5 Reasons COGs Are Not ‘Christian’

Pantheon of gods

5 Reasons COGs Are Not ‘Christian’

By The COG Catholic

Wild-eyed Christian enthusiasts are quick to blast others who disagree with them as not being Christian.

A word of advice: If Christians have differing views on…

·   how predestination and God’s omniscience works with our free will, or

·   whether God created the world in seven literal 24-hour days, or

·   what precisely the two goats of Leviticus 16 foreshadow,

it’s generally not wise to accuse them of being anti-Christ.

But neither should we make the mistake of thinking beliefs don’t matter. Some make a world of difference.

What about COGs?

Can we apply the label “Christian” to the various COGs in the Armstrong tradition, such as the United Church of God (UCG); Church of God, a Worldwide Association (COGWA); Church of God International (CGI); Intercontinental Church of God (ICG); and all the rest?

We surely agree that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (think Mormons) and The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (think Jehovah’s Witnesses) are not Christian. We don’t say that to insult any adherents of their respective religions. It’s just an honest assessment of their theology, of how they view God—especially in the Person of Jesus Christ.

We have to judge honestly the theology of Armstrong COGs in the same way. While many of their believers may be sincere and decent people, here are five commonly held COG beliefs that lead me—a former COG believer—to objectively conclude these organizations cannot be properly called “Christian”:

1. There are two Gods.

2. Jesus was no longer God when he became man.

3. Jesus could have sinned.

4. The Creator ceased to exist.

5. Jesus’ body was not resurrected.

1. There are two Gods

This is a big one. Most COGs are quite comfortable saying outright that there are “two God Beings.“ And many will say that one day, everyone who is eventually “born again” into God’s family will also become a God Being. That means one day there may be millions of God Beings, even if they’re always under the Father and Jesus Christ in “rank.“

Despite this, they recoil at being labeled “polytheists” (a term we apply to pagans), but what’s a more accurate term to describe a belief in two or more God Beings?

Their teachers quickly respond by explaining there is only “one God Family,“ that’s the only sense in which they describe the “oneness” of God. To them it just means these multiple God Beings are united in purpose and plan, of the same mind, on the same team. These two separate God Beings are “one“ in spirit.

But this does not answer for their more-than-one-God teaching. It is their sleight-of-hand way to make polytheism appear monotheistic.

Don’t lose sight that there cannot be two or more “God Beings.” That’s impossible.

Now it is helpful to clarify what we mean by the words Being and Person in a theological and philosophical context, because they can be synonymous in an everyday, conversational context. In short, “being“ is a reference to something that exists, and “person” is a reference to who an existing something is.

So a rocking chair, for example, is a “being,” because it exists, but that rocking chair is not a person.

You, the reader, are also a “being” because you exist, but you’re also a person, because in addition to being a something, you’re a someone.

The Christian view of God is that he is one in Being, but more than one in Person.

This idea is beyond our limited imagination, because every day we see and interact with beings that are zero persons, and beings that are one person; but we never see beings that are more than one person. While we can’t picture it in our minds, a being comprised of more than one person does not contradict logic, just as it is not illogical that some beings are persons and some beings are not.

COG teachers, on the other hand, clearly mean to express that there are two God Beings.

God is almighty. But if the Father is an almighty Being, and if the Son in his divinity is an almighty Being, then neither is almighty. There can’t be more than one almighty Being. Almightiness is a superlative term; it doesn’t allow for two or more. If one is almightier than the other, then the other is not almighty. And so the one who is not almighty is, by definition, not God.

Trinitarians, using nuanced terms to affirm both monotheism and the divinity of Christ, don’t face this difficulty. They understand and explain that God is only one “What” (Being) and more than one “Who” (Person).

Any COG that says there are two or more Gods is not Christian.

What did the Early Church say?

Tertullian (A.D. 155-200), Adversus Praxeam - Against Praxeas, chapter 3

They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth.

2. Jesus was no longer God when he became man

COGs give the strong impression they believe

· that Jesus was God in his preincarnate state;

· that Jesus was no longer God when he became man; and

· that Jesus was God again when he conquered death.

