Dave Pack: When Is The Last Time You Picked Up One Of HWA's Books?

This title explains all that is wrong with Armstrongism.  Not Dave Pack Related.

Lots more deification of  HWA but nothing about Jesus.  COG members have no right to ridicule Catholics for Mary worship.  Armstrong worship is alive and well in many of these splinter cults.

How often do you study your Bible to intensively review basic doctrines—or for personal correction in this way? When did you last pick up even one of Mr. Armstrong’s books or booklets—and carefully read it with an open Bible? (In this regard, I Timothy 4:13, “give attendance to reading,” has vital application.) How often do you do this, if at all? Now ask: “How many Christians of previous ages would covet the many books and booklets that are only gathering dust on my shelf?” How many years—or decades?!—have passed since you carried out this exercise?

Lacking this practice, how often, and to what degree, do you typically practice reading your own group’s literature in this fashion? (This is in no way said to endorse its material, but to help you take your overall temperature.) How often do you think about, talk about or study with the concept of—the very word of—truth in your mind? How often do you find yourself consciously and specifically thinking about the need to (the very words) hold fast, with Revelation 3:11 in mind? Ever?

Dave Pack: Be Prepared For 2 Hour Services Dressed In Your Finest While Taking Copious Notes

All of you COG members in LCG, PCG and UCG, had better be prepared to follow Dave Pack's Haggai II/Joshua's demands for proper Sabbath keeping.  The rules and laws just keep piling up.  Once again, nothing about Jesus, but lots and lots of law.

How do you view God’s Sabbath? Do you properly prepare for it—and welcome it when it arrives? Do you occasionally “forsake the assembling of yourself together”? If so, what has made you think that you can do this (Heb. 10:24-26)? How far have you relaxed your dress code on the Sabbath from what the entire Church once practiced when it was on track? Is your conversation filled with idle words—are you actively striving to remove them from your Sabbath discussions with other brethren? Do you still listen attentively at services, taking careful notes with an open Bible, because you plan to revisit those notes one or more times in the coming week? (I realize most of the sermons you hear are worth little more than the hot air that propelled them.) How long is the television on, and for what purpose? Has this element of your standard of conduct degenerated as per Sabbath-keeping? Do you still see the Sabbath as God’s test command? Or have you told yourself that permissive Sabbath conduct is being “balanced”? Do you believe that a 90-minute service, with its 45-minute “sermons”—both taught to you by Joe Tkach, and your leaders who obviously agreed with him!!!—is better than the established traditional two hours (with 75-minute sermons) that Mr. Armstrong taught?

What about the Feast of Tabernacles? Do you attend every service of the Feast every year—and, again, how do you dress? Per God’s command, do you still keep a full second tithe in preparation for the Feast, always turning in the excess before and after it so others, less privileged, may also attend? Does your attendance reflect loyalty to your organization, or do you attend whatever site is nearest or most attractive to you, regardless of affiliation?

Dave Pack: Splinter Group Lemmings Are Addicted To 200 Extra-Biblical Teachings

Dave calls all the members int eh splinter groups lemmings because they stay with the crowd.  That is exactly what the 1,200  members of RCG do.  They are afraid to buck the trend after they joined.  The fear and intimidation keeps them involved.  Its better to fit in and lay low than it is to open ones mouth and question.  Once more Dave describes his own group and is too stupid to realize it.

Mr. Armstrong described one of the great earmarks of Laodicea as teaching doctrines that are “less strictly biblical.” ALL the leaders and ministers of the splinters mirror this description. These men certainly say that their doctrinal changes are biblically-based. Who would say otherwise? Now, astonishingly, over 200 easily known, but largely unrecognized, false teachings exist throughout the splinters—with more all the time. How could this be? How could standards have collapsed so far that God’s people dress and act much like worldly Christians, and below the standards of my Baptist in-laws?

The answer: Spiritual blindness prevents these men from seeing their new doctrines and standards as false.

