Living Church of God's Tithe Thug Says 'This Passover Season Examine Why You Don't Save Enough Second Tithe"

Passover, at least in the Church of God, a time of self-reflection over past sins and actions that separate members from one another. It was a time of recommitment to never do it again, but almost everyone did the next day after Passover, hard-heartedness reigned supreme when the law is used as your saviour.

Living Church of God's Rod McNair is taking Passover reflection a step further.  Examine why you don't save enough money to go to the Feast.  LCG is getting sick and tired of helping members.

Saving—and Spending—the Festival Tithe: Passover time is self-examination time. It is time to evaluate our lives. And time to adjust and correct areas where we may be falling short. We can ask ourselves, “Am I being faithful in setting aside the Festival tithe?” Over the years, some brethren have fallen into the trap of thinking that saving Festival tithe—also known as second tithe—is optional. In other words, if they cannot afford it, they don’t need to save it. But Scripture shows just the opposite. Saving the Festival tithe is a command that teaches us to have an appropriate fear of God, keeping our focus on Him providing for our needs (Deuteronomy 14:22–23). In “Self-Examination: A Vital Key to Growth,” (LCN, March/April 2009), Mr. Richard Ames explains that we can even “ask God for the ability to give,” and that tithing shows God we “trust and honor Him.” Reviewing that article might be helpful during this season.

Then Rod McNair has to treat LCG members as the idiots he thinks they are because they are too stupid to know how to spend their money at the Feast.  Even though he and the rest of the Meredith clan used the second tithe to live the high life at Feast sites.  Who can forget Lil'Jimmy Meredith bragging about water skiing, snorkelling and jet ski riding at the Feasts in Hawaii? One standard for the LCG elite and another for the lowly members.

Another question we can ask ourselves is, “Am I spending my Festival tithe correctly?” Deuteronomy 14:24–26 shows that the Festival tithe is for going to or using at the Feast. Certainly, that includes the Spring Feasts. If you know you will have enough Festival tithe for the coming Feast of Tabernacles, it is certainly appropriate to use a small portion of it during the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread season. Many brethren use a small part of their Festival tithe for the Night To Be Observed meal. On the other hand, some have, over the years, fallen into the trap of thinking that the Festival tithe can be used for household items or other things throughout the year, or as emergency funds, which have no relation to God’s Festivals. Let’s be careful not to stretch the application of the Festival tithe command beyond its intent.

Why talk about the Festival tithe in March, when the Feast of Tabernacles is over five months away? Because now is the time to examine our Festival tithe saving—and spending—habits.

Passover is only three weeks away!

Have a wonderful Sabbath,

Rod McNair

Church of God News is asking if this is Rod McNair's start of no longer assisting LCG members.

Do Rod McNair's comments, in the March 8th update, mark the end of festival assistance? If you are so poor that you are unable to save the festival (second) tithe, he instructs you to do it anyway, and “ask God for the ability to give.” 

The church has always expected members to tithe, even when they cant afford it.  It was far more important for the church to get their cut of the money than it was for the members to live lives according to what they can afford. That is why it is important to enforce the tithing doctrine, even though there is no spiritual proof that the New Covenant calls for it.  How else can the LCG elite live their lives of luxury?

Herbert W Armstrong Home For Sale In Bankruptcy Court

Here is your chance to own Herbert Armstrong's Pasadena home located at 210 South Orange Grove Blvd. The current owners are now in bankruptcy.

INITIAL OVERBID PRICE: $11,425,000
Chapter 11 Trustee: Peter Mastan
Debtor: BGM Pasadena, LLC
1. Bankruptcy sale subject to Bankruptcy Court approval
2. All offers are subject to court overbid process
3. Bankruptcy Court Case # 2:15-bk-27833-BB
4. Properties are being sold “AS-IS, WHERE-IS” without
representations or warranties
BID Deadline: May 10th, 2017 at 5:00 pm PSTCourt Overbid Auction Date: May 17th, 2017 at 2:00 pm PST before the Honorable Sheri BluebondLocation: 255 East Temple Street, Courtroom 1539 Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dorn Platz had bought the Pasadena campus to build their super high-density apartment/condo
complexes.  Pasadena residents had a fit and fought them at every turn.  Dorn Platz eventually went bankrupt and sold their holdings, except for Herbert Armstrong's home (their offices) and the 380 - 390  apartments (former AC dorms) where DP exec's had private on-site residences.

