Proof Texting One's Way to Truth

I'm sure we all recall many a sermon and sermonette on just HOW the Bible is to be studied and understood.

Isaiah 28: 

9Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

10For precept must be on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, and there a little:

11For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people

As a result, sermons tended and still do tend towards marathon races through the Bible, hopping from  one similar scripture to another, weaving a tale of continuity leading to foregone conclusions.  It's how and why one can say you can prove anything you want with this method of Bible study and sermon presentation. 

 I often ended up with long lists of scriptures for notes, with no commentary on how or why they were all connected.  In fact, they mostly weren't really connected or if they were I had lost the why they were long ago.  It made throwing old "sermon notes" easy.  They made no sense twenty minutes after the sermon and I have to say I never went back a second time to read my notes.  In hindsight I took notes because I was supposed to.  I also marked Bible's margins up with correlating scriptures to go to to explain, clarify or prove the previous one was on the right path to truth.  It was more difficult for me to create "inspired margins" with my tiny marking pen during sermons because, growing up Presbyterian, marking a Bible was a bound for Hell offense.  It took me a few weeks but then soon had one of the best inspired margined up Bibles on campus.  

Full Circle in the Portland Library

I have figured out, however, how to study Mystery of the Ages

Let's take a look at what Isaiah 28 really means and it has NOTHING to do with how to study the Bible and the next time it comes up, you'll be armed for a nice rebuttal.

New International Version

Woe to the Leaders of Ephraim and Judah

1Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards,

to the fading flower, his glorious beauty,

set on the head of a fertile valley—

to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine!

2See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong.

Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind,

like a driving rain and a flooding downpour,

he will throw it forcefully to the ground.

3That wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards,

will be trampled underfoot.

4That fading flower, his glorious beauty,

set on the head of a fertile valley,

will be like figs ripe before harvest—

as soon as people see them and take them in hand,

they swallow them.

Translation:  YHVH is really angry with the Tribe of Ephraim

5In that day the Lord Almighty

will be a glorious crown,

a beautiful wreath

for the remnant of his people.

6He will be a spirit of justice

to the one who sits in judgment,

a source of strength

to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

Translation:  But not forever and it will all work out someday

7And these also stagger from wine

and reel from beer:

Priests and prophets stagger from beer

and are befuddled with wine;

they reel from beer,

they stagger when seeing visions,

they stumble when rendering decisions.

8All the tables are covered with vomit

and there is not a spot without filth.

Translation:  Your Priests are a bunch of beer guzzling, wine chugging dolts who can't think, see drunken visions, muck up decisions and puke all over the place too often.

9“Who is it he is trying to teach?

To whom is he explaining his message?

To children weaned from their milk,

to those just taken from the breast?

Translation:  Who are these guys trying to kid. Who do they think they are teaching...mere babies and children?

10For it is:

Do this, do that,

a rule for this, a rule for that^a ;

a little here, a little there.”

Translation: For these drunks say, do this, do that, follow this rule, follow that rule, a little bit of this, a little bit of that...blah blah blah blah blah....

11Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues

God will speak to this people,

12to whom he said,

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;

and, “This is the place of repose”—

but they would not listen.

13So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:

Do this, do that,

a rule for this, a rule for that;

a little here, a little there—

Translation:  Fine, that's the way you want it? It could have been nice and you could have rest, but if this is the way you want it. You want to talk strange and babble at the people?  Then I'll send some folks your way that will talk strange and babble to you.  I can play "blah blah blah blah blah" with you just as you play it with the people.

so that as they go they will fall backward;"

Translation:  So you'll fall flat on your asses and it will hurt as you are caught and taken away.

No magic formula on how to study the Bible here!  So next time you hear "for it is line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little" quoted  as the way to find the hidden mysteries and doctrines of the Bible, realize the minister is quoting beer sodden, wine loopy, table puking priests who can't make their own words make sense to the people and thus God will repay them unkindly in kind with his own version of "So you want blah blah blah blah blah...?  Well here it comes in the form of an equally strange speaking foreign  people  that are going to sweep you away.

Now...let's all take our hymnals and rise....

Worshipping "Malachi's Message"

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

COG Lexington/Cincinnati Now Taking Reservations For Its Annual Christmas Family Weekend

Those wild and crazy Church of God members in Cincinnati and Lexington just love keeping one foot in the world at Christmas time.  It livens up the family weekends to be surrounded by lovely Christmas decorations and music.  It's ok because some of them have been doing Christmas for a long time now so this just lets them enjoy it more legitimately.  When those from UCG join them it really livens up the party!

