It is that time of year again as Church of God members pack their bags, load their cars up for road trips or hop on planes to go to exotic locations somewhere in the world. Children are pulled out of school with various wild excuses as to why they will be leaving for 8-10 days just a few weeks after school has started in August or September. Friends and family member will be excited to meet together and share adventures. Hunger pangs will set in for new foods or gatherings in favorite restaurants. Many members who struggle financially will go into debt in order to live up to God's high standard that they deserve the best hotels, food, and alcohol. Ministers will be delighted to be staying in the finest resort rooms available, for free in many cases, and having daily access to the free food and alcohol in the ministerial dining rooms. Thousands will be spent on extravagant gift baskets for top ministers, evangelists, and Festival Coordinators because they have sacrificed sooooooo much over the past year.
It is all so heartwarming and millennial, as God has placed his name on hundreds of different locations around the world with hundreds of different COG's preaching hundreds of different messages by men who claim they are the direct channel for God's word.
But just how millennial is it? Some COG's will try and book Feast sites in areas that other COG's have traditionally used for years, all as a way of usurping them and hoping to be able to draw in a few of their members who are loyal to certain destinations.
Some cities, resorts, or convention destinations will have several COG's meeting in the same city, often within blocks of each other, and in some cases in the exact same location, but in different rooms.
In many of these locations, COG members will be told that under no circumstance should they associate with the Laodiceans down the hall or road. God is only in one location and he is NOT with them!
Take a look at Branson, Missouri. United Church of God, Church of God a Worldwide Association, Intercontinental Church of God, Church of God in Truth and the International Congregation of Yahweh will all be meeting there. Uncomfortable moments are sure to be felt when going out to dinner, or a stage show, or at the local go-cart racing facility as different COG's all happen to meet up. Warm greetings will pour out and then awkward silence will quickly develop as they realize that they were told to not fellowship with apostate unbelievers who are not part of their only true church.
Missouri—Branson: UCG, http://feast.ucg.org. Branson: CGWA, http://feast.cogwa.org. Branson: ICG, http:// intercontinentalcog.org/ tabernacleshome.php. Branson: Oct. 3-10, Church of God in Truth, http://www.postponements.com/ id15.htm. Branson: International Congregation of Yahweh, http://www. icyahweh.org. Lake of the Ozarks: LCG, https://fot2017.lcg.org.
The Journal: News of the Churches of God
Then there is Myrtle Beach with Church of God Big Sandy, Intercontinental Church of God and Church of God International meeting in the same city. This is sure to be awkward with all three groups having ties to Garner Ted Armstrong.
South Carolina—Hilton Head
Island: LCG, https://fot2017.lcg.org.
Myrtle Beach: Church of God Big
Sandy, http://churchofgodbigsandy.com, Lyle Kerby,(304) 354-7147. Myrtle
Beach: ICG, http:// interconti-
nentalcog.org/tabernacleshome.php.
Myrtle Beach: CGI/CFN,
http://cgi.org/feast-of-tabernacles. The Journal: News of the Churches of God
Granted there are many COG members who ignore the admonitions of their ministers and Feast site coordinators to not fellowship with Laodicean former members. They will still see family and friends in other groups as some plan their Feast sites in order to do so.
Many others will skip several services in order to enjoy their location attractions unencumbered by other church members for a few hours out of the day. Others show up the first day and make their presence known and then disappear till the last day when they reemerge acting as if this was the best eight days of sermons they have never heard.
Here it is 2017, decades into the future of a time when Petra should have been over and the Kingdom of God already established. Apostles, prophets and leading evangelists are dead. The church has imploded into hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups who all claim exclusive inside tracks to the kingdom. Families have been ripped apart and marriages shattered. Thousands of church youth have left the church of their parents. Former friends ignore each other. Grandparents refuse to see their grandchildren who are in the same city they are in for the Feast. Millions of dollars pour into the church coffers of the various COG's, and yet they dig into their member's pockets with one money grubbing sermon after another, or worse yet, pit Feast site against Feast site to who can give the most money. People will travel to Feast sites with sick children or they themselves will be sick. They go because they are commanded. They will spread the sickness to many others leading to possible health department violations, as has happened in the past.
Yes, it is 2017 and none of the Churches of God can coexist together in a foretaste of the heavenly Kingdom of God and yet they all believe they will soon be heading to Petra where they and they alone will be protected by their god during the tribulation.
For decades the church taught that we would make the desert bloom like a rose as we worked for 3 1/2 years in the place of final training. Future Kings and priests would be trained to rule cities and worlds. We would be taught how to unify and bring peace to a remnant of civilization who had just survived the nuclear war. Church members would live in harmony as the Spirit of God trained us and hovered over us protecting us from the evils going on outside the Petra mountains.
It all sounds slightly wonderful and heartwarming. But, given how almost all of the Church of God's in 2017 will not work together, gather together, or even believe the same things, can you imagine what a hell hole Petra will be!
When all of the various COG's leaders show up at the same place who is going to be the one true unifier? Almost ordained Bob Thiel? Vik Kubik? Mark Armstrong? Ron Weinland? Gerald Weston? Gerald Flurry? James Malm and his Wiccan sidekick Constance? What an appalling mess it will be! Why would any COG member sit there and watch this appalling mess as they realize they have 3 1/2 more years of this utter shitfest before them?
Does this really sound like a foretaste of the Kingdom of God?
