Dennis on: "Oh God! No!"

"Oh God!  No!"

He had fallen into the now abandoned and half full of rainwater family swimming pool unnoticed.  The pool had not been used for some time due to financial reverses in the family company which saw them lose many of the material acquisitions of better days now gone by.  When he went missing and a search was made for the boy, they missed him in the first check of the now muddied swimming pool.  Having run out of places to look, they looked again and found him drowned in the murky pool. 

When they weren't looking other relatives washed the muddy hand prints all around the water line off before the parents could see them....  That image has always stayed with me. It also made me wonder what kind of a God could sit idly by and watch, if one does watch, this horror unfold.

It was another of many "Oh God! No!" moments in my ministry.  Those phone calls are tough and the initial minutes arriving at the home is usually chaos.  I have made any number of such return trips to a church family home in the immediate hours after such unthinkable personal family losses.  I have had to restrain the arms of a parent attempting to beat on me while they screamed "Why!!!  Why us?"   I learned to just hold on and the aggression would soon turn into a total collapse into my arms of weeping at a deep deep level most never want to discover in themselves.  It is almost primitive.  Next would follow a listing of sins or faults such as knowing they did not pray as much as they should or attend church as often as they must.  All in the name of finding a reason for two things.  1. What bad things have I done to deserve this?  2. Why did God not protect my son or daughter, as clearly written he would,  in such a time as this?

On one other such horrific occasion, I had just left the home visiting before the twin teenage girls loved by all got off from school.  The Twins were the center of moms world and even though they had a son, it was the Twins, both beautiful and precious that seemed to get all the attention.  On that visit the thought crossed my mind, "I hope she never has to lose one of these girls for it would be too much to bear."  I drove home and arrived for the phone call from the mom.  The one Twin had been hit by a car crossing the road to get to her Burger King job.  I said I'd meet her at the hospital.  When I walked in I was greeted by a Zombie who took my hand and said she'd take me to see her.  As we walked thru the basement I realized what I had not been told.  We were going to the morgue.  We walked in an there she lay in her Burger King outfit.  Beautiful and not a mark on her.  She was gone.  She was dead.  Those minutes seemed like hours as we just stood there and then the typical hell broke lose in that morgue and the screams were,  "Oh God!  No!"  Where were you!"

I had no answer and didn't try.  I held her when she collapsed and eventually buried her daughter in the Prom dress she had bought for the YOU prom that weekend. It was odd to see her living exact twin standing next to her casket.  The picture kinda sticks with you...  I believe the family left the church in a short time and became Mormons. 

It was VERY COMMON for the bereaved family to LEAVE the Church to seek solace elsewhere.  VERY COMMON...almost expected.  In one case that happened under my watch but I was transferred out of the area at the same time, the minister following finally told the family "It's been six months now.  It's time to get over it."  I remember being absolutely enraged at that fool.  The family left the Church to seek actual and not non-encouraging encouragement in short order.   Can you blame them?

I have a number more such events that all contain that element of "Oh God!  No!"  With many of those behind me as pastoring went on I always thought how ridiculous it was when someone told me how God healed them from a cold or the flu or helped them pass a gall or kidney stone.  "Luck of the draw.." I tended to tell myself.

"Mystic and writer Amos Komensky, who lived during the 17th century, wrote that God assigns guardian angels to help protect children “against all dangers and snares, pits, ambushes, traps, and temptations.” But adults get the benefit of guardian angels’ protection, too, says the Book of Enoch, which is included in the holy scriptures of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. 1 Enoch 100:5 declares that God will “set a guard of holy angels over all the righteous.” The Quran says in Al Ra'd 13:11: "For each [person], there are angels in front of him and behind him, who guard him by Allah's command."    (Whitney Hopler)

Scriptures to skip during the funeral...

Matthew 18:10

¹⁰ “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Hebrews 1:14

¹⁴ Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation

Psalm 91

¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

³ Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

¹⁴ “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation. ”

 

Concepts and Non-encouraging encouragement NOT to bring up to the family.

 

"God promises not to give you more than you can bear."

 

Answer to this 100% of the time.  "I can't bear this...

"At least you will see them in the Kingdom if you remain faithful"

 

Answer to this 100% of the time. "I want them home tonight for dinner."

"At least God has blessed you with other children"

 

Answer to this 100% of the time.  "Please don't say that...."

"God lost his only Son as well and understands ...."

 

Answer to this 100% of the time.  "No, God knew his Son would die and be back in three short days better than ever.  That was a weekend inconvenience.  My child is DEAD!"   (Usually this can be followed by..."A sacrifice should STAY dead to be a real sacrifice.")

