Dennis on "A Short Sermon on the Amount"

ht: Otogosh

A Short Sermon on the Amount

Let's face it; every church wants your hard earned money and resources.  "Send it in..." is the mantra with proof texts to follow.  How much do you have to give to your Church when it comes right down to it? 

The first answer is "absolutely nothing."  

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 

That's all you need to know.  No more proof texts about what exactly that means.  No twisting it around for two hours until you forget it is in your Bible.  No being told erroneously that we can only discern this by going "here a little and there a little."  The real meaning of that scripture is hilarious and has nothing to do with how to study your Bible but we'll skip that for now.

 Now if you want to stress yourself or rather be stressed by "You have robbed God," and "Prove me now herewith," knock yourself out.  But give as you are able trumps that every time. 

If you really think an actual God needs your money or can be robbed of it to the point of throwing a hissy fit and wreaking utter destruction and curses on the earth for not paying up, then I can't help you.  I'm going to go with human priests thought that one up and it has guilted and frightened millions for millennia into giving, not as they are able, but as they are afraid not to give.  Humans feel robbed and humans get miffed about not collecting their religious taxes, not any real God.

Do I have to tithe?

Of course not.  You don't have to do anything.  See above. 

Do I have to actually give a pledge I pledged when I felt I was guilted into pledging what I did not actually have to pledge?  In other words, do I have to give what I have not got?

Of course not.  Now here's the trick you have to understand.  In Acts, Peter, well the Holy Spirit who you can never quite pin down, struck two nasty young church members down for holding back on a pledge they made of THEIR land and THEIR money.  Somehow Peter says there as a moment when it was actually theirs, but once they said...”I pledge..."   all bets were off and you were going to die if you didn't pony up.  Great story and great fear, which is the effect you want, came on the whole church when they saw them buried in the alley outside the building...uh huh.  Do you really think Romans would not wonder why people dropped dead at your services or some kid or family member didn't wonder why mom/dad, aunt/uncle or my kids didn't come home from your church this week...where are they? 

Listen to me once and for all and get this story used as threat reveals its true sense for you.  This story, written by Luke, cohort of Paul who both thought Peter, who denied Jesus was NO better than a Judas who betrayed him, is meant as a joke on Peter. It is meant to send a not so subtle message to Paul's followers to reject Peter.  Because see...here we have two fine church folk who said they would do one thing, give it all, but then held back being killed off by the grand and glorious Apostle Peter, who also said he would do one thing...never deny leave or forsake Jesus and denied him!   Get it?  It's a slam against Peter and not a pay up or else story for you.  There are lots of subtle and not so subtle slams the apostles throw at each other in the New Testament if you know where to look but I spare you.   This one is not about scaring you into sending anything in when you realize the reality of your situation cannot actually match the generosity of your spirit the day your were badgered into giving what you actually did not have for something you may not actually agreed with in the first place. 

If you're mind says "That's a stupid reason to send my money in," goes off before, "Oh...I better do this," go with the first thought.  It's rather like if your head tells you one thing and your stomach another, your stomach is telling you the truth.

You cannot give what you have not got nor should you.  You put your family and children first.  You don't short yourself to enrich your church. You don't put off personal needs to meet the needs of others if you feel inside that you can't but outside that you should.  You don't need to obey any man in these matters and while dozens of scriptures can be thrown at you to make you feel like a Bronze Age Church member, YOU don't have to give what you do not have or do not wish to give.

And actually I hope you never do again no matter how sincere you are and convinced of the truth taught by your church.  I never met anyone who fessed up to belonging to the wrong, false or deceived Church so I expect none of you feel that way either. But don't let anyone falsely guilt you into giving or using the specter of a God or Big Bad Apostle visit to get you to meet your "obligations."

You have no obligations in these matters if you stop running all over the Bible from Genesis to Revelation trying to figure it out.  Giving is an inside job from YOU to THEM and not an expectation of you from THEM TO YOU.

And a real God doesn’t need your money incase that comes up again...  But men do...

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 

And that's today's Sermon on the Amount...

DennisCDiehl@aol.com

Prophet Thiel "Marked" By RCG Pastor Who Was 'Marked" By LCG

It's the battle of the "marks!"  LCG "marks" a Church of God minister for causing division who then "marks" a COG member of another group for causing division.  Only in COGdumb can this kind of stupidity happen!

