Thiel: COG7 Celebration of 150 Years of Bible Advocate To Be Short Lived

The Church of God Seventh Day begins the next year celebrating the 150th anniversary of one of Americas oldest religious publications.

August 12, 1863, was the dateline printed on the very first issue of The Hope of Israel, a publication now named the Bible Advocate. We’re planning to memorialize BA’s history as one of the oldest religious publications in America and to improve its service in the future.
Join us, please, as we celebrate our one hundred fiftieth year of publication in this and the next six issues. Bible Advocate Online

That's a pretty good accomplishment for a Church of God that has been in existence longer than HWA's version, published a magazine longer than any other COG and has more members.  Of course this does not go over too well with Bob Thiel, the official spokesman for the Living Church of God.

Bob says, in his official capacity as LCG spokesman, that the COG7 has had no real converted members over the decades, though there might have been an incredibly small percentage orginally. Real converted Christians never emerged on the scene till Herb started his empire after Loma had that nightmare.

Back in 1863, not only was the publication not called the Bible Advocate, and Church of God (Seventh Day) was actually called Church of God (Adventist).  Based upon my research into its early history, while it may have some actual COG members back in 1863, they seemed to be the minority until around the early 20th century.

COG7 apparently is looked upon by Bob as uneducated, theologically bankrupt fools.  Bob has even lectured the COG7 leadership on what they are supposed to believe. Bob and LCG know more about the Bible than the COG7 does.

They ignored Bob and continue on in their own beliefs.  Bob gets the last word in though.  Bob wants them to know that the tribulation will soon be upon them and the COG7 will no longer be publishing or have reason to celebrate.

While, as a rule, CG7 has lost certain knowledge of some doctrines (cf. Revelation 3:1-6), especially prophecy (and this loss here seems to have accelerated over the past five or so years), the current issue of the Bible Advocate does have an article by Arlo Gieselman consistent with the COG view that God will give everyone an opportunity for salvation, either now or at the second resurrection.  And while I have personally spoken to one of its former presidents (Calvin Burrell) about why he should teach this doctrine, and he is the editor of the Bible Advocate,  he did have the following disclaimer after the pro-second resurrection opportunity doctrine article:

Arlo Gieselman attends the Church of God Kansas City in Independence, MO, and conducts a ministry to truckers at nearby truck stops. Though Arlo is a good friend of the editor and of CoG7, not every idea in his Viewpoint necessarily represents positions adopted by the Church.

So, while I am glad that more in CG7 seem to understand at least parts of this doctrine, it is still not one that CG7 is fully comfortable about embracing.  Anyway, if my understanding of end time Bible prophecy is close to correct, CG7 will not have too many more years to put out its publications.

 Thiel does not have much to celebrate considering that LCG is just another of the 700 some harlot daughters of Armstrongism, fractured and impotent, that the world knows nothing about.  In the 70 some short years of Armstrongism, hundreds of splinter cults have formed with an equal number of men declaring themselves to be the true leader.  Armstrongism is shrinking while the COG7 gains new members.

Feast Bumper Stickers Are Back

Remember those old green diamond shaped stickers that were passed out every year to affix to your car before you traveled to the Feast?  They transformed later on to large rectangular stickers.  FOT stickers were done away with years ago when it was realized that criminals were hitting cars displaying the stickers.  Church member became targets for theft.  Those green stickers became a symbolic red "A" for all the world to see.

Like all great things Church of God related, there is a catch.  It seems the web site where you can order these stickers is also a money making enterprise for a couple of COG members looking to make money off other members.  Apparently you can sell anything as 'Feast Gifts" and people will buy it.

The Feast of Tabernacle gift page is here:  Gifts 

Ties, jewelry, toys, watches, Murano glass and more.  It looks like the old money making schemes that several in Pasadena fell for years ago.  People bought in with money for the right to sell items from a warehouse catalog that drop shipped items to customers.  People were told they would make hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling to their friends and then involving their friends in the scheme.  Apparently the tradition continues on.

Ron Weinland Brags That Satan and His Demons Sit In On His Sermons To Learn The Truth

The arrogance that comes from Ron Weinland's lips is truly amazing.  Is this man so mentally unbalanced that he believes this stupidity?

J___ said “A prideful haughty hypocrite, selfishly accusing others of being deceived by Satan”.
And those sitting in Ron’s basement tomorrow afternoon will be doing just that.
Earlier this year Ron just happened to mention that Satan and his demons sit in on all his sermons to learn the latest “truth”.
Will Satan be present in Ron’s basement tomorrow afternoon-Or will he just send one of his demons to take notes?

(From Mike's blog: From The Frying Pan Into The Fire)

Asplode Alert: UCG Lectures on Lying

Here is a quote from United Church of God on how lying  affects one's health.  This is rich coming from UCG considering the incredible amount of lying that went on when they were apostatizing from WCG in the 1990's and then again when they ruptured with the COGWA split.  Armstrongism has a sad legacy of lying.  Justified lying has always been a fixture of the church, just as it has been in other cults like the JW's and Adventists.

Feel Better – Quit Lying!…
[Steve Myers] There’s a new research study that is just out from the University of Notre Dame. I ran across an interesting article that talked about the “science of honesty” – that’s the name of the study. So, can you imagine that? The science of honesty. And so it involves lying, imagine this. Here’s what the researchers found at Notre Dame. They found that when people manage to reduce their lies – this is over a 10 week period – they reported significantly improved physical and mental health in those same weeks. So they found there’s a direct correlation between not telling lies and feeling better. And it’s an interesting study when you begin to look at the details of this and the effects of lying on our mental and physical health. There is a connection.

[Darris McNeely] And that shouldn’t be surprising to us because lying is certainly something forbidden by one of God’s Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not lie” (Exodus 20: 16 and Deuteronomy 5:20). He put that in there as a very important spiritual principle. And all of God’s law has certain physical connections to our well-being as well as certainly our spiritual relationship with God. So, from a scriptural perspective, that shouldn’t be surprising.

asplode

verb (asplode, asplodes, asploding, asploded; n. asplosion, asplosions)

A mixture of an explosion and implosion, usually affecting only a person's head, though anything is subject to asploding.

It is a spontaneous and violent act, though usually its effects are only temporary, restoring its victim to continue normally or asplode again. An asplosion may occur if a person is overwhelmed by current circumstances, or if the existence of an object must suddenly cease to exist.

Six Hours of Hell With Apostle Malm

The wanna-be apostle and spiritual leader of the true remnant of Armstrongism is doing a "study" on Nehemiah.  One of his acolytes asked for the apostle to explain the hours mentioned in the scripture below.

Neh 9:1-4 “Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them.
And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.
And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the LORD their God.
Then stood up upon the stairs, of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God.”
This passage seems to say that the people stood for 12 hours (two fourth parts of the day)while they were either read to or publicly confessed their sins. How could that be given the limits of human endurance and the biological necessities common to all people?


I suppose that there were certainly some comings and goings by individuals and maybe official breaks as well. Also please consider that this is talking about daylight and not a 24 hour day. I doubt very much that they were trying to read in the middle fo the night, in the dark while most were nodding off.
Twelve hours of daylight divided by four would be three hours or just a bit longer than a standard COG service today. Then a break of about three hours for personal prayer and discussion, followed by another three hour service in the afternoon. This may have been even shorter than three hours each, as I would think that the scripture here was a general estimate concerning the timeframes.

Imagine three and half years in Petra spending six hours every Saturday listening to a Malmite preach the law.  The lake of fire looks really appealing!