"God does not think as we do in such cases."

 

Answer 100% of the time.  "Then don't tell me He understands what human is!"

"God's ways are not our ways."

 

Answer 100% of the time.  "Then He shouldn't promise to do things the way we understand in only our way or talk in spirit codes"

 

"There is a way that SEEMS right to us, but it ends in death..."

 

Answer 100% of the time.  "Then I don't understand this God, never will and am not sure I want to.

 

Like Job getting back ten brand spanking new children from God after the loss of the original ten, it just seems this God doesn't understand how these things work for humans.  We generally don't want another child replace the lost one.  We want THAT ONE BACK!" 

The apologetics for God are typical in such cases.

" We have looked at God’s sovereignty and how important that truth is. Because if I am not convince that God is sovereign, then His promises will mean nothing to me. In fact I might even observe that God doesn’t keep His promises because my understanding of God is superimposed with my experience with man. Man fails, doesn’t keep promises and really has no power to ensure that any promise is kept. We wrongly transfer those weaknesses of man onto God, but God is not limited as man is. He is perfect love, complete, lacking nothing. The promises of God are identical with His character, to us as temporal beings, they are a revelation of the character of the Most High."

(If God promises to protect us, why doesn't He?-Crave Christian Apologetics)

 

Which being interpreted is...see above for encouragement that is not encouraging..

 

And more...

"We can give thanks to God for his protection by angels.  We never worship angels.  We worship Jesus (God).  God created the angels before Adam and Eve were made.  Some of the angels did not obey God and decided to follow the worst angel of all, Satan.  He is very bad.  He is a real and powerful angel that was so bad God threw him and the bad angels (demons) out of heaven.  You have a good angel that loves and obeys God that is watching over you.  Satan, the bad angel, tries to get us to do bad things.  But since Jesus created him, Jesus is stronger than Satan (the Devil ).  Jesus will protect us and use His angels to protect us from harm because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)(ChildrenSermons.com  Angels Watching Over Me)

 

It simply isn't true or if it is true it is so in way that makes the scriptures on such things meaningless. 

 

I never had a good answer for this.  I had good apologetics where no matter what the Bible actually said, it could be denied, altered or tweeked in such ways as to absolve the author or God from it actually meaning what it said.  The Bible is like that as are humans who , no matter what, can't imagine the advice or promise is really lame and unrealistic in real earthly experience.

 

Perhaps it would be better to just admit that in life, "shit happens." How many have been dis-illusioned when the SHTF in life becasue of what seemed so quaint and nice in scripture actually proved to be of no value in reality? Dis-ILLUSIONED is actually a good thing however painful.  Reality is actually our friend if we can face it instead of ignore it, try and end run around it or turn around and run.

 

I have buried a lot of children and young people. All flower shops smell like funeral homes to me. Well meaning, Bible reading Christians often cause more harm than good with their unrealistic and sometimes smug one liners of encouragement, as if they knew.  Please, please think before you open your mouth in shallow assertions about the why of such events or think that the many Biblical references in such cases meant to be encouraging are actually encouraging.   When push comes to shove, they seldom deliver and drive those caught up in harsh reality further from you. 

 

Most people can only offer sympathy.  Sympathy is imagining what others might be going through but one has no personal experience with what they are actually going through.  Empathy is knowing what people are going through because you have actually gone through the same thing and lived to tell about it.  Don't quote the Bible flippantly thinking it will help.  It doesn't and it won't.  Or if it ever does, that time is years ahead when the person has at least survived long enough for the memory of it all to dull. 

 

Conscious human beings are sensitive to these loses. We are not animals that can discard their dead in the bushes and walk away.  Encouragement should actually be encouraging to one who is discouraged.  Often times in fundamentalism, it is not.  Wise up and hope we choose our words carefully when "Oh God! No!"  comes to call...

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Satan Is A Frustrated Hermaphrodite

More fun from Jeff Dugger: A Small Voice FAQ

Many who agree with your stance on Gen. 6 allege that Satan and Eve had sex producing Cain. Do you agree to this teaching? Absolutely not! God's word clearly states that Cain was the product of Adam and Eve (Gen. 4:1). There is no passage in Scripture where a sexual union between Satan and Eve is ever spoken of. Those who promote otherwise speak directly against God's written word. (Our research reveals Satan to be a very frustrated and hermaphroditic entity. Hence, there is hardly any chance at all of Eve ever being able to become impregnated by such a creature. Hermaphrodites don't reproduce very easily according to God's laws of physics.)

