Musings: More Closure or More "Ugh"?

In a couple of weeks, details escape me at the moment, there will be a Ambassador College Reunion held in Las Vegas.  I assume what happens in Las Vegas won't stay in Las Vegas with regards to this blog, nor should it.  Attendees at the reunion are asked to drop the church talk and just enjoy seeing old friends again.  I like that.  As an add on to the reunion and probably not for the faint hearted is an additional last day sponsored by the original authors of Ambassador Report.  This event is completely separate from the reunion and will cover the how and why of Ambassador Report back in the day.

Ambassador Report was the bane of the ministry including my own in my days of naive belief in the message of WCG and by extension, my part in it.  I thought it was where I was supposed to be and as corny as it might sound, felt "called" to the ministry for personal family reasons going back to some things my dad told me years after the facts.  Nuther story.

I spent many a day and night getting hammered by members who received their copies in the mail.  I got my own of course compliments of someone and promptly threw them out.  Denial truly is not just a river in Egypt.  It was a most confusing time for me personally as a very new minister and pastor in Chicago and then Ohio during the 70's when  the corpulites hit the roting wind machine.  Between the demise of GTA, the Receivership  ("Not many Wisemen now are called" for those who understand) and the Tkaches, Ambassador Report was causing me personally unending stress and conflict of mind.

It was like having molasses on one hand and feathers in the other, smacking them together and then being told to pick out the feathers.  Not possible.  What a mess.

I recall knowing that the 60 Minutes expose' with Stan Rader etc was coming on Sunday night and I made a point to be out visiting to just keep it off my dreading mind.  Of course the phone rang off the hook all Sunday night.

In the hind site of age, change , drama and trama along with dis-illusionment mixed with not a small amount of anger at both myself for being so stupid and naive and those over me who seemed even more stupid and naive or just lying to me, was killing me with anxiety and depression while having to wear the faithful minister mask.  My own brother in law, as pastor, who stayed with WCG thru it's change to GCI died of the disease his son said was actually his broken heart over how it all went. He was a very sincere and well loved guy. He gave up the love of his life career, forest ranger in Idaho , to go to AC.  I know he regretted that .

Weeks ago, I determined not to go to Vegas for the Ambassador Report portion.  I might could do the reunion but time is money for me in my practice and no one pays me for being gone etc.  I also got to thinking about what's really good for me personally.  Forgo it for the sake of moving on and not having all my past anxieties and memories about those days stirred up, or go face them and learn the story behind the story?  There are men who I would love to meet and only know because of correspondence or through BannedHWA and they have expressed a desire to meet.  Would it be "fun" or ignite personal issues once again?  Would it bring more closure or resurrect unnecessary memories and issues once again?

Currently I am content with my simple life here in beautiful Portland.  Simple living , a career where I still work 5 days a week , 40 hours being the caretaker I am and earning every last penny honestly without criticism.  I can sit quietly with my 4.5 Billion year old meteorites that were around before the moon formed or there was life of any kind on earth and appreciate what is actually true as opposed to what I naively was led to believe in my youth.  It's nice to not even mind being stardust with consciousness studying itself .  :)  Do I want to risk that banging my head on the table in Las Vegas?

We all handle our experience with WCG and all that occurred and followed differently.  At this point I am opting to pass on Vegas for all the above reasons for me personally.  I admire those men who took it on back in the day to confront the Armstrongs and WCG excesses at the top and problems with ministers and churches.  I wish I had helped them then but I was not the man then I am now.  I never thought WCG had a proper vetting process to put a truly caretaking , balanced and teaching type personality into the ministry.   ALL the splits, splinters and slivers,  Gerald Flurrys, Dave Packs , Bob Thiels, Rod Merediths, James Malms and countless horribly informed men who claim to be theologians is the end result of that and our lunatic entertainment here on Banned.

