Saturday, September 16, 2017

Church of God In Wales On The Importance Of Apostles



The Church of God in Wales holds staunchly to everything that Herbert Armstrong wrote and said. There is a reason for that. In their eyes, Herbert W Armstrong was an apostle through whom God communicated directly to with all of the spiritual knowledge that he dished forth. Because of that, no ordinary church member or minister could every receive spiritual knowledge that they could share with the rest of the brethren.

According to the COGinW, the disunity in the COG today is the result of busybodies pretending they are modern day conduits of knowledge from God. Thanks to the false prophets of Armstrongism, men like Almost-ordained Bob Thiel, Pharisee James Malm, Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and many others have set themselves up as apostles and teachers of blasphemies, pretending to be conduits of God's word. These liars are the reason behind the great disunity in the church today. All of these petulant little men took it upon themselves to set themselves up as apostles and prophets.
Unity is a vital and eternal quality that God insists is present within each of His potential sons and daughters. Without it, there can be no True Church of God; God and Christ and those within the Family of God are all to be one (John 17:21). If unity is lacking between different organisations that all claim to be the True Church, it indicates a grave sickness. “The people judge or decide” – the very meaning of the word “Laodicea” – gives rise to such an antithesis of unity. It produces a myriad of different interpretations of the same scriptures. But scripture is not for private interpretation (II Pet 1:20). 

God has given His Church the means whereby the unity He insists upon can be achieved. To be in harmony under God, each of God’s people must have the humility to grow according to the grace given and not attempt to take something that is not theirs. The grace to lay foundations within the Church is specifically given to apostles – not the general ministry or membership. Only by aligning our teachings and beliefs with such foundations can the unity God wants be produced. Going in any other direction takes us away from God’s revelation and will produce chaos and confusion – the utter antithesis of what God insists must be found within His Family.

John Rittenbaugh on Prophets



Almost-ordained and almost-arrested Bob Thiel has an article up by John Ritenbaugh about prophets.  It is ironic that Ritenbaugh writes about prophets/false prophets in the church.  Ritenbaugh was the prophetic guru of many in the Glendale/Pasadena are for many years.  Everything the man talked about people salivated over, copied, taped and shipped all around the country.  Ritenbaugh has ended up like all of the other false prophets in the church, an epic failure!

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 sĂ©ances, 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. 
It is important for us to understand that prophets were not merely temporary and occasional expedients God would turn to. They played a vital and continuing role in Israel, especially in those times before the Word of God was widely distributed. This is why God makes provision for them within the law. He shows in many places that those He appoints to the prophetic office will always preach the keeping of the commandments of God as evidence of the Source of their inspiration. They will teach the conservation of past truths even as they break new doctrinal ground. 
They both forthtell – that is, proclaim a message truthfully, clearly, and authoritatively to those for whom it is intended – and they will on occasion, but not always, foretell – that is, predict events before they take place. 
It is misleading to believe these verses in Deuteronomy 18 apply only to Christ. His is undoubtedly their ultimate application, but the promise and description applies to all true, God-ordained prophets. Notice some of the identifiers in these verses:
1. God established the foundational pattern for the prophetic office in Moses (“like me”). 
2. God will raise a prophet up from among the Israelitish people. Later biblical sources show he might be drawn and appointed from any of the tribes and from any occupation. In other words, he did not have to be a Levite. 
3. He will perform the function of a mediator between God and men (verses 16-18). 
4. He will stand apart from the system already installed. He will not be antagonistic to the system, but he may be very antagonistic to the sins of those within the system, especially the leadership. 
5. God will directly appoint and separate him for his office. Thus, the thrust of his service as God’s representative is direct and authoritative. By contrast, the priest’s function flowed from man to God by means of sacrifice – far less direct and more appealing and pleading than demanding. The New Testament ministry combines elements of both, but parallels the prophet’s function more than the priest’s. 
Simply and broadly, a prophet is one who is given a message by another of greater authority and speaks for him to those for whom the message is intended. Thus, Moses was God’s prophet, but Aaron was Moses’ prophet. 
Without a doubt, when we hear the word “prophet,” we immediately think of the Old Testament. This is a natural reaction because that is where most of them appear in the Bible. Our memory instantaneously brings forth names like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and David – all great men. However, without a doubt, the two greatest prophets of all time appear in the New Testament: John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. John the Baptist is the last and greatest under the Old Covenant, and Jesus Christ is the first and greatest of the New.
John W. Ritenbaugh
(The Berean, September 18, 2016)