The Journal is reporting that a minister from Dave Pack's financially struggling personality cult has "marked" false prophet Robert Thiel.  Apparently Sydney Hull from South Africa got ticked off that prophet Thiel has been telling people to not jump ship into Dave Packs Restored Church of God. That seems to have been in response to Syd Hull's apostasy from Living Church of God which in turn earned him being "marked" by LCG. 

A member of one Church of God has "marked" a member of another Church of God.

The unusual action, which in most COG groups amounts to a step more drastic than the act of "disfellowshipping" an errant member, came after a split from the Living Church of God, based in Charlotte, N.C.

Seventy-six-year-old Sydney J. Hull of Johannesburg South Africa, marked Robert Thiel of Arroyo Grande, Calif., because, said Mr. Hull, "my sheep have been affected by this man's efforts."

Mr. Hull, a pastor and evangelist-ranked elder who says he was ordained as a member of the Worldwide Church of God 35 years ago, recently left the Living Church of God, presided over by Roderick C. Meredith, and joined the Restored Church of God, pastored by David Pack of Wadsworth, Ohio.

In a "letter to brethren" dated Sept. 27, Mr. Hull said he left the LCG over differences of "doctrine."
He summarized the doctrinal differences as "altering the scriptural structure of government, setting dates for Christ's return, permitting marriage outside the church, use of cosmetics, inappropriate dress, Sabbath wear and hair too long for men and too short for women, denying Mr. [Herbert] Armstrong's role as the prophesied Elijah, and so much more, as seen in the list of 60 changes found on RCG's [the Restored Church of God's] website."

Before marking Dr. Thiel, Mr. Hull stated that the lay member of the LCG from Southern California errs by having his own private Web site dedicated to Church of God matters.

"Among other attacks, this site lists a host of invented reasons why one should not go with RCG," Mr. Hull said. "The shallow reader will be taken in, but those with common sense will see the utter falsehood of this man's misinformed confusion." Evangelist leaves one Church of God, then marks a member of another Church of God

 The article has this concerning LCG and Syd Hull:

The LCG has, in turned, disfellowshipped and marked Mr. Hull.
"Regrettably, the Hulls had to be disfellowshipped and marked because they have been attempting to pull people out of LCG," announced Doug Winnail of the Charlotte area, the Living Church of God's director of church administration.

Bob Thiel: Some COG Folk Think Prophet Thiel A Potential Tool Of Satan

Those of us here are not the only ones that think prophet Thiel is off his rocker.  Even Apostle Malm thinks prophet Thiel is bonkers.  That distrust of prophet Thiel extends further into the COG's.

One web COG blog is reporting this about prophet Thiel:

I think Bob Thiel is playing with fire. The only thing that protects him now from receiving false visions and dreams from Satan and his demons, even signs and wonders that come to pass, is God's restraint of Satan.

I am sure Satan would love to use Bob Thiel as a tool to deceive people in the Church of God. I am sure he would love to give him dreams, visions, and messages predicting things that Satan knows will happen, so that when Bob Thiel publishes these messages, and then they come to pass with an accuracy that cannot be explained except by supernatural influence, people will then think of Bob Thiel as a prophet, and he will be confirmed in his own mind and strengthened in his opinion that he is a prophet. Then, once Satan has set him up this way, he will be able to use Dr. Thiel to deceive those in the Church of God who regard him as a prophet, and he can use him to pull people out of any organization that is effectively preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning, which Satan hates.

Poor prophet Bob!  He just cannot earn any respect from anyone.  It must be really humiliating and frustrating at the same time, but to then be labeled as a tool of Satan, OUCH! 

Prophet/Chief Overseer Bob Thiel: "I will Soon Be Reaching Over a Billion People" and Other Nonsense UPDATED

(Update in red below)

The absolutely absurd and delusion arrogance of prophet Thiel continues today unabated by reality.  He has posted the “statistics” on his new worldwide reaching ministry that has already touched the lives of more people than any other COG in existence.

Soon after he defected from the Living Church of God, the prophet made this claim:

…I posted a prediction that I felt that in its first 30 days the Continuing Church of God would reach more people with the COG message than any non-GTA group that came out of the old Worldwide Church of God as well as any group that came out of the old Global Church of God.

Today the prophet says he has accomplished this by appearing on three radio stations.

