On Exit and Support Network yesterday there was s letter from a person detailing a sermon Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God gave recently about how awesome his "college" is. After detailing many points of Flurry's sermon, the author has this:
If the WCG was “the Work of the Living Creator, God” as HWA so often said and God was “opening new doors in television and in the PLAIN TRUTH distribution,” why was Satan seemingly more powerful than God? Why was Satan able to overthrow everything after HWA died? If we’re honest, we have to admit that GF is not doing a work like HWA did.
I have been saying the same thing here for quite some time now that the most powerful entity in the Church of God movement is Satan himself. Not God the Father as so many claim to follow, but Satan, Lucifer, the devil, or whatever else you want to call it. At every instance and chapter in the so-called work, the devil is wreaking havoc and thwarting God's plan. The God of Armstrongism is unable or totally incompetent to stop the great adversary.
How could the “lamp start to go out” if God was behind His “Work”? Wasn’t God powerful enough to stop it? Isn’t God more powerful than Satan?
The excuse is that the god of Armstrognism gave the devil free reign to "test" the true believers. Our entire earthly life is a test by God to see if we are worthy of just the slightest bit of mercy. Apparently, the church has been inept of ever winning that test and is in a constant state of disarray because of that ineptness. In Armstrongism, God the Father is constantly being one-upped by Satan.
We can see how decades after HWA first started writing these co-worker letters that GF’s words attempt to pattern HWA’s words in many places. Every co-worker letter of HWA’s was a begging for money and for readers to “send the largest offering possible” because “time was short” or “time was running out.”
Never in the modern-day history of the Church of God have the members ever been able to do anything right. Every single issue in the church stemmed from problems with the membership. Even when Loma Armstrong had an obstructed colon it was the fault of the church members. Members so sinful that they had to kneel in church services that week and BEG God to heal her. When she died it was the member's fault.
When income dropped it was the member's fault that their support of the church was lacking in faith and thus the church has to suffer and be persecuted.
The only thing GF can’t do is copy HWA’s charisma and style of writing. GF will never measure up to HWA. He will never be a second Herbert Armstrong, no matter how much he yearns to be. This does not mean that HWA was not a con artist, or was not a compulsive, psychological liar. He was, and a very good one at that. But GF is no more carrying on “God’s work” than other splinters who came along and say they are doing the same thing.
There is not one single COG leader today that will ever capture HWA's charisma or writing style. Not one single one of them, including Bob Thiel, will EVER be able to do mighty work. It will never happen, no matter how much they currently lie to their followers that they are doing that now.
Let’s face it. GF is an abysmal failure. He is carrying on a con, but not quite as effective of a con as HWA had going. He is losing members more as time goes on and he is not able to draw in the numbers HWA did due no doubt to the extensive exposure on the Internet today. All he can do is limp along, holding the few deceived members he has under his spell by claiming to be a Prophet, and appropriating many other titles, plus throwing out new revelations every so often like a carrot on a stick. That and his “important” work in Jerusalem.
Every COG leader today is leading a con job on their members. Jesus is dismissed and shoved to the background, except when it is convenient to drag him out as a pissed-off god who is just waiting to come down and fry the sorry asses of ex-members and the world, or who has to begrudgingly forgive sins on Passover night.
It’s time to realize how we have been taken for a long bumpy ride and it’s time to get off this gravy train and see things for what they truly are. GF’s downfall may be delayed but it is certain to come. –S. O.
In Armstrongism, Satan is always angry, God the Father is always angry, Jesus is always angry, and the spirit is always vexed. All seemingly impotent in the presence of Satan.
Instead of following a Christ who sits on the bank by the side of the river with people restoring their souls, where they never have to be fearful again, where justice, mercy, and grace flow like sacred anointing oil over their forehead, instead COG members are instead subjected to the darkness of the souls of the present leaders.
