UCG Suggests You Chart How Well You Are Doing On Your Salvation Work

The last time I heard the Church of God telling members to put up charts to mark off days it was when the WCG was preparing to flee to Petra.  We had some idiot minister come out to Columbus Ohio and proceed to illustrate for us how to make a chart and mark off the days till we were to flee.  My mother had this in the kitchen cupboard and faithfully marked the days off one by one for a couple of years.

UCG has now moved into the charting business where they suggest that you make a chart to see how well you are working towards your salvation.

How may commandments did you keep today? How many did you break?

Did you keep all 613 of them?

Did you cuss today?  If you did it is a black mark on your chart.

If you failed to be on your knees for one hour straight another black mark.

Did you raise your voice at your kids?  Another black mark.

Did you go out to eat out on the Sabbath after church?  Another black mark.............oops.........I forgot, UCG allows for its members ot make other people work on their behalf.  That will earn UCG members a gold star!

Chart Your Way on the Road to Eternal Life

Sometimes it is not just our children who need help keeping track of how they are doing. We all are working on certain areas of our life—diet, exercise, prayer, Bible study. We should be keeping track of our accomplishments and also what areas we can develop ourselves in order to continue in our goal of building godly character and growing in the fruit of the spirit (Galatians:5:22-23

).

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Christians are evaluated during their time on this earth and in their behavior each day. God has given us a chart to measure ourselves against—the Ten Commandments (Exodus:20:1-17
















; Deuteronomy:5:6-21















). We are to keep the Ten Commandments in their physical and spiritual intent. Remember, if a man even looked on a woman with wrong intent, it was considered a sin (Matthew:5:28). As we keep our mind from thinking evil things as well as stopping our hand from doing them, we are supposed to be thinking on whatever is pure and noble while using our bodies as vessels for good works (Philippians 4:8, 2 Timothy:2:21).

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If we want to chart our progress on our road to eternal life, we should be as the saints in Revelation:14:12. It reads, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” The saints are those who check off their chart daily. Also, if we want to make sure we are on the path to eternal life, Jesus said, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew:19:17).

Remember these hideous things?

God tells us to post the Commandments around our house and write them on the tablet of our heart. Visualize what it would look like when we walk in all of His ways. Visualize what it will be like in the Kingdom of God when the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord and the law of the Kingdom will be God’s Commandments (Ezekiel:44:24, Zechariah:14:16). When we picture it, it helps motivate us and focus better on achieving our goals.

 As a Christian working towards building godly character and the reward of eternal life, choose goals that resonate with you and a more immediate reward to receive after your dedicated efforts. Possible rewards could be going to a park for your Bible study instead of just at home, going for a nice meal with a friend to share your experience of working towards your goal, getting yourself a pocket Bible with your name engraved on it, or buying a special Bible study pen to write in your Bible.

Really???????

One reader took the author to task for writing such drivel:

Gal 2:16-21 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

She responds that "striving" to obey the law is a condition of salvation.

The law cannot save us, but our striving to obey it is a condition of our salvation.

Another Earthly Delight Taken Away From COG Members and Muslims

Church of God groups were devastated the other day to learn that one of their earthly vices that they thought they were allowed to take pleasure in contained PORK!  Oh the humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was announced in Malaysia the other day that miniscule trace amounts of pork were found in Cadbury's Milk Chocolate Bar.  The Muslim hoards are in a lather right now proclaiming Jihad against Cadbury.

Enraged Muslims in Malaysia have called for a holy war or Jihad to be waged on Cadbury after traces of pig DNA were picked up in their chocolates. As a result of the complaint, the company has pulled two of its products from Malaysian shop shelves.

A group of more than 20 Muslim organizations have condemned UK confectionary company Cadbury, saying “it has crossed the line.”
 
“They have betrayed us Muslims by putting ‘haram’ elements through the foods we consume in our body, to weaken us Muslims,” said Abu Bakar Yahya, chief of Muslim group, Perkasa Selangor, to press at a conference on Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur quoted by Malaymailonline.

Some of the Muslim organizations even called for a Jihad to be declared against Cadbury for its “betrayal.”   Malaysian Muslims declare jihad on Cadbury over pork-laced chocolate

But Dear, it was ONLY a small piece of the Cadbury Milk Bar.  

I promise I will never eat it again!

Many COG members were delighted to learn though that their secret vice and favorite Cadbury candy is completely Kosher.  So go ahead and eat those Cadbury Creme Egg's!

Gideon: I Want Proof!

A reader here was none too happy that I used a quote from HWA's member letter the other day where he compared COG members and  their rotten attitudes to that of his wife's blocked up bowel.  Apparently he is not smart enough to read the top of the quote where it says it was written in 1967 or is he capable of pasting the quote into Google where it will pull up numerous places where the letter is mentioned.

