Don Ward Demands UCG Members Submit to Ministry. Is UCG Headed For More Trouble?

When the elite of the present day UCG conspired and worked behind the scenes to form their new church, while still employed by WCG, they thought they were taking the best and the brightest of the ministry with them.  Following the government and church organization of the WCG was of little importance to them. They would finally have the most unified splinter group that the church had ever seen and would do amazing things.  Now 20 years later, UCG is a mess.  A major split decimated the ministry and membership.  Families, marriages and friendships were ripped apart as members aligned themselves with the camp they felt was most righteous. Various smaller groups have also broken off since then aand members slowly bleed away today out of boredom and lack of inspiration.

UCG has never fully recovered from this relationship shattering event, no matter how much they claim they are united today. Factions still exist, both in the membership and the ministry, that threaten to split the church again.

Expensive media campaigns along with ROKU and AppleTV broadcasts have not drawn in the potential members they were seeking.  Infighting and arguing still go on as two camps are divided on changing doctrines and practices.  No matter how many times they stand up and deny changes are in the pipeline, people know differently.

Don Ward, another one of God's most important men to have ever graced the COG, preached a sermon recently on the expectation that the UCG members MUST obey the ministry whenever they speak.  As conduits of godly government, everything they say and do comes directly from their god and she does not take too kindly to members not following her directions.

You can listen to Ward's sermon here: Church Government and Organization: Is there authority in the church and is it organized?

The COG has always been about authority and power in its ranks.  Jesus, the man that makes them really uncomfortable, was all about breaking the chains of oppression from government, rules and regulations.  Grace, mercy, and justice were the game changers that thwart the legalists in the church in the time of Jesus just as it does today.  That's why all the lies of Malm, Thiel, Pack, and others carry no weight today.  People are sick of the legalistic bullshit that keeps getting dumped upon them.

Prophet, Magician or Liar?

Bob Thiel is nothing more than an astrologer, palm reader, fortune teller, or other sort of cold reader.

His "prophecies" are generalized statements about often mundane things that it's not hard to forecast based upon the past or upon current trends, couched in metrics so vague you'd be hard pressed to say if many of them had come true or not. He carpet bombs with a couple dozen of these so-called "prophecies" and then waits for 6 months, a year, two years or more, until he can arguably say this one or that on "came true." Of course, it's so vague there's little basis to say so one way or the other for sure. But as long as he can crow victory eventually over 10 or 15 of them, that's all that matters to Bob. The rest he'll keep quiet about, and hopefully those who notice the failures won't be enough to notice. You'll certainly never find Bob admitting to having uttered any "prophecies" that turned out to be false. It's kind of like prophesying that the price of an ounce of gold or a barrel of oil will hit $x. Sure, given enough time, it's bound to happen sooner or later. And when it does, does that make you a "prophet"? Of course not!

If Bob really were a prophet, that is to say, receiving information from "beyond" about the future, he wouldn't need to resort to these well-known cold reading techniques. No, he'd be making highly specific predictions about things that matter, that shift the balance of power in the world. And he wouldn't need to carpet bomb. He could pronounce them one at a time, and he could predict the timing as well. And he could nail every single major event without missed opportunities or missteps. Instead his "prophecies" have the grubby fingerprints of a hoax all over them.

But not Bob. No, Bob is a "prophet" in the same sense that a "magician" is one who works "magic." He's not breaking the laws of physics, there's nothing supernatural about it, just sleight of hand. The only difference is that a magician deceives people honestly, for entertainment purposes. Bob deceives people dishonestly, to enrich himself at other's expense. Bob has to know there's nothing supernatural about his deliberately vague and often inconsequential prognostications.

From the Ritenbaugh posting.

Dave Pack Plants Armstrong Maples To Commemorate You Know Who

We have all had fun sitting back watching the blatant idolatry that goes on in various COG's splinter groups since the Worldwide Church of God imploded.  It all started with Gerald Flurry who imitates everything he could to be like Herbert Armstrong.  From building a mini-me auditorium to traipsing in the woods of Oregon to haul back a dirty rock and he claims HWA prayer at to buying an aging mansion in England and starting another "college."

Meredith then tried to emulate HWA, at who's feet he had been trained, but has failed rather spectacularly. After failing miserably in Global Church of God, he took their money and started the Living Church of God.  Never able to afford to build a college campus with fine buildings and gardens, he has had to settle on a few rooms in an office building for his "college."

Then there is United Church of God, another sad imitator, who has split and fractured so many times that they cannot keep up to date on how many are actual members.  Its media campaigns have been disastrous.  Like Meredith, it too has a few rooms in an office building that house it's "Bible" Center.

Like Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack has built himself a little empire that is another imitation of Herbert Armstrong's visions.  Regardless of how much he lies that he was trained at HWA's feet, which he wasn't, he cannot make his dwindling cult desirous of other COG members.  After predicting tens of thousands of wayward COG members would soon be flocking to Wadsworth, he has been left sitting red faced as he is unable to build his own mini-me auditorium.  

Dave recently sold his home and has had a new one construct on the Wadsworth compound along with other "faculty" homes for the boot clicking elite.  It's all imitation and make believe.  From the streams, flower beds, building designs, to even the trees he plants

Dave recently planted some maple trees on the campus to hide the metal barn that houses tractors and grounds keeping machinery.  What better tree to plant that one that's the name "Armstrong" in it!  Employees and members in Wadsworth are mocking that decision.  But poor Dave just doesn't get it.

