The Rick Caldwell Show - Exploring Armstrongism and Anglo Israelism

 

Ron Weinland (COG Felon) Release "New" Book: "When the Countdown Ends"

 

Never in the history of the Armstrongite version of the Church of God has there been a convicted felon masquerading as a prophet to the church and the world. This is the Church of God however and nothing should surprise us. Weinland has "published" a "new" book that looks like he finished in 2019.

This book is being written for that very purpose—to help as many as possible who will accept help. To accept such help means that one will have to openly and honestly evaluate what is written and not prejudge it harshly or rashly. 

 

Three books have been written previous to this one, the first in 2005, and all have had the same motive: to inform, warn, and to exert every effort to try to help people become more fully prepared for what is coming. 

 

A couple years after that first book, it was learned that there are actual timelines and prophetic segments of time that one can observe in order to zero in on specific events that are leading up to WWIII. Although it will be covered in detail later in this book, there is a prophetic countdown to WWIII that began on December 17, 1994. 

 

Several prophetic segments of time have already been completed that fit perfectly into this countdown where important prophetic events have already been fulfilled. We are nearing the last possible segments of time that can fit into that countdown. 

 

These prophetic segments and actual dates in which they fall can be calculated. Although we do not know which specific segment is the last one that leads directly into WWIII, God has nevertheless given us the ability to know these specific markers in time for when this can take place. It is by this means that we have the ability to keep watch for when this last timeline of the countdown can begin so that we can be properly prepared. 

 

Now, since that time, even far greater understanding and clarity has been learned about that countdown, including prophetic events that can be identified along with the actions of key nations, all of which are increasingly becoming fulfilled. As you read about these times, events, acting participants and nations, you may experience a measure of fear.

Whenever you hear a self-appointed prophet to the Church of God claiming he has greater clarity and understanding of prophecy then you should automatically run for the door. In the Church of God whenever one of these guys says this they end up being liars. It doesn't matter if it is Ron Weinland, Dave Pack, or Bob Thiel. They are all liars.

And as for this:

As you read about these times, events, acting participants and nations, you may experience a measure of fear.

All anyone can do is laugh at this. There is NOTHING that a self-appointed prophet in the Church of God can say that can lead one to experience true fear.

If God exists, then there can only be one truth that comes from God. That shouldn’t be a hard concept to acknowledge. The reason for stressing the consideration of whether or not God exists is because if someone does not believe that, then there really is no purpose in discussing the distinct possibility that God has been increasingly unveiling a clear roadmap to the end of this age and a quickly approaching WWIII.

Do not expect any COG leader or self-appointed prophet to unveil a clear roadmap for the end of this age. None of them have ever told the truth so why believe them now? 

Like every COG prophet before him and those around him today, he adds this disclaimer when people reject him:

If someone rejects what is true upon being challenged like this, then that will be their choice anyway and there is no point in trying to dissuade them. They will believe what they want regardless of what can be proven. As it was stated earlier, “People tend to want their own truth.”

How dare people reject the lies of COG prophets! How dare they! 

The content of what follows concerning this countdown to WWIII and Christ’s coming cannot be properly written without including what I have been shown by God that I am to say. The bottom line is that I have been given a commission—a job to do—that is from God.

Ron Weinland no more has a commission that Bob Thiel does. God had nothing to do with either one of them. 

Candidly, I cannot help but be reminded of the prophet Jonah who tried to escape having to tell Nineveh what God told him to say about their destruction. I am not Jonah, but what I am to inform others concerning the writing of this book is that I am a prophet of God and have been sent by Him to do this job. In addition, I am the last apostle for the Church of God in this final age of mankind.

I thought Bob Thiel was the last true prophet to the church? Why does god need so many self-appointed prophets?

So from this point forward, there will be things that I will state as a prophet and an apostle that have to do with those things that God has revealed to me to give. I am not as one of the prophets of old who were given prophecies that were given for the purpose of being recorded as scripture. Instead, I am one who has been given to interpret many of those prophecies that apply to this end-time about those things that are now going to come to pass.

He ends his last chapter with this:

This book is entitled When the Countdown Ends. It has been stated repeatedly that there is a countdown leading up to WWIII and Christ’s return. It is my strongest belief that the count of prophetic 1,260-day periods has been completed and that countdown has ended, which was on the Pentecost of 2019. 

