Restored Church of God: Are You A Maggot Like Jesus?

It is Passover time in the various Armstrong Churches of God.  It is a time to face the fact you are a worthless piece of garbage in God's sight, so much so that you are nothing more than a maggot.  The church has been very good and making members believe they are unworthy, but the Restored Church of God takes it further.  You are a maggot!

Rod Meredith loved to say we are all worms and loved to reinforce that idea at Passover time.

Reading further in Psalm 22, Christ stated a comparison that can better help us understand His emotional state: “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (vs. 6).

Let these words sink in.

A worm can describe many different creatures such as microscopic grubs and 5-inch-long earthworms. Yet all of them live under man’s foot. They are disregarded by all above them, and they are subject to being stepped on and crushed.

The God-being known as the Word had lived for an eternity before His birth as a physical human being. He, under the Father’s direction, created billions of galaxies and planets. His glory was like the sun in its strength. He had limitless power. And His joy never ceased.

Christ gave that up to become a mere, fleshy human being. Yet that was still far above a worm. Recognize what it took for Him to feel like a pitiful ground crawler.

Job, too, referred to himself as a worm to describe his emotional turmoil. He stated: “I have said to corruption, You are my father: to the worm, You are my mother, and my sister” (17:14).

The Hebrew word translated “worm” in this verse is rimmah, which is defined by Strong’s Concordance as “a maggot.”

Consider that Job had just lost all of his livestock, his children and his health. He was treated maliciously by his wife, and felt rejected by God. The best way he could summarize the crushing humility was by calling himself the son of a maggot.

How utterly worthless one must feel to compare himself to a larva that crawls on dirt and eats decomposing dead matter!

Because Christ labeled Himself a worm, He gave us a way to more deeply appreciate His sacrifice.

The term “worm” referring to Christ in Psalm 22 is different than the one Job used. The Hebrew word is tola. It also refers to a maggot but specifically “the crimson grub.”

When understood, this term sheds more light on Christ’s sacrifice.

Crimson grub is a species of scaled insect called Coccus ilicis or Kermes ilicis. Unlike most other worms, they are born with legs. However, females eventually lose the use of their legs, possibly giving them their worm designation.

The tiny insect—7 millimeters in diameter at largest—is notable for its color. Brownish-red when young, they become more reddish in color when maturing. According to The Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition, when the insects reach maturity in March, they “appear full of a reddish juice resembling discolored blood.”

When the insects reach this state, they are collected and killed to extract a crimson dye. Crimson is a deep red color, with tinges of blue or purple, close to the dark color of deoxygenated blood.

In calling Himself a crimson grub, Christ described His state in two ways.

First, it represents His sacrificial body and the blood He shed for the sake of mankind (Matt. 26:28). Interestingly, the dye produced from the crimson grub was so valuable that it was used as tribute paid to conquering Roman armies. Landlords in the Middle Ages also accepted it as payment for rent. Christ’s blood is the ransom payment for our sins (Rev. 1:5).

It is this blood we symbolically drink during the Passover (I Cor. 11:25).

Second, the crimson grub comparison reveals Christ’s state of mind as He was despised and rejected by men and His Father (Luke 17:25).

The Rotten Fruit of the Armstrong Churches of God

"While ministers claim they are speaking godliness, truth, life, and hope, 

70 years of historical fact and evidence has proven it has been a 

volatile, cancerous mass of lies, deceptions, greed, and life-sucking, vampire-like, 

materialistic full-blown deception straight from the depths of the most harmful and destructive methods ever used by religion for greedy, 

unconscionably executed acts."

Over and over again, in the New Testament writings, on every occasion while talking with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus exemplified the greater elements of the Law which are activated and enabled by the Spirit of God. These attributes are defined by the Fruits of the Spirit, such as gentleness, meekness, love, temperance, patience, peace, mercy, joy, and self-control.

These have been the qualities of perfection that Jesus continually said to strive for – to bring the soul and spirit to perfection in Jesus – through the power of the Spirit. To become more like God – in love, in attributes – and less like Satan – who is defined by actions that are contrary to the fruits of God as listed above.

What the Churches of God in Armstrong did – and continue to do – is completely and totally disrespect the foundation and function of the intention of the Law of God through the highlighting of activities that do nothing whatsoever to blossom the spiritual fruits of the Spirit of God.

Sabbath keeping – as good in intention as members are to try to please God by keeping the Sabbath – fall short, for one very glaring reason. You can keep the Sabbath with complete physical compliance and completely break it by the slightest impure thought, the slightest illegal transaction – and a million other possible code violations of the Spirit. Jesus continually tried to hammer this point home to the legalistic Pharisees whenever they boasted at how they were the chosen and called ones because of their compliance to the Law. They were not. The Spirit of God calls for a higher code than Sabbath keeping.

