Tedd Armstrong wrote this for his mother soon after she died.
Soundcloud: Tedd Armstrong Music
Soundcloud: Tedd Armstrong Music
He also did one on Herbert Armstrong that I posted some time back:
Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before! With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Actually the harvest feast was well known by these Indians and was a tradition practiced throughout the new world, as well as the old by the pagans. Thanksgiving is a universal pagan tradition descended and spread from Babel worldwide. Some of whom paid homage for the harvest by sacrificing young virgins.
Is it wrong to be thankful? NO, Definitely NOT!It IS wrong to cloak pagan traditions in the guise of being thankful to the true God. That is what Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving are all about; cloaking rank paganism in an appearance of something good; of making evil seem desirable, godly and good: Of deceiving people into sinning by exalting the pagan pantheon under the illusion and false cloak of pleasing the true God!The big question is: To whom are you being thankful? To some pagan god and traditions; or to the Eternal Creator who has given us his own Holy Days to rejoice and be thankful on?
In Stage Four, “life must first be school life,” writes Erikson, “whether school is field or jungle or classroom.” 17 One cannot, of course, censure Herbert Armstrong for not choosing a college education in 1910. That career choice is an understandable pattern given the times, as was Frank Armstrong’s admiration of corporate leaders. This was the Production Era of America’s economic advance, a time when Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller were in their heyday. 18 The lasting significance is this: All his life, Herbert Armstrong would be quick study. As a young man he claimed to study incessantly on his own outside the classroom. Tellingly, the evidence is unclear from his writings as to whether he graduated from high school. This is important, for, as Joseph Hopkins notes, Armstrong’s studies did have consequences for his later mass audiences. This anti-intellectual reaction formation is a major thrust in his development process. It is important to remember Erikson’s insistence that Stage Four is when the child’s exuberant imagination is “tamed and harnessed.” As Erikson says: “Many a child’s development is disrupted when family life has failed to prepare him for school life, or when school life fails to sustain the promises of earlier stages.” 19 Freud labeled this the latency stage, the lull before puberty. By his own accounts, Herbert Armstrong loafed and lounged in school. The botany teacher called him a sponge: “Herbert Armstrong, you are just like a sponge. You never study your lesson, you never contribute or give out anything in class. You just sit there and soak up what the other pupils recite, and then, when final exams come along, you always get close to 100%.” 20
In Chapter 10 of his book, The Former Prophets: How to Become a King, Gerald Flurry speculates that about 10,000 PCG members will get to flee to the Place of Safety, which is often said to be Petra, Jordan. Here is what he says.
A couple of biblical prophecies refer to 10,000 saints being in a place of safety in the end time. (You can read about this in Chapter Five of my free booklet No Freedom Without Law.) Deuteronomy 33:1-2 speak of “ten thousands of saints” coming with Christ from mount Paran, which is located in Petra, Jordan. The Apostle Jude referred to this in an end-time context as well (Jude 14).God clearly says there will be 10,000 members in a place of safety. It has to mean that. He is going to come back with those 10,000. So maybe we’ll convert, say, 500 of our teenagers in the place of safety, and between now and then. And maybe we will pick up between 2,000 and 2,500 from the world and from the Laodicean churches.Reaching that number might take a little more time than what we have thought, but I would hasten to add that so much is happening in this world, and it is disintegrating so fast, there is no guarantee it will take long at all. (Gerald Flurry, The Former Prophets: How to Become a King, 2014, Chapter 10, p. 226.)Actually PCG members have already been waiting about thirteen years already to get 10,000 members.
A large part of preparing for the Fall Holy Days involves setting priorities in order. This is a time of the year when we are especially commanded to draw near to God, and we can only imagine how angry and jealous this makes Satan. He will look for our weaknesses, and tempt us to find reasons not to observe God’s Feasts. As we are advised in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” With this in mind, let us be prepared to overcome the weaknesses that cause us to neglect observing the Feast with the right spiritual state of mind.
When we are told to be sober and vigilant, this means that we must be on guard, especially when we know that our actions are an affront to Satan, causing him to become angry with us. This can be a very difficult affair. The strength that we have personally might not be enough to confront the temptations we encounter, but fortunately, we have the strength of Jesus Christ living in us to help. Paul reflects upon this fact in his own life in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This strength promised to us includes the ability to face the physical obstacles that we experience on our path to observe the Feast.
Eddington said members of the United Church of God — of which 14,000 are expected to attend events in the U.S., Canada and 37 overseas locations — use the Sukkot celebration "to picture what (the world) will be like when Jesus Christ returns, something humanity has never actually seen, but it's coming. It's a visionary kind of a week."
That means finding venues where there's an abundance of scenery and tourism opportunities. Resorts such as the Lake Tahoe area; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; the Florida coast; Hawaii; and Zambia near Victoria Falls in Africa have been prime spots in years past.
"Some festival sites are in some very humble locations, but wherever possible, we try to make it a millennial experience," Eddington explained, "because the Feast of Tabernacles in the New Testament understanding pictures a time when Jesus will rule on Earth, instituting God's kingdom showing a life of prosperity, health and happiness for everyone under His rule. Wherever possible, we try to choose a location that inspires that feeling."
The focus of Eddington is solely on the Hebrew understanding of the days and nothing on the guy they are supposed to be followers of. He along with UCG and the other COG's cannot and do not celebrate or talk about anything that pertains to Jesus and what he did. Their only focus is upon pretending to be Jewish Christian and being rulers in a world tomorrow where they imagine becoming God's and have their own planets where they will be rulers and enforcers of the law. Jesus be damned, the law is more important.However, he added, "it's not just a vacation, but also a religious celebration." Following Leviticus 4, the United Church of God observes the first and last days (of the Tabernacles event) as "high" observances, with day-long worship services. On the other days, morning worship and Bible study take place to teach "what the Festival observance is all about," Eddington said.
The afternoons are free time for families, barbecues or light meals and sightseeing. Evenings may host dances or talent shows.
Eddington said, "There is a tendency in Christianity today to follow a lot of tradition that's been passed down over the past 2,000 years that quite honestly is not biblical." The United Church of God eschews Christmas and Easter in favor of the Feast of Tabernacles, Passover and Pentecost, as well as Rosh Hashana, which it calls the Feast of Trumpets, and the Day of Atonement, known to Jews as Yom Kippur.
For Meredith, the benefits of observing the annual event are chiefly spiritual: "I have found that observing the Feast of Tabernacles makes God more 'real' to me in many ways. Focusing on Christ’s return and His millennial rule certainly helps one understand prophecy better. Being surrounded by hundreds of individuals of like mind in worshipping the Creator gives a wonderful spiritual uplift as well."
Armstrongism has proven its self over the decades to be one of the most spiteful churches out there. The heathen non-COG Christian in the world pale at times to the silliness of Armstrongite thought and practices.Most of the larger church groups, however, are continuing to observe the festival separately - even at the same venue - the Living Church of God and Church of God a Worldwide Association are both meeting at Teachers’ Camp, Baguio City, Philippines, but in different halls. Sharing Village, a Filipino church group, will also be observing the festival at Teachers’ Camp.