Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
As Jesus was naming all of the dinosaurs,
he realized that they all lived worldwide and thought,
"Hey, this would be a good name to call my church.
And thus he did, he named it "Worldwide" Church of God."
Jesus was one busy dude, though I guess he has had time over the last 80 some years to name Herbert Armstrong's church The Worldwide Church of God. After all, having his second coming delayed because of church members "just not getting it," he has had some time to do some extracurricular activities.
The Kitchen clan writes on Facebook:
"Under God's apostle, the true Church of God was named "Worldwide Church of God".
The bona-fide unincorporated spiritual organism not the California Corporation. The Worldwide Church of God had nothing to do with the atrocities of those who no longer were members of God's true Church! i.e from people like Joe Tkach and those who went on to create "Grace Communion International" and other organizations and corporations.
But what Satan has done, is he has stapled those atrocities on the name "Worldwide", in order to cause people to reject that name, and to make it easier to accept "another name". It's a true slander coming from the father of lies.
In Revelation 3:8, we read that God's true Church does not deny the name that belongs to Christ! The name "Worldwide Church of God" did not and does not belong to ex-members or ex-ministers, or false ministers or false brethren. It was given, through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, from Jesus Christ. It is the name Jesus Christ gave to His Church, the spiritual body of Christ, through His apostle!
The Worldwide Church of God had nothing to do with the atrocities of those who no longer were members of God's true Church! i.e from people like Joe Tkach and those who went on to create "Grace Communion International" and other organizations and corporations.
But what Satan has done, is he has stapled those atrocities on the name "Worldwide", in order to cause people to reject that name, and to make it easier to accept "another name". It's a true slander coming from the father of lies.
In Revelation 3:8, we read that God's true Church does not deny the name that belongs to Christ! The name "Worldwide Church of God" did not and does not belong to ex-members or ex-ministers, or false ministers or false brethren. It was given, through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, from Jesus Christ. It is the name Jesus Christ gave to His Church, the spiritual body of Christ, through His apostle!
Jesus Christ commends His People for not denying it! So what does that mean? It means a great deal of people have denied it!(apart of the 2 Thes. 2 Great Falling Away)
It is amazing to watch the mental gymnastics legalists and cultists go through in justifying everything Herb did. Jesus no more told HWA to call the church "worldwide" than he told him to call the church "Radio."
It seems that some LCG members have gotten lazy during these horrific end times. Some do not even bother to come to church any more and just stay home a stream the sermons. Oh the horrors!!!!!!
LCG also knows that some of their sermons can have damaging results upon the church if they are released out into the "world." We saw what happened with a sermon by Rod Meredith the sent Terry Ratzmann off the deep end and murder LCG members during a church service.
LCG members are streaming sermons regularly and sharing passwords to friends so that they too can enjoy the sermons. Not for much longer though. Word has come down from on high to STOP doing this. Lazy Laodiceans!
We are happy to see that more and more pastors are using technology to stay connected to their congregations. The Internet can be a powerful way to do that, especially as many brethren are geographically spread out and the pastor can’t be in the same congregation every week. With that in mind, we ask you, brethren, please do not share passwords outside of your area. Your pastor’s sermons are prepared and designed with your local congregation in mind—not for brethren across the country or around the world.
From experience, we have seen that some brethren stay at home instead of going to services if they can watch a streamed service from another congregation. Church services are a commanded assembly, where we are not only attending to learn, but also to “stir up love and good works… exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25). God’s word warns us that as the end draws near, we should not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some” (verse 25). With that in mind, please make every effort to attend when you can (of course, stay home if you are sick!). And when you do view or listen to your pastor’s messages from home, please do not share the password outside your pastor’s area.
For decades we heard COG leaders proclaim, "We are family!" Yet has there ever been a church that treated its member with as much disdain, at times, as has the Church of God? Never has there been a group of people who has been constantly beaten down as "unworthy" because "they just don't get it," or have so disappointed Jesus Christ that he has had to delay his second coming for 80 some years. Thousands of articles and member letters have been written berating the brethren as worthless pond scum lower than the worms in the field.
Many ministers and evangelists used members as their own personal slaves, yet never deeming them worthy enough to invite them into their own homes. Through it all members were supposed to love one another, "as Christ loved the church." That love usually stopped the second you dared to question a minister or the church leadership, or God forbade something from the Bible.
How could members "love" one another and care for one another when its own leaders held everyone in such contempt? That love was never genuine and was usually the end result of fear mongering. Intense persecution, concentration camps, parents eating their children, and more gore awaited the brethren around every corner they turned. Satan was aways on the attack.
A Church leader gets caught in adultery...Satan is attacking the church. A church leader gets sent to prison...Satan is attacking the church. People refuse to acknowledge self-appointed dreamy false prophets...Satan is deceiving the brethren. Tens of thousands refuse to jump church fellowships to join a delusional narcissist...Satan is deceiving the brethren. God has been turned into a impotent cowering old dude sitting in the northern heavens while Satan has free reign. Satan is even more powerful that Jesus, at least in the COG's eyes.
