Showing posts with label becoming gods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label becoming gods. Show all posts

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Gerald Weston: If You Do Not Support This Work You Do So At Your Own Peril And Risk Your Salvation



Gerald Weston has written a pre-Feast letter to his declining faithful. In it he says the following:

As we know, and as we celebrated earlier this year at the Feast of Pentecost—the last of the annual Festivals so far to have had its historical fulfillment in this age—God is not calling everyone to salvation at this time. I have previously asked the simple question, “If God is not calling everyone, why is He calling anyone?” As a member of God’s Church, you should know the answer. He is calling some—that is, you and me—to do a Work now. If we fail to do that Work, we fail to fulfill the incredible calling we have been given. We dare not do that. Seeking only personal salvation and neglecting the Work for which we’ve been called will end in disaster (Ezekiel 33:1–7; Proverbs 24:11–12).

When Jesus walked the dusty trails in Israel, He worked through the physical body given Him. Now He is at the right hand of the Father, and it is abundantly clear that the Church is now His body (Colossians 1:18, 24; 2:17; Ephesians 1:22–23). This is vital knowledge we must deeply understand. It is part of the big picture that both Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong and Dr. Roderick C. Meredith passed down to us. We lose sight of it at our own peril.

Then he proceeds to ridicule both the men and women in the Living Church of God. LCG members just cannot do anything right in this man's sight! He has to get a dig every letter he writes. While we may all know of vainglorious men who feel the need to be seen in the church (Bob Thiel, for example) they are few in numbers. Most men could not give a rats ass about being an LCG leader considering how abusive they have been and still are. 

God made us with the potential for incredible variety. Some are tall, some are not so tall. Some are slender, some are not. Some are light-skinned and blond, some are darker and have black hair. More than outward appearance, though, we all have varying degrees of abilities. A brilliant computer programmer may know nothing about plumbing or electrical work. A gifted engineer may be lost when it comes to surveying land, running an earth mover, and mixing concrete. It is obvious that we need them all: computer programmers, plumbers, electricians, engineers, and construction workers. It is a beautiful thing when everyone knows his part and plays his part.

In the same way, the Apostle Paul explains that the body of Christ is made of many different parts (1 Corinthians 12), and we know it is human nature to desire to be one of the comelier parts of the body (1 Corinthians 12:22–25). How many men have striven to hold an office in Spokesman Club or to be in front of the congregation leading hymns or speaking? And it’s not just the men. We’ve seen ladies get into what we sometimes call “coffee pot wars,” fighting each other over where best to place the pickles on the serving table. This may sound humorous and even preposterous, but those of us who have been around for any length of time know that these things really do happen!

Then he has to get ina veiled dig against Sheldon Monson for failing to grasp the "bigger picture" and stay unified for unity's sake. 

As Paul explained, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling” (Ephesians 4:4). Then, one of the clearest passages of Scripture—yet one of the most difficult for most people to accept—is found just after that. Christ has placed in the body positions of responsibility so we can have unity and, “speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (vv. 15–16).

To those who really get the big picture and faithfully hold on to it until the end, God will give a great reward. The current spirit ruler who directs the course of this world, along with the angels who fell with him when he “got the big head” and thought he knew better than God, will be removed and replaced (Revelation 12:4; 20:1–4). His removal is emphatically shown in the Day of Atonement. And the fact that we will replace him and his minions is stated in numerous scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments (Daniel 7:27; Matthew 19:27–29; Luke 19:16–19; Revelation 20:4, 6).

Unity in the Church of God is a comedy routine any more. The Church of God is more fractured than the Protestants they love to mock in their denominational divisions. Unity is nothing more than a control buzz word to keep the members in line. Any questioning or disagreements is an immediate assault upon unity and therefore leads to expulsion and loss of salvation and your chance to become a god!

Further, we are not to become angels or some kind of super-humans in the resurrection, as so many professing Christians mistakenly believe. You do not need me to remind you that we in God’s Church have been called to become sons and daughters of God, the very children of the living God—brothers, sisters, and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:14–21; Hebrews 2:10–18; 2 Corinthians 6:18). Can there be a more glorious future for such flawed beings as we now truly are?

The question needs to be asked again. Can LCG members EVER do anything right in this guy's sight?