Which Church of God Will Make Petra Bloom Like A Rose?

Now that Gerald Flurry is diminished in his mental capacities due to his recent strokes, PCG has been reposting many of his old articles.  One such article is about the long-held myth that the COG has circulated for decades, that Petra is the place of safety (The Place of Safety: The World Tomorrow In Embryo!).  Flurry believes that the PCG will be taken to Petra where they will make the desert bloom like a rose and send out broadcasts to the world on the "truths" of Herbert Armstrong.

Flurry writes:

In this place of safety, this great rocky fortress, God’s people “declare his praise in the islands.” There certainly are no islands in the wilderness areas of the Middle East—especially in the area of Jordan. So there’s some kind of a work going on from the wilderness, something more than just what the two witnesses are doing during the Great Tribulation (Revelation 11:3-12). God has a message and these people are declaring it, probably via satellite and other technological means. A powerful Work will be done somehow.

Now who will declare His praise in the islands? The Bedouin Arabs? No. God’s Laodicean Church? Of course not. They are spewed out and will go through the Tribulation because of their rebellion toward God and because they were overthrown in the spiritual wilderness as ancient Israel was physically. They had the truth and then they lost it. 

God says, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise” (Isaiah 43:19-20). In context, you’ll see this is during a time of great suffering. God is giving drink to His chosen, and He is making the desert blossom as a rose, even before the Millennium.

God is talking about a single wilderness and a single desert, and about “my chosen”—in the context of the rest of Israel, with whom He is not happy. So this cannot be during the Millennium; it must be in a place of safety, where God is going to start a “mini-Millennium.” There will be a message going out from the place of safety, and there will be miracles in that place, and the desert will blossom as a rose. There will be a message of hope to this world which will have very little hope—especially those who will have been victims of the Beast power. 

Herbert W. Armstrong used to say that the Place of Safety would be an embryo of the World Tomorrow. And it may be more of an embryo than even he realized, because of the work God is going to do in the place of safety which will give the whole world a vision. He is going to use this small group, a very elect, to usher in the wonderful World Tomorrow—a beautiful paradise where all the world and all the deserts will blossom as a rose. There will be hope like this world has never even dreamed. The word paradise doesn’t describe it. It is far more than just a paradise: it’s a glorious vision! 

This is going to be a mighty tough job to do since Bob Thiel will also be in Petra when Flurry arrives.  Flurry will not need to worry about Thiel though, all Thiel will be doing is still screeching about being doubly blessed, Fatima, satan's chair, and those damn ugly crosses.  Add to that mix Dave Pack and his superfantabulous church.  They will be making mincemeat of Flurry and Thiel as they proclaim that they are the ONLY ones doing a real work.  Head on up the road a distance, then through a canyon, and there will be United Church of God doing their bold work by putting up useless billboards on the hillsides.  Then round the next bend, you will find the Living Church of God building their one room cave university so they can educate the world on just how things will be.  Further down the road, in a god forsaken place, you will find the COGWAites building their little exclusive compound and doing what they do best, nothing.  Over in the next wadi, you will see David Hulme building fences around his little parcel of land in order to keep his members from commingling with the other heathen COGites while complaining how hard it is to drive his Jaguar on sand. Meanwhile, outside the siq, Mark Armstrong will be hold up in the Petra Marriott still living off the teet of long dead Garner Ted.

The Bedouins in the Petra area will be standing there in amazement at the complete asinine shenanigans of the TRUE Church of God.  What an amazing witness this will be to the Bedouins!  A foretaste of the UNITY of the kingdom...ugh!

Dave Pack Explains How To Know When You Have Escaped

Now I said last week that there’s another great question we needed to answer, and before I go back into more about the Man of Sin, I’d like to take you to that question. How will we know we escaped? You’ve arrived at a destination…Blessed, or happy, is he that waits and comes to the 1,335. (Dan. 12:12). To come to it, you’d have to know you did. I use the analogy of driving to Los Angeles from New York. You can’t head out to L.A. without a map. Without any picture of Los Angeles, you have no idea where it is or what it is…what it looks like when you get there. So you just sort of takeoff. Somebody says, “You know what? Go west.” Well, you could wind up in Seattle, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, San Diego, or you could wind up at any city in the West that’s short of Los Angeles. You know, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver or Salt Lake City. You just don’t get there. Because you don’t know what Los Angeles looks like, you won’t know if you’re there.

And you’re with other people in the car…“Does anybody know if we’re in Los Angeles?”—“No?”—“Well, no, somebody said this is Des Moines, Iowa.”—“Okay, well…I don’t know where that is either, but I guess…” How would you plan a trip to Los Angeles without knowing whether you arrived? You’d have to know what Los Angeles looked like, where it was, what it meant…how to know your journey was over, and that’d be no matter where you started from, you see? You could take the analogy as, no matter where you lived in the world, not just if you’re starting from Los Angeles, because God’s people are all over the world. How do we know we got to L.A., if L.A. is “escape” at the 1,335?

Let’s imagine we get to the 1,335, but we don’t know that we did…And maybe somebody has a hunch we did…and we’re all sitting in a circle. “Well, it said we’d be happy…Everybody feel happy? Everybody feel happy? Anybody not? Nobody’s not happy, are they? Oh, they’re all happy. Okay…Well, who feels like an escapee? Does anybody feel like an escapee? Who feels like we waited long enough? Anybody feel…Raise your hands, we waited long enough…” Does anybody think it could be like that? Where you wouldn’t absolutely know. You’re watching and praying always to escape, but you can’t really know if you did.

Dave Pack: When We Escape We Will Be Given Hats So That The World Knows We Are Escaping

Now I would suggest there’s the possibility…Along with something else I’m going to show you…there may actually be different clothing we wear. One of two things that suggests we’re different people…“Keep your hands off of them.” Because if you escaped, you escaped. There has to be some knowledge to others you escaped. Cain was marked so that people wouldn’t kill him. I mean, we can say he deserved to die; shouldn’t have escaped. But God didn’t want him to die, so God marked him in a way that people would leave him alone. What might He do with us?

One possible thing, to just speculate and think about, since this is not the pure white garments of salvation and linen, it’s just a change. It’s saying that the way God views this man’s life and his record—the same with you—is it’s gone from him. Remember, if you’re deemed entirely deserving—all of you—then you escape at that point, not at the time of salvation. So that’s what the change of garments has to mean, and he puts on a mitre. He doesn’t put on a crown or a tiara. A mitre—a turban. It signifies something has changed. It’s sort of like an interim step between the way we are now, and the way we will be when we receive salvation—which is another interim step before resplendence.

“And set a fair mitre on his head…[“Clean” is what it means—just clean; clean and pure. It doesn’t say white, just clean and pure.]…So they set a fair mitre on his head…[Who’s “they?” It’s angels there.]…and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD stood by. And [that angel] the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying…[Now, I’ve explained that this does not mean “protested.” It can mean that, but essentially, it’s most likely meaning, and there…You can go study the word; it’s fascinating…it’s more like an announcement, or a pronouncement; not protesting to him.]…The angel the LORD [announced] unto Joshua saying...