Dave Pack: Inarguable, Impossible, Immutable...

 

LCG: The Old Covenant Is NOT Obsolete!

Doug writes:

Is the Old Testament Obsolete? Jesus said that Christians are to live “by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). The Apostle Paul wrote, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). When these words were spoken and written, the primary Scriptures in existence were the books of the Old Testament. Today, many have been told that the Old Testament has been superseded by the New Covenant and the New Testament. Yet, when Paul cited Old Testament passages to Christians in Corinth, he said, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:1–11). When Jesus and the Apostles quoted Scripture, they quoted from the Old Testament. King David wrote in Psalm 119:160 “The entirety of Your word is truth.” The Old Testament is not obsolete. The truth of God contained in the Scriptures will eventually fill the earth (Isaiah 11:9)—which is why we study the whole Bible today.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail

One needs to remember that the words "Old Testament" and "'New Testament" were added by Bible publishers and were never any part of the canon. If you really want to be accurate then it should be Old Covenant and New Covenant.

The old covenant is a covenant made with the children of Israel as a people and a nation. It involved no one else - other than those who wished to be part of the system who then had to take on that identity through circumcision and other rules. It never involved anyone else outside Israel nor anyone hundreds or thousands of years later. That covenant is found in Exodus 19-22. Those writings are still intact and never passed away. They are still there, but the covenant is a totally different story.

The Old Covenant was contingent upon the people's obedience to the Law of Moses, not for salvation, but upon blessings and cursing depending upon performance.

Prior to the delivery of the law to Moses, God made a covenant with Abraham:

Galatians 3:16-18  NRSVUE

16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring;[a] it does not say, “And to offsprings,”[b] as of many, but it says, “And to your offspring,”[c] that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise, but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.

God never changed his mind about his promises to Abraham but made a new covenant which was needed, and which was the plan all along. The law was added because people no longer trusted in God. Their transgressions needed to be pointed out to them through blessings and cursings.

And yet, old covenant writings, as a freshman in seminary learns, portray a shadow of something to come. Something bigger and better. That old covenant was completed and replaced by something NEW. What had lost its glory took on a new glory.

2 Corinthians 3:10-15. NRSVUE

10 Indeed, what once had glory has in this respect lost its glory because of the greater glory, 

 

11 for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory! 

 

12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, 13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that[a] was being set aside. 14 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds,[b]

Hebrews 8:7-9. NRSVUE

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one. 

 

8 God[a] finds fault with them when he says:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 

9 not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt,for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I had no concern for them, says the Lord.

Jeremiah 31:31-32. NRSVUE
A New Covenant

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 

 

Hebrews 10:9-10 NRSVUE

9 then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And it is by God’s will[a] that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Galatians 4:30. NRSVUE

30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the enslaved woman and her child, for the child of the enslaved woman will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.”

2 Corinthians 3. NRSVUE
Ministers of the New Covenant

3 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, 3 and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are human hearts.[a] 

 

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are qualified of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our qualification is from God, 6 who has made us qualified to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 

 

7 Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets,[b] came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’s face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation,[c]much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! 10 Indeed, what once had glory has in this respect lost its glory because of the greater glory, 11 for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory! 

 

12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, 13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that[d] was being set aside. 14 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds,[e] 16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

It is amazing to watch as LCG still tries to cling to something that is no longer in effect. The thing whose glory was long ago tarnished. The thing that killed and could never give life. The thing that was old, worn out, and obsolete.

No scripture can be more effective in stating that than this:

Hebrews 8:13 NRSVUE

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.

Stating it is obsolete does not mean what is written there, its historical narrative, and its wisdom are no longer useful, but that it points to something bigger and better to come, who Jesus is and God's story with us. Again, basic Christian understanding.

The Old Covenant made exclusively with Israel was laid to rest and made obsolete with the crucifixion and resurrection.

Hebrews 8:10-13. NRSVUE

10 This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: 

 

I will put my laws in their minds

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

11 And they shall not teach one another

or say to each other,[a] ‘Know the Lord,’

for they shall all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,

and I will remember their sins[b] no more.” 

 

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.

What Doug and most in LCG fail to understand is that the covenant was made obsolete, not a collection of books. The writings prior to Jesus are NOT the Old Testament. Even Jesus referred to these writings of the prophets and the law.

The law of Moses was part of the Old Covenant and we today are not part of that covenant. We have been invited into a New Covenant. Something bigger, better, and more glorious where condemnation and cursings no longer have power. It is time to break those shackles and be free.