Look around you. Examine your organization. Look at Sabbath services, activities, socials and gatherings. Put aside any fun and enjoyment of fellowship you see, and ask yourself two hard questions:

(1) “Why are we not holding fast to that which we have?” (Rev. 3:11)
(2) “Who is truly washing, cleaning and purging themselves in God’s Word, seeking daily more of the Spirit of truth?”

The longer you have been where you are, the more the law of spiritual inertia—that “objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects at rest tend to stay at rest”—came into play. Coupled with the natural group instinct or “lemming effect”—to stay with the crowd—over time, inaction takes on a life of its own. This should sober—and frighten—you!

Dave Pack: COG Members In Splinter Groups Are "Intoxicated" Followers of "Activity Addiction"

Still on a roll trying to relive the glory days he goes on telling how COG members today are spiritually blinded to the truth because they have "activity addiction."

Though these things were not wrong of themselves, collectively they became a huge distraction that blinded scores of thousands of people from God’s true purpose at work in their lives. This happened because, with so much of their time stolen, people had stopped practicing the Christian basics—meaning they stopped living God’s Word, never mind all of it (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4). Intoxicated with activities, they went off to sleep. They simply had forgotten the sole purpose for why they were born—that God had put them on Earth to build His character and to be born into His very Family!

While most would have said that such an astonishing “memory loss” could not happen, it did!

After the apostasy, like so many addicts, most brethren went to, and today continue with, organizations that could best feed their activity addiction—that could best continue the familiar feeling they enjoyed of still being “churched” as they once were. Obviously, the big splinters have been able to continue many of these things in a way the others can no longer experience. This is one of the biggest reasons that many will remain so reluctant to leave their big place to fellowship. No one wants to leave friends, family and the “good times” of fun, fellowship and an endless cornucopia of activities behind.

Its funny to watch Davey ridicule others for the "activity addiction" when he FORCED members to attend all kinds of church functions and meetings.  When he did not they got called on the carpet and treated like pond scum.

Dave Pack: I Love The Past! - Oh Wait, I Hate The Past!

Davey starts his weekly letter off by once again proclaiming that he is going to restore the "glory days" from the past.  All the brethren will dwell together in harmony, all bitterness, intrigue and malice will be eliminated as everyone becomes Stepford Members trying to relive the past.  Oh how glorious those days were.

In previous announcements, we covered the big elements of the “Church of God” landscape that will change in light of the Haggai prophecy. We saw reunification of God’s people will explode the size and scope of God’s Work and that brethren will be together for the Feast of Tabernacles, Sabbath services, socials, Spokesman/Graduate Clubs, youth camps, Ministerial Conferences, college and more. Obviously, these changes will be BIG, but in a sense not as big as those that must occur in the lives of individual Christians. YOU must be ready to give up doctrines, traditions, practices, policies and standards that you have unwittingly (or wittingly) absorbed.

Then, further down his latest screed, he calls all of those activities as spiritually blinding the members to what they should have been doing.

Be honest with yourself and acknowledge what God’s Church became for so many—and probably you—as it grew to the globe-girdling size that it reached. There was literally something for everyone, and something was almost always going on. As a result, enormous numbers stopped thinking about the need to pray, study, fast, meditate, exercise God’s Spirit—and copy Jesus Christ in building the perfect, holy, righteous character of God, en route to awesome rulership in God’s kingdom.

Instead, they focused on the next picnic, dance, potluck, basketball and other sporting tournaments, Y.O.U., Y.E.S. (youth programs), singles activity, fundraising project, senior citizen dinner, track meet, Spokesman Club Ladies’ Night, talent show, youth camp session, snow party, deacon/elder meeting, get-together, etc. (Yet Church Bible Studies were cancelled long before anyone felt the need to reduce any of the activities mentioned here.)

Typical of Armstrongism one never quit knows what is the  right thing to do.  One minute something is being praised by the Dear Leader and the next it is being claimed to be a tool of Satan.  No wonder people drank!