If Jesus was only a man (and not God) when he walked the earth, then we have to ask: How did his Roman execution benefit any of us? At most, we could consider him a martyr, not Savior of the world.

On the other hand, the historic Christian Church rightly understands that Jesus is at once fully God and fully man (a concept COGs often explicitly reject). He was, and remains, a divine Person with two natures: human and divine.

God cannot stop being God. As his existence is necessary for all else to exist (and continue to exist), the great “I AM” cannot become “I am not” even for a little while. He cannot go in and out of existence. That contradicts what it means to be eternal.

We have to realize the Word never stopped being God. If God can stop being God, then he was never God to begin with.

It is a contradiction of terms for the Self-Existent One to stop existing. It’s as nonsensical as suggesting the all-powerful God can create a boulder so heavy that he can’t move it. (While that proposal might be a stumper for children, we understand it is nonsensical—and God does not exist in a make-believe world of nonsense. He is not a God of self-contradiction.)

Any COG that says Jesus was no longer God when he became man is not Christian. We could not be saved by a mere man. We had to be saved by the God-Man.

What did the Early Church say?

Origen (A.D. 185-232), De Principiis, preface:

He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit... 

 

3. Jesus could have sinned

I remember how my CGI pastor reacted when the mid-1990s WCG started saying Jesus could not have sinned. He would say if Jesus couldn’t have sinned, then you have no Savior.

But the truth is just the opposite: You have no Savior if he could have sinned.

If we believe that Jesus was walking around as God in the flesh, as a divine Person who assumed a human nature, then we can’t believe Jesus (as God) was able to sin. Just as God can’t not exist, because he is necessary existence, so it is that he can’t sin, because he is all-holy.

Sin is committed only by a person, through an act of the will, not by the body alone. It involves choice. Jesus is (and was) a divine Person with a divine will, and we know God cannot sin.

Just because Jesus was born with a human body, it does not follow that his divine Person could be overwhelmed with, and succumb to, temptation. His human and divine will were perfectly united. Keeping in mind that only persons (not mere bodies) can sin, if the divine Person of Jesus could have sinned 2000 years go, then he could sin now. But we know he can’t sin now, because he’s God—a divine Person. And there was never a time when he wasn’t a divine Person.

COG leaders have even floated the idea that the Father and the Son took a huge cosmic risk in letting one of them become man. Had he failed through sin, there would have been only one of them left. The implications of this are absurd. For one, it would have cut the “God population” in half, and in such a predicament I would ask whether God the Father, as backup, could have stepped in where the Son failed in order to save the world. And what if he, too, failed through sin? Eternity would end (another contradiction of terms).

Any COG that says Jesus could have sinned is not Christian.

What did the Early Church say?

James the brother of the Lord (circa A.D. 49), Letter of James (chapter 1, verse 13):

 

...for God cannot be tempted with evil...

4. God (or a “God Being”) died

By now you should know where I’m going with this.

Yes, since Jesus was crucified, and since Jesus is God, it’s not wrong to say God died. In fact, it’s necessary to believe that God died.

But Garner Ted Armstrong made his view (the prevailing COG view) very clear within the first 10 to 12 minutes of his appearance on the John Ankerberg Show. He forcefully insisted that Jesus was dead in every sense.

But in what way did Jesus die? The only way possible: in his human nature—as a man. God cannot die in his divine nature. In Jesus’ case, he could only have experienced death through the humanity he assumed from Mary.

Any COG that says the divine nature can die is not Christian.

What did the Early Church say?

Hippolytus (A.D. 170-235), Exegetical Fragments from Commentaries, On Luke, Chapter 23:

For His body lay in the tomb, not emptied of divinity; but as, while in Hades, He was in essential being with His Father, so was He also in the body and in Hades. For the Son is not contained in space, just as the Father; and He comprehends all things in Himself.

5. Jesus’ body was not resurrected

COG believers seem unable to comprehend my charge that they deny the Resurrection of Jesus. They won’t admit to or agree with it, but it’s plainly their belief nonetheless.