 

However, that does not mean that WWIII or Christ’s return had to happen on that day. It should be obvious that there is still a prophetic countdown that will one day be revealed that led right up to Christ’s coming. How is that? It is by the knowledge that Christ will return on a Pentecost, but God has not revealed on what Pentecost that will be. So God’s Church will continue to watch for any new prophetic markers and inform everyone of those as soon as they are revealed if there is time and ability to do so. 

 

What God has revealed is that the end-time countdown that led up to its complete prophetic fulfillment on the Pentecost of 2019 has been accomplished. All of this cries out that WWIII is at our doorstep and there is not much time to prepare. When the Countdown Ends

Being the lazy prophet he is, he has ended his timeline on Pentecost 2019. All things are completed and now the numbering of the 144,00 needs to happen and then JC just needs to return in fury to spank all the people who did not listen to him. It is now rapidly approaching 2022 and the felon will be still preaching from his basement in Ohio recalculating his predictions.

Weinland will be just like Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, and the other self-appointed prophets to the church when they have claim God has delayed his return once again due to the church not being ready or God was waiting to reveal new knowledge to his servants.

Liars all.

What Did You Sign Up For? – Part 1

 

What Did You Sign Up For? – Part 1

A Review of Herman Hoeh’s “Which Old Testament Laws Should We Keep Today?” 

By Neo

This is a review of an article written by Herman Hoeh titled “Which Old Testament Laws Should We Keep Today.”   The copy of the article that I will be reviewing is dated 1971.  I have found no subsequent revisions.  This document represents the vetted Armstrongist statement on this topic.  It was written by Herman Hoeh under the aegis of Herbert W. Armstrong, regarded as an Apostle by the dispersed Armstrongist organizations.  Followers of Apostle Herbert W. Armstrong cannot abrogate or revise his words or words he approved just as they cannot abrogate or revise the words of the Apostle Paul.  So there is no need to review the writings of organizations derived from the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) on this topic.  Any writing with standing in the Armstrongist theological and Apostolic tradition will be compatible with Hoeh’s article. Any article published by a denomination derived from the WCG that conflicts with this article will be a renunciation of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Apostleship.

Two Models of Biblical Jurisprudence

Hoeh emphasized the importance of this topic.  He stated in the article “Everyone needs to understand in detail the answer to this question.  Christian growth – ones very character – depends on understanding the answer to this question.”  This analysis will begin by defining two models that provide a means of comparing the Hoehist view of the law with the Christian view.  

Model 1:  The Hoehist Model

1.     The Old Testament litigation (OT) contains God’s spiritual law from the beginning.  

Hoeh’s statement: “First, remember that God’s basic spiritual laws existed from the beginning. . . God will not alter his spiritual laws. The spiritual laws describe the very character of God.  They enable us to know what God is like.”  

2.     Parts of the litigation in the Old Testament are still in force.  

Hoeh wrote: “’Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel (Mal 4:4).’ This law we are not to forget.  We are to keep it.”

3.     The New Testament (NT) is a spiritual enhancement of the Old Testament.  

Hoeh wrote: “The purpose of Christ’s teachings in the “Sermon on the Mount” was to magnify the Old Testament law, not annul it.”

Model 2: A Common Christian Model

1.     God has an eternal law by which he lives.  He is not subject to an external law but he is a law unto himself (sibi ipse ex). 

2.     The Old Testament litigation is an instantiation of the eternal law adapted for use by the ancient nation of Israel.  The Old Testament is derived from 1 above and, therefore, in part resembles 3 below. 

3.     The New Testament litigation is an instantiation of the eternal law adapted for use by all of mankind under Christianity.   The New Testament is derived from 1 above and, therefore, in part resembles 2 above.

The Eternal Law

During the Middle Ages there was a controversy in the church about God’s relationship to law.  This was known as the Ex Lex Debate.  Some concluded that God was subject (sub legi) to some kind of law.  But this seemed to make this law superior to God.  This debate was resolved with the conclusion that God is sibi ipse ex, a law unto himself.  This eternal law was defined by Thomas Aquinas as follows:

“By “Eternal Law’” Aquinas means God’s rational purpose and plan for all things. And because the Eternal Law is part of God’s mind then it has always, and will always, exist. The Eternal Law is not simply something that God decided at some point to write (“Ethics for A-level”, Max Dimmock, Andrew Fisher).”