It's time!!!! You can begin making your reservations for the Lexington Winter Family Weekend! We are blessed to be able to offer an awesome rate of just $60 a night. We will begin Friday night December 23rd and depart for home Tuesday morning December 27th. You can use the link below or call the Marriott directly at 1-800-228-9290. Ask for the Church of God December room block. December will be here before we know it! 

Griffen Gate Marriott Resort and Spa Church of God Special

Church of God Cincinnati and Lexington 

UCG's Creepy Sock Puppet Back To Help You Make A Difference

Creep factor 10+

United Church of God Removes Another Minister

United Church of God continues to have problems.  Recently Malcom Murray told his congregation in Flint and Detroit that he was stepping down as a preaching elder a few weeks ago but would still be a pastor.

Malcom wrote on August 9:

I have not taken a leave of absence and am still a full time minister in the United Church of God. What I have done is taken a leave from speaking for a short while. I am still working in the ministry in every other capacity except speaking for this interval. Serving God’s people, God’s work and God’s purpose on this earth is still the focus of my wife Francie and I in every aspect of service that we are able to perform.

Apparently the Big Boys in Cincinnati did not take too kindly to that. He has been removed from his ministerial duties and replaced by Steven Shafer who will pastor the Flint and Detroit churches.

Strangely though, Murray is still listed as the Traverse City pastor.

Our Lips Are Sealed....Honest!

Q: My family/spouse/friends are opposed to me sending Common. How should I respond?

A: First, never tell family outside the Church about a command they have no chance to understand! (You would certainly never tell them even the size of a Holy Day offering.) Since we established that giving all is not possible without God, you should not expect those outside God’s Church to believe it is possible, or even a good idea. (This would also apply to a financial advisor, who would view any notion of “treasure in heaven” or being “rich toward God” as foolishness.) Remember: Family and friends cannot give eternal life. They cannot place a crown on your head or put you on a throne ruling cities beside Christ. Do not permit their opposition to jeopardize your eternal life and reward

Get counsel on this matter if you are unsure.

“Go get a big chunk out of your home. And put your money where your mouth is and send it here. And I’m not talking about one, two, three thousand either. How about ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred thousand dollars? Go do it”

“Go get those assets and get them here”

[Speaking of Home Equity Lines] "The worst that can happen, and I'm prepared for this— is that you run it all the way up, and then you have to amortize it in a term loan after 10 or 20 years. It requires some faith, but not a lot. Now you just have a second mortgage instead of an Equity Line. It's converted into a term loan, paid over a period of 10 or 20 years, starting in 10 or 20 years. It's what I've done. I'm prepared to do it. And then, frankly, we flee before most of it ever comes due. That's just the way it is."  The Clarion Call

" Wives, you can be independent in this. You have half the worth in whatever is there in your house. I'm officially telling all of you, read verses 17, 18, 19 and focus on it. Wives you have an independent voice. Legally you have half the funds. What are you going to do about it? [Pack begins a tirade and stutters heavily] Husbands, your wife, [speaks as if quoting] "Well, my wife isn't in the church. She doesn't want me to do it." You know what? [starts raising his voice] Tell her, "You don't have a voice, woman." She might say, "Well, I disagree" and she might fight ya, but, well then, that's what happens...Your wife doesn't agree that you don't eat ham, doesn't agree that you believe God isn't a Trinity, doesn't agree that you keep the Sabbath, or it could be other way around. Well, what does she agree with? Of course she's not going to agree with your tithing, or contributing on Holy Days or anything else. Or that there's a place of safety or that the whole world is coming to an end.

(1:44) Now some would say, "Well, I have to leave everything to my husband or my wife." Again, my question is, "Why?" Leave enough so that they're cared for, whether in or out of the faith? "Well I just feel that I should leave my Lutheran wife everything," somebody might say. [Shouts] Why??? Get over that feeling!!! That's what Satan wants you to do!!! He [Satan] would absolutely agree with your decision. God wouldn't agree with it. "Well my wife's in the faith. I'll just leave it to her and trust her." Well, wait a minute! She'd be the first to tell you to "Give it now— don't leave anymore than what I need." If she doesn't say that, then she's not in the faith, she's just sitting here warming a seat. The wife, in the faith, will say, "Give everything we can. Leave just enough for me." The Clarion Call

 http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/clarion.htm

Please don't tell anyone outside RCG any of this.  Cross your heart and hope to die?! 

Philadelphia Church of God: It's Men Are Still Trying to Discover Their Manhood So They Can Protect Their Women

That wild and crazy bunch in Edmond Oklahoma has an article up on their web site today that was written by Joel Hilliker.  Hilliker's topic of choice is biblical manhood: The Protector of Women and Children.  This is a strange topic for a PCG flunky to be writing about considering PCG's appalling history of negating women and kids to the bottom of the governmental church structure.  Remember that this is also the same cult that told a family to abandon their child at the mall so the state could take care of it.  I guess that is a shining example of protecting children...Church of God style.

