The idolatry at the Edmond compound continues to run amok at the worship of the "book" that Gerald Flurry plagiarized of Jules Dervaes. Malachi's Message was Gerald Flurry's first book that he "wrote" to justify his apostasy from the Worldwide Church of God as he struggled to start the Philadelphia Church of God.
In an article that was just posted, More Than History, geared towards the PCG "youth" under 30 years of age, James Brandon asks what he perceives as a most important question:
“What was it like reading Malachi’s Message for the first time?”
My mother sent me this book when it was originally a spiral bound mimeographed book. She was searching for the "one true church" as her "friends" in Cantonment, Florida kept convincing her to jump COG's with them numerous times over the years. I still have that original book to remind me to never allow myself to follow these "demonic" men...but that's another story.
Brandon writes:
Herbert W. Armstrong died on January 16, 1986. So if you are less than 30 years old, you were never alive at the same time as Mr. Armstrong. Malachi’s Message was first published in 1990. If you are 26 or younger, Gerald Flurry’s manuscript is older than you. I fall into this category. The readership of True Education falls into this category. That’s you.It's still hard to believe that HWA has been dead for 30 years. The world has not ended. We are not in Petra or in the millennium that HWA and crew have been predicting for 90 some years now. None of us ever expected to graduate from high school, attend college, get married, have children, grand children, great grand children or to leave the church. We either would be in the kingdom or in a concentration camp eating our children if we first had not been hung up on meat hooks by the Germans.
Instead we have been subjected to hundreds and hundreds of harlot daughters of the one "true" mother church. Each and every one of them proclaiming they are the end-all for truth. Before Rod Meredith, James Malm and Dave Pack set themselves up as the sole arbiters of "truth" there was Gerald Flurry and his Malachi's Message.
PCG has placed this book right up there next to the Bible in its historical and speculative relevance. It is the "history book" of the PCG:
Malachi’s Message is a history book to us. That can be a hard concept for our parents and the previous generation to grasp sometimes. If they came out of the wcg, that book explained current events that were unfolding before their eyes. They probably have an “I saw Mr. Armstrong speak live” story. They can put bearded faces to names like Joseph Tkach and Joe Tkach, Jr. They also remember the changes. They remember the books and booklets being taken out of print. They remember the Who Was Jesus? booklet. The things you read as history, they heard from the pulpit.
Malachi’s Message is one of the foundational writings of this Church era, and the revelation from God that showed many true Christians where He had moved the lamp. Our inability to imagine what that time period was like should drive us to learn from our elders about their experience with that important book.Yes, by all means learn about Gerald Flurry's vile start to his church, which is much more important than ever following Jesus! Malachi's Message is just as theologically important as the Robber's Cave campground in Oklahoma where Lil'Stevie first read his copy of the book. These are major events in the PCG history. Jesus isn't, but the book is!
Then to show just how corrupt and idolatrous the PCG is in its reverence of this "holy book" Brandon writes:
After the 2016 Ministerial Conference, almost every single message given at Headquarters touched on or drew heavily from Malachi’s Message. Mr. Flurry focused the ministry back on that book, and they, in turn, directed our focus back to it as well. Malachi’s Message is for all of us, but our generation needs extra help to understand the depth of that message. Often second and third generation Christians have to work harder to value the truth. We have not had to fight for it in the same way as our parents or grandparents. We have not experienced a ministry deliberately trying to lead us astray.Notice that their focus is upon a virtual pile of bullshit instead of following any principle that Jesus ever conveyed.
Malachi's Message is literally a "lamp" that lights their way!
Your parents, my parents and members in our congregations have battled that strong delusion. They read and proved what Mr. Flurry wrote, and they followed the lamp.Brandon ends with this:
Our appreciation of Malachi’s Message needs to be far deeper than just a surface reading and an intellectual understanding. That book changed peoples’ lives, and our generation has to work to understand that in a deeper way.
Talk to your parents if they came out of the wcg. Seek out the older members in your congregation and learn their history with that foundational book. Make Malachi’s Message come to life. Make Malachi’s Message more than history.It is appalling and also amazing the lengths COG members go to in order to keep searching for "truth." They keep looking towards idiot men like Malm, Pack, Thiel, Flurry, Meredith, Kubik and others to deliver the truth to them. Most in the COG never have the gumption or the wherewithal to ever think for themselves. They have to have some man deliver books, booklets, have visions and dream dreams so that they might have the answers to everything in life. It's a scary world out there that just might make you think for yourself.
The world we live in is NOT the black and white world that Armstrongism has tried to deliver to us.
No human COG leader to this day has the ability convey "truth" to us. James Malm cannot. Bob Thiel cannot. Rod Meredith never has. Dave Pack is incapable of doing it, and Gerald Flurry certainly has not. Flurry is so morally bankrupt that he even plagiarized the very book that he places next to the Bible!
Over the millions of years of human existence the human brain has evolved to have the ability to form reason, examine our lives, and to formulate understanding that far exceeds anything a group of people wandering around the desert in Palestine could have ever imagined. We do not need apostate men like Flurry, Malm, Meredith, Pack and others telling us just how things are or should be. These men have bastardized every single thing they have ever touched or been connected to.
All of these men have placed rules and law above this:
Matthew 11:28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Check out:
Malachi's Message: How True Is It?
The Plain Truth About Malachi's Message and That Prophet
Gerald Flurry: The PCG is FIRST After Jesus Christ
Suffered Many Abusive Experiences In The Church of God
Robber's Cave: Philadephia Church of God's Most Holy and Sacred Site
Standing on Holy Ground At Robber's Cave
Robber's Cave: A Philadelhia Church of God Landmark
and the person that started it all: Jules Dervaes