COG: "Earth Cake" or Fruitcake?

The "earth cake" theory.  Bet you never heard that one preached in a COG before have you? It certainly sounds more interesting than hearing HWA bellow on about the two trees week after week.

Here is what Jeff Dugger from A Small Voice has to say:

This "earth-cake" theory asserts that God placed the pre-fallen Lucifer on Earth (along with one third of the angels), to better complete what was supposed to have been an already perfect creation. God does not create in any other fashion than perfection. The analogy of the Earth being represented as a baked cake with the angels being ordered to frost the unfinished sweet concoction is often thrust forward as an explanation. Another analogy in this same line of reasoning portrays Earth as a piece of newly constructed furniture, with the angels being sent by God to sand, stain and varnish our planet to a final and better completed product. 


Scripture never states that God placed Lucifer on Earth to do any type of finishing work at all, unless one assumes God to be represented symbolically as the red dragon of Rev. 12--which is wholly impossible. This theory attempts to show that Lucifer was transformed from super-angel into the Devil while on Earth, and subsequently traveled to Heaven in an attempt to knock God from His throne. However, the text cannot possibly support such a scenario. It's abundantly clear from Rev. 12:3-4 that it was Satan, no longer the good guy super-angel, who was responsible for sending one third of the angels to Earth, and not God.

Instead of "earth cake" I think this more aptly describes him:

UCG's Unique Money Saving Plan

The WCG always had a liberal policy of reimbursing ministers for personal items.  This ranged anywhere from household food, alcohol, lawn care, clothing, and even condoms and women's sanitary supplies.  Many times there would be really strange things purchased and the church would pay for it.

Then the huge blow-up happened and tens of thousands went off to form new church corporations where these procedures were carried over.  UCG though, but the brakes on reimbursement for alcohol last year soon after COGWA split off.  I am sure this was a huge disappointment to several in the UCG ministry. Some of them are well know for their prolific alcohol collections and consumption.

I wonder how many tens of thousands of dollars have been saved over the last year?

Malm: Animals Suffer To Teach Us A Lesson About Satan

One of the apostate apostle's acolytes wrote to him asking why animals have to suffer.  According to Malm, animals have to suffer in order to make us realize how mean Satan is so that we will not rebel against God in the Kingdom. 

My question to you is this. Why do you think a Loving and merciful God lets millions of animals suffer everyday all over the world.
No one has answered this for me. With your wisdom and relationship with the almighty you may understand this.
Thank You

Right now this world belongs to Satan and God is letting Satan have his way within certain limits. Even humanity suffers greatly. In the kingdom God will take away the wild nature of even the beasts and the lion will lie peacably with the lamb and the wolf will play with the kid.
It is also true that God creted all things for a purpose; some were created for sacrificial purposes to teach us lessons; others were reated for other purposes. We are to use what God has crated for the purposes that God intended and receive that with thanksgiving.
I dare say that all the suffering and death is to teach us so thoroughly that the ways of Satan and the results they bring are so hideous that we will get so full of the horror of iot that once eternity has come, we will never rebel as he did. James

It is Not Safe For the True COG to Worship In This Age

Armstrongism has always had the strange practice of holding church services in Masonic Lodges, Elk's Lodges, and Odd Fellows Halls.  Making that practice even more strange are the numerous articles put out by the church criticizing those organizations as satanic.

We now have a COG splinter cult here in CA asking why the COG's continue this practice.  But before they get to that, they want you to know how dangerous it is for COG's to meet together on Saturdays.  I don't know what planet this splinter cult is on, but there has been no hindrance to any COG meeting in the United States.

Affordable, convenient, comfortable, and safe places to formally worship God are very difficult to find. However, the practice of the Father's  true religion is not convenient, comfortable, or safe in this age. The elect of God are limited in almost every endeavor they attempt in this evil world, and to use monetary justification,  convenience, and comfort as the foremost criteria or as an excuse to use the facilities of this world's religions seems to be missing the point of the many instructions of God that require a true Christian to separate themselves  from false religious systems  and false gods.