We have been conditioned to assume real men only were in the Living Church of God since they follow the man's man, Rod Meredith.  Now we know that just might be true! The PCG apparently has a manly man issue with its men.  Maybe Rod's men are actually better!

Hilliker writes:

Men, pay close attention to this command from God: “Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child” (Exodus 22:22). 

This is the inexorable law of the Ruler of the universe. And He is serious about it. “If thou afflict them in any [way], and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; And my wrath shall wax hot,and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (verses 23-24). 

You do not want to mess with this God.

Women in the PCG and in many COG's have been relegated to the  outer periphery for decades.  They have been abused, molested and treated horribly by PCG ministers.   Just look at the track record of deviate Cal Culpepper!  Can there be a sicker man in the ministry?

Hilliker is excited that his god will kill any offenders of abuse.  Culpepper had better put his big pants on and get ready to be held accountable!

Elsewhere in the Bible, the great Protector commands us to look after the blind, the deaf, the poor, the stranger. But of all those commands, Exodus 22 is God’s strongest, sternest and toughest. Elsewhere God prescribes the death penalty for certain sins—but nowhere else does He vow to personally administer it.

Next Hilliker asks...

Men—do you think like God? 

Are you zealous like God about the duty He gave you to protect women and children? Are you vigilant against any threat to them? Do you shield them from harm and injustice, even at risk to yourself? Does finding them in affliction arouse your white-hot wrath?

Apparently the men of PCG are effeminate emasculated man-boys who have no idea how to treat women and children.

To our great shame, our modern society sorely lacks this elementary mind-set of manhood. Men are confused about sex roles. Teaching men to protect women is not only lacking, it is condemned. The modern feminist attitude teaches that it is more “enlightened” to let women fend for themselves. 

In prior generations, however, the stronger were obligated to serve the weaker in this way. And by that I mean nearly all generations, in almost all societies, in almost all of human history! So it is amazing that modern feminism has been able to confuse us about this. 

For some of us, the false thinking of Satan’s world has rubbed off on us more than we probably realize. I believe that just a few generations ago, even carnal-minded people in the world had a better understanding of this subject than many in God’s Church today!

Hilliker and others have written numerous articles over the last few years encouraging the man-boys of PCG to work on their strength and work out more.

When God made humankind male and female, He made one stronger than the other. God gave the man more native physical strength and a greater capacity for physical strength.

“The glory of young men,” He says, “is their strength” (Proverbs 20:29). God gave them that glorious gift of greater strength. We don’t have to apologize for that, and we certainly shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist. We should develop it and become stronger so we can use it for the purposes for which God gave it to us!

There are a lot of young men who do not have much of this kind of glory—because they haven’t developed their strength. That is a shame.

God also gave the man a tougher mental and emotional temperament than the woman, whom He calls “the weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).

That is not to say that the woman is or should be weak. God exalts strength in women (e.g. Proverbs 31:17). However, God designed her capacity for physical strength to be less. And a godly woman expresses her strength differently than a man.

This is God’s design, and it wasn’t an accident. God created very different roles for men and women to grow in godly character. In the case of the man, much of the role revolves around strength.

God created half of the human population to be physically, mentally and emotionally stronger and tougher, and He implanted within them a sense of unselfish responsibility to protect, provide for and defend the other half.

Have you ever thought about that beautiful truth, plainly evident within nature itself as God designed it?

God wants men to use that strength to benefit others. He gave it to us to build a godly mindset: Care for those who are weaker; protect women, the weaker vessel. 

Next Hilliker has this to say about real masculine men:

Consider further: God designed human development so a little child is utterly helpless. He then created within fathers (and mothers) a strong protective inclination. This teaches us about His own nature and reinforces the lesson: A father protects his children. 

A father protects his children...unless of course he has been told by Cal Culpepper to take his child to the mall and abandon it.  God's government demands that father would do that if told to.

Fatherless children—those who lack that protection—are two to three times more likely to become victims of child abuse. Imagine how God feels about that!

Tell that to the kids who have been sexually abused in PCG by ministers and members!

Hilliker next lectures the weak men of PCG who like to find girls that have no fathers in their lives so that they are not accountable to another man when they ask them out or want to marry them:

One single woman told me that she feels men treat her differently because she has no father. “If a guy knows that a man is looking out for a girl,” she said, “he seems to be very aware of how well he takes care of that girl, knowing she has a male in her life that he would have to deal with.” Sadly, she is talking about her experiences with men in the Church—particularly single men! 