The same exact principle is in play for Holy Day keeping (another form of Sabbath Keeping). There is absolutely no way, as good in intention as anyone possibly could be, will meet God's standard no matter how compliant one is physically. Because regardless of sunset times, work avoidance, looking at the moon, barley, or any other physical compliance of an ancient national code, these activities never touch the attitude and the fruits of the Spirit. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Whenever you focus on the things of the physical over and above the things of the Spiritual, you begin to amplify and magnify the things of the physical. It's a law that when you begin to believe you are qualifying of yourself through your actions to salvation – which is, denial or not, what each of us believed – the negative spiritual fruits begin to take root. The chief of which is pride, which grows in conjunction and parallel with works. Once pride begins to take root, every other negative fruits of the physical begin to also take root – one of the biggest of which is judging (condemned by Jesus). This happens every time, over and over again, without fail. The pride of works also brings a certain arrogance that works against the Spirit's commands of love and understanding – facilitating the very hubris that leads to the self-righteous indignation that promotes the hatred, bigotry, and intolerance of the most religious and pious of professing Christians.

Of itself, Sabbath and Holy Keeping – without the revelation of faith and love – served a wonderful purpose. It promoted a system of order. It signaled a coming change from being cut off from God to being at one with God. It served a purpose of foreshadowing a time when humanity can be reconciled and at one with God, fully indwelt with his Spirit through Christ in His Rest. Yet those who were commanded to keep the Sabbath and the Law of Moses were absolutely not aware of the realities that had not yet been revealed. They couldn't be. Yet they were being made ready for such a time to come through and after Christ fulfilled all that the Sabbath, Holy Days, and the Law foreshadowed.

After the higher order was revealed – the things of faith, hope, and love – the New Covenant, and the revealing of Jesus Christ, and the reconciliation of God to Man – the book and the ways of God were then made known to man. These are the ways as taught in the entirety of the New Testament. These ways include the Beatitudes. Servitude. Kindness. Compassion. Being merciful. Giving. And the new commandment that Jesus gave to all man – to love one another.

What the Church did – what Armstrong did – and what leaders of Armstrong splinters do – constantly – is magnify the physical, and thereby the fruits of the physical, which, in itself, shuts off the very substance of faith, hope and love that was revealed in Christ. What the Church and Armstrong and Splinter leaders do is promote a system which is based on the magnification and promotion of sin, all while claiming it is godly (while the fruits thereof are entirely and purely wicked.)

While Armstrong claimed godly fruits, he was issuing false prophecies, lies, and speculations. While Armstrong claimed godly fruits, he was abusive in many ways, raging, dis-temperate, scandalous, greedy, impatient, and worldly. This is the same with many other Armstrong ministers, which lead to scandal, drama, crime, and intrigue. These very fruits of wickedness led to cover-ups of actions of wickedness, which defined the culture of the church from the inside and out.

While other splinter ministers followed the same formula as Armstrong, the exact same physical fruits of wickedness have borne dark fruit: Greed, materialism, spiritual extortion, crime, abuse, lies, and false teaching. It has happened before, it is happening now, and as long as the same wicked and satanic formula is being used, the same will continue to happen. Because while physical laws are being exemplified by the Armstrong Churches of God, spiritual laws are concurrently being violated, leading to an infiltration of wickedness and evil, all claiming to be godly when it is satanic. It is a masterful, cunning, slick deception to volatile, well-meaning members who are being slowly assimilated into the fold of darkness.

This cancer of Armstrongism – this drug of spiritual wickedness that has formed so many addicts – entraps members into actually enabling, supporting, and being an accessory to the very wickedness that the so-called “ministers” use as their fuel to rob, steal, and destroy. Members begin to lose all sense of rationality – blindly trusting in the untrustable, blindly following the blind, and obeying those who should never be given the time of day, or listened to. All of which is blatantly oxidized by pure, brilliant, paralyzing, and hypnotizing fear.

While ministers claim they are speaking godliness, truth, life, and hope, 70 years of historical fact and evidence has proven it has been a volatile, cancerous mass of lies, deceptions, greed, and life-sucking, vampire-like, materialistic full-blown deception straight from the depths of the most harmful and destructive methods ever used by religion for greedy, unconscionably executed acts. Those trapped in the system become deaf, blind, mute, and desensitived to the harm, instead, steadfastly supporting the very evil they claim to abhor, following the ministry of death in favor of the law of the Spirit.

This is the legacy of Armstrongism. It is never found in a wicked power system which favors the powerful and craps on the peasants. It is never found in a system that has been proven as archaic, destructive, and obsolete. It is never found in a system which has a historical record of lies and deceit, while claiming to be Godly. It is never found in a system of oppression, isolation, and dissapointment.

