Arroyo Grande Lights Up!

submitted by SHT

Arroyo Grande has been lighting up the world map the last couple days.  I wonder why?  

Is it anything we said?

Alas, this is what we will be accused of:

God's Chosen COG Prophet Get's Conned

How many years have we been saying here that many of the groups that latch themselves on to various COG's are professional church shoppers looking for easy handouts from the gullible white saviors in America?  They go from one Sabbatarian group to the next till they find some sucker willing to give the laptops, seeds, money, Bibles, and anything else they want.  The self-appointed COG leaders lap this up because they think their god has sent them these new converts.

Our great white savior, Bwana Elijah Bob Thiel, prophet and Chief Overseer of the improperly named "continuing" Church of god, has insisted regularly that he is able to discern the integrity of his church leaders in Africa.  Well, that has come crashing to an end when he had to admit recently that he had attracted men with no integrity and were using him.

Bwana Bob writes on August 29:

As most of you are aware, I left my last church because of repeated integrity issues with its leadership, as well as partially because of how it changed to define itself (for some details, see Why Bob Thiel Left the Living Church of God).

It is amazing how Bwana Bob did not have the ability to discern that Rod Meredith had no integrity, to begin with.  Most who have been in the church and worked with Meredith understood this for decades!  Men of low integrity attract men of low integrity.

After comparing biblical teachings to their actions (and lack of keeping promises they repeatedly made), I concluded that the ‘Philadelphia mantle’ could not be with the top administrative leadership in that organization, and that the mantle had passed as one of its ministers had speculated to me it may have a couple of times.

In CCOG, we have since had to deal with other leaders with integrity issues of various types.

In 2013, we actually had two leaders in Kenya with the same first and last name (but from different towns). The first one turned out to be a complete fraud, while the other one was not. The first leader we started to work with in Malawi, while not a complete fraud, had severe integrity issues, so we stopped working with him. As it turned out, in time, we ended up with many more times the number of congregants in both Kenya and Malawi than those leaders with integrity problems claimed to have.

Recently, I am saddened to say, we became aware of an integrity problem with a leader in Mexico (Ismael Jimenez). So I investigated this by checking with multiple sources. Furthermore, I and a minister from another COG group gave him opportunities to repent and ‘come clean’ so to speak, but as of yet he has not truly done so. So, the CCOG has had to drop affiliation with him and we hope and pray that he repents. We also pray that those who had fellowship with him will one day see the truth about this and again wish to support the work of the Philadelphian remnant.

Working on this matter took up inordinate amounts of time, and more time looks to be required.

The Bible shows that dealing with people who have integrity issues is not new to the Church of God. Even Simon Magus believed and was baptized by the Apostle Philip (Acts 8:13). The Apostle Paul ended up having problems with many he worked with in Asia Minor (2 Timothy 1:15), as did the Apostle John (3 John 9-10).

This is a perfect description of Bwana Bob Thiel who is too blinded by his awesomeness to even understand what he wrote.

Jesus had to deal with the false as well (John 6:70). Furthermore, Jesus specifically predicted that Philadelphians would have to deal with false ones (Revelation 3:7-9) and we in CCOG have ended up doing so.

How can we fault Bwana Bob and the rest of the splinter group leaders as men of low integrity, considering their own original leader, Herbert W Armstrong, had low morals and integrity.  Every single one of the current top leadership of the COG splinter groups are men of low integrity. They all set off on their own in order to ensure a steady flow of income.  It had nothing to do with doctrinal purity.  They knew they were all getting fired or laid off and had no marketable skills. Stealing tithe money from duped members was more important than doctrinal purity or integrity.  All of these men cannot understand why the broad majority of the church never joined up with them.  Integrity is the one important quality none of them had and still do not have.

Fake COG Prophet Still Irritated That No One Recognizes Him As A True Prophet

Self-appointed prophets have come and gone in Armstrongism over the decades. Every one of them has been abject failures and outright liars.  This doesn't matter though to the current cabal of liars claiming they are the rightful true prophets of the church.  They even go as afar to acknowledge the other fake prophets in the COG today, but somehow miss that they are just as sick and perverted as the others are.

