Dave Pack Gets Taken Down Another Notch By Paulogia…For the 3rd Time

 

Paulogia has put out his 3rd video on Dave Pack

 

Part 2

Part 1

A Brief Meditation on the Transcendence of God

 A Brief Meditation on the Transcendence of God

In the early Nineties, a fellow member of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) told me that there were people he encountered at the recent Feast of Tabernacles who were alarmed at a new booklet titled “God is …” They felt the booklet foreshadowed disaster.  I had read the booklet and felt like the controversy was a tempest in a teapot.  But maybe this was a small sign of the times.  A year or so later, I checked out some tapes from the little library maintained by the local WCG congregation about the Doctrine of God.  The tapes were of a series of WCG Bible Studies given in Pasadena by Kyriacos Stavrinides.   I heard the tapes in early 1994 and they were revolutionary.  Stavrinides described the God as understood in the Christian movement, to my great wonderment, and that God was much different from the God of the WCG.  It seemed it was not a tempest in a teapot.  I thought it was going to be a watershed.  But that issue was eclipsed by many other issues and I do not know of any discussion of the Doctrine of God happening thereafter among the followers of Herbert W. Armstrong. Recalling this led me to this brief meditation.

It is natural for man to seek to understand God by use of analogies.   We compare God to a created being because we are created beings and that is what we understand.  This works well, within limits, because we are in the image of God to some degree.  But it is an error to believe that God is just like us only more powerful.  Here is a vignette of issues.  God is not alive.  Nor is he dead.  Humans can be alive or dead. God cannot be either.  He is existence itself.  He transcends the categories of life and death.  God is not limited by neurology.  He does not hear or see or smell or taste or feel.  Those are properties of the created human body.  He experiences things at a level that transcends our senses.  God does not have a body or internal parts.  If he had a beating heart that sustained his life, who would have made it for him – some superior God?  God is not dependent on anything – including internal parts. Even in the Christian movement, God is spoken of as omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient as if these words described transcendence.  Yet these are just human characteristics with Omni- added as a prefix to expand the scope of these words.  God is not just omnipresent – which means present everywhere.  God is not a “where” being.  He is not restricted by the concept of location.  God is also not restricted by time.  He is not a “when” being as we are.   God is not just omnipotent.  The human idea of being powerful involves something being stronger than something else.  The word contains an implicit idea of comparison.  God owns everything absolutely and does not need power to stake his claim.  God is not just omniscient.  He does not just know everything about every field of study.  He creates knowledge.  He transcends knowing.   God is timeless, location-less, limit-less.  This must be stated apophatically because we do not have the words.  All our words are rooted in humanness with its limitations.  It is a grave error to believe that the anthropomorphisms of an ancient Semitic tribal people, their particular analogies, tell us what God is in his essence.  They also thought that the sky was like a blue ceiling.  God gave us the ability not to understand his transcendence fully but to acknowledge it. 

So if you do not acknowledge God’s transcendence where does it take you?  Popular atheists like Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens argue from the perspective that God is like a demiurge from Gnosticism.  Non-transcendent but immanent demiurges do not create but fabricate using already existing materials and forces.  They do not create Ex Nihilo.  You never hear atheists arguing about how “being” originates.  They always start their debate with being, dimensions, stable forces, and objects presumed.  Atheists ignore the highway and just futz around in the weeds on the shoulder because that is all the farther science will take them. 

Or you end up making the mistake that Herman Hoeh and Rod Meredith made.  They believed that the Ten Commandments were God’s eternal spiritual law.  And so these Commandments and the statutes, laws, and judgments in the Mosaic legislation that expanded and refined the Ten Commandments just had to be in the New Covenant.  But why would the law of God from eternity, that reflected the nature of God himself, speak of adultery?  (God is sibi ipse ex, a law unto himself.)  What would that mean back before there were human beings and sex?   Humans and sex are not eternal – they were both created.  When this issue is raised you often get the answer that the law concerning adultery is really about loyalty or integrity or some other fundamental ethic.  This just proves that the law concerning adultery is really based on something more fundamental.   It is painfully obvious that The Ten Commandments are an instantiation of God’s eternal spiritual law specifically tailored for humanity.  They are not that law itself.  And God can put into effect or turn off instantiations as he sees fit.   God may have put into effect a collection of laws that govern the angelic realm that we cannot imagine.   All instantiations (Abrahamic, Mosaic, New Covenant, Angelic) are derived from his eternal spiritual law that pre-existed the Cosmos. 