Everything he does is an imitation of what Herbert Armstrong did.  Dave can never compare.  It is a poor business model that was doomed to failure from the start.  Dave does not have the personality that HWA did. When HWA sent out regular bombastic letters blaming members for church problems and that they needed to send in more money, they did.  When Dave speaks people tend to ignore him.  People look at Dave as a liar.  They are leaving his church daily and money continues to be a struggle.

How long will it be till the Wadsworth compound has to be sold to developers who will build condo's?

Dave Pack Seen Whimpering In Corner After Latest AronRa Smackdown Video

John Ritenbaugh Warns Against False Prophets In COG, Lying False Prophet Bob Thiel Immediately Suffers Major Butthurt

John Ritenbaugh wrote an article in The Berean the other day discussing prophets in church history and COG folk  who set themselves up as prophets in the church even though they have no qualifications.

All of us desire to know the future so we can be prepared for it. We want to be in control of our destinies and not at the mercy of events. However, some have this desire so strongly that they set themselves up as channels through which the future is revealed. 

Such people have misled many. Deuteronomy 18, along with chapter 13, warns against such people. Whether they are called diviners, charmers, spiritists, or channelers, using methods like reading tea leaves, casting lots, or conducting séances, they are to be seriously and carefully avoided because there is no godly reality to their prognostications. Those seeking to know are being misguided, putting themselves at the mercy of lying demons, or at the very least, imaginative men and women. 

At other times, simply following a church tradition regarding a prophecy can also mislead a person. This occurs because someone in the past, sincerely believing he understood a particular prophecy, began preaching his belief, and many in his audience then believed without the resources to prove the interpretation wrong. Due to frequent repetition, it came to be accepted as truth.

Today this would apply to many in the Church of God.  Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, James Malm, Gerald Flurry, Will Dankenbring and many others.  It also applies to Ritenbaugh and his hundreds of failed prophecies. Every single one of them have a string of failed prophecies covering the ground at their feet.  Thousands are sucked into this madness and actually believe it is truthful.  Each of these fraudulent men have repeated their nonsense for so long that they actually believe themselves.

Of course the biggest false prophet the church has right now immediately suffered major butthurt. Bob Thiel says that many COG members will fail to recognize true prophets, especially when that prophet is himself.  Who is the true prophet for this age?  Who else has been double blessed and had nightmares where dark forces said he was the chosen one?

While I am not about to analyze all of John Ritenbaugh’s points, the reality is that most real Christians will NOT accept biblical criteria for prophets in this age.

Sadly, many people in the Church of God (COG) have trouble believing that God actually uses prophets or how He would use them today.

According to Thiel, all COG prophets out there right now are false, except of course for himself. They have disqualify themselves because they are liars.  Even id those properties are "at best questionable," they are still lairs.  Apparently the questionable emphasis Thiel makes on countless speculations does not enter this equation.

But first, it should be noted certain leaders of other COGs  have disqualified themselves on certain matters of prophecy, especially when they insist on matters that are wrong, or at best questionable.

Then Thiel gets to the just of his posting.  He and he alone is a true prophet!  LCG said so!

Prophet is an office and prophets are to prophesy. Although the position of groups like LCG is that it has NO prophets (which is likely the case as I stopped attending late on 12/28/12), it should be noted that its top leader had repeatedly taught in the past that God may consider Bob Thiel to be a prophet 

Thiel cannot stand the fact that 99% of COG members think and know that he is a liar.  Because of that he needs to throw out scripture point out that they are wrong:

Contrary to scripture, most end time Christians do not heed the following from the Apostle Paul:

     Despise not prophesyings. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, KJV)

     Do not despise prophecies. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, NKJV) 

Those that deny the prophet status of Thiel are lukewarm Laodiceans.  How can they not know that Thiel is the chosen one?

The fact is that Laodiceans believe that they do not have need to listen to any of God’s end time prophets (Revelation 13:14-18), even if some believe that God uses prophets.

He then lists 36 failed prophecies and false teachings of various COG groups.  Of course missing from all of that is all of Thiel's lies.

The only COG leader out there telling the truth is Thiel.  Even Herbert Armstrong would be agreeing with him, if he were still alive.

Some will come up with their preferred rational as why not to agree with the position of the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) on these matters. Yet not only are they biblical, on most of those points, the old WCG taught what I believe that the Bible teaches on them (on the few that it did not, one is consistent with a November 1979 HWA writing and on the others, a former adviser to HWA told me that HWA would have agreed with me on those as well, as one he had not investigated and some others were not issues when he was alive.

First it was double blessings, double nightmares and self-appointment, now it is the blessing of Herbert Armstrong.  Thiel's comment is quite laughable since HWA would have ripped Thiel to shreds and left him a blubbering mess after publicly rebuking him from the Auditorium stage and in all print materials.  Meredith's rebuke would be baby pablum compared to HWA's rebuke.  So once again we see Thiel lie in order to make himself look set apart and special.

Thiel continues:

It should be noted that leaders in the Living Church of God and/or the United Church of God confirmed to me personally that I was biblically correct on all the above points, despite the fact that their respective churches hold to several of the errors pointed out above. (emphasis his)

No one in the Church of God is more qualified that Thiel!  Kneel at his feet in wonder and amazement!