COG's Have A Bad Attitude Problem: They Are Ignoring the End Time Prophet

COGers turning their backs on The Prophet

Prophet Malm has been on a roll since the Feast setting up his scenario on how an upcoming Arab/Israeli war which will draw in  the US and European nations that will utterly defeat the Hezbollah and the rest of the Muslim hoards.

He has also been spending a lot of time on the "New Moons" and various legalistic rules and regulations that COG members should be observing on those days.  Prophet Malm's directive for new moons can only be sighted first in the surrounding area of Jerusalem and at that immediate time it is applicable around the world for all COGers.. COG embers are then to have New Moon bible studies, wave palm and tree branches, blow horns and an odd assortment of other things that have no relevance for Christians.

But the Prophet has run into a cement wall and he is not happy.  He says he has taken his message to many of the COG leaders and they ignored him.

I stood up to try and present a warning and wake up call for the brethren in 2007, never intending to start any organization.  Rather I had hoped that at least some of these groups would be turned to a fuller relationship with God as groups.

It is clear that that is not going to happen; most of the leaders of these groups including most elders [not all] are very deeply entrenched in their traditions and are most comfortable in their ruts; they are also filled with pride and will not believe anything that does not originate from their own leadership.

I remember an instance way back in about 1983/84 when I had discussed a matter with an elder and he actually said: “I never looked at this in that way before, you are quite right; but if it was important it would have come from Mr. Armstrong.”  Of course that threw a wet blanket on any zeal for real study and thought;  I an happy to say that it did not discourage my studies although it did disillusion me as to the attitude of the elders.

That attitude is rampant today; there is so much arrogant pride that no one will take an honest interest in anything not originated by their group and leaders.  That will be their downfall and they will not heed any warning until they are forced to do so when their fears come upon them to humble them.

Those stupid, blinded ministers are ignoring his prophetic message!  He and he alone has the final word on how the end times is going to go down.

Because the ministers are ignoring him (as they should) he is attempting to take his message to the people of the COG's. Sadly he is failing miserably with them too:

Right now there are a few hundred folks spread around the world studying and receiving the truth with joy.

There are another thousand or more who are sitting on the fence to see how things turn out.  Quite frankly they are gun shy over all the false teachers and deceitful leaders in all of these groups including folks like Ron Weinland.  These people are following the advice of Gamaliel and taking a wait and see attitude; at the same time many of them have studied intensively through the sites.  They are just not ready to leave their friends etc for an unknown until they see the fruits clearly.

Maybe the reason they are not moving to join you is that they are sick of the constant divisions, backstabbing and lying that goes on  in the COG's. Maybe they are right to see what develops with the fruit of your ministry.  All we need is another Herbert Armstrong disastrous 1972 prophecy where people sell their homes, quit work, stop medical care, etc as they wait to be taken to Petra for 3 1/2 years of bliss.

But just like HWA, the Prophet gets around talking full responsibility for his words in the lives of others.  Herb always said, 'Don't believe me, believe your Bible."  The Prophet Malm has more than one little catch phrase though.  This is that he says in order to take blame from his shoulders in case some COGders are idiots and do something foolish. (we all know THAT would never happen......Ha.)

I do NOT want anyone to be able to say that I deceived them into anything.  It is very important that you be convinced in your own minds as to what you should do.

1)   I have been warning of this conflict in considerable detail since early 2007.

2)   I have presented  doctrine that is solidly based on God’s commandments.

3)   I have said that I am NOT trying to set up any corporate church; and that is the truth.  I have no intention of doing so.

4)   I believe that some will be under pressure to leave their groups early and may have to stand alone or with small groups of family and friends for a short time.

5)   In the near future each person will see the full fruits of these groups as well as myself and when the abomination is set up, it will be decision time.

6)   After the abomination is set up in Rome; God’s two prophets will be empowered and they will tell everyone what to do.  It will then be decision time.  Some will believe the warning having seen the fruits of this effort; while many will refuse the warning and will stay.  That will be the final dividing of the pillars from the Lax and Lukewarm.

So all of this is really a preparation for the potential setting up of the Abomination of Desolation right before the Feast of 2012.  The Prophet is hoping that some courageous minister/s will set up an independent Feast site.  Then the Prophet will step in and proclaim his message.