Armstrongism is a destructive, deceptive, satanic cult which has hid itself as a ministry of light. Though some have made the best of a tragic situation, it does not change Armstrongism for what it is, and has been, and will continue to be, as proven by factual evidence of truth. And once one looks to truth and fact – and focuses on the things of God and not of the physical – blinders can be lifted. Materialism can be a very addictive drug. And Armstrongism was a powerful overdose of materialistic human nature, which some still defend to this day as righteousness. May sanity prevail in those still addicted to the powerful drug of Armstrongism, and the road to rehabilitation be available to those consumed by it's destructive nature.

courtesy of SHT

Is St. Patrick's Day a Christian Holiday?

There are those who will dismiss this holiday as a relic of our pagan or Roman Catholic past. They will also point to the drinking and partying associated with it as further evidence that the day should not be acknowledged or celebrated by "true" Christians. They will label St. Patrick's Day as a "tradition of men" that should be avoided by those who are truly seeking to please God.

Are they right? Should Christians ignore this holiday? Should a "true" Christian's only notice of this holiday be to condemn it?

Historically, Europeans celebrated the anniversary of someone's death rather than the anniversary of their birth. Hence, it is no great wonder that the day associated with Patrick's death would eventually serve to honor this remarkable man.

Moreover, to associate Patrick with either paganism or the Roman Catholic Church is inconsistent with what we know about him and the times in which he lived. Although it is difficult to separate fact from legend at this late date, the available evidence suggests that Patrick was an ardent foe of paganism, and that his ministry predated the consolidation of the Roman Church's power over European Christianity. In other words, it would be anachronistic to suggest that Patrick was Pagan or Roman Catholic.

Consider these quotes from St. Patrick's Confession:

"My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep his commandments. We would not listen to our priests, who advised us about how we could be saved. The Lord brought his strong anger upon us, and scattered us among many nations even to the ends of the earth. It was among foreigners that it was seen how little I was."

"This is because there is no other God, nor will there ever be, nor was there ever, except God the Father. He is the one who was not begotten, the one without a beginning, the one from whom all beginnings come, the one who holds all things in being – this is our teaching. And his son, Jesus Christ, whom we testify has always been, since before the beginning of this age, with the father in a spiritual way. He was begotten in an indescribable way before every beginning. Everything we can see, and everything beyond our sight, was made through him. He became a human being; and, having overcome death, was welcomed to the heavens to the Father. The Father gave him all power over every being, both heavenly and earthly and beneath the earth. Let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ, in whom we believe and whom we await to come back to us in the near future, is Lord and God. He is judge of the living and of the dead; he rewards every person according to their deeds. He has generously poured on us the Holy Spirit, the gift and promise of immortality, who makes believers and those who listen to be children of God and co-heirs with Christ. This is the one we acknowledge and adore – one God in a trinity of the sacred name."

"So I’ll never stop giving thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the time of my temptation. I can today with confidence offer my soul to Christ my Lord as a living victim. He is the one who defended me in all my difficulties. I can say: Who am I, Lord, or what is my calling, that you have worked with me with such divine presence? This is how I come to praise and magnify your name among the nations all the time, wherever I am, not only in good times but in the difficult times too. Whatever comes about for me, good or bad, I ought to accept them equally and give thanks to God. He has shown me that I can put my faith in him without wavering and without end. However ignorant I am, he has heard me, so that in these late days I can dare to undertake such a holy and wonderful work. In this way I can imitate somewhat those whom the Lord foretold would announce his gospel in witness to all nations before the end of the world. This is what we see has been fulfilled. Look at us: we are witnesses that the gospel has been preached right out to where there is nobody else there!"

"I pray for those who believe in and have reverence for God. Some of them may happen to inspect or come upon this writing which Patrick, a sinner without learning, wrote in Ireland. May none of them ever say that whatever little I did or made known to please God was done through ignorance. Instead, you can judge and believe in all truth that it was a gift of God. This is my confession before I die."

** The above quotations (and the full text of Patrick's Confession) can be found at: St Patrick's Confessio

After reading these things, I know that there are a few folks who will zero in on Patrick's references to the trinity (or some other minor point that does not comport with their stance on doctrine); but he/she would be hard-pressed to deny that Patrick was anything other than a devoted Christian missionary. Indeed, it seems to this blogger that anyone who would condemn Patrick for such "errors" must also condemn many generations of Christians who held similar beliefs (which for anyone of European descent would include almost all of their ancestors).

Think about it folks! Patrick is not going to be in the first resurrection because some of his beliefs were flawed? What have you got wrong? Is that going to keep you out of the first resurrection?

If you can't see that Patrick's life and legend is worthy of celebration, then I feel sorry for you! And to any Christian with a drop of Irish blood in your veins, what's wrong with celebrating the introduction of Christianity into Ireland? Sadly, for some, however, it's not about faith in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice, it's about something else - it's about whether or not you've accepted their "truth."

Article by Miller Jones