Times are rough in COG land as Satan is preparing to wreck havoc with Brexit and Trump. At least in the eyes of Rod Meredith. Now it is even more important than ever for church members to love one another. Soon there will be intense persecution, famine and death.
In his latest member letter to the ever growing disenchanted LCG membership, he warns of this very thing. Fear and persecution start ripping the world apart in the very first couple of paragraphs. Terrible times are ahead as the LCG membership will be divided by battling factions within the church and with outside splinter cult leaders like Bob Thiel and Dave Pack seeking to con as many members as they can to their dark sides.
We Must Become Family!
Many of us realize that. God’s people will be tried and tested as we never have been before. We will be persecuted as never before in the years ahead—as God’s Word clearly predicts. Satan will try to “divide and conquer,” as is his usual tactic. He will not only try to divide different nations and ethnic groups, but he will surely go after Christ’s true Church and try to confuse, undermine and divide us in any way he can. Yet in the terrible times just ahead, we will all need the love and support of one another more than ever. We will need to become “family” more than ever, and I hope that all of us can fully realize that and pray that God can help us respond and become a true family under the leadership of Jesus Christ. God is reproducing Himself and enlarging His Family to ultimately include billions of human beings made in His image.
I wonder if church member are getting sick of this "god is reproducing himself" nonsense after all these decades? Making such a claim totally invalidates anything Jesus ever meant or anything do with the new covenant. Anyway, back to the big powerful bogey man, the all powerful Satan, as he persecutes the chosen ones.
But right now, as religious persecution and harassment are going to increase, we will “need each other” more than ever. We will need a “safe place” to give us the help and human support that is so encouraging—certainly in addition to direct guidance and help from God Himself. Some of our brethren may lose their jobs or lose their homes. Some may even go hungry in the years ahead, as national upheavals become worse and worse in the various parts of the world, and some will go hungry even among God’s people. So we are held accountable by our Father in heaven, who will expect us to respond with love and show a “family” spirit in the way we interact with one another.
Can church leaders truly ever have a "safe space" in the church? With all the back stabbing, gossiping and lying members who run to the ministry every time some people wipe their noses, can here every be a true "safe space?" It certainly will NOT be Petra. If they treat each other like crap now, just imagine the hell it will be when everyone is isolated for 3 1/2 years in a sweltering desert as hundreds of "doubly blessed self-appointed" leaders fight over who is in control. Then the winning team will hold all other church leaders and members at a lower level than their frozen chosen.
Will self appointed ministers in the church start showing love in the way they treat members? Don't count on it. The COG track record proves otherwise.
Meredith goes on to quote Paul and then makes the following bizarre comment:
So even though we certainly continue to use separate bathrooms as male and female—and there are, and should be, certain differences in purely physical matters—we are one family in God, who is our Father, and we are to let this spiritual relationship override physical differences as much as we possibly can within God’s Law and God’s teachings!
Apparently intense persecution will be coming when men and women can't use separate bathrooms, or something.
Meredith then quotes Matthew 26 and adds this:
Notice that Jesus Christ powerfully instructs us, as His servants, to feed the hungry, take in strangers, nurture the sick, visit those in prison and help those “in trouble” in every way we can. He tells those doubters who try to water down what He was saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it toMe” (v. 40). When you take in brethren or any human being in this kind of circumstance, you are taking in and helping Jesus Christ Himself! We all need to meditate on this and try to “do better” in the way we help and serve one another. Brethren, pray fervently about this and ask God to help us to demonstrate—in every way we can—a more complete “family spirit” in the way we interact with each other and treat one another.
Will Rod Meredith, Gerald Weston, Richard Ames and others start taking in aimless to feed them and care for them? Will they welcome with open arms the prostitute down on that lonely Charlotte street corner or the gay, lesbian, transgendered teen recently kicked out of their home? Will church members cook food, feed them and give them warm beds to sleep in? Don't count on it. The answer is a BOLD NO!
Dear brethren, let us all try to develop an even greater sense of love, warmth and enthusiasm, and a total outflowing and “giving” spirit in the way we interact with another. This will not be easy. Do not “kid” yourself. Our natural tendency is to be selfish and to take care of “self” first and others last.
Let us “take action” now! For the times of trials and tests are coming upon us within the next few years. Again, we will “need” each other. We will “need” to have the help, the warmth, the encouragement and the physical necessities that we can share with each other in time to come. Let us not fail to serve Jesus Christ Himself, as He is present in each one of these situations. As Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it toMe” (Matthew 25:40).
Since the church does not follow Christ it is going to be a hard them for them to emulate "Christ like" love.
