doing was ...Joh_15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as ((I have kept My Father's commandments))and abide in His love..... I am sure the main Christian objective is to be like Christ. He also said that He would live in us and achieve this by sending the Holy Spirit. If He, through the Holy Spirit, lives in us, would He live differently from how He lived before?
Is the definition of what sin is changed? Or has the penalty for breaking the law changed? The Royal Law, (not the law of ordinances, which we know was done away with), comprises 10 simple commandments, and The Apostle James said... Jas 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
Jas 2:11 For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. .. So by not keeping one of the commandments, we become guilty of breaking the law. The penalty of which God the Lawgiver says is death. The penalty has not changed. We can choose to keep the law or not. But to decide that one of the parameters of the law is no longer relevant is not our jurisdiction. If, as adults, we make the decision not to abide by God's law, we are well within our rights to choose to do so. But even Christ said. Mat_5:19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven;...... God only owns the right to decide how His law should be kept, and does not look favourably on anyone who would teach otherwise. Why do you think that you will escape stern judgment from Him by teaching this?...."What is wrong is the theological package it comes in: ((a system that keeps the form of Old-Covenant Sabbath observance" ))...Who was it that initiated the old Sabbath observance? Who also spent 40 years instilling it in the nation He intended to use ((as the example)) to other nations, to do the same? Was it not Christ?....1Co 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. .. Who was it that wrote and spoke the law from the Mountain.... Joh_5:37 And (the Father) Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. ((You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.))..... Man has never heard the voice of the Father, so was it not Christ whose voice men heard? And what is the New covenant? How has Christ's death changed it?..Heb 8:10 FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: ((I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR MIND)) AND WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.... Oh, so the Law has not changed, only where it is written. So it becomes part of people's nature. And this by the power of the Holy Spirit, that would produce its fruit in us. So if we walk by the Spirit, we would keep the Law of God according to how He said it should be kept. As if God would throw out the law of the universe to accommodate sinful men. God is not stupid. Even the dumbest of human rulers would not do that. God is righteous; His Law is righteous, and His children by His Spirit are righteous, because they are doers of His word.
I think reality shows that applies to Tkach.
Just reading the stuff on this site helps build patience. It gives us a taste of what we will be dealing with in the millennium and second resurrection period. Actually, the millennium might be easier considering what those folks will have lived through. The second resurrection period will be the challenge. The stiff necked folks that come up will have to be taught the truth, and not all of them will be open to it at first. Some will never accept it.
But even Christ said. Mat_5:19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven;...... God only owns the right to decide how His law should be kept, and does not look favourably on anyone who would teach otherwise. Why do you think that you will escape stern judgment from Him by teaching this?.>>>...
The admonition built on this verse assumes that “commandments” refers to God’s law, specifically the Mosaic commandments, rather than to Christ’s own teachings. This assumption is critical, because Jesus immediately elevates the meaning and application of the law throughout the Sermon on the Mount. Anger becomes murder, lust becomes adultery, retaliation is replaced with non‑resistance, and love of enemies is commanded. These heightened standards are designed to expose human sinfulness and drive the hearer toward the cross, not to reinforce confidence in legal performance. It makes little sense for Jesus to forbid “breaking” commandments in verse 19 if He is about to redefine those very commandments in ways no one can perfectly keep; they merely delude themselves. For these reasons, it is far more coherent to understand “these commandments” as referring to the teachings Jesus is about to deliver in His Sermon, not to the Ten Commandments.
The misreading of Matthew 5:19 as a direct reference to the Mosaic law became widespread in holiness movements, Sabbatarian groups, and Armstrongite teaching. These traditions approached Scripture with a prior commitment to the continuing authority of Old‑Covenant law, so Jesus’ words were interpreted through that lens. “These commandments” was assumed to mean the Ten Commandments rather than the new, elevated standards Christ introduces. This interpretive habit allowed the verse to be used as a warning against relaxing Mosaic observance, even though the structure of the Sermon points in the opposite direction: Jesus intensifies the law to expose sin and that must lead the hearer to grace. As a result, Matthew 5:19 was frequently employed to defend law‑keeping systems that the passage itself does not actually support.
Thus two verses are interpreted in completely different ways: one as an insistence that believers must keep the Ten Commandments and join a sabbath‑observant system, the other as the Lord’s own “But I say unto you” instructions - not Moses’ - which reveal the impossibility of legal righteousness and the consequent need for grace. A believer will need to decide the teaching.
What is the truth you are speaking of?
If Armstrongism is taught in the Millennium and Great White, a lot of people will probably be optimg out. It's junk theology.
Armstrongism won't be taught in the kingdom. Because within the definition of Armstrongsim is splinter groups. And God and Christ won't allow splinter groups to occur. And splinterdom started in 1978 with the son (not even anyone outside his DNA). Not just the mid 90s. Armstrongism is an attitude, and that attittude won't transfer over.
Tank
The entire Christian faith is made up of 'splinters', Catholic, Prosetant, Methodist, Evangelisim, Baptist, Sabbatarian....
Do you not know about Raymond Cole Church of God Eternal split before 1978?
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