 

 

Crackpot Prophet On How To Claim You Are Elijah And One Of The Two Witless Witnesses Without Actually Saying You Are

 

The stormy weather is moving out of California as gloomy weather weather turns into sunshine and warmth. The stormy weather seems to have had an impact on the mental fragility of our highly favorite self-appointed prophet who resides in the Arroyo Grande/Grover Beach area of the Central Coast. Ever since our favorite self-appointed prophet discovered that God had preordained his end time coming as the best Church of God leader in human history, the Great Bwana to Africa and the occasional Cuacaisan has been searching long and hard through Scripture to determine how it speaks about his awesomeness and how we should all be trembling at the mere sight of him. As he is in the second decade of his rebellion against Rod Meredith and the Living Church of God, this mighty prophet has deemed it necessary to take on more and more biblical mantles to prove how important he is in his own mind.

Today the Great One is talking about Elijah and the Two witless Witnesses and how he carries the heavy burden of those mantles never actually claiming he does so in a forthright manner. He expects people to be too stupid to see through his charade.

The Great Bwana Mzungu writes criticizing Churches of God, UK, and Church of God Outreach Ministries for their Elijah/prophecy stance. Remember, this is the Great Bwana who is NEVER wrong about anything while everyone else out there in COGland are poor deceived schmucks.

Although people, like the discredited Ron Weinland and David Pack have claimed to be ‘Elijah,’ neither of them are. 

 

Yet, the Bible does show that there will be an ‘Elijah’ who is alive before Jesus returns and that it is likely that he will be one of the two witnesses. And as Jesus is likely to return within the next couple of decades, it is reasonable to consider that he must be alive today.

So, Elijah is alive today channeling himself in a Church of God man. The complete arrogance and idiocy of this belief is shocking.

As we inch closer and closer to these perilous end times there has to be some indication of just who this man might be. No one outside Church of Godland is smart enough or converted enough to carry on this role. 

So who might this man be? One guess as to who this is being described below:

Could he be one who has restored information on church history, doctrine, prophecy, and the reason that God created anything? Could he be one reaching people around the world with the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in over 1,000 different languages? Or has God not chosen to have him do much at this stage?

Any guesses? This is who it is NOT talking about:

Was it Herbert W. Armstrong?
No.

BUT...a BIG BUT, Herb thought he might be and because he thought he might be this also gives the end-time prophet justification for thinking that he is Elijah and one of the two witless witnesses:

Did Herbert W. Armstrong ever think he might be Elijah? 

 

Most definitely. 

 

The late evangelist Raymond McNair admitted:

However, on occasion, Mr. Armstrong may have expressed some doubt in regard to his calling and ministry, concerning himself being the end-time “Elijah,” (McNair, Raymond. Was Mr. Armstrong Who He Said He Was? Ad in Connection’s section of The Journal, June 30, 2004).
Yes, HWA expressed some doubt–not simply may have. Herbert W. Armstrong admitted to Aaron Dean, his long-time personal aide (and Aaron Dean told me this personally on several occasions for over the past two+ decades) that he might not have understood the biblical passages on the Elijah correctly before he died, and that God could raise someone else up to fulfill the Elijah role. Furthermore, HWA specifically expressed doubt to the late evangelist Dibar Apartian (and who also told me). Dibar Apartian did not believe that HWA was the Elijah when we discussed this several times and he agreed with me about this.

Using Raymond McNair and Dibar Apartian as sources of truth is ludicrous. These are two of the worst false teachers in the church.

Our crackpot prophet continues:

Those with a WCG background might find the following quote from Herbert W. Armstrong of some assistance here as he wrote:

Those called into the Church were called not merely for salvation and eternal life, but to learn the way of God’s government and develop the divine character during this mortal life in the Church age …   

 

Also Malachi 4:5-6 pictures the Elijah to come at the very end of the Church age (Mystery of the Ages. 1985, pp. 201, 349). 

 

And when was the “Church age” supposed to end according to Herbert Armstrong’s old church? Notice:

God has set before us an open door and no MAN can shut it. God can shut it, and He will when the work is finished and the Philadelphia Church goes to a place of safety. …The Laodicean Church is not going to be worthy to escape to a place of safety. When it is too late, they will find that the Church of Philadelphia has gone to safety (What Is the “LAODICEAN CHURCH”? Good News August 1959 Vol. VIII, Number 8). 

 

Now since the Church age has not ended, and the Day of the Lord has not yet come, then it follows that Elijah was to come on the scene publicly after this was written.