Remember when Spanky Meredith did such a thing? While he was being defended for a slander case by Leona McNair, he had his minions working behind the scenes to set up a new Church which he stepped into after WCG got stuck paying a huge settlement for Meredith's lying mouth.  But Meredith was a slick cookie in all of this.  By having them set this church corporation up he could then just slide in as if he had nothing to do with it, other than being asked by the members to take over.

I am sincerely hoping that some elders will take a stand and that they will be able to put on a Feast for God’s faithful who come out early.

I also understand that if this war and all these things happen; followed by the setting up of the abomination right before the Feast; that it will be a matter of intense conversation during the Feast and very many will be making up their minds at that time.  The two prophets should be set up after the Feast, if 2012 is to be the year. Many people will then be ready to recognize God’s true two prophets by their scriptural description and by their sound doctrine and fruits.

Then the Prophet gets to utter another favorite COG catch Phrase that is a loaded comment.  Because the Prophet has been doing a mighty work he pictures himself as a John the Baptist who is preparing the way for the Two Witnesses.  Once they come on to the scene the Prophet will step aside and relinquish all prophetic utterances.  So we get to hear once again about "Passing the Baton."  How many times has that damn thing been passed over the last 25 years?  We are hitting close to 600 some splinter cults now of Armstrongism.  All claiming to be the best resurrection of the mother church as possible.

The Prophet's mission boils down to this;

My mission to to wake as many up as possible, to turn as many as possible to a deep study of God’s word.  To turn as many as possible away from idolizing other men and organizations and stir up a zeal for truth and the removal of error.  My mission is to begin to restore what has been lost through the ages and to reveal new understandings based solidly on God’s word.

So once again we see that God is an impotent idiot that could not keep his Word alive for 1,900 years.  Somewhere along the line God lost it till Herbert found it, then it was lost again and now the Prophet Malm has found it.  Perhaps Malm's God needs to buy a Clapper Key Ring so he can find the lost gospel  the next time around.

Yet, the Apostle would be most grateful for someone to start a Feast site for him.  His message is so vitally important that he needs to get the word out the the lost COGgers. SO get busy folks!  Get your feast research gears running and fine a location that will hold several thousand so that the world's final Elijah, John the Baptist, can come and spread his message of hyper-legalistc law keeping to the lost.

I know what my mission is, and it is not to create a corporate church organization.  It is to call out to ALL such groups and to ALL God’s people and to prepare them for the crisis at the close of the age.

I want everyone to understand that if I get involved in setting up Feast sites or organizing groups; it will be a distraction from my work.

The absolute decision time will be after the full fruits of my effort and the various groups become clear and the abomination is set up.

In the meantime if some come out or are forced out of their groups early; I advise them to spend serious time in prayer and study rather than jumping from one organization to another.

If there are those who want to organize a Feast site and run it themselves, I would be most happy to hear from them.

Dennis On: How Truth Wins Out

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

—

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents 

and making them see the light, 

but rather because its opponents eventually die"

Max Planck

The differences between being a believer, a religious person, a Bible reader etc and a spiritual person are numerous.

Religion tends to be what others pour into one's head from the outside outlining how that person should be, behave, support and show up an external organization or like minded group of people.  Religion requires membership and compliance to the thoughts and teachings of others.  A religion tends to tell you where to be on various days, which days are more important than other days, how much of your resources to give and to whom.  You show support by belonging.  In the COGs  you kept the Sabbath on Saturday, you ate or didn't eat certain things because an outside source said so.  This source may be a book that is claimed to be handwritten and inspired perfectly by a Deity, or the leadership who has had this source poured into them to pass on to the membership. 

When you are having a religious experience, you find yourself sitting a lot and listening to others who know.  How many hours did I sit and just listen to others tell me how it all is, as if they know. How many words did I speak trying to convince and inspire as if I knew!

The dog is the animal of religion.  It gets trained to sit when told to sit, to roll over when needed, to come and go when instructed to and to speak only when asked to speak.  A dog can be your best friend or your worst enemy depending on how you treat it.  It can be beaten into submission and had such fear put into it, that it can barely function on its own without permission.  It obeys out of fear or reward.  A kindly tone of voice will melt the dog's will and it will sit anxiously at your feet awaiting the tiniest bit of your attention.  The smallest of treats will get huge results from the dog. Dog's are religious and follow as instructed and trained to.