It is not clear what Hoeh meant in the term “from the beginning” in his description of the essential spiritual law in point 1 of his model.  One might conclude from this that he is referring to the creation of the universe or the creation of Adam.  But his statement, “The spiritual laws describe the very character of God” places this law in the category of the eternal law in the Christian model because God’s character is eternal.  And in this Hoeh departs from orthodoxy.  

The Old Testament Litigation was Implemented for Humans

Strategically, Hoeh has positioned the Old Testament litigation as the Eternal Law in his model.   This seems to lock the Old Testament litigation into place and would prevent it from ever being superseded.   Note that he states explicitly, “God will not alter his spiritual laws.”  This sets up his later argument that the New Testament does not replace the Old Testament but extends it spiritually.   But the Old Testament litigation is clearly an adaptation for human beings.  It speaks of the seventh day, stealing, coveting, lying and adultery.  These are human, earth bound activities and concepts. In the depths of timelessness, why would God have, as a part of his essence, a law against adultery when human sexuality had not yet been created?  Why would we think that any temporary human concerns and attributes would be a part of his essential eternal law?  

The OT and NT are both adaptations of the eternal law to human conditions as the Christian model indicates. The OT and NT are based on the eternal law but they are not the eternal law itself.  The eternal law is intelligible to us in some of its features because we are made in the image of God.  God can instantiate other laws as needed.  Perhaps, there are laws that pertain to angels that we would not even understand.  God can also modify or revoke this litigation.  That the OT is based on human circumstances and is not in the category of the eternal law is so self-evident that it cannot be denied by the rational mind. 

The Ten Commandments will always exist as long as humans exist.  They are meant for humans.  When humans cease to exist as humans through resurrection, we cannot really expect these laws to continue.  This clearly marks them as a special implementation of the eternal law not the law itself which will never go away.  But there will be other laws for resurrected human beings.  No doubt this litigation will have points in common with both the NT and OT because they are derived from a common source, God’s Eternal Law that reflects God himself.  

Did God Have a Foreskin?

Did you sign up to observe the OT litigation?  You are responsible for keeping the statutes, judgments, ordinances and laws in the OT according to Herman Hoeh.   These are a part of God’s spiritual law which God will not alter.  Although circumcision was implemented through an Abrahamic Covenant, it was later incorporated into the OT litigation and conveyed by Moses to Israel (Leviticus 12: 1-2).  (A question to pose here is if circumcision is a part of God’s unalterable spiritual law, why did God alter it by making it spiritual in the NT?  Apparently OT laws can be altered contrary to Hoeh’s assertion.)

Why would God make circumcision a part of his spiritual law that describes the very character of God from eternity as Hoeh claimed?    Does God, in his essence, have a foreskin?  The inclusion of circumcision in the Mosaic Law would suggest so.  Hoeh states, “They (spiritual laws) enable us to know what God is like.”  Here we collide with another troublesome area in Armstrongist theology concerning the Doctrine of God.  The idea that God’s eternal law would include circumcision comports with the mistaken Armstrongist idea that God in his essence has a body.  This means he would have always had a body, was always male and always had a foreskin in his essential being and circumcision would then have some kind of meaning.   And the claim that the OT litigation is God’s eternal spiritual law exalts the OT to eternal, essential divine status and at the same to demotes God to a human-like bodily state.  We understand circumcision to have been transformed into a spiritual condition under the NT but its inclusion in the part of the Mosaic Law to be kept leads one to a review of other eternal laws that one may have signed up to keep without being aware of it. 

Coda - Part 1

The OT litigation, including the Ten Commandments, started within the created human sphere and will end within that sphere.  Hoeh missed the boat.  He did not understand that the OT was an instantiation of a higher divine law that reflects the nature of God himself.  He mistakenly set up the human-oriented OT litigation as this Eternal Law and then proclaimed it inviolate and slid chunks of it into his formulation of the New Testament.  If Hoeh made this kind of mistake, what are you really signed up for?  But that is a topic that I will continue to examine in Part 2.