Remember that COG leaders love talking about how the “churches of this world” teach that the souls of people, at death, “waft off” into heaven and play harps and eat angel food cake forever (or other such nonsense—a gross misrepresentation of Christian theology).

They say the biblical view is that we experience a resurrection, in which the mortal puts on immortality. As stated, this view is correct. We are absolutely awaiting a resurrection at the Second Coming.

Yet, with few exceptions, I often encounter COG teachers who deny this fundamental Christian truth about Jesus’ resurrection: that the same body that went into the tomb is the same body that came out.

When pressed, they typically explain that the physical body of Jesus was discarded and replaced with something entirely different—a “spirit body” just as he had before the Incarnation, completely unrelated to and disconnected from the body that had hung upon the Cross.

This is not, however, what “resurrection” means. Resurrection refers to something that dies and then comes back to life again, not a transference of consciousness from one body to another. That would be more akin to the pagan belief of reincarnation or a kind of transmigration of souls.

Jesus made clear that he—body and soul—came out of the tomb. He appeared to many people, he showed his wounds to his disciples, he ate with them.

His body, however, was glorified and made perfect. It was no longer subject to death or even to the laws of physics. It was the same human body but renewed in a glorified resurrected state. That’s what Christians believe happened to Jesus, and it’s what Christians believe is our final reward.

Any COG that believes Jesus abandoned the very flesh that saved us and replaced it with something wholly, entirely different is not a Christian. Their preaching is in vain and their faith is in vain.

What did the Early Church say?

Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans (A.D. 110), chapter 3:

For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now.

Conclusion

How many times over the years have we heard various COG leaders complain they can’t get air time on certain Christian media outlets?

Often, the reason for their rejection boils down to one big issue: the doctrine of the trinity.

I would argue that the biggest problem with rejecting the trinity doctrine is not just denying the Personhood of the Holy Spirit—calling him a power or a force, or metaphorizing him as merely the presence and power of the Father and Son acting in the natural world. The biggest problem is that it opens wide the door to the kinds of tragic errors enumerated above.

The person who truly believes in the Christian doctrine of the trinity, and is consistent, will not fall into these serious errors. He will believe there is only one God. He will believe Jesus was God while in the flesh. He will know Jesus could not have sinned or risked his eternal divine life. He will understand that God cannot go out of, and into, existence. He will believe that Jesus’ mortal body was raised from the dead.

Anything to the contrary cannot rightly be called “Christian.”

The COG Catholic currently blogs at https://write.as/thecogcatholic.

Dave Pack: Talking Until It’s True

Talking Until It’s True

 

Nobody on the face of the earth has a more dysfunctional relationship with the Holy Days than David C. Pack of The Restored Church of God. Throughout the year, he fixates on a Holy Day and talks the brethren into a coma with his electrifying reasons for this, that, and the other malarkey. He marvels at his own cleverness in coming up with a new catchphrase or analogy that becomes as short-lived as his empty promises.

 

As of “The Greatest Unending Story! (Part 464)” on August 26, 2023, the Feast of Trumpets has again caught his eye. All she had to do was gyrate in a tight sweater, and poor Feast of Tabernacles got ghosted, left to wonder why she was not pretty enough. Dave likes ‘em stacked, honey.

 

Everyone except Dave knows this relationship is temporary. But hey, maybe things will be better this time around. After all, both have matured over the last year and had more life experience to gain wisdom to avoid the pitfalls of the past. Rumor has it they already hooked up, and nobody at Headquarters has the heart to tell him love is not better the fifth time around.

 

David C. Pack is now the Studmeister General of The Hit-It-N-Quit-It Church of Another god.

 

 

I am an unordained non-prophet/non-psychic, but you may doubt me. In the article, Mind The Gap, I wrote this before I listened to Part 464:

 

By introducing the new phrase "Initial Kingdom of God," he can save face by manipulating language for when he later shifts the First Kingdom timeline or adds back in a fourth iteration. Flip a coin to figure out which.

 

The coin landed on the edge and stayed put. Dave changed the timeline AND added a Fourth Kingdom back into the mix.

