For the 30 some years I worked in Pasadena I saw hundreds and hundreds of kooks show up at HQ claiming they were Elijah's, Elisha's, Joshua's, the Two Witnesses, prophets, people filled with prophetic knowledge, people who dreamed dreams that God had appointed them to reform the church, people who claimed they were Satan, that the mantle of Herbert Armstrong had been passed on to them, and many, many more whack jobs. Every single one of them were lairs.
Then the church ruptured into countless heretical splinter personality cults that were far more corrupt than anything WCG had ever been. We have seen the Flurry, Pack and Meredith all claim that God had personally spoken to them to restore the faith once delivered. No one was more qualified to do that job than they were. Each one had some creature they called god telling them that they were especial and called out. They were not. We all have seen the corrupt fruit that these "so called" ministers have produced over the last two decades while their new churches were under their control. Before that we saw the worthless fruit of the labors for decades earlier.
Even those that have ungodly nightmares now seem to think they are set apart.
False prophet and legalistic spiritual abuser, Bob Thiel still claims that because he had a nightmare/dream/hallucination, that his god now has now placed his mantle upon him to do some kind of amazing work.
He bitterly writes:
Consider that furthermore more in his latest rant against me, Gary Leonard falsely asserted that I and a woman from New Zealand (who I did not know) had nightmares. No, we had dreams.
The self-appointed false prophet. who was never ordained as a minister in the Living Church of God. then goes on to quote scripture to support his hallucinations. Church of God ministers somehow think that buy posting countless scriptures that they intern justify their beliefs. It never has and they never will.
Apparently Gary Leonard does not believe that God uses dreams, even though the Bible says God does (Genesis 20:3-7, 28:10-17, 31:10-13, 31:24, 37:5-10, 40:5-18, 41:1-32; Numbers 12:6; Judges 7:13-15; 1 Kings 3:5-15; Daniel 2:3-45, 4:4-27, 7:1-28; Matthew 1:20-25, 2:12, 2:13, 2:19, 2:22; Acts 16:9; see also Dreams, the Bible, the Radio Church of God, and the Continuing Church of God).
I can state for a fact that God never inspired any dream telling Thiel to start his own personality cult. His own mind told him that he deserved to be a leader. Even Rod Meredith knew Thiel was unfit to be a minister.
The self-appointed false prophet is also very unhappy at being referred to as "Almost Arrested."
Furthermore, he continues to refer to refer to me with statements like “Almost Arrested” to imply I am some type of criminal, without bothering to explain that I was almost arrested because I told government authorities that I would observe the biblical Day of Atonement (details of this are in my post, ‘Banned by HWA’ continues to make false assertions–Matthew 13:19-21?, that Gary Leonard responded to, though he did not bother to mention the truth about this).
If he had bothered to check he would have seen the reason that so many call him "almost arrested." had occurred many, many posts ago. Even though he claims above that he
almost was.
The tactics of Thiel, Flurry, Malm, Pack and most other COG leaders is to combine error with fact, truth with imaginative thinking, proof-texting instead of well reasoned scriptural understanding. They are sneaky an beguiling, just like Satan in the Garden.
He then continues on that those that have blogs, web sites, have written books, that speak out publicly at the abuse in the Church of God are guilty of stealing people's crowns and their chance to make it into the kingdom.
Sadly, various ones have let the anti-COG people “take their crown”–did not “endure to the end” as they should have. They allowed people once considered to be brothers to betray them spiritually.
For decades the spiritual lives of church members have been raped and pillaged by unsound ministers who betrayed them spiritually. They have every right to walk away from Armstrongism and learn sound scriptural reasoning. Tens of thousands of former church members have done just that! They have been healed from the abuse. They live truly fruitful lives and understand God better than they ever have. Sure many have also left faith behind, but that no more makes them evil or unworthy. After the crap that the church has pulled on them, they have every right to do such a thing!
True spiritual knowledge and a grounded spiritual life cannot be found in the Continuing Church of God no matter how much Thiel pontificates or how special he thinks he is. Salvation will never be found in the Continuing Church of God. Redemptive life lies outside its doors, if they would only dare to look, as they chuck Thiel's booklets and magazines in the bin.
He imagines himself to be equals to Jesus and the apostles and that he is being persecuted as they were. Talk about a steaming pile of bullshit!
Some do not seem to understand that Jesus and the apostles faced intense criticism and false assertions–and that those who really want to follow Him will be subject to it as well (John 15:18-25).
There is NOTHING about Thiel that even compares to ANYTHING the Apostles or Jesus ever said or did. According to scripture they were persecuted for speaking truth. Thiel does not. He and his personality cult are not facing persecution form this blog or the government. Delusional COG "leaders" love to thrown that out to divert attention away from their inept actions.
Anyone thinking God dwells in the Continuing Church of God is in for a rude awakening. God does not.