When I made the prediction, only one radio interview was actually scheduled, and one was for a program with a relatively small listenership.  As it turns out, I was invited twice to be another show with a much larger audience.  According to the lowest estimates of audience by the two radio hosts (and yes, they could exaggerate, though they assured me that they were not doing so), on behalf of the Continuing Church of God, I was able to reach well over 2,000,000 via radio (the highest audience estimates were multiple times that large) in the past couple of weeks.

UPDATE:  On prophet Thiel's News Of Those Once Affiliated With Global Church of God he is also boasting that there is a huge possibility that he reached close to 11,000,000 people on radio during the three radio shows.  There is no way possible he reached 2 million let alone 11 million people!  It amazes me that prophet Thiel does not see the sheer stupidity in his pronouncements.  If he brought that many listeners to a radio station thy would be beating down his door for a daily program.

Yes, this has happened. According to estimates from radio hosts for interviews I did on biblical matters (mainly prophecy), over 2,000,000 people were reached via radio (the high-end of the radio audience estimate was 11,000,000). And according to internet collected statistics, over 100,000 unique computers were reached in the past 30 days from CCOG-related websites. Since the total of the radio and internet reach appears to be more than other groups, this has happened as predicted here. Those who want more specific details can read the article CCOG met COG proclamation goal.

Prophet Thiel is either delusional in his “outreach” or deliberately lying.  To claim that three little radio stations brought him in 2 million listeners is a lie!  Even New York City, with over 15 million potential listeners cannot garner that many listeners to a radio station.  Here is now radio stations figure their number of potential listeners.

To see how many listeners top radio stations have in the U.S., select a city from here:
http://arbitron.com/home/mm001050.asp

...and look at its "Metro 12+ Population"; for example, the population for New York is 15,730,000. Now multiply this number by .01 to get the number of listeners that are listening in one second to the top station. So for New York... 15,730,000 X .01 = 157,000 listeners. So this is about how many people are listening to the top New York station in one second, which means at this very moment.

For another example, go to the last city on the list, Casper WY. It has a "Metro 12+ Population" of 63,500. If you multiply this by .01 you get 635. This means that roughly 635 people are listening to the top station in one second.

To see roughly how many people are listening to the number one station in an entire week, multiply the "one second" number by 10. For example, for Casper WY the number one station has 635 people listening in one second, so it has 6,350 people listening in one week. For New York, the number one station has 157,000 people listening in one second, so it has 1,157,000 people listening in one week.  Radio Media

Given the above information there is absolutely no way in hell that prophet Thiel reached 2 million people with his absurd message.  Presented with this information he is deliberately lying when says his ministry will soon be reaching “billions” of people!

We will see which doors God opens for us in the future (cf. Revelation 3:7-9).  But ultimately, and probably for a very short time, we may reach increased millions if not perhaps billions (cf. Matthew 24:14).

Prophet Thiel then goes on to quote statistics from his blogs and YouTube channel.  Even those numbers are not entirely accurate.  Some readers of blogs end up there because of pictures. Then they leave.  That happens on this blog.  I can tell by statistics on what brought some people here.  Then I am sure as soon as they saw it was tied into a religious bent they left immediately.  They do the same to prophet Thiel. 

If you look on the right hand side of this blog you see flags of all the countries that readers here have come from.  Even this is arbitrary since I never put that information up until well after 100,000 people had already checked us out.  Just because it says 198 countries are represented dose not mean they were all after COG info.  That kind of logic is the same absurd logic used by the old Plain Truth magazine folks who inflated numbers. 

Just because a PT was mailed to China does not mean the nation had been reached by the “gospel.”  It means ONE person received it. Huge gospel impact!  The PT also assumed that every magazine was read by 6-7 additional readers. The PT Newsstand statistics was the biggest lie the magazine came up with.  Just because 50 magazines were put into a rack does not mean 350 people read them.  Hundreds of thousands of magazines went straight into trash cans.  Hundreds of thousands sat in garages and warehouses in boxes unopened.  Just because a production run of 7 million was printed doesn’t mean 7 million magazines ever made it out.  As one department head of accounting said years ago, “We can make numbers mean anything we want.”

The prophet then goes on to brag about the huge impact his books are having on his ministry.  The fact that he has written so much in blogs, for internet “newspapers” and published a few books happened because God had a covert plan for him.  According to prophet Thiel God was apparently greatly disappointed in Rod Meredith and other COG’s that he began inspiring prophet Thiel to start writing.  God’s plan in this was that once prophet Thiel's writings became “prolific” then He would “doubly bless” him and send him out with a new Church of God.