 

Part 464 was the polar opposite of the week before. Instead of padding and stalling, he made significant changes to the prophetic landscape.

 

•  The Kingdom of God does NOT arrive on the Feast of Tabernacles.

•  The Feast of Ingathering is Trumpets, not Tabernacles.

•  He returned to a four-measure Kingdom of God.

•  The identity/timing of the First Kingdom is a cliffhanger for Part 465.

•  The Feast of Trumpets is the Second Kingdom.

•  The Last Days began on Trumpets in 2015, not Tabernacles.

•  His inarguable “Golden Document” lays out the Day of the Lord.

 

David C. Pack can make gigantic changes in only 86 minutes because he has mastered the Bible-teaching technique known as "Just keep talking until it becomes true." Quoting the Bible is optional but enhances the illusion of authenticity.

 

Talking until it's true proved quite effective when he spent 100+ minutes declaring Russian President Vladimir Putin was the Sixth King of Revelation 17 but then wiggled out of it in a record 57 seconds.

 

The 1335 of Daniel is no stranger to this approach. Each time it started, stopped, moved, restarted, restopped, and moved again was all thanks to the patronizing efforts of one who knows how to keep talking until it becomes true.

 

 

Part 464 – August 26, 2023

@ 08:28 So, let’s talk a little bit more about Trumpets. Since we closed with trumpets have blown before. I hinted at something last week, and I wanna get back to it.

 

At this point, eyes rolled across the globe in The Restored Church of God. An international "Oh, here we go again,” thought in pure unison was so perfectly tuned that it almost became audible to dogs. It is time to dust off the old Trumpets “Kingdom Solar System” stored in a box in the garage.

 

@ 08:38 Let’s start asking some questions. I began to be troubled by something that the church taught. And I learned some things about it that have caused me to kind of reverse track, and I want you to understand what I learned.

 

“Kind of” reverse? Why members do not stand up and walk out for good could be studied by mental health experts for decades.

 

@ 8:54 The church always taught that the Feast of Ingathering was the Feast of Tabernacles…Is that true? Is the Feast of Tabernacles the Feast of Ingathering?

 

You can always tell where Dave is going by how he leads the question.

 

@ 10:04 Does the Bible actually say the Feast of Ingathering is Tabernacles? Or does it say it is Trumpets? And careful reading discerns that.

 

David C. Pack is NOT your guy when “careful reading” is required. His piss-poor reading comprehension skills are legendary and well-documented.

 

Spoiler Alert: The Bible never says it is Trumpets. He says that. Which then makes it true.

 

Dave has an awful track record for mucking up prophecy so bad his own church has to remove content from its websites. Brethren can have fun in Member Services counting how many "Greatest Untold Story" Parts have gone missing since the last time they looked.

 

@ 11:07 That began to weigh on me. Do we have something wrong here? Are WE under the impression that we’re waiting for the Feast of Tabernacles for the Kingdom of God when it is Trumpets? So, I began to look more deeply at it.

 

“Are WE under the impression?” Are you kidding, Dave? That was no impression. That was Part 461. The Kingdom of God arriving “at the split-second” of the Feast of Tabernacles next month was the official Restored Church of God doctrine. Like all other understanding in that organization, it comes and goes based on David C. Pack’s say so.

 

After this, Dave began using circular logic, assumptions, and presumptions to make a case that “the Feast of Ingathering” is Trumpets and NOT the Feast of Tabernacles.

 

This first question-as-a-point is a prime example of much of the Part 464 content.

 

@ 11:27 Would God put Trumpets and Atonement at the back end of one year and the Feast of Tabernacles just days apart at the start of another year? That would be a strange thing to do.

 

Totally strange. People have been troubled for centuries accepting Christmas just before New Year’s.

 

Throughout Part 464, Bible verses are slathered with the mortar of Dave’s confirmation bias. He talks and talks and talks until it all becomes true, regardless of what the Bible says.

 

 

Once David C. Pack “sees” something in the Scriptures a certain way, even an oracle from Gabriel could not dissuade him.

 

@ 15:27 …and I haven’t even gotten into the things that will explain how the church never had the Feast of Ingathering correct.

