Obeying the Voices in Their Heads: Was Ezekiel Mentally Ill?

How would one ever know who was influencing who?

Was it the voice of God?

The Voice of Satan?

or

Mental Illness?

"Encouraging people to embrace those voices and then trying to normalize that behavior, is the most dangerous approach yet. Doctors will try anything. Well, almost anything. If you tell them this is a spiritual problem, you’ll be shot down. Voices, they reason, are just a product of physical abnormalities and we have to learn to live with them. There couldn’t possibly be any other explanation.

The answer is clear and simple, however, if you believe in God, read the Bible, and understand that there is a spirit world. 

Revelation 12 explains that Satan the devil “deceives the whole world.” The Bible says he was cast down to Earth along with the demons! This may sound strange or old-fashioned to the intellectuals of this world, but if they would work from this foundation, understanding that this world is held captive by the devil, they would be able to understand why so many people are hearing voices and why those numbers have increased since the mid-1980s. They would understand that encouraging people to entertain those voices is the most dangerous prescription they can give! It is incredibly dangerous for society to try to normalize this sort of behavior!"

Sam Livingston

"Is It Normal to Hear Voices in Your Head"

The Trumpet

July 3, 2017  

The Major Prophet Ezekiel listened to the voices in his head and obeyed them to the letter. His behaviors were bizarre. Was the stress of the times driving his psychosis?  How could we ever know any prophet or OT Patriarch such a Moses or Abraham wasn't simply mentally ill in a day and age when such behaviors were not understood but held to be a spiritual manifestation from God?  Why is Ezekiel considered a True Prophet while anyone else with the identical behaviors would be considered hearing the voice of Satan by religious zealots or mentally ill in the medical world?

Even Mary  and Jesus's brothers were troubled with Jesus behaviors and...

"When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
Mark 3:21 
(This Mary had never heard of the miraculous visitations by Angels and  Virgin Birth of Jesus obviously or she had a very short memory )

Back to the Major Prophet Ezekiel...

Ezekiel 4New International Version (NIV)

Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized

4 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.

4 “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself.[a] You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.

6 “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.

9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels[b]of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin[c] of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”

14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”

15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”  (The voice changes its mind)

Modern Psychiatry comments about Ezekiel's behaviors and symptoms...

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/196/2/101

"Like any prophet, Ezekiel hears the voice of God and it is his prophetic task to relay God’s message onto the people. He hears the voice of God more often (93 times) than any other prophet, and the way God addresses him as ‘ son of man’ or ‘mortal’ is also unique. Ezekiel experiences a variety of other auditory phenomena, including command hallucinations which are not described in any other prophet, 3:3 ‘He said to me; mortal eat this scroll that I give to you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.’

Even the rabbis thought it was strange that Ezekiel actually ate the scroll and they explained it by saying he was ingesting the wisdom of the Torah (law). Other examples of command hallucinations which are carried out are the shaving of Ezekiel’s head (5:1) which would have gone against priestly prohibitions to shave. He is also commanded to dig a hole in a wall in his escape from the city of Jerusalem during the siege, 12:1 ‘ The word of the Lord came to me... 12:5 Dig a hole through the wall in their sight and carry the baggage through it... 12:7 I did just as I was commanded brought out my baggage by day as baggage for exile and in the evening I dug through the hole with my own hands.’ Note that the phrase ‘ in my sight’ denotes that others must have observed this. Ezekiel also hears people gossiping about him by the walls, 33:30 ‘As for you mortal your people who talk about you by the walls and at the doors of the house say to one another each to a neighbour “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord”.’ Ezekiel hears the conversations God was having with others, 9:5’To others he said within my hearing “pass through the city and kill, your eyes shall not spare”.’ Sometimes this voice can be loud, 9:1 ‘Then he cried within my hearing with a loud voice saying “draw near your executioners of the city”.’ Like many individuals with schizophrenia, Ezekiel does his best not to listen to these malign voices, 8:18 ‘and though they cry within my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.’ In his visions he also sometimes hears voices, as for example in the ‘Chariot Vision’, 12:5 ‘And there came a voice from above the dome of their heads’. Also in these visions, as well as voices Ezekiel hears non-verbal auditory phenomena, 1:33 ‘each of the creatures had two wings covering its body. When I heard the sound of the wings like the sound of mighty waters like the thunder of the almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army’. No other prophet hears command hallucinations, conversations with third parties about himself, hears voices in their visions, or has non-verbal auditory experiences. All these auditory phenomena are said to be characteristic of schizophrenia.