The new owners eventually got their plans through and the building spree began.  Now the last remnants are for sale.  Though this sale has a lot of baggage attached to it.

The current tenant at the property, Dorn Platz Management, Inc. has a lease in place that runs until March 31st, 2025. The lease was originally executed on March 29, 2005 for a 10 year term and extended for 10 additional years. Please note that similar ownership interests exist between the debtor, BGM Pasadena, LLC, and the tenant Dorn Platz Management, Inc. Dorn Platz holds a master lease for building with sublet tenants existing. Buyer to Verify. The lease was originally executed on March 29th, 2005 for a 10 year term and extended for an additional 10 years. Please note that similar ownership interests exist between the debtor, BGM Pasadena LLC, and the tenant Dorn Platz Management, Inc. Dorn Platz holds a master lease for the building with sublet tenants existing. These sublet tenants may also be affiliated with the debtor, BGM Pasadena, LLC. Buyer to review all leases and related documents and verify.

The spacious grounds around the house are long gone.  The garage was moved to a new location next to the reflecting pool and the lawn ripped out and made into a parking lot.  The backyard now has a three-story condo towering over it.

Just imagine what it would feel like to own this home and to be able to sit in the downstairs library or upstairs in HWA's old office and channel HWA's thoughts as you start your new church!  Or imagine sitting in the downstairs sunroom watching professional wrestling or Westerns on TV on a quiet Saturday afternoon, as HWA did while Ramona painted her toenails on the couch next to him.

Here's the opportunity for Bob Thiel to move his HQ down to Pasadena and start a real work!

The glory days for the work have a bright future for the right buyer!
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The Witnesses will read the Law at the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland this coming Feast of Tabernacles

Just so no one here forgets the sheer lunacy that occupies the minds of various Church of God personality cult leaders, I present the latest from Wade Cox, the Coordinator General of the improperly named "Christian" Churches of God.  A quick read of his accomplishments on his blog will give you the impression that he really is a "general" in charge of his troops (his church).

Wade envisions himself as the greatest Church of God leader ever. He is even greater than the other greatest COG leader ever, Bob Thiel.   They both are competing to influence as many African former members of the old Worldwide Church of God as they can.  Cox claims to have converted 50% or more of the African continent into his twisted version of Sabbatarianism.  Now that Bob Thiel is stealing some of his members, will we soon see a bloody fight for COG supremacy in Africa? The Dreamy COG fighting with the Mohammedan COG, what a cockfight that will be!

As crazy as all of that is, there is this:

Cox is encouraging his minions to save as much 2nd tithe as possible in order to travel to Queensland, Australia for the fall of 2019 for the Feast of Tabernacle where the "witnesses" will read the law to the already enslaved legalists of his personality cult who prefer worshipping the law while ignoring Jesus. One would think, that since they are at the Feast, which is supposed to be a foretaste of the Kingdom of God where grace, mercy, justification, peace and divine love reign supreme with Christ in charge, but no.  It is better to keep the enslaved sheeple beaten down and believing that they must have rules and regulations ruining their lives instead of being at rest in the one who came to give them rest from the endless and fruitless task of following all of the rules.

Can you imagine spending thousands of dollars in 2nd tithe to travel to Queensland and have to sit and listen to Cox and another witless witness read the Deuteronomic law?  The hot licking sulfuric flames of hell sound more delightful.

Gerald Flurry: "Correction brings joy" because "feelings and physical evidence don’t matter; just believe."