 

How many more Worldwide Church of God teachings must be dismantled before Dave finally abandons it entirely? The way he continually chips away at WCG doctrines, you get the impression the Apostasy was taking place long under the rein of Herbert W. Armstrong, and it did not take Joe Junior and his pepperoni-lusting cohorts to bring it about.

 

Herbert W. Armstrong got so many things so wrong for so long that it seems inevitable that the day will come when Dave finally disregards him fully. That dead “apostle” will eventually become no more than “just some misguided old coot who thought he saw special things in the Bible” until David C. Pack had to come along and clean up his ignorant mess.

 

The one positive thing you can say about HWA and his legacy is that when he had a doctrine, he stuck to it for decades. Dave is known for teachings that cannot endure past supper.

 

@ 15:43 So, let’s just formally state here before we go through all this (and I’ll state it a couple more times), the week WE thought [laughs] the date WE thought we were waiting for just jumped two weeks closer.

 

That is called “spin.” Dave puts a happy face on reversing his own ideas. All this means is that his impending failure will happen two weeks sooner than anticipated. And it will surely fail.

 

@ 15:57 We’ll talk a little later about whether anything happens even in front of Trumpets. That’s a separate question. My purpose now is to thoroughly and completely remove all doubt that the Kingdom of God does come at Trumpets.

 

@ 26:43 The Feast of Ingathering is Trumpets. It has always been Trumpets.

 

Edward L. Winkfield (aka “Stepford Prime”) must be curled in a ball under his desk when he considers even more literature in the dwindling RCG library that will have to change.

@ 1:23:51 The Kingdom comes on Trumpets, and two days later, everybody’s enjoying it.

 

 

David C. Pack keeps talking until it becomes true. Since no clear verses in the Bible make his point, he has to talk around them. Each verse he reads must be explained and explained and over-explained.

 

He cannot let the Bible interpret itself because it was written like an ancient Mad Libs. Dave needs to fill in the blanks with his words so it can say what he needs it to.

 

In this example of Dave using his circular, self-supporting logic, he actually exposes a big hole in his own conclusion. He fills the air with words, trying to defeat the Feast of Tabernacles, but winds up defeating the Feast of Trumpets at the same time.

 

Time to pause the skimming.

 

@ 32:37 It is interesting, is it not, brethren, that when God says Feast of Tabernacles, it means it? He says it. Does He just interchangeably call the Feast of Tabernacles the Feast of Ingathering? Or does He use a different term because they're not the same thing? The Feast of Ingathering is the Feast of Ingathering. The Feast of Tabernacles is seven days. It’s the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Ingathering is a season. The Feast of Tabernacles is seven days. They can’t be the same. They don’t carry the same name.

 

And yet, he is saying the Feast of Ingathering is the Feast to Trumpets. Why does that work and Tabernacles does not? Because Dave says so. He JUST said so.

 

@ 26:43 The Feast of Ingathering is Trumpets. It has always been Trumpets.

 

And the Feast of Trumpets is a single day, not a “season,” either. Seven days does not work, but one day does. See the problem? And this is not the most significant hole Dave has on his hands with this foolishness.

 

Brad would say I am assigning motive here, but based on how Dave presents his Ingathering evidence, I get the distinct impression he knows it is false. The largest “tell” of the night was when he did not have the courage to read all of Deuteronomy 16:16.

 

@ 34:41 “Three times in a year shall all your males appear,” and then it lists the three. It just God just chooses to list it, telling Moses you're gonna do it.

 

That one verse sinks his entire ship, and I think Dave is acutely aware. His talking it into the cornfield afterward is painfully transparent.

 

Examining key verses in Exodus 24 and 32 alongside Deuteronomy 16:16 will be handled in another article. The points are too sharp and too exposing to be missed. The Bible destroys the entire “Ingathering is Trumpets” argument and confirms it is Tabernacles.

 

 

@ 27:38 So, we didn’t carefully discern that the Feast of Ingathering is NOT Tabernacles. It’s a nice concept. It’s not wrong to think that way. It’s certainly when all of the brethren gather. But, this isn’t about the brethren gathering. Feast of Ingathering. It’s about the crops being gathered.