• © 2010 Royal College of Psychiatrists

What if?????

PCG Asks: Is It Normal to Hear Voices in Your Head?

Of all of the Churches of God out there, one would never expect Gerald Flurry's group to be asking this question:  "Is It Normal to Hear Voices in Your Head?"  

PCG'S Sam Livingston writes about this very important topic.

People who hear voices in their head are more common than you’d think. The largest survey ever conducted on the subject found that between 10 to 15 percent of Americans have had some sort of audible or visual hallucination. That’s according to a 1991 survey aimed at discovering how widespread these sorts of experiences are outside the mental health clinics. Over 25 years later, this subject is grabbing a lot of attention. And the big question isn’t how to stop the voices, but how to manage them. 

Is there a Church of God splinter group leader out there that do not hear voices in their heads?  That is how every single one of them got started!  They heard a voice in the heads that told them to set out and start a new group.  They heard a voice that told them they had insider knowledge about how God was going to finish the work.  They heard a voice that gave them new revelations.  The problem with COG leaders and false prophets is that not a single one of them ever asked how to stop those voices, instead, they let their minds rampage unhindered.

Livingston proceeds on with this:

The Hearing Voices Movement is a growing network of support groups designed to help people who hear voices. “The groups encourage an approach in which, with the help of a facilitator or counselor, hearers listen to, speak back to, and negotiate with the message they hear in hopes of learning to cope,” Frankel wrote. The New York Times reported that these types of groups “have tripled in numbers over the past several years, to more than 80 groups in 21 states.”

It was around the mid-to-late-1980s that the Hearing Voices Movement began to gain momentum. In the Netherlands, a woman named Patsy Hage began hearing voices. She sought the help of a psychiatrist named Marius Romme. The two of them are credited for revolutionizing the way society handles “hearers.” They stopped diagnosing people who admitted to hearing voices and started a global network that encouraged people to talk to and entertain those voices. 

Isn't that what Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, and Bob Thiel currently do?  They all talk to and entertain the voices in their heads.  How else could these three guys come up with the absolute crazy stuff that they do?  It certainly is NOT from God! 

Livingston continues on asking "who is controlling who?"  Is Bob Thiel controlling the voices in his head, or are the voices controlling him?  What about Dave Pack?  Are his voices controlling him?

Psychiatrists will admit they don’t know much about the science behind voices. For the intellectual community, it’s hard to decipher the physical cause of what appears to be a spiritual problem. Some think it has to do with the way the brain interprets its own thoughts. The list of theories could go on, but frankly, no one in the scientific community has an idea that can be backed by evidence; they’re wandering through this trying anything they think will work.

Encouraging people to embrace the voices in their heads is a new approach and it is quickly becoming the accepted course of action for “hearers.” Corlett and Powers want to help people control the voices in their heads, but what they’re really doing is telling people to submit to those voices—this is incredibly dangerous.

You will have guessed by now who Livingston claims the voices are from:

Encouraging people to embrace those voices and then trying to normalize that behavior, is the most dangerous approach yet. Doctors will try anything. Well, almost anything. If you tell them this is a spiritual problem, you’ll be shot down. Voices, they reason, are just a product of physical abnormalities and we have to learn to live with them. There couldn’t possibly be any other explanation.

The answer is clear and simple, however, if you believe in God, read the Bible, and understand that there is a spirit world. 

Revelation 12 explains that Satan the devil “deceives the whole world.” The Bible says he was cast down to Earth along with the demons! This may sound strange or old-fashioned to the intellectuals of this world, but if they would work from this foundation, understanding that this world is held captive by the devil, they would be able to understand why so many people are hearing voices and why those numbers have increased since the mid-1980s. They would understand that encouraging people to entertain those voices is the most dangerous prescription they can give! It is incredibly dangerous for society to try to normalize this sort of behavior! 

So there you have it!  Demons are controlling Bob Thiel, Dave Pack, and Gerald Flurry!  Livingston says so! We all knew that was coming, though all three of these guys claim their god is telling them what to do and say.  It never could be that their minds have short-circuited and need some serious medication.

Livingston then goes on to tell us what we should be doing when we see these guys and hear them.  

Livingston uses Paul's words:

The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:11, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” In the Revised Standard Version it says, “but instead expose them.” This is exactly the opposite of what doctors are advising people to do.