Considering what is at stake, God’s transcendence is well worth thinking about. 

Submitted by Neo

Dave Pack's Timeline Torn Asunder….By Himself

 Dave's Timeline Torn Asunder by Dave

Last week Dave had an elaborate timeline that includes 2.5 days, then 1 day, then 22.5 days, then 3.5 days.

This week, he literally tore it up in front of the brethren, as the audience uncomfortably laughs. 

This weeks timeline

How much longer, RCG brethren, will you endure utter FALSENESS being slapped in your face? 

From an RCG source

LCG: The Most Powerful God Of Armstrongism Is Seeking To Divide Members

 

As usual, LCG members can never do anything right. Now they are being tempted by the most powerful god of the COG movement, Satan. This entity gets afar more air time than does that Christ dude and is apparently more powerful.

Are You in Satan’s Sights? The Bible contains numerous warnings about Satan and how he operates to deceive, divide, and destroy people, families, and nations. He moves like a lion stalking vulnerable and unsuspecting prey (1 Peter 5:8). He does not hunt with claws or bullets, but he stirs up strife by spreading gossip, rumors, and lies (Leviticus 19:16–17; Proverbs 17:9; John 8:44). He fosters discord by stirring up fears, jealousy, and selfish ambitions (1 Corinthians 1:10–13). He will use anyone—members and ministers—to do his work (2 Corinthians 11:1–15). Satan zeros in on people who feel wronged or overlooked or whose ideas, opinions, or ambitions are denied. He uses individuals to criticize and undermine others. To avoid becoming unsuspecting victims of Satan’s negative attitudes that he beams at those in his sights (Ephesians 2:2), we need to be alert, humble, and stay close to God (1 Peter 5:6–9) by studying and meditating on His word (Psalm 119:97–98).
Have a profitable Sabbath, 

Douglas S. Winnail

COG Prophet Claims Catholic "Prophecies" Are About Him And His Books

It is another sunny day in Grover Beach California and the heat is getting to the brain of our glorious Bwana Bob Theil, the savior of Africa and 299 Caucasians, the end-time Elijah, the modern-day Johsua, the prophet to end all prophets, one of the two witless witnesses, world-renown historian and theologian and bitter neglected rejected "stepson" of Rod Meredith.

Today, the closet Catholic is all atwitter over how supposedly certain Catholic "prophecies" describe him and his end-time "work".

While I do not believe that the sex scandals facing the Church of Rome are the ‘final trial’ before Jesus returns (e.g. since the Great Tribulation has not yet began), these scandals, which have been in the news for the past several years, may be consistent with certain Roman Catholic predictions. 

 

The Roman Catholics have a couple of prophecies about their church facing scandals:

Ven. Holzhauser (17th century): The Great Monarch will come when the Latin Church is desolated, humiliated, and afflicted with many heresies (Dupont Y. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, p. 114). 

 

Nicholas of Fluh (15th century): The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. (Dupont, p. 30) 

 

We have seen that many perverted have been associated with the Church of Rome–one cleric has claimed that 2/3 of priests have broken their celibacy vows–see ‘Pope adviser urges rethink on Catholic celibacy’ Two-thirds of Catholic priests reportedly are NOT celibate(see also AP: More than 220 people sue on Guam alleging clergy sex abuse and NCR: In new letter, Benedict blames clergy abuse on sexual revolution, Vatican II theology; RN: Is Benedict XVI the REAL pope? and Pope reportedly considering allowing priests to marry at Amazon Synod; AP reports 1700 Catholic priests suspected of sex abuse are still out there). Here is one from this Summer: Another scandal: Roman Catholic priests outed for using homosexual app. These pedophile and other sex scandals have humiliated the Church of Rome (“the Latin Church”). 

 

So, if the first prediction above is correct, then we are very near the time that the “Great Monarch” will rise up. I believe he will do so this century, and likely within a decade or so.

To Bwana Bob, this Monarch is the end-time Beast who will persecute the one true small flock (the improperly named "continuing" Church of God). 

How will this Monarch know who to persecute in the COG movement above all others? It will be the COG that is publishing small books! Who woulda thunk it! Amazing! 

One guess as to WHO that small book publishing church is...

Notice also the following Roman Catholic warnings:

Nursing Nun of Bellay (died 1820): “All these things shall come to pass once the wicked have succeeded in circulating large numbers of bad books.” (Dupont, p.51) 

 

Trappistine Nun of Notre Dame des Gardes. “Chastisement will come when a very large number of bad books have been spread” (Dupont, p 114). 