Joe Tkach Jr reacted very "ain't going to happen" when I suggested personality testing etc for those going into ministry.  It took me a very long time to wake up.  I stayed way too long for many reasons.  I

I believe I will pass as an exercise in good mental health for me and maybe meet the gang sometime in LA in the future.  I would encourage anyone to go if it can bring understanding and closure to your own experience.  It's not too late.  No2HWA can supply you with all the details I am sure if interested.

Rod Meredith on False Prophets in the Church Today

It is always entertaining watching various Church of God leaders calling other Church of God leaders "false prophets" when they have lied through their teeth for decades with one false prophecy after another.  Rod Meredith has been one of the main culprits in spreading false lies, though this does not clear the other COG liars like Pack, Flurry, Malm, and Thiel who are equally culpable.

Meredith has an article out in the January/February issue of Tomorrow's World published by the Living Church of God. Like almost every single article he writes, he starts off with negativity mixed with doom and gloom.  This time it is geared directly towards the various splinter cult leaders of Armstrongism. These vile men are just waiting to snatch the crowns from LCG members heads. You hear that Almost-arrested Bob Thiel?

These self-willed, vain men may even affect the lives of thousands of you Tomorrow’s World subscribers, if you allow them to. We in this Work have repeatedly taught you the very “way” of life that Jesus Christ taught His own disciples. We have sent out—absolutely free—millions of magazines and booklets explaining the Ten Commandments and how to keep them with God’s help. We have repeatedly encouraged you to embrace the “Original Christianity” of Jesus Christ and the apostles—all based upon obedience to the law of love and the way of God.

EXAMINE THEIR FRUITS!

But, as time goes on, many false teachers will rise up and try to turn sincere people away from the true Work of God. It has always been so. The Apostle Paul had to warn the Corinthian elders: “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29–30). Jesus Himself warned us: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?... Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:15–16, 20). 

Every single COG is filled with "self-willed and vain men."  Just like  Thiel, Pack and Furry.  Has the church ever had three more vain men? What about the false teachers? Is not Meredith also a false teacher?  He certainly has led people astray over the decades. He is just like the other wolves, Thiel, Malm, Pack and Furry.  Has the church ever had a more dishonest and corrupt cabal than with these men?

According to Meredith there is no other church on earth who has as much love as does LCG.

He writes:

Think!

What is the “fruit”—the result—of sincere people being taught to follow the example of Christ and the original apostles? It is a people who genuinely try to love and to serve one another. It is a people who love the Creator God and joyously observe His weekly Sabbaths and His annual Holy Days and—through Christ living within them—walk in the way of the Ten Commandments.

Do you notice the one thing that is missing?  Not a single word about following that most inconvenient dude.  It is more important to keep sabbath and holy days.  Apparently Jesus only indwells in those following old event rules.

Meredith then tells his followers to not get upset over his many failed prophecies and inane rantings.  Besides, his inane blathering are just minor "technical" infallibility's.  It is wrong for church members to get upset over such silly things as failed prophecies and inane utterances that Meredith has made over the decades.

By contrast, when a spirit of doubt and discouragement is sown among God’s people, often over minor and disputed “technical points” of prophecy or chronology, the “fruit” is not good. Paul warned Timothy to emphasize “sound doctrine,” telling him to “remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:3–5).

When has Rod Meredith ever loved with a pure heart and a clear conscience?   Apparently he and his ministers are the most loving, humble, and best examples to their flocks that could ever imagine. More importantly, because these men are so great it is a requirement that members SUBMIT themselves to them.  When LCG members submit themselves to the ministry they are humbled.

All true doctrines come back to God’s commandments being based on love (v. 5) and service. All true ministers of Jesus Christ emphasize that approach—that way of life. True ministers of Christ will humble themselves and try in every way they can to encourage and to serve God’s people. In his letter—as recorded in the Bible—the Apostle Peter told the ministers he was overseeing not to be, “lords over those entrusted to you” but rather to be “examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). Then, Peter continued, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (vv. 5–6).

Meredith then warns his members to be wary of liars and self-appointed false teachers like Bob Thiel, James Mam and Dave Pack.