Questions to Consider

• Why  would a true Christian want to meet in a building that is dedicated to the worship of a false religion and god?
• Why would a true Christian want to worship the true God surrounded by idols,  paintings, and symbols that clearly violate the first two of the Ten Commandments?  
• Knowing how God feels  about false religious systems and their practices and places of  worship,  can a true Christian offer up praise to him and worship him within a building or a place dedicated to a false god in good conscience? Congregation of God, San Jose CA

Ron Weinland: "My Work Is Nearly Complete"

Armstrongism has had a long history of men who think they have an inside channel to God's master plan.  Over the decades they have run off at the mouth with some incredibly STUPID things.  Such as these lies from Dale Schurter, Herman Hoeh, Rod Meredith, and Herbert Armstrong:

4) 1964 Coworkers letter: "only 7 years before H-bomb warfare breaks out"

5) May 1965 PT: "Hitler will be falsely resurrected by the Pope"

6) Feb 1965: by Meredith: "documented proof Hitler did not die in his bunker"

8) 13 Dec 1965, HWA in co-workers letter: "We are in the grand smash climax - only 6 years left."

11) 1955 PT by Hoeh: "within 20 years this nation will be toppled by worst drought in its history" - note: 1975 US had one of greatest grain surpluses and sold it to Soviets

17) April 1956 PT by Hoeh: "Disease epidemics threaten US in 2 years"

22) 1934 PT: "Christ will return in 1936"

23) 1940 PT: "Christ will come after 3.5 years of tribulation in October 43"

24) 1982 Coworkers letter: (for those who claim he mellowed with the years) "I hope to arrange for the use of Petra as a possible refuge or place of safety during the Great Tribulation when I see King Hussein. Pray for this please."

25) 1960's PT repeatedly claimed 1972 would be the year of Christ's coming

26) after 1969: HWA claimed it would be 1975

27) first half of 1950's PT: Christ would return in 1957

36) Gerald Waterhouse continually: if HWA died, God would destroy the world

48) April/May 1978 Worldwide News: HWA teaches you can only come to Christ through him through government structure: cut yourself off from Christ if you disobey HWA

61) 1966 PT by Dale Schurter: prepare for famine in US within 3-5 years; note - hundreds of WWCG farmer members bankrupted following his teaching that fertilizer was sinful

  71) Turkey will prevent the United States Sixth Fleet from fleeing from Nazi European air attacks and will stab America and Britain in the back. It will later be destroyed for this treachery. - Plain Truth articles by Hoeh, Herbert and Meredith in the 1960s.

89) He and Dale Schurter warned farmers against using nitrate fertilizers claiming it would ruin their lands and would cause famines around the world. Instead, nitrate fertilizers, developed after the turn of the century, have fed billions of people. It was farmers who followed HWA who were ruined when they suddenly abandoned all fertilizers on his urging and went immediately to compost heaps without easing their land off it. Hundreds or thousands of families were ruined.

92) From 1950s onward, HWA and Hoeh: King Hussein of Jordan will grant the WWCG a tribulation-time "place of safety" at Petra. 1994, King Hussein is dying of colon cancer. Extreme Islamic fundamentalists are threatening to topple his dynasty and seize Jordan.

108) March 1950 PT: "One third of our people will die from starvation ... - and in the next FEW YEARS!" Is 48 years just "a FEW YEARS!"?

120) August 1957 PT: Another old favorite still with us today. Roderick Meredith: "at the conclusion of the drought and floods we are now just beginning to suffer this nation is going to be punished by horrifying DISEASE EPIDEMICS - plagues." When? He approvingly cites a 1956 Plain Truth title: 'Disease Epidemics Threaten USA in Two Years!" Clearly, 1958 was meant. Meredith continued, "In addition to those warnings ...we will soon find that hoof-and-mouth disease will spread COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL!" The only thing that spread out of control, then and the next 40 years, was the disease of his own big mouth.

149) PT, June 1963 - Roderick Meredith gets his knickers in a twist claiming that a "Protestant leader credited the Roman priests of Europe as being 'the minds behind the (European Common) Market', the real planners of this coming Holy Roman Empire which is prophesied to arise in Europe and CONQUER America and Britain within the next 10 to 12 years ... It is later than you think."

34 years on from that remark, meredith continues to sound off on such subjects, still without humility, without shame. In fact, the true "Minds behind" the European Community after World War II were Robert Schumann, Jean Monnet and - most of all - Winston Churchill, whom herbert had already predicted years before would be conquered by Hitler.

156) PT, February 1965: Roderick Meredith - "Dozens of prophesied events indicate that this final revival of the Roman Empire in Europe -and its bestial persecution of multitudes of Bible-believing Christians - will take place within the next seven to ten years of YOUR LIFE!"

Yet another false prophecy, another foul lie. In fact, the years 1967-70 saw the Catholic Church charity organization Caritas make far greater and more successful relief efforts to save hundreds of thousands of starving children (hundreds of thousands died anyway) in the Nigerian Civil War than all other groups combined. The 1966 Medellin accords opened a new era of respect and support for human rights in the Catholic Church throughout Latin America. The complete list of 209 failed prophecies is here: Herbert Armstrong's 209 False Prophecies

      
There you have a record of some of the lies that have been spewing from the mouths of the "enlightened" evangelists, ministers and apostles of the Church.  Every single one of them have proven to be liars.


