Levirate Marriage and Armstrongites

Reading COG related message groups on Yahoo is never dull.  Some of the things you read just boggle your mind.  Yahoo is filled with a lot of COG members who have taken legalism to the extreme.  Not content with the myriad of laws, rules and regulations that Armstrongism lays down upon them, they have also incorporated the 613 laws of orthodox Judaism into the lives.  They are constantly harping about one law after another that Christians are 'required' to keep.  There is never a discussion about Jesus, but hundreds and hundreds about the law.  If Jesus is brought up it is only to say, "Christ would not approve."  Saying the word Jesus is too effeminate or Protestant for most of them.

Anyway, one of the topics today was on levirate marriage.  What's a poor woman to do if her young husband is sterile?  Take sperm from a brother or the mans father and artificially inseminate?  Since the man is not dead  the woman cannot marry his brother, so sperm collection seems to be their best choice.

I was thinking about a young friend whose husband became sterile from cancer treatments and it got me thinking that he is "dead" to having the ability to raise up his own house (ben=house or sons)
For his brother to father him a child would fit in the spirit of levirate.
There was no "marriage" at all at first. Just creating a child. Marriage was added on much later to satisfy some people's problems with it, I suppose.
But I think this would be entirely right while the couple is young since we now have artificial insemination.
Again as I said before this service was only to be performed for the sake of "heaven" and no other reason.

Responses:

"In this day & age, your friend could surely put some of the brother-in-law's stuff in a turkey baster & avoid the actual sexual relations... And if her husband helped out... well, just sayin' there is more than one way to skin a cat."


"I would think the church would not approve, however."

"I donno why not. Anyway, if it were me, I would not tell the church--why would the church need to know such personal business!"

And to end the discussion the uber-legalist on the board always has this response:

"Christ is the head of the Church and He would certainly know, and He is the only important One!!"

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David Ben Ariel RIP

Anyone who has been online in the past several years has surely run into David as he preached and promoted all things HWA.  His articles, blog posts, and book promotions (Beyond Babylon, God and the Gays)would turn up in some of the most unexpected places.  He spent huge amounts of time flooding every imaginable bulletin board, COG related blog, military blogs, Jewish groups/newspapers and COG boards with his writings.  He put Chiropractor Bob  Thiel and end time self-appointed prophet James Malm  to shame. He was a stanch support of Israel, even though the country expelled him several years ago and never permitted him to return.

Love him or hate him, he certainly left an impression!

David (Hoover) BEN-ARIEL

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BEN-ARIEL David (Hoover) Passed away peacefully March 27, 2011, surrounded by his family at Hospice of Northwest Ohio. David was born to David and Wanda Hoover on January 10, 1960. David loved to travel and has been to several states and countries. He had lived in Israel for 5 years. David was also the author of two books including "Beyond Babylon". David was preceded in death by his father David; grandparents, Arthur and Vivian Hoover, Edward and Isabella King and younger brother, Bobby. He is survived by his mother, Wanda Shaffer of Toledo; sisters, Sue Chandler (John) of Rising Sun, Kim Garza (Rick) and Lisa Shaffer of Toledo; nieces, Diane Chandler and Shannon Givens; great nieces, Kiera Barnum and Ava Moreau; nephews, Shane Tibbits and Raymond Martinez; great-nephews, Dylan Chandler and Noah Schottley; many aunts and uncles and future father in-law, Douglas Hall. Special thanks to Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrysburg, great-niece Kiera for the love and attention she gave him and to Doug Hall for his care and support. Services will be private. Anyone wanting to make a donation please consider Hospice of Northwest Ohio.

The End Times Are Here! Or, So Says Church of Malm

End time guru of wanton death and destruction is blasting his trumpet that the "end times are here!"  No, I am not talking about Flurry, Meredith, Pack or Cox.  There is another voice that is God's end time mouthpiece. God only has ONE true end time mouthpiece that is TRULY warning the true remnant COG. James Malm has been in high gear in the last few weeks promoting that message.

Bedsides demanding that TRUE Church of God members should be worshiping the moon, Malm is giddy with delight that Israel and Gaza are now engaged in battling each other.

Malm writes:

This is the first in a series of posts that will show how very close the end time events are getting.  These posts are NOT designed to set any specific date or year; they are intended to make it very clear that we are now in the end time... (i.e. 2011)

Here is how Malm comes up with his convoluted date:

...it is interesting that the first permanent English colony in America was assured with the first harvest and a thanksgiving  in 1621. Add 390 in light of the prophecy.  Again this shows the closeness of the end times and may NOT be exactly accurate as to a year; since we do not know for certain that this period started at that time. 

2011.  Yep, the end times are here!  Death and destruction will be pounding on the doors of the Untied States, Britain and Israel.  Death, famine, destruction, Germans, rampaging Muslims and DC 10 plane trips to Petra are in our forecast this year.  Forget Meredith's2012 prophecies.  Malm is the TRUE end time date calculator!

Where does Malm come up with the 390 figure?

These things were all prophesied thousands of years ago. Ez 4 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem: ²And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
Ezekiel is told to portray the city of Jerusalem under siege by setting up a model of the city under siege as an instruction and sign for the people.
³Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
Yet, during the days of the siege, an iron plate or wall is to be placed between the city and the besiegers.  At this point Ezekiel is told to bear the sins of Israel for 390 days [190 LXX] and to bare the sins of Judah for 40 days; this being symbolic of a day for a year in fulfillment.

The same thing will happen to Joseph-Israel  [Ephraim- Manassah] as God bears their sins and blesses them for 390 years; after which he stops bearing their sins and stops their blessings as well.

This developing war is setting the conditions for a peace deal 1 Thess 5; exactly how long it will take for this war to run its course and for a peace deal to be finalized remains to be seen.  We can KNOW that the tribulation is now very close.

COG  false prophets have been spitting this kind of nonsense for close to 70 years now.  Not ONCE in this entire time span have ANY of them been right about ANY of their utterances!

HWA's prophecies failed, GTA's have failed, Flurry's have failed, Meredith's have been a laughing stock for the church. Waterhouse has been proven to be a complete imbecile.  Blackwell's have all failed, Hoeh's have all failed. Weinland has published books listing in dated detail the exact moments of the end time...FAILURE!  Neville Stevens has been posting his stupidity for several years now and has proven himself to be another Armstrongite fool.

When will COG ministers stop lying to their members?  When will members stop letting themselves think they are so incredibly special that billions of other people are going to die so their sorry asses can be saved?  A few thousand gloating in the desert of Petra are more special than 6 Billion other souls?  Isn't Armstrongism grand!