Spirituality, on the other hand is an inside job.  Religious organizations or individuals can rarely abide a spiritual person.  They don't go along for the ride unless they choose to.  They give out of a genuine belief and desire to do so.  They easily withhold their material and personal support when they personally feel it is neither appreciated nor properly used in support of the spiritual hope that lies in their soul. 

Those who experience the "from the inside out" spirituality don't give in to religious intimidation for non-compliance.  You can't disfellowship them, because they will leave at the drop of the religious hat.  Hell does not concern them and their concept of a Deity is not so much the angry God, but the benevolent one that includes all people.  There are no "chosen people" or "called out people" or "one true people," to the Spiritual person.  They understand that life is a journey and that we are all on the path, just not all on the same part of the path. 

They don't hold anyone as better than anyone else.  They don't hold the opinions of the religious as any better as those who claim to know than their own beliefs and opinions about such matters.  A spiritual person is very good at saying,  "I'll take that under advisement."  

A spiritual person allows for the fact that everyone filters their world differently and that is totally allowed.  A spiritual person knows the folly and impossibility of  "all speaking the same thing," or all "being of one compliant mind."  Spirituality is journey and not some destination that is "just around the corner," "coming soon," "no more than 3-5," or "truly brethren, time is short."  

Spirituality is a practice in the moment.  It does not abide in the unchangeable past or the unknowable future. 

"Of every teacher I have ever had, they have all been cats."

It's almost difficult to believe that the Apostle Paul actually wrote the following...but it does reflect an awakening of sorts and an understanding between mere religious beliefs and a true spirituality inside the person.

1 Corinthians 13

 ¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing. 
 
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
 
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 
 
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 

...after all his cursing of those that opposed him, bragging about how amazing he was, having us all believe he'd been to the third heaven but could not reveal the contents of the trip to anyone ever, went back forth between being the best pencil in the whole box to being the least worthy one, knowing time was short so give everything up and generally making an obnoxious ass out of himself in claiming to know it all.  

But if he did, I'd say for this brief moment in time, he had crossed over from being religious to having a spiritual experience.  

Suddenly, being a glib and polished speaker was meaningless to him.  Believing he just knew when his Jesus was returning, for sure in his lifetime seems to have been given up and discarded.  Being at odds with everyone had gotten old and perhaps we are all one after all had replaced the specialness he attributed to own birth and calling.   In short, whoever wrote, and it is a possible insert, understood the difference between true spirituality and mere religious belief.

I have always been taken back if not just amazed at the kind of mind it must take and be to sit in the average WCG splinter or sliver still allowing the one true man to tell them how it all is.  What kind of a mind "sends it all in," when told to or cuts themselves off from family because they are told to by both a book and a book reader?  Who still sits and listens to how the future will for sure unfold for them if they just abide in the religious mindset of the organization, without realizing that it has never worked out for anyone before them who said the same.  What kind of man thinks his remaining alive is a sure bet because he is so special and so badly needed by the group?  It has never been that way in the past, so  how now?

That is all religious talk and contains precious little personal spirituality, which would recoil from it in the first place.

You can't herd cats, they are too spiritual, but you can train a dog to roll over, fetch and speak out of the need for reward or the threat of some fearful punishment.  

How will the world of mere religion and Bible readers ever change from being chosen to just being part of the journey along with everyone else?

"All truth passes through three stages. 
First, it is ridiculed. 
Second, it is violently opposed. 
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents 

and making them see the light, 

but rather because its opponents eventually die"

Max Planck

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

COGWA Has Dramatic Feast Attendance

The Church of God a Worldwide Association released Feast attendance numbers this week.  They had worldwide, 9,500 people in attendance.  If those numbers are correct then they certainly took a major number of UCG members with them.  Which then leads to the question, "Is everything as rosy in UCGland as they are letting on?"

Having over 6,500 members attend your first Feast is pretty dramatic to say the least.  More members live outside the United States than reside in it.  US COG members are getting sick of all the infighting going on and are leaving the various COGs in droves.  Foreign congregations who tend to be isolated from all the political crap of the US ministries tend to be stronger in their commitment.

We also had a very strong international attendance during the Feast this year. You may not be aware of this, but about 40 percent of our total Church attendance resides outside the United States…The Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day capped off an extraordinary year for us…Our highest actual attendance on a holy day in the U.S. this year was 5,002. By including a very conservative estimate of two people per connection for the Webcasts during the Feast of Tabernacles, we calculate that COGWA had a total attendance of around 5,300 in the U.S. and close to 9,500 worldwide.