Almost-ordained and almost-arrested Bob Thiel has an article up by John Ritenbaugh about prophets. It is ironic that Ritenbaugh writes about prophets/false prophets in the church. Ritenbaugh was the prophetic guru of many in the Glendale/Pasadena are for many years. Everything the man talked about people salivated over, copied, taped and shipped all around the country. Ritenbaugh has ended up like all of the other false prophets in the church, an epic failure!
All of us desire to know the future so we can be prepared for it. We want to be in control of our destinies and not at the mercy of events. However, some have this desire so strongly that they set themselves up as channels through which the future is revealed.
Such people have misled many. Deuteronomy 18, along with chapter 13, warns against such people. Whether they are called diviners, charmers, spiritists, or channelers, using methods like reading tea leaves, casting lots, or conducting séances, they are to be seriously and carefully avoided because there is no godly reality to their prognostications. Those seeking to know are being misguided, putting themselves at the mercy of lying demons, or at the very least, imaginative men and women.
At other times, simply following a church tradition regarding a prophecy can also mislead a person. This occurs because someone in the past, sincerely believing he understood a particular prophecy, began preaching his belief, and many in his audience then believed without the resources to prove the interpretation wrong. Due to frequent repetition, it came to be accepted as truth.
It is important for us to understand that
prophets were not merely temporary and occasional expedients
God would turn to. They played a vital and continuing role in Israel, especially in those times before the Word of God was widely distributed. This is why God makes provision for them within the law. He shows in many places that those He appoints to the prophetic office will always preach the keeping of the commandments of God as evidence of the Source of their inspiration. They will teach the conservation of past truths even as they break new doctrinal ground.
They both forthtell – that is, proclaim a message truthfully, clearly, and authoritatively to those for whom it is intended – and they will on occasion, but not always, foretell – that is, predict events before they take place.
It is misleading to believe these verses in Deuteronomy 18 apply only to Christ. His is undoubtedly their ultimate application, but the promise and description applies to all true, God-ordained prophets. Notice some of the identifiers in these verses:
1. God established the foundational pattern for the prophetic office in Moses (“like me”).
2. God will raise a prophet up from among the Israelitish people. Later biblical sources show he might be drawn and appointed from any of the tribes and from any occupation. In other words, he did not have to be a Levite.
3. He will perform the function of a mediator between God and men (verses 16-18).
4. He will stand apart from the system already installed. He will not be antagonistic to the system, but he may be very antagonistic to the sins of those within the system, especially the leadership.
5. God will directly appoint and separate him for his office. Thus, the thrust of his service as God’s representative is direct and authoritative. By contrast, the priest’s function flowed from man to God by means of sacrifice – far less direct and more appealing and pleading than demanding. The New Testament ministry combines elements of both, but parallels the prophet’s function more than the priest’s.
Simply and broadly, a prophet is one who is given a message by another of greater authority and speaks for him to those for whom the message is intended. Thus, Moses was God’s prophet, but Aaron was Moses’ prophet.
Without a doubt, when we hear the word “prophet,” we immediately think of the Old Testament. This is a natural reaction because that is where most of them appear in the Bible. Our memory instantaneously brings forth names like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
David – all great men. However, without a doubt, the two greatest prophets of all time appear in the New Testament: John the Baptist and
Jesus Christ. John the Baptist is the last and greatest under the Old Covenant, and Jesus Christ is the first and greatest of the New.
John W. Ritenbaugh
(The Berean, September 18, 2016)
Ritenbaughs comments above did not sit too well with Almost-ordained and almost-arrested Bob Thiel. Ritenbaughs comments make Almost-ordained Thiel out to be a false prophet. That irritated Almost-arrested Thiel so much that he made this comment, referring to himself, of course:
...the reality is that most real Christians will NOT accept biblical criteria for prophets in this age.
Sadly, many people in the Church of God (COG) have trouble believing that God actually uses prophets or how He would use them today.
The Apostle Paul makes it clear that not all are prophets. Prophet is an office and prophets are to prophesy. Although the position of groups like LCG is that it has NO prophets (which is the case as I stopped attending late on 12/28/12), it should be noted that its then top leader had repeatedly taught in the past that God may consider Bob Thiel to be a prophet
Almost ordained Thiel still continues to lie that Rod Meredith called him a prophet. Meredith may have had tons of faults, but Meredith was not that naive or stupid to call Almost-arrested Thiel a prophet.
Almost ordained Thiel is so sure that he is a prophet that he has to quote Jesus where he states that prophets will be reviled and persecuted. Almost-ordained Thiel likes to pretend he is being reviled and persecuted by those of us here and by those in other COG's who laugh and mock him. Such a sad little man.
Jesus taught:
11 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)
Contrary to scripture, most end time Christians do not heed the following from the Apostle Paul:
20 Despise not prophesyings. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, KJV)
20 Do not despise prophecies. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, NKJV
Why should a Church of God member ever trust any of the false prophets of Armstrongism? Every one of them have proven to be liars, including Almost-ordained Thiel.
The Almost-ordained false prophet then precedes to make a list of 38 different items that he claims all of the other COG's are in error on. See it
here.
The lying false prophet is now dragging United Church of God into the mix. Not only does he claim LCG claimed he was a prophet, but UCG did too! He claims that LCG and UCG recognized that all 38 of his points were 100% accurate.
It should be noted that leaders in the Living Church of God and/or the United Church of God confirmed to me personally that I was biblically correct on essentially all the above points, despite the fact that their respective churches hold to several of the errors pointed out above. Those who rely too much on a compromised ministry (Ezekiel 34:7-10) to teach them prophecy that is not truly in accordance with scripture need to realize that according to Jesus’ words in Revelation 2 & 3 and Luke 21, only relatively few Christians will be protected from the hour of trial that will come upon the whole world (Revelation 3:10;
The church has had false prophets in its midst from its very inception. The Pasadena headquarters
was filled with them. Hardly a week went by when a new prophet would appear at the Hall of Ad proclaiming some absurd prophecy. Hundreds, if not thousands made their way to Pasadena over the decades. Every one of them is long gone and forgotten. Some had died, some still write silliness and publish it, and others finally hung up their prophetic glasses and got on with life, still as deluded as ever. Others like Almost-ordained Thiel and the Church Pharisee James Malm set themselves up as godly men do a "work". All they do now is toot their own horn and make idiotic predictions and then lie that they never did when confronted.