Anyone with half a mind can see the fruits of darkness in the improperly named "continuing" Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God and the Restored Church of God.  Things just are not right in these groups. 

According to Livingston, as these end times rapidly wind down, Satan and his crew are normalizing the voices in people's heads.  Apparently, this is now various COG leaders justify their irrational behavior.  Of course, there is a remedy for this.  Read The Mystery of the Ages and you will never hear voices again!  Oh, and Gerald Flurry can help you stop those voices too!

Society, under the sway of Satan the devil, wants to normalize behavior that directly contradicts what God teaches in the Holy Bible. Undoubtedly, the media and the so-called educated of this world will label this as a progressive stance—but just keep watching, because the more people embrace this sort of behavior the crazier this world is going to get. The academics of the world are just as confused about how to solve the problem as the people going to them looking for answers. But it doesn’t have to be a mystery. You can understand why this is happening. You can understand who is involved and how they’re involved. And you can even know when these problems began to intensify. Chapter 2 of Mr. Armstrong’s book Mystery of the Ages and Trumpet editor-in-chief Gerald Flurry’s booklet America Under Attack will help you straighten out the confusing mess you see in the world today.

If the psychiatrists of the world set about examining all of the present day COG leaders they could publish hundreds of volumes on the craziness that fills the minds of these deluded guys.  While our craziest leaders today might be Thiel, Weinland, Pack, and Flurry, this does not let off the leaders of other COG groups.  While they are a little more benign, they are just as deadly in the end.

Why Do They Still Join?

The Tribulation CANNOT and WILL NOT Happen Before 2022, so says Bitter Deluded COG Wanna-Be Prophet

It has now been guaranteed to the entire world that the tribulation will not and cannot be happening before 2022.  Everyone now has a few more years left to go to school, get a new job, buy a new car, get married or just party down for the next five years.  If a COG prophet says this will happen this way it HAS TO BE TRUE!  Would a COG leader or minister ever LIE  like this to members?  COG leaders are the most truthful men who have ever walked this earth!  God speaks directly to them in dreams and revelations.  You MUST believe this...and them!

Is the end of the world near? 

When is the earliest year that the Great Tribulation can begin? 

Various ones seem to feel that it can begin in 2017 or 2018 or that it already started some time ago. 

Those who believe and understand what the Bible actually teaches realize that the Great Tribulation cannot begin before 2021. 

While I wrote that I did not feel that the Great Tribulation could start during Donald Trump’s first term (which ends in January of 2021), it should now be more certain for others to realize that this is so. 

Jesus gave a variety of signs/events that had to happen prior to the start of the Great Tribulation in Matthew 24. Not only have many not happened, a preceding event in Daniel 9:27 involving the confirmation of a seven-year deal still has not happened. Since it did not happen as of July 3, 2017, this means that it is not possible for the Great Tribulation to begin for at least 3 1/2 years (half of a biblically-prophetic week). 

At this instant, unless we see more major conflict in the Middle East between now and the end of the Summer, it is unlikely that the Great Tribulation can begin prior to 2022.

So there you have it!  God's most important man in this end times has assured you that the Great Trib will not be happening till 2022! 

This great man then goes on to mock James Malm and Ron Weinland for their equally deluded end time malarkey:

People who claim to be COG, like James Malm and Ronald Weinland, are in error as to timing as they have looked to their own understanding instead of what the Bible teaches. 

The Great Tribulation is coming, but it will not begin in 2017.

While these two men are admittedly crazier than hell, God's only end time man through whom he is working in this present age is apparently incapable of making a false prophecy too.  So what will this equally deluded man say in 2021 and 2022 when not one single thing will happen according to his revelation?  Oh wait, I know...

Jesus delays his coming because the church members are not ready. Besides, it is not up to us to know the day or time of his coming.

We have heard this bullshit excuse for 60 some years now. 

In 2022 when Delicate almost-arrested, Elisha, Amos, Elijah, Joshua, Habakkuk, doubly cursed, bitter "son" of Rod Meredith and world renown authority on Fatima visions Bob Thiel starts making his usual excuses, we can always remind him of his own idiotic false prophecies.  The great smug one in Arroyo Grande is sitting there right now snickering to himself as he reads this that he will be proven right and is incapable of being wrong. 

And, we will be watching the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Bob Thiel: I'm not a real scientist, but I play one in Church.