 

Abbe Voclin. “People will speak only of money. Horrible books will be freely available. Intellectuals will argue fiercely among themselves. Then war will break out that will see the rise of the Great Monarch” (Dupont, p. 114). 

 

We in the CCOG will likely make more books/booklets that will be perceived to fulfill the above. Furthermore, several of our existing materials may be considered to be in that category. Here are links to some books, articles, and videos that document the truth about various aspects of Christianity and church history:

Bwana Bob has become quite adept at pulling things out of his ass and making them "sure words of truth".

Why would the Catholic church or some European Monarch care what some idiotic mentally disturbed little man in crazy California thinks? 

PCG Excited Over Ancient Judean Toilet Seat!

 

Watch Jerusalem · An Ancient Judean Toilet Seat—and Proof of Nehemiah’s Wall?

When you live a sheltered life on a cult compound, all kinds of things will surprise you and shock you. The Flurry cult is all excited right now over a newly discovered throne toilet seat and sewer outside of Jerusalem. Will they soon acquire this artifact to place next to their other throne, Herb's Prayer Rock? This is the PCG after all, and NOTHING is impossible in these desperate end times!

They see this find as more proof that evil atheists are seeking to destroy the credibility of the Bible. That record has been skipping in this same place for decades in the PCG.

Gerald Weston Letter To LCG Members Causing Division Over Vaccines

FROM THE PRESIDING EVANGELIST

Dear Brethren,

The Bible clearly indicates that there were tensions among members in the first century. Since many converts came from pagan backgrounds, whether or not to eat meats that may have been offered to idols was a complex issue at that time (1 Corinthians 8). Some members abstained from meats or had special fasting days (Romans 14:1–5). Among the Jews, circumcision was a huge controversy. In response, the Apostles, who were the highest-ranking ministers of the Church at that time, came together and decided the issue guided by God’s Spirit (Acts 15).

Compared to these issues, some of the things that have caused division within the Church in more modern times seem rather trivial: white or brown sugar, wheat, or rice. Some modern controversies were not so trivial: how to count Pentecost, and divorce and remarriage. Current issues involve whether to wear masks and whether to be vaccinated. Just as in the past, Church leaders come together to decide how the Church should handle these controversial issues. No matter what we decide, some members will become offended and leave, ignoring God’s plain instructions regarding divisive matters (Deuteronomy 17:8–13). Masks and social distancing are inconvenient and their usefulness is disputed, but Church leaders believe that they are helpful on some occasions and our experience at the Feast would seem to support that, as very few at our 100 (83 international and 17 U.S.) Feast sites worldwide came down with COVID.

Today members have strong feelings on both sides of the vaccine debate and circumstances vary for each individual. The vaccine controversy is more akin to the issue of circumcision, and the Apostles left that decision up to individuals, though explaining that circumcision for Gentiles was unnecessary and could be counterproductive, depending on the attitude and reason (Acts 16:3; Galatians 5:6, 12)

In our Council of Elders meeting this week, we learned about the plight of unvaccinated individuals in some parts of the world: “no jab, no job”; no travel by commercial air, rail, or boat; no travel outside of a very restricted area; and extremely limited shopping options. Some university students are locked out after years of working on technical degrees. Members must wrestle with feeding their families, or visiting a dying relative. We can begin to see how the Mark of the Beast will eventually be enforced, but, brethren, this is not the Mark of the Beast! The Church does not teach that vaccines are sin, but they can be, depending on one’s conscience. Different members will decide differently in all these circumstances. That is why we have left it to the individual to prayerfully make that very personal choice.

Regarding the fact that sacrificing an animal to an idol affects only its ceremonial cleanness and not the nature of the meat itself, Paul gives this warning about how we treat one another, and it applies today: “But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9).

In similar fashion, Paul warns, “Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.... Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:16–19, 22–23). Also, note verse 4: “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.”

The specific issues are different, but the principles teach us how to deal with controversial situations that will arise in every generation. Brethren, the conditions which many of our brethren around the world face are not easy, and Satan will use them to divide us if we let him. We must avoid the anger being stirred up in this world. We must love one another (John 13:34). We have a Work to do. Let us do all we can to promote peace and be about our Father’s business! 

 

Sincerely, in Christ’s service, Gerald E. Weston