It is always fun to see our resident fake prophet from Arroyo Grande continually whine about constantly being dissed by COG members and groups.  Bwana Bob Thiel feels he is the most significantly important man the church has had in this turbulent end times.  He even goes as far as to use Norm Edwards as proof of his prophethood.  One self-appointed group leader telling another self-appointed group leader how important they are.  Seriously?  While Norm may have done some good works in the years he has run his own personality cult, he is still in the same category as Bwana Bob, Pack, Flurry, Weston, Kubik and the rest of the heretical COG splinter leaders.

...that many who are in or claim to be in the Church of God (COG) wrongly do not accept that God has any prophets today. We also agree that most have severe difficulty to identify one who really is a prophet because of various unscriptural biases and improper criteria that they have.

Because of false prophets in a couple of COG-related groups and a disbelief in prophets by most of the COG groups, the non-Philadelphian COGs have a lot of severe prophetic misunderstandings.

As Norman Edward’s article points out, it is scriptural to now have prophets according to the New Testament. But many who truly believe that they live by the word of God have discounted or overlooked what the Bible actually teaches and/or have been influenced by others who have done the same or worse. The COG has at least one demonstrably true prophet today, yet most in the greater COG world seem to be able to ignore the truth about that, like most ignored John the Baptist and others in their day.

Bwana Bob also makes this idiotic statement as further proof he is is a prophet:

Norman Edwards runs Nashville Christian Media and has been the editor for Shepherd’s Voice magazine. He is not part of the Continuing Church of God, where, I function as its human leader (and am an ordained prophet; the only known such prophet in any legitimate Church of God group). 

Could Bobby Thiel Be the One True Prophet in the Church Today? Possibly Not True.

"I function as its human leader (and am an ordained prophet; the only known such prophet in any legitimate Church of God group)."

Prophet Robert Thiel

"I" is a non-stop storyteller, spinning tales
of the past, the present and the future -
constantly editing, interpreting
and directing this inner movie.
- Josh Baran

Living Church of God Hypocrisy: Taking Care of the Disallowed

For over two decades we have watched as various Church of God's denigrated those who are not part of their system. They preach from their pulpit demanding that families cast out family members, relatives, and friends who are no longer part of their group.  They do not care how much damage this causes or the lives destroyed.

They mock Christians outside the insular circle of Armstrongism as "fake" or "so-called", all the while they act in the most unchristian manner imaginable.

Who can forget the PCG story of the family who was told to take their mentally challenged child to the mall and drop it off so the government could take care of it!  After all, the church needed the money being spent on that challenged child more than the child did.

Then there was Rod McNair claiming elderly people in nursing homes were demon-possessed.

Facebook is filled with stories of people who have had their parents tell them they are no longer allowed to talk to them or see their grandchildren because they are not PCG members.  Talk about being disallowed!  Children, parents and former members of LCG also share their horror stories on how nasty and demeaning the ministry is at times.

For some reason, Gerald Weston thought it was a good thing to publish this article on how to "reach out to a troubled world." Given the horrendous track record of abuses in the WCG, GCG, and LCG under Meredith it is obvious they do not practice what they preach.

The Disallowed

The disallowed are those who are prohibited, restrained, or hampered—those refused and not accepted.

Many problems in the world are the result of discrimination based on race, ethnicity or national origin. God anticipated this problem and gave specific instructions for dealing with it. “One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you” (Exodus 12:49). The stranger or foreigner had to obey the rules, but there was only “one law.” God did not want the Israelites ever to forget that they had been oppressed in Egypt for centuries. “You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

God knew the human proclivity to “disallow” or discriminate against others, so He emphasized His instruction on the subject. There is no misunderstanding this plain statement: “And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33–34). The Israelites were not merely to tolerate foreigners—they were to love them. There was also instruction to remember the “stranger” during the Festival seasons (Deuteronomy 16:11, 14), as well as to be fair in employment practices and to remember the poor (Deuteronomy 24:14,17–22). 

Foreigners or strangers have their part to do, but they are to be given an opportunity. The core of the message was that no one should be left out. “Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 31:12).

God’s instructions make it clear that we should not scheme against those who are vulnerable. He inspired Zechariah to write, “Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother” (Zechariah 7:9–10).

James gave a stinging rebuke to those who showed partiality to the wealthy but showed disdain for the poor, whose clothing revealed their poverty. He summed up his rebuke with these words: “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:8–9). Paul put it succinctly, “For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:11).

 We do well to remember the “disallowed,” assisting them, including them, and meeting their needs as we are able. No one will be disallowed in the Kingdom.  Reaching Out to a Troubled World