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