Back in apostolic times, when one of the original false apostles began to deceive people, your Bible records that this man went around “claiming that he was someone great” (Acts 8:9). Ultimately, the final great rebellion against God will be led by a vain, self-willed man, “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

 Have we ever seen to more vain men than Bob Thiel and Dave Pack?

So, when any individual tries to “appoint” himself as an “apostle” or proclaim himself as a “prophet,” watch out! For God warns us, over and over: “And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12; see also Luke 14:11; 18:14).

Then Meredith makes a statement that the will surely set Thiel and Pack over the deep end.  No one alive today has EVER produced the signs that indicate apostleship or prophethood.  Bob Thiel will suffer major butthurt over this.

None of us in this Work, which brings you the Tomorrow’s World television program and this magazine, has ever tried to proclaim himself a “prophet,” or an “apostle.” For the word of God describes the “signs” of an apostle as, “signs and wonders and mighty deeds” (2 Corinthians 12:12). No one living today has produced those types of “signs” to indicate true apostleship—or prophethood! 

You can read the rest of Meredith's spiel here:  FALSE PROPHETS ARE COMING!

 

The Obedient Church of God Are you on the God Train? Are Your Swords Sharpened For The Slaughter?

Never in a million years would Herbert Armstrong ever have imagined the sheer number of lunatics that would break off from the mother church and start some of the craziest splinter cults the church has ever seen.

One of the more absurd splinter cults is the "Obedient" Church of God.  Lawrence A Nowell is the leader of this weird group.  Nowell, is much like splinter cult leader James Malm, in that he bellows on and on about being filled with "zeal."

"God's Train don't carry nothin' 'BUT' the righteous and the Holy".

God's Train don't carry nothin' "but" the OBEDIENT to God! Rev 22:14.

Wake up to "be Obedient" to every jot, so that "you" can be carried onboard to the Place of Safety and the Kingdom of God by "THIS TRAIN".

PS: This train carries only the 1st Resurrection people.

1st Resurrection people do not have to go through the Tribulation, "because" they are already OBEDIENT. Rev 12:14 and verse 16.

Nowell is also much like the lunatic Neville Steven's, the certified false prophet from Australia who claims his members would be given swords so they could slaughter all of the rebellious sinners of the world, especially the lazy laodicean Church of God members who refuse to submit to Neville.   Nowell's little band of nut jobs will also be joining forces with other men to slaughter the unrighteousness.

There will "only" be "1" KING over "all" the "entire" earth.

10,000 Men

with Swords are Arriving!!

As the kids would say: You are all going down, UNLESS you start to OBEY every jot of God's way/Shop Manual/Bible. 

Nowell is also a proponent of the new moons malarky embraced by a few of the more legalistic members of the church who come up with everything imaginable for not following Jesus.

Christ is returning 

with

10,000 Men

Jude 14

To execute Judgment on “your” un-Godly deeds

to Kill

“YOU” The Disobedient.

Show me how tough / stupid you are!

Think you "still" want to work on His Holy Days? 

Do you "still" not want to follow His Crescent Moons that “He Himself” followed and 

He “set the example” to follow, to walk “AS” He walked!!

Again for emphasis: Do you still want to work on His Holy Days!!

= Do you still think you can disobey Him and live?

Read 2 Kings 19:35 185,000 humans Killed by 1 man/angel.

Christ is returning with plagues, and with 10,000 Men!!! Jude 14

Christ’s Men will Kill “200 MILLION” of you in just 1 day. Rev 9:16

Do you FEAR God yet? The beginning of Wisdom is the FEAR of God. Prov 1:7

When Killing 200 Million 4 Angels will kill another 1/3 of YOU Earth’s inhabitants Rev 9:18 

= 2.5 “BILLION of 

“YOU”

WILL be KILLED 

Ho hum.  Blah, blah, blah.  This is the same old tired story that the legalists have been spouting for decades.  Everyone of them proven liars.

We should stand in awe of all the men in the splinter groups that have direct communication with their god's.  Where would we be without Nowell, Malm, Almost arrested Thiel and Pack?