COGWA Defines the Law

 

Well, we can all rest easy now. Church of God a Worldwide Association has finally given us the meaning of the word "law". The mental gymnastics the COG uses to claim the law is still 100% in effect for all members is astounding,

Defining the law

Fulfill can mean to complete, achieve, bring to fruition or bring about—in other words, to fill up.

What did Christ complete and fill up?

Christ brought the law to fruition by first defining what the law means and then by living the law perfectly.

Christ was a teacher. We see that by how He taught in parables. 

To His followers, the law was like an unlearned set of vocabulary words. They talked a lot about it, but didn’t fully understand its true purpose and meaning. Christ was going to teach the law by providing practical definitions of the commandments. 

If you have the vocabulary words, but no definitions, how can you know the exact meaning behind those words?

This is how Christ started fulfilling the law, by defining it.

A little later they say this:

Fulfillment of the law

Christ taught the fullness of the law that we are to follow to this day if we want to be in God’s Kingdom (Matthew 19:17). 

According to Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant is all about writing God’s law on our hearts and minds.  

If Christ did away with the law and prophets, Jeremiah’s New Covenant prophecy would be meaningless. There would be no law to write on the heart and mind if it were abolished by Christ.  

Christ said that if anyone teaches against the law of God, he or she will be considered least in the Kingdom. On the other hand, those who follow the law will be considered great in the Kingdom (Matthew 5:19).

Much of the world says that the law is done away with, and many follow only the laws they choose. 

As Christians, we must teach that obedience to the law was validated by Christ. We cannot teach the law the way human beings want to view it, but the way Christ actually taught it. 

He taught the fulfillment of the law through total obedience, in the letter and in the spirit.

Do we follow what Christ taught or what the world teaches now?  

This is the kind of fluff they teach their teens.

How Did Christ Fulfill the Law? 

“Paul never says, as he does of Jews, that believers in Christ rely on the law, boast about the law, know God’s will through the law, are educated in the law, have light, knowledge and truth because of the law, do, observe, keep the law, on occasion transgress the law, or possess the law as letter or a written code, as a book, as decrees, or as commandments.” Brian S. Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God

LCG Members Constantly Being Tested About Their Faith

 

From Doug:

Trials Test our Faith: The Apostle Paul warned, “in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). Jesus wondered aloud, “when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). When the challenges of life begin to mount, we need to remember that faith is one of the fruits of God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and that God gives His Spirit to those who trust Him and obey His instructions (Acts 5:32). While we must do our part to stir up God’s Spirit to overcome our trials and fears (2 Timothy 1:6–7), we can ask God for more faith (Matthew 7:7–8). We need to remember that faith comes from hearing and studying God’s word (Romans 10:17), that God is faithful (Deuteronomy 7:9), and that He protects and preserves His faithful people (Psalm 31:1–4, 23–24). James wrote, “the testing of your faith produces patience” (James 1:2–6). When trials come, let’s remember to do our part by studying the examples of faith recorded in Hebrews 11, as we strive to please God and stay focused on His plan.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail

What happened to Dave Pack's "We're poised, we're oiled" schtick?

 

Remember when Dave said the following in 2021 at the end of sermon 294? Here we are in 2023 and the sermon series is at 453 as of last week. Day after day, month after month, year after year, Dave still cannot get anything right. Apparently God is still hiding a secret that even Dave cannot discover, so there is not much fear  in the world finding out.

Dave states at the end of 294:

“Finally let's imagine that the kingdom of God did not come this year. Let's imagine it. This church is in a serious dilemma, and I want you to think about it. And I ran it by a half dozen ministers, and here are our options, because all of our literature currently teaches that the kingdom of God is built the way my Baptist father-in-law believes, Christ comes and builds the kingdom. All of our literature is written that way. Now here's option "Number One," Ready? Let our literature say that and it's FALSE! I've written, I don't know probably a million words about the gospel. I've got to alter those. When would I do it? We can't let it go out. It's not true! So that's option number one would just let it stay there out of the question. 

Option "Number Two," withdraw all of our literature on the subject of the gospel. The Awesome Potential of Man, What's the Kingdom. What's the True Gospel, How World Peace Will Come. And all the booklets that I wrote years ago that had been so productive. Hundreds of millions of our pieces of literature have gone out, just withdraw them and never talk about the Gospel again? Well, that's a problem because we have an open door in front of us and nobody can shut it! So we wouldn't be expected to do that. So neither of those options are realistic. Here's the third one. God says he wants to come as a "thief", as a "snare." He does not want the world to know it. He wants a little group to know it. So then what do I do? Rewrite the literature and tell the world what it appears. God does not want them to know? That's option "Number three," that doesn't sound like a very good option, but we'd have to do something, unless God revealed this extraordinary mystery that has been this series right before he intended to solve the problem Himself. Because here they are, again, leave the literature that's up--it's wrong! It was "a present truth." Mr. Armstrong taught things that were wrong and he taught all the other doctrines of God correctly. We believed them. We held to them, but I no longer could. What would our ministers counsel people who were reading booklets that are wrong? "Well, this was actually wrong, but we need to understand it should say this." Well, they'd say, if I were a prospective member, like I was 55 years ago, I'd said, "Well, why hasn't it changed?" Or the alternative? Remember, second alternative? Just cancel all that literature and never talk about the kingdom of God. Well again, no one could consider that a viable option.

And the third one is start rewriting it. Now that would even take a while. And then we would do, because the Work is booming. Make no mistake. We are booming right now! I've never seen anything like it! And we're poised to do big stuff. So what would we do just sit on that we're wonderfully positioned to explode! But then we would be telling people what God doesn't want known. So, there was no box on that list where you could check "none of the above." You got to go one of the three ways. Now I never mentioned that as a metric because I never thought of it as a metric until I came to understand the "mystery of God" is that the kingdom of God arrives in a totally different way than anybody we or anybody else ever thought.

But it's a "fact" and you've heard the proof. So the only solution it seems to me is that the kingdom has to come, or I got to choose one of those three things because I'm not going to sit back. Our "reserves are," I mean, you just can't believe how well we're doing. We never done this well! We're 22 years now and I mean, we're not going to go build more buildings. There's no time for that. What would we do? We have a wonderful staff. We don't have to spend time hiring more staff. We're well positioned. We're poised, we're oiled. We could go out and do a much bigger work, but the problem is we would be disclosing a secret God does not want it out. I don't know how I could do that in good conscience. So, God speed the day! It looks like our weight is very short for one more reason. And the "Mystery of God" has gone away in a greater way. For one more reason. Good night.