In doing so a person will see that David C Pack, the impotent and failed COG leader, uses this very same letter to intimidate his own members with.

"Conditioned to the endless what could be called “Baptist love speak” heard in UCG, LCG, COGwa and other groups, be careful of offense at the strength of Mr. Armstrong’s language, which you may not have read for many years. Instead, savor his words, carefully reflecting on your own condition."   “Cry Aloud, Spare Not”—What ALL Forgot!

Gideon said...

Need know IF your quote: Armstrong's wife's blocked bowel statement kosher?! Date of memo to members please. Have copy to show on your website?

May 29, 2014 at 2:33 AM

Gideon said...

Prove your quotes from Armstrong's letter are kosher! Date etc!

The Lifton Criteria Vs Armstrongism

Below is a quote from one of Herbert Armstrong's letters where he screams at members who were getting sick of HWA's incessant begging for money by accusing them of being like his his wife's blocked bowel.

HWA Co-Worker Letter April 1967:

Many professing to be Church MEMBERS say, when a Co-Worker letter arrives, in a grumbling, complaining disgust: "Oh, that's another of Mr. Armstrong's REQUESTS for MONEY," and many don't even read the letter!

Are YOU one of those? If so, LET ME BURN YOUR EARS before the Almighty GOD burns YOU in the Lake of FIRE! If that has been YOUR attitude -- if YOU are only on the GETTING side, and SHUN helping, and giving to the cause of GOD, then I say to you ON AUTHORITY OF JESUS CHRIST, if you don't REPENT and QUICKLY, and change that hostile, despicable, detestable attitude, you DO NOT BELONG in GOD'S CHURCH! You are some of the ROTTEN, PUTRID, spiritual WASTE that has been PLUGGED UP INSIDE OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY OF CHRIST'S WIFE, just as physical waste is plugged up in my dear wife's body! And the living Jesus is just as able to EXPEL YOU from the spiritual Body of HIS WIFE as He is to expel this physical waste from my wife's body!

And if THAT doesn't make your ears tingle, and AWAKEN you, then Jesus Christ says to YOU through me, YOU are in danger of the Lake of FIRE!...

Below is the Lifton Criteria, a list of ways that cults control devotee's.  This is exactly what the Worldwide Church of God did. This is also what Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack and Bitter Bob Thiel are doing.

We are always aghast as to why so many members stand by Flurry, Pack and Thiel's sides when they KNOW for a fact that they are being abused.  Here is why they do it.

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform

1. Milieu Control.  This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
2. Mystical Manipulation.  There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes. 
3. Demand for Purity.  The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection.  The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here. 
4. Confession.  Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group.  There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders. 
5. Sacred Science.  The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute.  Truth is not to be found outside the group.  The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism. 
6. Loading the Language.  The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand.  This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking. 
7. Doctrine over person.  Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group. 
8. Dispensing of existence.  The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not.  This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology.  If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the  members.  Thus, the outside world loses all credibility.  In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also.  (Lifton, 1989)
   
   

Another version is here with more points:

1. Control of human communication.
2. Totalist environment seeks to control external information (that which a person sees, hears, reads, writes, experiences, expresses) and the inner life of a person's thoughts (communication with himself).
3. This milieu control can't become absolute, there will always be "leaks".
4. The leaders are considered the source and dispensers of truth and knowledge so they try to create a rarefied environment in which only this truth exists.
5. To be engineers of the human soul, the leaders must bring it under full observational control, monitoring information and thoughts.
6. Person is deprived of both external information and inner reflection, which are crucial for testing realities.
7. Strivings toward new info, independent judgment, and self-expression are thwarted.
8. A person who experiences a reality outside of the group will negate the experience by not considering it legitimate since it is outside the milieu.
9. A hampering in the human quest for that which is true and relevant within and outside a person.
10. Us/them mentality keeps outside information from being processed critically
11. Person's entire frame of reference becomes the group, has no independent reality or information against which to test the verity of the information the group is giving him.
12. Separation from family and friends who represent the outside.
13. Control of books read, movies seen, music listened to.
14. Communal living further controls the milieu.
15. Activities are limited because time is dominated by group. Even if a person wanted to hear another pastor there wouldn't be enough time to do so.
16. Intense indoctrination seminars or retreats.
17. Information for making decisions supposed to come from "seeking counsel" or consultation from leaders.
18. Anything that is not the sacred science (see below for explanation of sacred science) is rejected as evil.

This list came about because of the authors book on the following subject on how China brainwashed the minds of American prisoners and their won people.

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of brainwashing and mind control.

Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one's opinions and personality and "brainwash" American soldiers into making demonstrably false assertions.

More can be found here by a man who was deprogrammed from a religious cult in Santa Barbara.