UCG Also Looking Back To Exodus For Passover Prep

 

You can tell it is getting close to Passover time in COGland. The overemphasis on law-keeping is flying fast and furious. UCG is asking their members to look back to Exodus and the law as they prepare to crucify Christ once more in a high school gym or Masonic Lodge. Instead of focusing on the deep, rich things that Christians have understood for centuries about Christ, they prefer to prostrate themselves at the foot of the law, expecting it to save and forgive them.

Timeless and foundational principles are found throughout the book of Exodus as God begins to bring His people out of Egypt and teach them His way. In Exodus 1, for example, Pharaoh determines the children of Israel have grown too many. As a result, he decides to kill a number of God’s people and commands the midwives to carry this out as each male child is born. The midwives do not all follow Pharaoh’s order. They are right in their actions. Killing in any of its forms, as Christ magnifies in Matthew 5:21-22, is wrong 

 

The Bible is clear we are to obey our master’s instructions and requests unless they are ungodly. To defy is against God’s way (Ephesians 6:5-8). But, if we are asked by any leader at work, in government or anywhere else, to do something that is contrary to God’s way, we don’t do it. Acts 5:29 is clear in this respect: “But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’” 

 

Always do things God’s way. His way leads to peace, unity, joy, fulfillment and true love for Him and each other (agape). 

 

Remember why we are here 

 

Brethren, remember we are here to become like Christ. Remember your calling, remember the eternal purpose for which God has called you and to which you committed. Nothing in this physical life compares with what God has prepared for those who truly love (agape) Him. 

 

As we prepare for Passover, now just a little over four weeks away, let us truly examine ourselves and purpose to endeavor together to follow Him with all our hearts, minds and souls.
Continuing in Christ’s service,
Rick Shabi

LCG: It's Close To Passover And You Need To Read The 10 Commandments Booklet

 

It's another day in LCG and their focus is on the law instead of finding freedom in the one they claim to follow.

Eliminating Spiritual Leaven: The Scriptures indicate that leaven is to be removed from our homes and not eaten during the Days of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15). We need to remember that this is a physical exercise to help us realize the importance of identifying and removing spiritual leaven that tends to creep into our lives from the world. Spiritual leaven involves breaking the commandments of God, compromising or rebelling against His instructions, and exhibiting the attitudes and works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19–21). Yet we are also instructed to eat unleavened bread for seven days (Leviticus 23:6). As we prepare to take the Passover and go through the Days of Unleavened Bread, it may be helpful to reread the booklet on the Ten Commandments. We need to ask God to help us see any spiritual leaven that we need to eliminate from our lives so we can really become more like our Father and more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail

How about instead of reading some worthless COG booklet you read Romans, Galatians, and 1 Corinthians without any COG literature next to you?

Galatians 2:16: "I know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, so we also believe that we will be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified." 

Is the all powerful Satan the real god of Armstrongism?

 

The Philadelphia Church of God has an article up about escaping the sins of the fathers. Satan figures predominantly in the article, especially considering it is the most powerful entity in Armstrongism.

Apparently, Satan sits at its computer daily to look back at least 5 generations to find out what stupidity your ancestor got into and then gleefully punishes you for their foibles. Jesus, as impotent as ever, is apparently unable to stop Satan from being such a big old meanie.

Satan is capable and determined in tempting us to sin. He knows and misapplies Scripture. He knows God’s law and how to seduce us away from it. And he definitely knows our personal history and will always try to tempt us in ways that have been historically successful for him. 

 

My father taught me early in life to be wary of Satan’s tactics. He taught me how Satan has a perfect memory and remembers all our sins. He can even look through history, at our great-great-grandparents’ fifth cousin’s weaknesses, to find ways to cause us to sin. Many times, he doesn’t have to go back that far.

All-powerful Satan remembers sins, but contrasts that with how Jesus/God remembers sins:

Hebrews 8:12
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 

 

Hebrews 10:17
17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

All-powerful Satan keeps himself busy digging up all the dirt it can on you.

Satan makes a point of getting to know us. He is diligent about examining us. He is thorough about discovering our sins, our weaknesses and our struggles in order to exploit them.

Yet, Jesus says:

John 15:3. NIV
3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

John 15:3. The Message
The Vine and the Branches
15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

In Armstrongism, we are at that time of year when the faithful start examining themselves to see if they are worthy to take the Passover. It is a time to beat themselves up as the unworthy worms they are and unclean dogs unfit to clean the crumbs from under the table. (Both of these things I have heard ministers say to the congregation at Passover time.)

Isaac should have learned from his father. We too should learn from our fathers, both their mistakes and their successes. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). 

 

To achieve true depth in self-examination, we must honestly and earnestly go to God and ask Him to reveal all of our sins to us. We must reckon with the reality of our own human nature, aware that we are as vulnerable to the sins that overtook our fathers as they were.

But we can also rejoice in the Passover. Jesus Christ died for our sins, and when we examine ourselves, we know more fully our need for that sacrifice. We can fully focus on that awesome sacrifice, and then live knowing that Christ lives in us and we never need fall prey to Satan’s devices.

The Passover in Armstrongism is the yearly opportunity to break the bones of Jesus, with microphones next to the breaking bread, amplifying the cracking of the matzo as loud as they could, to make the unclean worms in attendance know that they are such filthy sinners that they have crucified Christ all over. Once again, He has to pay the price for all of their sins from the previous year. 

In Armstrongism, Jesus paid the price, but Satan remembers everything.