For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills.
Ken Ham
Overview
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Order Your New Shoes For Petra!
Place your order soon and you can be the first to have your favorite quote of Herbert Armstrong branded into the leather of the shoe!
What better way to take the gospel of Herbert Armstrong into all the world!
Wimpy Jesus quotes not allowed.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Why are you paying 30% of your income to spiritual con-men?
Hiring someone to be your spiritual mentor is a very big deal. After all, you are trusting this person to guide you in the right direction in life. You ask them for counsel, advice, you attend their meetings on a weekly basis. You take every effort to ensure that they are qualified, and that they are who they say they are.
After all, this is your life we are talking about. Not just your life, but the lives of your wife or husband, kids - your whole family. The advice and teachings that this person (or persons) gives can affect every single aspect of your life - depending on just how much trust and how much weight of influence that you give this person. The responsibility of exactly how much weight that you give this person (or persons) is one hundred percent your responsibility, because you are responsible (as is your spouse) for the well-being and care of your family first in every area. This includes physical care, emotional care, well being, mental health care, needs care, and overall general life care. You hire this individual (or individuals) as a service to better your lives in the physical and in the spiritual, believing first and foremost that they are exactly who they say that they are.
Some may take offense by my use of the word "Hire", but in reality, that's just about exactly what you're doing when it comes to selecting a church or pastor. You might hire a babysitter, or a cleaning service. You might even hire a butler or a personal servant, or hired help as a financial or personal manager as a true hire - but you aren't even going to think about paying one of these sorts of hired help anywhere near 10, 20 or as much as 30% of your gross income for these tasks. In this specific group of people associated with the Churches of God as founded by Herbert Armstrong - that's the minimum of what you are paying these people for their services.
In return for a full nearly one third of your income each year - if you make $100,000 a year, that's $30,000 a year - the amount you would pay in full for a decent new car every single year, think about that - or if you make $50,000 a year, that's $5,000 a year - the amount you'd pay for a used car for your son or daughter - you would think you would have expectations for a positive return, wouldn't you? Why, for that amount of money - probably the highest pay you'd ever give anyone for a service, EVER - they'd better be worth the hire.
In the Armstrong Churches of God, however, what kind of servants are many of the ministers of this Church that you've hired as your spiritual advisors?How would you rate them?
Let's put this another way. If you hired a babysitter for your child at a rate of 30% of your annual income, and that babysitter came into your house, and lied to you, talked down to you, belittled your children, claimed that they are in charge and you have nothing to say, and no input whatsoever, took over your household, commandeered your authority as the parent, and completely took over your life - what would you do? Well, first, I am sure that you would never, ever allow that to happen - that's ridiculous you would say. You'd never let someone who doesn't have that kind of authority assert such a claim of authority in your house. That's preposterous! Completely ridiculous.
The problem is - that's almost exactly what has happened with those who claim to be ministers of God in the Churches of God founded by Armstrong. Without qualification, on a bedrock of lies, deceit, and abuse - they have convinced you that they are the ultimate authority of your family, and not you - claiming divine right and calling while you pay them the highest rate for a service with little to no real return. And because they claim to have divine right, they claim bad things will happen to you if you do not do what they say or listen to them - and also use that power to control what others around you do in regards to their relationships with you and your family. This is what makes Armstrongism ministers so dangerous - the power that they convince those they "serve" that they have. In reality, you are paying them the highest possible fee for them to completely control and take over your family while they reap all the financial benefit and feed their unlimited pride and ego with absolutely unauthorized and abusive power that they have never had in the first place.
How do we know that we know that they have never had this power in the first place from the God that they claim that they serve? We KNOW that that is the case because of the scale of historical truth. We can know when they say something is going to happen in God's name - and it does not - that they are wrong and are not of God. We can know when they give advice that you follow in God's name and it turns out destructive or illogical or completely unreasonable - that they are wrong and are not of God. We can know if they are behaving in ways contrary to the fruits of the Spirit that they are not of the Spirit and have not been sent by God. We can know if they have been made aware or caught in illegal or immoral activity as many of them have without removing themselves from their position and without remorse or repentance that they are not of God. We know these things by measuring their claims against truth.
Yet what have they done when the truth has come out against them? They lie. They deceive. They redact. They explain away. They delay. They claim they did not say what they said. They spiritualize it all away. Then, when you show them what truth is, they turn it on you - saying you are the attitude, that you do not get it, and they use guilt, fear, threats, shame, lies, and any deceitful and cunning tactic under the sun to convince you that you are the problem and not them - all while pretending to serve you while taking the highest pay of any hire you could make of a servant - 30 percent of your income. And you say "yes, sir", and slink away, taking your seat, week after week, while your family and you yourself suffer under their umbrella of shackles and chains while they reap the benefits of your labor.
Let's call it what it really is. It's a con job, and if this sounds like something that sounds familiar in your life, and you believe you've been roped in by these slick, cunning, deceptive con-men - it is time for you to step up, take the reins of your family, and fire your so-called "spiritual help" and take back the control of your family that is rightfully yours. It is time for you to end the tyranny, to end the abuse, to end the illegal control and the spiritual extortion that these men have laid over you in God's name while the truth calls them out for what they are - liars, deceivers, thieves and destroyers. It is time for you to take your family back from the con and bring them to Jesus Christ.
"But where else am I going to go? What about my friends? I'm going to lose everyone I ever knew, they won't talk to me." It's a huge life change. It's hard. I know. It's difficult, I know. I've been through it, and I've lived through it. It's not an easy road. But let me tell you this - it's a better road now then if I had stayed on the road I was on for decades and decades to come - with the same lies, the same deception, the same carrot at the end of the stick. Is it really worth the tens of thousands of dollars you're giving them for twenty more years of absolute crap from men of evil? That's your call. That's your decision. That's between you and your God. The decision is hard all the way around. It's up to you in your situation to weigh the balance and to count the cost - and to see truth for truth, lies for lies, penny for penny - through the eyes, heart, mind, and the love of Jesus Christ for you and your family. No one can make that decision for you but you - and Christ, who lives in you, if you believe in Him.
Regardless of what any con-man has told you - Jesus Christ loves you, and wants the best for you and your family. He has dies so you may live, and have life. Jesus said HE is the Way and the Truth and the Life. Jesus said He will never leave you nor forsake you. Jesus wants you to talk to Him and His Father about any concerns you have. More than anything, He wants a relationship with you - a relationship that no man should ever try to get between, or usurp, or deny. Talk to Him tonight. And listen to Him. He (not I, not any so-called minister, not anybody) who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.
In the book of Jeremiah God said "For I know the plans I have for you, saith the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11) How much more in this, the age of reconciliation to God through the power of the Spirit?
It's time to talk to God and to stop listening to con-men.
You're paying 30% of your income for a spiritual con-man? I fired their lying butts decades ago, and I'm free of their absolute bull. You can be too. Talk to God. He'll speak.
And HE will break the chains and the strongholds as only He can.
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