Prophet Thiel writes:

Another critique was that we of the Continuing Church of God had an unfair advantage.  Which was?  That unlike others who had left the old WCG/GCG/LCG/etc., I (Bob Thiel) had the legal right to my previous decade or so of writings.

That was considered by this individual as a major advantage I and CCOG had over others.

So, let us consider this.

First, unlike most others who started began a group, I was not on the payroll of a church. Second, I am still not on the payroll of any church.  Third, since it was not my intention to start a church, could it not have been God’s plan to have me start with so much material?

Consider that there were probably at least 200,000 people who at some point in time had affiliation with the old Worldwide Church of God, and between 10,000-20,000 who had some affiliation with the old Global Church of God or current Living Church of God.  Out of all those people, there was just one with such an extensive library.

A coincidence?

Or perhaps God’s planning?  It was certainly not my intent over the years to write articles, etc. so that someday I could end up heading up a group like the Continuing Church of God.

Prophet Thiel wants all of his readers to know that he has always been a volunteer.  Apparently "appropriate" men of God do not take a salary.

Consider that I did all this work over all these years on an unpaid volunteer basis.  Could that possibly be the type of person God might wish to use further?

What prophet Thiel fails to let his readers know now is that he is no longer a volunteer.  He is accepting tithe money which he uses for his videos, books, articles and for him self.  Soon he will be travelling (on church expense) to visit his little churches.  Then it will be travel to Feast sites where he will be put up in the best of the hotels being wined and dined at great expense.  We have all seen it happen before. There is no reason whatsoever that prophet Thiel is any different than the other splinter personality group leaders.

The prophet next moves on to his Obama book. This is the book that contributed to Rod Meredith sending out a letter to the membership tell them to take Thiel's words with a grain of salt.

Prophet Thiel claims that by offering his book recently for free on Kindle, that he has now reached untold hundreds of thousands of people with a “warning” because his Kindle edition has links to his articles, blog and videos.

…4,619 people downloaded the second edition of this book.  Now the Kindle edition has the same content as the 160 page print edition (Barack Obama, Prophecy, and the Destruction of the United States-Second Edition for Second Obama Term)–thus thousands of people received a lot of information–including links to various CCOG-related websites in that Kindle-edition this month.   Thus, since the formation of the Continuing Church of God we have been able to reach even greater numbers of people about many of the prophetic warnings of the Bible…

Prophet Thiel ends with this:

The message is getting out, and we in the Continuing Church of God are working hard to fulfill Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19-20.  The Continuing Church of God intends to strive to fulfill Matthew 24:14a, and I believe will be the primary group (the Philadelphia remnant is not restricted to a single corporation) that God will use to accomplish this. Yes, we have quite a way to go, but have done a lot so far with so very few.

Yes prophet and Chief Overseer, you certainly do have a long way to go!  Your videos have to be the most appallingly bad ones we have seen posted from a COG ever. When you shoot your videos in you den with a ratty old bookcase with its books turned on end and that seems to be leaning, it does not make for good visuals.  PLEASE go to this church supply catalog and buy a PROPER lectern to preach from.  Is the one you are using made from plywood or what?  Tacky Bro!  Tacky!  If you buy a proper size lectern then you can sit that lap top on it and not have to worry about it falling off.  PLEEEEEEASE cut down on the hand jesters!  Oy!  You don’t need to flip those wrists around so much. The gay people I know that have seen your videos have picked up on that one right away! I don’t think that is what you want “appropriate males” in the Continuing Church of God to be doing.

One thing we all know for sure.  Living Church of God is breathing a great sign of relief right now.  For the rest rest of us this is a highly entertaining episode in COG history.  There has been none like it before in COG history. It is also rather sad to watch a man mentally melt down for all the world to see.

Prophet Thiel In Church Wide Sermon Preaches Against Silly Atheists

Here is the prophet with his latest sermon.  Get a load of his simplistic explanation of evolution as he pours water on a rock in an effort to make fun of atheists.

I still am in awe of his amazing sermon sets.  Love the ragged Greek Interlinear bibles and commentaries in the back ground. Yes Prophet, you are EDUCATED!  Woo!