Joel Hilliker from the Philadelphia Church of God cannot stand people who complain, or at least that is what he wants to make you think you are doing. For anyone who dares to question, it is thrown back in their face that they are complainers. Nothing infuriates a Church of God leader more than to be questioned or have someone complain about them.
Lil'Joel writes:
Are you a complainer? If so, you have company.
Our predecessors, the ancient Israelites, were masters at murmuring. Remember, God was personally, directly guiding their lives. He sent Moses to liberate them from soul-crushing slavery. He wrought miraculous plagues, delivered freedom, parted the sea, destroyed the pursuing army, and led the way in a supernatural pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.
But when the water supply ran low after three days, what happened? (Exodus 15:24). And when they were wearied from their travel a few days later? And when they ran low on water again? And when they craved meat? (Exodus 16:2-3; 17:2-3). And when they were staging to enter the Promised Land itself? There, under the cloud of God’s presence, eating miraculous manna from heaven, even overlooking the Promised Land, “the people were as complainers” (Numbers 11:1; Companion Bible).
What was the reaction of the God who was giving them all these blessings? He told Moses, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me” (Numbers 14:27).
The spies who had scouted the Promised Land doubted God, slandered the land, and “made all the congregation to murmur against him” (verse 36). Their murmuring depressed the morale of the whole nation, and an entire generation missed the opportunity to enter the land God was presenting them. What a tragedy!
That same God is working in your life. Do you murmur against Him?In order to keep its members under control, and to never question the ministry or Gerald himself, it is important to make sure they think they are murmuring against God when they dare complain.
In 1 Corinthians 10:10, New Testament Christians are warned, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.” Those Israelites died physically, but Christians are in danger of being destroyed by Satan, spiritually!Christians have the responsibility to hold their leaders responsible when they become abusive and actively destroy members' lives, both spiritually and mentally.
Murmuring is often subtle and half-suppressed, but it is always muttered with discontent and hostility. And it is embarrassingly common.It is common in the Church of God because of the many debased leaders it currently has destroying lives and stealing members money for their own grandiose schemes.
As in Old Testament Israel, living God’s way in the New Testament Church requires waiting, enduring, suffering and correction. You sometimes run low on resources. You sometimes miss the things you had to give up. You sometimes don’t know what lies ahead. And it is so tempting and so easy to quietly complain or ungratefully grumble.No Church of God member EVER needs to suffer because of degenerate leadership. This is just a sick excuse that abusive ministers in the church scare their members with.
But God hears. And He considers that criticism not truly against the minister who instructed or corrected you, or that policy that inconvenienced you, but against Him! (Exodus 16:7-8). Realizing this should stop us in our tracks.This is not true at all. This thinking is a sick result of the "government" doctrine that some of the COG's use to control members.
God commands us, “Do all things without murmurings [complaining] and disputings [arguing]” (Philippians 2:14).If a minister was actually doing what Jesus taught and practiced grace and mercy in all aspects of his or her ministry then there is seldom room for complaining.
Murmuring is a leaven: It spreads—within you and to others. It discourages families and congregations as readily as it did ancient Israel. It demoralizes and endangers your spiritual fellow soldiers.
In spiritual war, we need high morale. “If you really have the spirit God wants you to have, the high morale, you are going to win three battles where you would normally win one,” Gerald Flurry writes (How to Be an Overcomer).The only spiritual war going on in the church right now is due to the abusive ministry and the sick doctrines and teachings they are imprisoning members with.
Replace the leaven of murmuring with the unleavened attitude of “[g]iving thanks always for all things” (Ephesians 5:20). “[B]e content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never fail you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5; Revised Standard Version). Be like Paul, who said, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11).So, let's get this straight. Members are to rejoice and give thanks for the PCG forcing them to abandon family and friends. They need to give thanks for being bled financially dry to fund a private jet for the exclusive use of the Flurry family and to fund a money-draining concert series and for having to live lives in poverty. Let's all be content doing that.
Yes, sometimes we suffer. But this must drive us not away from God but closer to Him, His ministers and His Family, with an attitude not of complaining or accusation, but gratefulness and humble supplication. As with the Israelites, God will put us through trials, but He also will miraculously deliver us out of them all!God is not producing the trials that COG embers are suffering under when they follow Flurry, Pack, Weinland, Theil, Malm, and many of the other despots. These sick men are causing the trials, not God.
Don’t make a trial worse by succumbing to murmuring. When someone else with drooping morale murmurs to you, seek to energize that fellow soldier. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2); “[S]o labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Respond with positivity toward God, His government and His Family.The only thing members need to do is to encourage one another to LEAVE these sick men and their personality cult empires. If they truly love and bear each other burdens, they will walk together and walk out of these churches.
Shine the light of a godly attitude to the Church and to the world by focusing on the joy of living God’s way, by God’s law under God’s government. In John’s Gospel—The Love of God, Mr. Flurry writes, “[T]oday, we should shine with a certain glory. Our faces should shine with happiness! Isaiah 3:9 describes how, because of Israel’s sins, ‘The shew of their countenance doth witness against them ….’ Look around, and you see many unhappy people in this world—people in the bonds of sin. We in God’s Church should radiate something entirely different! I believe that, in a general way, we may be able to determine how much star quality and brightness we will have in the future by how much our face shines today in happiness and joy. God wants to make you happy. He has commanded that you be happy! And He has instructed us in exactly how to achieve that: ‘If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.’ Conducting your life God’s way makes you happy!”Living God's way is living in grace, surrounded by justice, mercy, and love. Four things that none of these church leaders understands or practices.
Avoid murmuring, and keep morale high in spiritual Israel. Follow this command of God, and your future will be bright.Church of God members, especially those in the Philadelphia Church of God and Restored Church of God will only have a bright future once they leave. It will NEVER happen while remaining as a member.