Gerald Flurry recently held a speaking engagement in Norwalk California.  After flying in on the Flurry family private jet, he spoke to a group of Trumpet subscribers. With 200 people present (most of them PCG members) God's mighty spokesman delivered a "masterfully put together and delivered" message.

Here is what Grant Turgeon reported:

Mr. Flurry was markedly more direct in Houston than he had been in Norwalk: He emphasized that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews just before Roman troops destroyed Jerusalem in a.d. 70, killing 600,000 people and resulting in the starving Jews resorting to cannibalism. This suffering, Mr. Flurry said, is a type of what Americans will soon experience.

The same tired and broken record of endless destruction and starving American citizens continues on. It is disgusting watching these COG leaders get all orgasmic at the mere thought of this happening.  They need starvation, parents eating children, rampaging Germans hanging Americans from meat hooks, and more, in order for them to be proven right in their endless prophetic speculations.

Then Flurry makes an incredibly ill-informed and absurd slam against Christians.

Mr. Flurry said that in Hebrews, Paul tried to give members of God’s Church a hopeful vision. “Lose the vision, and you will fall,” he said. While traditional Christians focus on the dead Jesus Christ, true Christians should focus on His role as Advocate and Intercessor in their lives each day, and on mankind’s potential to become Spirit-born Sons of God as Christ did, Mr. Flurry said. He also urged listeners to prove and keep the Sabbath day to have rest from sin.

The only Christians I have ever seen that focused on a "dead Jesus Christ" has been COG leaders.  Every Passover they take great pleasure in sacrificing him once again, in amplified matzo cracking glory, in some godforsaken school gym. Then, a week later they are back to amplifying the law because they refuse to follow a risen Christ.  Jesus has been left on those gym floors for decades.  Its no wonder they can't find him. Plus, the Christians I know worship a risen Christ.

Mr. Davis called the lecture “masterfully put together and delivered.” He said, “I know that God inspired that. It was a noticeably strong message both nights, and the people responded positively to that.”

On the second night, Mr. Flurry spoke to a group of approximately 80 subscribers, giving two reasons why God’s people should be bold:

1. Be bold because you can enter God’s throne room.

2. Be bold because Christ is in the Holy of Holies interceding for you.

Flurry expects his followers to believe and follow every single thing he says, with faith.  Word is spreading that PCG now realizes that his eminent prophetic predictions are not happening and therefore may be many years further down the line before anything happens.  He has to keep his troops in line and subservient.

Faith is assurance before possession, Mr. Flurry said, citing Hebrews 11:1. Noah built the ark for 100 years without a sign of the coming Flood. If God has made a promise, Mr. Flurry said, feelings and physical evidence don’t matter; just believe.

Correction brings joy, Mr. Flurry said. God corrects His sons, who will one day be made perfect spirit beings free from evil human nature.

The sick legacy of Armstrongism continues unabated.

Getting Over the Past by Wes White

Getting Over the Past

By Wes White

(Submitted to Banned By HWA)

            Over the past year or so, I have had the pleasure to communicate with blog sites such as “Banned By HWA.”  I learn a lot from these sites and I am glad whenever I can contribute to the dialogue in a positive way.

            But lately, wow, have I been getting some flak over this!  The leaders in some of the big, corporate COGs tell their members how awful it is that Wes White has relationships with these blog sites like “Banned,” “Painful Truth,” “Church of God News,” etc.  They ask, “How can Wes justify being friends with those people who have rejected so much of God’s truth?”  Further, they claim that too many of us “just can’t get over the past and that we need to move on.”   

            Let’s be clear on three points:

            First, the editors of “Banned By HWA” owe me no explanation for their beliefs.  And I owe no one any explanation for who I talk to.  Any person who doesn’t like who I talk to is the one who needs to “get over it.”  Also, what if I were to be dialoguing with a Baptist blog or an atheist blog or a politically extreme blog?  Would I have to justify my relationship with them?  Anyone who answers “yes” needs to grow in maturity.