 

David C. Pack will use literal interpretations of verses when he needs to but also explains them as "types" when it is convenient to his current theology. This idea is well-suited when your overarching strategy for unveiling the Mystery of God is to keep talking until it becomes true. You can never lose in that scenario. Well, except when you start setting dates.

 

For David C. Pack's new theory about the Feast of Ingathering to be correct, this is what needs to be believed by the brethren of The Restored Church of God after hearing all of Part 464.

 

·      Exodus 23 and 34 list three holy days in a purposefully wrong order, but Deuteronomy 16:16 lists three holy days in the correct order.

·      Twice, God intentionally deceived Moses by tricking him into recording lists out of order.

·      Twice, God intentionally had verses recorded in Exodus in a “confusing” manner to hide it from all His sheep for thousands of years.

·      Twice, God intentionally gave a list out of order with no biblical solution to prove what Ingathering actually is without a man’s private interpretation to piece it together.

·      If God once deceptively listed something in the Bible, you will never be able to trust if any other list is correct without a man telling you so.

·      For over fifty years, Herbert W. Armstrong did not carefully read and discern the verses on this topic, and all the ministers in WCG were not allowed to see it correctly.

·      God did not allow Herbert W. Armstrong to understand “the Feast of Ingathering” correctly because to know it “too soon” would spoil His plan.

·      The members of The Radio/Worldwide Church of God, throughout their entire existence, never correctly understood the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles.

·      The Feast of Ingathering is about agriculture in the Old Testament and is not a symbol of how God will gather His people at the culmination of His plan. But it is “okay” if you see it that way.

·      The invisible start of The Last Days in 2015 invisibly moved from the Feast of Tabernacles to the Feast of Trumpets as easily as just saying it makes it so.

 

All those things must be accurate for the Feast of Ingathering to be the Feast of Trumpets, as presented in Part 464.

 

The alternative would be that David C. Pack is just wrong.

 

Consider carefully before you take a coarse file to Occam’s Razor.

 

David C. Pack knows how to fill the air with words without saying very much. He knows how to read the Bible but explain away what it says so it says what he wants. He learned more than he realized from Joe Junior and the Pepperoni Crew.

 

With Part 465 coming this weekend, we can all rest assured the RCG tradition of talking until anything becomes true shall continue.

 

Why are you still putting up with this, brethren?

 

Marc Cebrian:

See: Talking Until It’s True

PCG: Get A Grip On Your Finances So You Can Give More To Us

Of the many extra-biblical things the church felt they needed to stick their noses into, the big one was how you spend your money. Underneath all the expectations and rules set out by the church and its leaders, the bottom line was that how you managed your money determined how much money you could give to the church. After all, the church n needed your money more than you did.

None is worse at this than the Restored Church of God and its "common" teaching where all you have belongs to Dave and the church. Christ's return is minutes, hours, days, and months away, so why spend money on frivolous things when you can send it all to Dave Pack.

Quickly behind the Restored Church of God is the Philadelphia Church of God and its money expectations members. As membership rapidly drops, income is being affected. OCG recently ran a 2004 article by Wik Herrma, Get a Grip on Your Finances

Let’s face it, most people today struggle with their finances. Under today’s rising costs, many worry and fret over this issue more than any other problem, regardless of how much money they make. Yet this worry robs them of the real happiness and joy God intended man to have. Even among God’s people, financial problems hold an oppressive grip. 

 

Isn’t it time you reversed this trend and got a grip on your finances? 

 

But how do you go about it? Where do you start?

His first point out of the box is materialism, Everyone knows this is a materialistic society. The problem comes into focus when the church feels it needs to blab on about materialism. They see it as the more you buy the less you send into the church. Materialism is not good for members, but for church headquarters and the no-expenses-spared mentality, this does not jive well with struggling members. Lavish campuses, concert halls, fancy homes, fine art, lavish gardens, horses, etc. is like a slap in the face to struggling members. 