You would think that given this horrendous track record of lies and false prophecies uttered in the Church that other splinter cult leaders would have learned to keep their mouths shut.  Sadly, they have not learned a lesson from the past.


Today, the biggest liar and fool that the Church has is Ron Weinland.  Weinland claims he is THE end time prophet, that he is one of the two witnesses, and the last apostle for this age.


He has published and said  so many foolish and stupid things that he has no credibility anymore.  Yet, like the EverReady Bunny, he keeps on going.


On April 29, 2012 he had this to say about his awesome revelations:

As readers of this site know, May 27, 2012, is the time that I have stated as being the date Jesus Christ will return as King of kings over all government on this earth. For such an event to come to pass, the Trumpets of Revelation must all sound, the United States and dollar collapse, the ten nations of Europe arise to fulfill the final revival of the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia with China must unite against Europe in WWIII.

But as the last apostle in this age, and as God’s end-time prophet, I am still telling people that this is true and that a short-lived WWIII is now at our doorstep. Due to this strong conviction, the Church of God – PKG is putting all its resources into promoting this final message of Christ’s impending return in order to complete the “work” that God has given us to do. This “work” is nearly complete. As my previous post was written over two months ago, this may well prove to be my final one, since there are only four weeks remaining in this age.

Then a wave of sanity briefly kicks Ronnie in the ass and he rambles on about things maybe not happening according to plan because God is "merciful."  I guess on Monday morning  May 28th when the sun rises, Weinalnd will be saying, "God has shown great mercy on the church because it is not ready and has therefore delayed the coming of Jesus Christ."  That is the same broken record the liars of Armstrongism have been saying for 70 some years now.  The dumb sheep are not ready and God has to delay his awesome plan of death and destruction.

When I began writing posts for this site, I initially envisioned the possible need of writing more often, primarily due to our preparing for the possibility of “great tribulation” beginning at the very start of this final three and one-half year period. However, great physical tribulation did not begin at that time, and it thankfully has not yet begun. So the need to write more often in order to help people deal with tribulation that could have begun early on has not been needed. But rather, in the midst of horrifying prophecies for this end-time, God has revealed in a most powerful manner one of His greatest attributes toward His creation—toward mankind. It is the awesome quality of “mercy”!

Then, I guess Weinland's brain fart is over and he says:

A fast approaching fixed date of May 27th for Christ’s return does not seem reasonable to people. It just does not seem right. Throughout time, those things that God has given to people in the form of prophecy and instruction just do not seem right to mankind. Human nature has always resisted the true ways of God.

 Those in the world and in the Church that was scattered who hear (or read) what I have said about the timing of Christ’s return and all the horrific end-time events that will precede it respond in similar manner—with utter disbelief. Oftentimes, the response is also mixed with ridicule, slander, anger, mockery, chiding, correction and a seemingly endless barrage of other negative human emotions regarding the “message.” God actually addresses this exact kind of response, for this exact moment in time, by a prophecy given through Ezekiel (Ez. 12).

For all of you that mock Weinerdude and his prophecy this is what is in store for you:

God says He will scatter such people and they will be taken into captivity. This next part will make many mad and upset with me, but this is from God and not from me. This is speaking of the vast majority of the Church that was scattered after the apostasy. They have become so spiritually sluggish that they cannot and will not accept truth that God has given since the apostasy—truth that He has given to His end-time prophet.

Weinland ends with this:

God’s timing is based on the day He has set for the return of His Son as world ruler. God will allow mankind to begin his final war, but He will also quickly stop it. The reason should be obvious! “Why” massive destruction from end-time events has not yet begun is due to the reality of how massive such a war will become as soon as it starts. Once a single nuclear device is detonated, and it will happen very soon now, who will refrain themselves from retaliating? Who will be the first to limit the response of their attack once the cycle begins?

It is because of such destructive power in the hands of mankind that God has shown that if He did not intervene quickly, once such a conflagration begins, mankind would destroy itself. That is exactly what God is going to do. He will cut short the war that man begins, and He will do so on May 27th, which is also the day Jesus Christ returns.

I am going to have a great bottle of wine, grill some shrimp and steak on the night of the 27th as I watch the sun set; while laughing with some other ex-COGers at yet another idiotic Church of God minister made a public fool of himself.