Dr Finch Talks Science With Dr Bob

http://www.ccog.org/questions-and-answers-from-genesis/

 “Can you give me information on prehistoric man? Did God make other men before Adam?”

As used by critical historians, “prehistoric time” is said to refer to earliest antiquity nowhere documented in written records. But the Bible records, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Here is a documented account reaching back to the beginning of the physical universe. “Prehistoric time,” in that sense, is therefore irreconcilable with Scripture. It should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that biblical passages reveal occurrences prior to the time of man.

If however, we define prehistoric as the time before humans began to write, then we can speak of prehistoric creatures and events.

There were no prehistoric humans prior to Adam.

(Poster's Note: Well except for this inconvenient reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_human )

Most scientists do not know what humans are"

Would Canada and Austrailia PLEASE Stop Picking On The Church of God!!!!

What is it with Canada and Australia right now?  Why are they sooooooooooo ticked off at the Church of God?  Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Satan is using these countries to persecute some little itty-bitty Church of God.

Gerald Weston had a fit the other day about how Australia was going to censor the Living Church of God's "FORCEFUL" writings and teachings. Australia has been persecuting the LCG by prohibiting one of Rod McNair's sermons from being aired in the nation.  Weston apparently feels the need to subject almost 24,000,000 Australians to the mindless rantings of a pissant COG minister.  McNair is a little "nobody" sequestered in his privileged lifestyle in Charlotte due only to the fact he is still living off the teet of his family name and Rod Meredith's support.  Then Canada had to go and pass a law how having people treat each other with respect and dignity, even if you don't agree with each other, and this did not sit well with Weston who still feels the need to endlessly talk about sex.  Common decency to fellow humans is not a thing Church of God members apparently need to be doing.  Jesus says otherwise, but that has never had much impact on most COG leaders.

Mr. Rod McNair’s excellent upcoming telecast on the Miracle of Dunkirk has been preliminarily rejected in Australia because Dr. Meredith’s booklet, Who Controls the Weather?, did not take into account global warming! Bill C-16 recently received Royal Assent in Canada, adding gender expression to the Human Rights Act. It supposedly gives protection to the transgender community by, among other things, making improper pronoun usage a prosecutable offense. I recently noticed using MS Word that it marked the word “mankind” and suggested substituting the word “humankind.” In other words, MS Word is now in the business of determining which words are politically correct and which are not. Look for far more intrusion into our everyday lives from these language police. I mention these examples to show how rapidly the noose is closing in as the “illiberal left” is taking control of a complacent world. We no longer have to wonder how persecution will come to the Church. Some good news is that this weekend the Tomorrow’s World program begins airing on Angel One at an additional time, 8:30 p.m. on Saturdays. This is additional nationwide exposure and will be a new Saturday evening audience for us.—Gerald Weston

Now we have another COG "leader" messing his little boy pants over Canada.  After getting his "news" from ultra-right "news" sites, he is sure that his future pronouncements will be prohibited by the Canadian government.  According to God's only true COG leader, Canada has turned anti-god and anti-church.

But Canada does not accept the Bible at this time.  Since a court decision in 2002, Canada has restricted freedom to quote and cite the Bible (watch Canadian censoring of the Bible). It also passed a motion limiting giving one’s view of Islam (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-24/canada-passes-blasphemy-bill-silence-critics-islam).

Damn Canada!  You will not let him use his big thick Bible as a weapon.  Don't you realize he is God's TRUE spokesman on earth today???????

Canadian officials are often not acting in a manner consistent with what Canada was supposed to stand for.

If all that were not too much, a Canadian court decided this week that it has authority over the internet around the world and in the USA:

Canada Says It Has Authority to Censor Internet in United States

June 29, 2017

This seems like a bad thing:

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Google on Wednesday in a closely-watched intellectual property case over whether judges can apply their own country’s laws to all of the Internet. In a 7-2 decision, the court agreed a British Columbia judge had the power to issue an injunction forcing Google to scrub search results about pirated products not just in Canada, but everywhere else in the world too. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/06/canada-says-it-has-authority-to-censor-internet-in-united-states/ 

Big bad meanie Canada will obviously be using their laws to stop God's only true leader on earth today from running off at the mouth, as he continually does.  He is so sure that the world is against him that has has been preaching this nonsense for many years.  Because he imagines himself in his dreams as more important than he really is, he thinks Canada is out to get him.