Did you know the "obsession" with physical pursuits drains the Holy Spirit at work in you? The more you do the weaker it gets.

Drifting into materialism slackens our dedication to God and His Work. We cannot let the cares of this world control our lives. If we do, we may not be alert to the signs of the times—those events that indicate the imminent return of Christ and the establishment of a government based on the way of give instead of get. Christ Himself said, “[T]ake heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares” (Luke 21:34). 

 

The obsession with physical pursuits leeches the supply of God’s Holy Spirit and will prevent us from reaching our full potential. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17). Coveting will lead to more and more financial, personal and physical problems.

The church has always coveted our money. The more you have the more they expected you to give, It also did not matter how you struggled financially, that money still was required to come in. Some even resorted to checking on members' salaries to make sure they had their 20+ percent. 

He continues:

If God promised physical blessings for obedience to His commandments, wouldn’t it make sense that He’d specify what would happen if we let our minds drift from His spiritual law and dwell on the physical? Of course! 

 

“And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy [cattle], and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me” (Deuteronomy 28:14-20). 

 

Letting materialism become our god will automatically reap these curses, “until thou be destroyed.” 

Since the New Covenant does not require tithing nor the demands of the law those curses have been lifted and no longer have any sway of Christians.

Pursuing material wealth is a form of idolatry and if we go after it, we will incur these curses. One major reason people do not have control over their finances is their materialistic mindset that pushes God out of the picture.

The materialist mindset of so many Church of God leaders has shoved Christ completely out of the picture. They despise his name, and anything he stood for and instead bow down at the altar of the law and its demands of tithing. New Covenant followers of The Way give as they have been richly blessed. 

New Covenant followers of The Way give as they have been richly blessed. 

Wik continues with this little gem:

God is the multibillionaire who is eager to share all of His riches with us (Revelation 21:7), but we must learn how to manage our affairs now so God can entrust us with such responsibility. In order to prepare for our future roles, God has given us dominion, or rule, over our physical possessions now.

So, if you piss off magical god then their riches will not be shared.

Our generation has lost the mastery of faithful diligence. God will bless our efforts; He did not say He would reward our idleness. God wants us to learn to work and said that “if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). God does not give social handouts to those who are able, but unwilling, to produce. 

 

Sadly, even among God’s people, some are not good providers. They rely on handouts from the government, fellow members or even the Church to supply their families’ need. God rebukes such behavior: “[I]f any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). 

We won't assist our own but let's spend millions on jets, concert halls, performers, lavish campuses, and private homes. Dumb fools! How dare you even contemplate asking us to help you when you are seriously in need!  

Christians have an obligation to work hard in order to provide for their physical families. They should carry the burden for not just their immediate relatives, but even supply the needs of generations before and after them. They should take care of any widows in their family and lay up for their grandchildren (verse 16; Proverbs 13:22). 

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27

Wik then moves on to hard work (not the kind of white shirt work that goes on at so many COG HQ's where legions of men have never formed a callus on their delicate hands from actual work).

Regular tithe slaves are needed to work long and hard hours so that they can give most of it to the church. After all, Gerry Flurry's grandkids need to travel the country doing Irish dance.

 

Hard labor will be rewarded. Those who apply this principle will prosper and be able to share their blessings with others. Through their first tithe they help God’s Church do the Work. By their excess second tithe they provide a way for others to attend God’s festivals, and by their third tithe, twice every seven years, they provide social security for those who really are needy, the widows and the fatherless. 

 

Such an individual is a credit to God’s Church and to his community.

Then there is this:

God has placed ministers in His Church who can help give valuable advice and counsel on financial dealings, from a biblical perspective. Too often, however, they are confronted with people presenting to them the consequences of their ill-thought-out actions.

Yep, go to men who get a salary from the church, get ministerial perks and deep deductions for homes, cars, gas, utilities, personal expenses, and large checks at Feast time for travel along with their free rooms. Yes, they sure know how difficult it is for regular members to survive. 

While not everything in the article is bad advice, and it does contain some good advice, the ultimate goal is that the more you make the more you give to the church in demanded tithing.