The mere fact that the Great Bwana has to quote Mystery of the Ages nonsense proves right off the bat he does not know what's is talking about. Who in the right mind looks at the MOA as accurate and the word of God? But, this does not stop the Great Bwana from setting himself up as the Elijah to come:

Now since the Church age has not ended, and the Day of the Lord has not yet come, then it follows that Elijah was to come on the scene publicly after this was written.
HWA, himself, wrote:

Jesus shall come, SOON NOW, to RESTORE ALL THINGS! He did NOT restore all things when he first came. John the Baptist did not “restore all things.” But the one who was to “restore all things” just before the “day of the Lord” and preparing the way for Christ’s second coming, was YET to come, in the future, as Jesus said. Now what are the “all things” to be RESTORED? “Restitution” means restore to a former state or condition (Armstrong HW. Brethren & Co-Worker Letter, August 24, 1982). 

 

Note that HWA states ONE (Elijah) comes just before the day of the Lord—an event that still has not occurred, hence some additional restoration beyond what HWA did is needed–and this has been happening in the Continuing Church of God. CCOG has restored more than any COG in the 21st century and under the human leadership of Bob Thiel it continues to do so. In time, God will make the final Elijah clear to all willing to see (this is NOT saying that he MUST be Bob Thiel–but we believe it will be a leader in CCOG).

I can state here and now with 100% confidence that this so-called Elijah will NEVER be Bob Thie, Steve Dupris, or any other self-appointed man from the improperly named "continuing" Church of God. That is a fact that cannot Bwana Bob can't be refuted. 

The delusional one continues:

Furthermore, it should be noted that a careful reading of another one of HWA’s articles supports the idea that the Philadelphia era will need to have something else be restored. HWA wrote:

This very WORK OF GOD for our day is foretold in the prophecy of Revelation 3:7-13. But there it is revealed that we, today, are a people of but little strength – little power (verse 8)! – within ourselves though we have faithfully KEPT GOD’S WORD! The impact of this WORK OF GOD today is going out only through the power of God! Are you having your part in this very WORK OF GOD? But – let’s face it! – WE DO NOT HAVE WITHIN OURSELVES, AS GOD’S INSTRUMENTS FOR HIS WORK TODAY, ANYWHERE NEAR THE POWER OF GOD THAT ACTIVATED THAT ORIGINAL FIRST-CENTURY CHURCH! For that very reason, the living Christ says (verse 8), He has opened to us the gigantic door of MASS COMMUNICATION! The magnified power of the microphone and the printing press. Yet that is only physical, mechanical power! The REAL POWER that makes God’s Work vital and alive is the Holy Spirit of God! (Armstrong HW. Christians Have Lost Their POWER! Plain Truth, Jun 1958). 

 

The Greek word translated as strength, dunamis, which HWA refers to as power, is the same Greek word that is normally translated as ‘miracle’ or ‘miracles’. Thus, Revelation 3:8 shows that the Philadelphia Church will have some type of miracles, and although I agree with HWA’s position that the initial power/miracle had to do with electronic media, I also agree with him that the old WCG did not have, “ANYWHERE NEAR THE POWER OF GOD THAT ACTIVATED THAT ORIGINAL FIRST-CENTURY CHURCH.” Thus, HWA acknowledged, howbeit indirectly, that the power of God had not been fully restored to his WCG. And it should be noted that dreams and gifts of prophecy were given to the first-century church (Acts 2:17-18) and thus, according to his own writing, there should be these type of occurrences at the end. One group in the 21st century has that (see Dreams, the Bible, the Radio Church of God, and the ContinuingChurch of God and How To Determine If Someone is a True Prophet of God). (Hyperlinks deliberatly removed)

There you have it, once again, there is NO ONE in the entire Church of God movement who can even be considered as Elijah since every single Church of God is a false church. 

So who does this leave for us to look forward to?

The Great Bwana himself! 

The false prophet and certified liar ends with this:

Sadly, just as many would not hear Elijah’s nor John the Baptist’s messages, relatively few will pay much attention to the end time Elijah as well.

That is not a surprise as most Christians in the end times were to be Laodicean, and Jesus warned the Laodiceans since they would not ‘get with the program,’ that they would be punished (Revelation 3:14-18).

Of course, if you are willing to believe the truth and do what the Bible teaches, that does not have to include you.

Anyone who believes the truth of the truth of the Bible and is a follower of Jesus knows for a FACT that Bob Thiel is NOT Elijah. The improperly named "continuing" Church of God is not a true church, empathically is NOT practicing first-century Christianity, and has no truth worthwhile for humanity to hear. That is a fact. An irrefutable fact! 

The Elijah’s restoring of “all things” means that he is to be restoring information that the true Church of God once understood, but later must have lost or misunderstood. 

 

The problem is that just as many would not hear Elijah’s or John the Baptist’s messages, relatively few will pay much attention to the end time Elijah as well.

This is a bald-faced lie. None of this is true and most certainly Bob Thiel is not and never will be some "Elijah" to come. Bob has been lying to the church since he started his cult in a fit of rebellion in 2012.

Steer clear of this liar and his sick cult!