Regular readers of this COGwriter.com news page have been aware that things like this were coming. Notice, for example, something posted on this page back in 2011:

I have long expected government censorship (including the internet and perhaps other forms of social media) … I will again gone on record to declare that I believe that stopping/interfering some of us … to get out our message on the internet and/or other media is likely to be something that the USA and perhaps other governments will do as we get closer the the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) (Thiel B. UK’s Cameron May Call Out the Troops and Restrict Social Media. COGwriter.com, August 11, 2011)

On October 2, 2016, we also put up a video titled Internet Control, Famine of the Word, and 666.

More and more, in Canada, as well as other lands (see yesterday’s post: Germany approves ‘same-sex marriage’ and sets fines for Facebook, etc. to crack down on ‘hate speech’) we are seeing governments taking steps to remove/control content on the internet.

As usual, our prophet has to run to the Bible to find some isolated scripture to support his dreaming.

This was partially because the prophet Amos was inspired to record the following:

11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,

“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)

Notice what the false prophet says next.  He cannot stand the fact that Canada might possibly stop him from interpreting his big thick Bible as the weapon he needs it to be. As if Canada cares what he thinks!  They most likely see him as just one more disturbed religious nut job from America, which he is.

Notice that the Bible tells of a time that will come when the word of God will not be found. I do not believe that this means that there will be no more Bibles–but that those wanting to better understand it will have trouble finding explanations.

It just amazes me to watch the white privileged COG leaders in the Untied State sitting in the homes surrounded by all the luxuries of life as they cry over censorship.  These little men are not being censored or picked upon by governments around the world.  These self-serving, privileged men could care less about Iraqi/Syrain/Egyptians being slaughtered for being Christians.  That's the ultimate censorship. Instead, they sit in the nice offices after feeding their faces with abundant food, using their expensive computers to write about persecution.  It just does not compute.

Gerald Flurry: Descending Into Madness

From Exit and Support, regarding Gerald Flurry's descent into madness:

June 26, 2017
I have a friend who has left PCG. This person became skeptical back in November when Flurry spoke about Trump being the Jeroboam and then his mentioning about buying a plane. Then in January he gave the sermon about HWA's prayer stone replacing the stone of destiny (a.k.a. Jacob's pillar stone) and Flurry saying HWA was a type of Jacob or Israel. And how he, Flurry, is the chosen man on this whole earth privileged to bring the prayer stone to the Place of Safety where Christ will meet up with them and take his rightful place on the throne after Flurry, who is representing the house of David for 2 l/2 years, since he says he is a descendant of David through his genealogy. And finally, once this person got the letter about pledging funds to purchase a plane and then finding out they bought it in April during Feast of Unleavened Bread, this was the final straw. I am not sure what this person will do next. They are looking at other offshoots that follow the Sabbath, but feel that all of them try to control peoples' purse strings to suit their own agenda by using end time events and the Place of Safety to control them. --[name withheld]  

Another posting had this about the Philadelphia Church of God:

June 29, 2017
I don't even know where to begin. It's so difficult to summarize my experience and sort out how I'm feeling about everything that this so called "church" has put me, my family, and countless others through. The abuses that we undergo are covered up kept hush-hush and resolved through gossip started by who knows. I started becoming very skeptical when my own family began to be ripped apart by the ministry, who were not to be questioned ever! Every problem was pushed back on us not having it all together, or not praying and studying. No biblical proof was offered, just the opinion of a man who thought he spoke with God's authority--although certainly not with God's LOVE. It's so clear to me now why no one was ever allowed to compare stories or talk about counseling sessions. They did not want us comparing notes on our interactions with the ministry. 

But my last service was when our local minister aired all my family's dirty laundry in front of the congregation, blaming everything on my father's inability to lead. Taking no responsibility for his own interference and meddling. FURIOUS. I left knowing I'd never be back. I told no one and refused to talk to anyone after. A clean cut was the best resolve for me. I was so sick of being dragged into everyone's drama when I had no part in it. And I was certainly tired of feeling beaten down--not good enough and chastised every week at services. Also, if I missed a week, I felt like a child being scolded. I wish I'd left sooner. No, I wish I never would have attended at all.

Since I've been out, I've been happier than I thought possible. I'm happy to let God judge me. At least it will be true justice. If anyone is considering leaving, do it now. I waited years and regret it deeply. I will mourn family left in and pray they leave. --Raised in WCG; joined PCG as adult