Second, when it comes to my getting over the past, I have nothing to get over.  My experience in WCG was almost all good.  I benefitted a lot from twelve years in that organization.   

When I first came into the church, I was befriended by the district superintendent of the Chicago area because he wanted me to give him guitar lessons.  Poor man had a tin ear.  But I tried to be nice about his lack of talent and I encouraged him to keep practicing even though I believed any chances of him improving his music were pretty much doomed.

Then I started a church band with a ministerial trainee.  You talk about being with the in-crowd. 

When I arrived at AC as a student, I lived with the ministerial trainee’s older brother who was associate dean of students and who played music with GTA.  So I had the benefit of “knowing the right guy” all thru Ambassador.

On and on I could go.  I only mention all this to reiterate that I don’t look at myself as a victim of WCG.  I was the beneficiary of the tithes and sacrifice of many hard-working, generous members.   

But that’s not the point.  What’s important is that I know dozens and dozens of victims of that organization and I feel for those people.  I still pray for them because so many got a real raw deal from that organization.   I was one of the lucky ones and I have no business callously writing the off the victims.  I owe them more than that. 

It is important that Christians always have compassion on those who have been wronged.  Justice is important to God.

Third, I have never done anything like work on a crisis hotline, so I don’t speak from authority about victims of abuse.  But I think I am correct when I say that, when dealing with someone who has been sexually abused, physically abused, verbally abused, financially abused, etc., it is NEVER my job to say, “It’s time to get over it.  Move on.”  No.  I can’t say that. 

The only person who can make that decision is the victim.  Only he/she can say, “I can now move on because my healing is complete.”  Only he/she can make the determination as to when they are over being the brunt of someone else’s abuse. 

The primary problem we have today is NOT those who are still healing or trying to understand why they had to go thru what they went thru.  The problem is with the church leaders who refuse to apologize!  Therein lies the problem!

And I can’t say enough about how much it would help healing if these guys could just admit they were wrong in how they handled people, money, assets, doctrine, etc.  Then, if they could just be sorry and say they’re sorry, a whole lot of good could come out of it.

Any COG splinter group that dares dare to take on the name “Christianity” is going to have to learn what Christianity is truly about.  They are going to have to stop doing quick readings of Matthew 5, 6, and 7 as they gloss over Jesus’ profundities.  Instead, they need to slow down and spend time in the Sermon On the Mount, learning what Jesus has to say about showing true love for other people.

But they won’t.  Their unwillingness/inability to admit wrong-doing (followed by an apology) is limited by their:

1)    Christian immaturity and deliberate lack of biblical understanding about brotherly love.

2)    Fear that admission could lead to legal action.  

3)    Self-centeredness.  Some of these guys love to talk about how they were the ones who were wronged by the Armstrongs, while having no ability to acknowledge the wrongs they did to those “below them.”  It’s almost as if they are saying, “When I get my apology, you’ll get yours.  And since the Armstrongs are dead, I’m not going to get an apology.  So guess where that leaves you?” 

Christianity doesn’t work that way.

I have heard that some ministers get furious when they are asked if they would please apologize for some of the things they have done.  They proudly proclaim, “You will never hear an apology from me or from my church organization.”  I really hope that, on the day they stand before Jesus, they don’t express that vehemence because I fear their intransigence could keep them out of the Kingdom. 

But this is not my call.  Whether they make it into God’s Kingdom is between them and Christ.

In the meantime, let’s communicate with each other, not in spite of the fact that we don’t agree with each other.  Rather, let’s communicated with each other because of the fact that we don’t agree with each other.  It’s foolish to only communicate with those who we agree with.   We have much to learn from those with whom we disagree.

Wes and Nancy White have a self-funded ministry 

Dynamic Christian Ministries

that neither asks for nor accepts donations from the general public.  

They have a live, Friday evening internet show called “Start Our Sabbath.”