Ritenbaughs comments above did not sit too well with Almost-ordained and almost-arrested  Bob Thiel. Ritenbaughs comments make Almost-ordained Thiel out to be a false prophet.  That irritated Almost-arrested Thiel so much that he made this comment, referring to himself, of course:

...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.
The Apostle Paul makes it clear that not all are prophets. Prophet is an office and prophets are to prophesy. Although the position of groups like LCG is that it has NO prophets (which is the case as I stopped attending late on 12/28/12), it should be noted that its then top leader had repeatedly taught in the past that God may consider Bob Thiel to be a prophet

Almost ordained Thiel still continues to lie that Rod Meredith called him a prophet.  Meredith may have had tons of faults, but Meredith was not that naive or stupid to call Almost-arrested Thiel a prophet.

Almost ordained Thiel is so sure that he is a prophet that he has to quote Jesus where he states that prophets will be reviled and persecuted. Almost-ordained Thiel likes to pretend he is being reviled and persecuted by those of us here and by those in other COG's who laugh and mock him.  Such a sad little man.

Jesus taught: 
11 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)
Contrary to scripture, most end time Christians do not heed the following from the Apostle Paul:
20 Despise not prophesyings. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, KJV)
20 Do not despise prophecies. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, NKJV
Why should a Church of God member ever trust any of the false prophets of Armstrongism?  Every one of them have proven to be liars, including Almost-ordained Thiel.

The Almost-ordained false prophet then precedes to make a list of 38 different items that he claims all of the other COG's are in error on.  See it here.

The lying false prophet is now dragging United Church of God into the mix.  Not only does he claim LCG claimed he was a prophet, but UCG did too!  He claims that LCG and UCG recognized that all 38 of his points were 100% accurate.

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 essentially all the above points, despite the fact that their respective churches hold to several of the errors pointed out above. Those who rely too much on a compromised ministry (Ezekiel 34:7-10) to teach them prophecy that is not truly in accordance with scripture need to realize that according to Jesus’ words in Revelation 2 & 3 and Luke 21, only relatively few Christians will be protected from the hour of trial that will come upon the whole world (Revelation 3:10;
The church has had false prophets in its midst from its very inception.  The Pasadena headquarters
was filled with them.  Hardly a week went by when a new prophet would appear at the Hall of Ad proclaiming some absurd prophecy. Hundreds, if not thousands made their way to Pasadena over the decades.  Every one of them is long gone and forgotten. Some had died, some still write silliness and publish it, and others finally hung up their prophetic glasses and got on with life, still as deluded as ever.  Others like Almost-ordained Thiel and the Church Pharisee James Malm set themselves up as godly men do a "work".  All they do now is toot their own horn and make idiotic predictions and then lie that they never did when confronted.






Friday, September 15, 2017

Dave Pack: I am after as many eyeballs as possible on my products



Deluded Dave says:
Now, one other thing that obviously drives that and can speed it up is how much money we have to spend on media. And as I’ve been saying recently, two or three times, and it’s continuing to increase. The number of dollars that we can put into media appears to be as though it’s going to be significantly greater, earlier than I ever dreamed. So that’s going to drive it, because, as Mr. Armstrong understood and every marketer understands, it’s how many eyeballs can you get on whatever the product is you’re offering.
Dave has been off the air with his telecast for some time now.  Money was needed to fund his campus expansion. Apparently, buildings and grass lawns were more important than his "gospel" message.  His move back into television is now dependant once again upon the financial support of his members. You can see below that Dave guilts his members into giving more money.  The more they give the more people who respond, the less they give, the fewer people will watch and read Dave's stuff.  All belongs to God, therefore as God's most important man in human history, everything belongs to Dave. Send it in, dumb sheep.
So, if we’re on worldwide television again soon—and that’s now back in play in a serious way…Again, if people who have said they’re going to give certain amounts do, that’s in play, if just some of that arrives. A massive internet presence at the same time, with an ability every month to add more…And that will be driven by how much God’s people continue to give, you could call it generosity, you can call it obedience, because common belongs to God as much as tithes do…that will have an effect. So we can all pray about that. 
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