Men: Are you more careless in how you treat a woman if she has no father? If so, read Exodus 22:22 again—and realize that she absolutely does have a Father! And if you take advantage of that woman in any way, that Father is going to come after you!

So men, what kind of man are you:

Do you think like God toward widows and fatherless? Or do you think like the evil people God protects the widows and fatherless from?

A man who thinks like God is a protector.

Men, this is the way God designed us physically, mentally, emotionally. This is how God commands us to think. This is a duty He has given to every man, barring legitimate incapacity—and He expects us to fulfill: Protect the women and children. 

With so many effeminate man-boys in leadership positions in PCG this is a tough concept for these man-boys to handle.

God’s Church should be a stronghold of manliness!

Yep, just look at all of those manly studs Irish dancing men or the men dressed in toga's as they prance around the stage pretending to be David or Jeremiah.  Manliness just oozes  through out the Edmond compound.

Flurry has solved this problem by invoking Herbert Armstrong and Daniel.   Those hyper-masculine men of the Old Testament are a man's man.  No need for that effeminate carpenter called Jesus Christ.

The late Herbert W. Armstrong said one of the big jobs of a minister is to keep worldliness out of God’s Church. Pastor General Gerald Flurry took this a step further in Daniel Unsealed at Last! “The great responsibility that each of God’s members has is to keep the world and sin out of God’s Church,” he wrote. “It is a continual battle when you have God’s truth. Satan is totally committed to destroying that truth” (emphasis added).

For some reason the COG has been in one continual battle with its satan , so much so that it lays all blame and power upon it.   That dude has more power than the Christ they claim to follow.

Its long been a tradition in the Church of God that when an article si written for a church publication it is because there has been an issue int eh church.  Have the women in PCG had to defend their homes at night when trouble happens or defend themselves when insulted?

Do you look after the women in your life? Are you the first to step up to a difficulty, a challenge, a threat? If you’re married, when you hear a bump in the night, surely you are the one who investigates, rather than hiding under the covers and sending your wife. But are there other ways in which you are failing to defend your family?

If someone insults your wife, do you step up and defend her? Do you safeguard her honor and respect her in the way you talk with her? Does she feel safe and looked after in your presence? Can she call on you for help, even in little things, and know you will intervene on her behalf?

I can just picture the men cowering in the bedroom as the women head down the stairs in the middle of the night to investigate some strange noise.

Not only are PCG men weak but they must also be over bearing and outright mean.  Thus the reason for this admonition:

Every man must protect women and children from his own worse nature. This includes curbing his anger, impatience, cruelty and mean-spiritedness.

Simply treating women with dignity and honor is a form of protecting them. A man who demeans his wife causes her to feel defensive around him, when she should feel protected!

Hilliker wants his men to be hard...

Life requires hardness—hardness to go out and succeed in a job in the world, to deal with carnal people, to earn money and provide for a family. It takes hardness to establish order and discipline in the home. It demands hardness to ward off negative, worldly influences and protect the family from predators. God wants men to develop the greatest share of that hardness so women don’t have to! He wants men to use the strength He gave them in order to fulfill those functions. 

Hardness of this type is for men. When a man has that manly kind of hardness, he enables a woman to be soft. If a woman is too hard, that could indicate that the man is too soft. 

Why do men in any of the Churches of God sit there and let some elite golden boy who has never worked an honest hard days work in his life tell them how to be masculine men?  Does he even have a callous anywhere on his hands?

Hilliker's advice just get funnier as he goes along.

Even with something as harmless as a spider or mouse, if a woman screams for help, you have a choice. You can ridicule her for that and tell her to take care of it herself—or you can skip the sarcasm, step in and eliminate the problem—and be thankful for the opportunity to be her white knight against this “threat” rather than against a barbarian or a fire-breathing dragon.

Look for opportunities to step up and take care of things so that she doesn’t have to. Deal with those nagging home maintenance issues. Be the one to make that difficult phone call. Quickly intervene when you see her struggling with something heavy. Establish the habit of being the one to secure the house before everyone goes to sleep at night. 

Again, why would any REAL man ever take this man-boy's advice?

It must be all of those butch women picking on their men!

Recapture this true value of masculinity. Purge your mind of worldly thinking, and replace it with God’s thinking.

God’s Church needs more-feminine women—women who look to God as their Protector, and even to the men in God’s Church, encouraging them in their roles. We need manlier men—stronger men, who use their strength to serve and to defend the weaker.

The One Thing Church of God Leaders Have Never Learned