Armstrongism's "god" is a punitive god who relishes the idea of weeding out the chafe from the COG's midst.
According to the COGEIM, the Feast will be here soon where members will hear one glorious sermon after another. Then, when the Feast is over, their god will start sorely testing the members to see how much they listened during the services. God has to weed out and punish those who fail to heed the words of the feast speakers.
"...following the Feast God begins his testing period. He digs deeply into our lives to determine how much we have absorbed from the intense teaching and training we have been blessed to receive at His great Feast. So, yes, the trials begin, and before He is done trying us, He and we will know how much progress we have really made in our conversion.If I went to a Feast site and had that kind of bullshit hanging over my shoulders then why would I go in the first place?
One of the big questions we come home to answer is, do we really BELIEVE what we have been taught? When I capitalize the word believe, I do so to emphasize the idea that many believe what is said in the Bible, but, unfortunately, they do not live it. That is, they say they believe, and they think they do, but when crunch time comes, they find what they were taught is not manifesting itself in their thoughts and actions. Unfortunately, old habits, old thought patterns, and opposing attitudes die hard.
That’s why we need this ensuing time of trial and testing—so that we can be different from that. We need those challenges that make us work hard using God’s Spirit so that we can make God’s way an integral part of our lives. In that way we can arrive at the place where our lives are congruent—that is, we believe, we act in accordance with our beliefs; and we are, in fact, what we believe. If that formula is working in our lives, then we really are becoming like Jesus Christ, and that is our ultimate goal."
