Need an Ark? I NOAH Guy!

The Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter-The Video

LCG: Are you THANKFUL Because You Are Better Christians Than Others?

We should all know by now that Living Church of God members are FAR more special than anyone else in the world.  Those trained under Herbert Armstrong and Rod Meredith are privileged to have the inside track of hidden knowledge that somehow no one else was able to discover for 1,900 years. And, if you are in the Living Church of God you are even more special!

Though they may be special, apparently, some LCG members are not as "called" as they think they are.  They are becoming lax and lukewarm in understanding. Plus, if you do not fully believe the Living Church of God's version of the old covenant holy day demands, then you are unconverted. Satan has BLINDED your eyes!  Dang it, they pesky dude gets blamed for EVERYTHING that goes wrong in the LCG.

Doug Winnail

Thankful for the Truth? The Sabbath and the Holy Days are good times to reflect on an important question: How thankful are you for the Truth? It is easy to take the Truth for granted if you are a long-time member, or if you have grown up in the Church. Yet, Jesus said that no one can come to a real understanding of the Truth unless they are called and their minds are opened to see the big picture (John 6:44, 65). God calls us through the power of His Holy Spirit—which is described as “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16–17) and which “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13) if we are willing to be “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16–18). The capacity to understand the plan of God as pictured by the Holy Days, the purpose of life, and the true way of life is a gift imparted by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) that God is making available to only a few at this time (1 Corinthians 1:26–28). These precious truths are a mystery to most people (1 Corinthians 2:6–12) because Satan—“the god of this age”—has blinded their eyes (2 Corinthians 4:3–4). Jesus said it is an incredible privilege to be given an understanding of God’s Truth (Matthew 13:10–17). The Apostle Paul said that to be called out of darkness into the light of the Truth is something to be extremely thankful for (Ephesians 5:8–20). Let’s never forget to be thankful for the opportunity to understand God’s precious Truth.
Have a profitable Sabbath and Holy Day,
Douglas S. Winnail

Realities to Chew On: : "We have not been given the lead in the cosmic drama"

"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. "
Carl Sagan

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark." 
Carl Sagan

Humility

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." 

Carl Sagan

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

Carl Sagan

Self-Appointed COG Prophecy "Experts" Have No Clothes!!!!!

Leave it to our good buddy Elijah Bwana Bob Thiel to post another hilarious story on his blog.  This self-appointed expert about prophecy also considers himself the ONLY expert about every known subject known to humanity.  No one else in the world knows as much as he does because he has "god" on his side, and as we all know, the god of the Church of God only reveals "truth" to self-appointed COG leaders.

Thus, it was another typical Saturday sermon for his African members that covered topics that none of them have any concern about. He covers everything from myths about the Exodus to knowing everything about gender identity and morality.  When ever you hear a Church of God minister talk about "morality" these days you had better run the other direction, considering how immoral COG leaders have been and some still are.

The ‘Experts’ Have No Clothes!In the 19th century, Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ was published. The story showed a willingness of people to overlook the obvious truth in order to fit in with the crowd. Are aspects of that story applicable now? Are the experts at Wikipedia and elsewhere who claim that the story of the exodus of the children out of Israel right that this is a myth or that the creation account in Genesis is a myth? What about the Solbe Temple Inscription and the Ipuwer papyrus? n Nobel prize winners be wrong? Have they intentionally overlook true science? What about the existence of Jesus or the accuracy of the Gospel writers? Can you prove that Jesus existed? What about the views of certain ‘experts’ about sexual identity and morality? Dr. Thiel addresses each of these points with facts that disagree with the consensus of anti-biblical experts. He explains that like the Emperor who had no clothes, when the majority claimed to see them, many modern experts are just as wrong and hence figuratively should be considered as having no clothes (of truth).

For over 80 some years now we have seen the willingness of Church of God members to overlook the lies and false prophecies of Church of God leaders and self-appointed upstarts like James Malm and Bob Thiel.  With eight decades of complete idiocy and thousands of false prophecies, these babbling idiots still continue to regurgitate their lies and false teachings upon gullible members. Their lies have left them naked and looking foolish.

Pentecost

This Sunday is Pentecost.  The time traditional Christianity marks the birthday of the Church and also as a celebration the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We have heard the myriad of reasons Armstrongism had difficulty with the Holy Spirit.. Is it God's power sent to us, is it a 'real' person, or what is it?

Judaism has always talked about the Shekinah as the dwelling or settling presence of God in people.  It is is used as the feminine attributes of God in the Talmud. The Hebrew ruach means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” 

“The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:2; see also Isaiah 42:1). This prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus; at His baptism in the Jordan River, John saw “the Spirit of God descending like a doveand alighting on him” (Matthew 3:16).

For many Christians, the Holy Spirit is an active force in their lives.  Here is one such story.

After the service, I sat with one of my favorite parishioners, Miz Eula Jefferson. As we ate our marvelous feast, we shared some small talk about the kids playing jump rope and baseball - and, my, hasn't he gotten tall, and isn't she so pretty - when Ms. Jefferson zeroed in on me.

"Lemme ax you a question, Rev," she said in her South Carolinian drawl.

"Sure," I said.

"So, do you believe all that stuff we just sang in there?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," I said.

"Oh, you know, 'bout the Holy Spirit?"

"Well, yes, m'am. I mean... I'm not sure what you're asking, Ms. Jefferson."

She smiled and shifted her weight in the folding chair that was shifting in the soft grass of the church lawn.

I should have known by her smile that I was in trouble.

"Well," she said, "I don't mean no offense, and mebe it's just me, but in my experience - and you'll 'scuse my french - White People don't know shit about the Holy Spirit."

I laughed. Right out loud. I mean, what else was I supposed to do?

"I can say that to you, Rev, because you ain't like most White people," she said as she took my hand.

"Really?" I said, "How so?"

"Oh, you crazy, girl."

I laughed again. "Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment."

"Huh!" she said, not smiling. "If I was to believe what was in them songs about the Holy Spirit, then I gotsta believe that you White people don't know shit about the Holy Spirit. 'Scuse my french."

"Tell me about that," I said, softly. I really wanted to know.

"Well, where I growd up, we had a name for the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, we call her "Holy Ghost," but mostly the women call her name 'Shekinah'". She pronounced it "Shek-e-NAH". It sounded distinctly Hebraic.

"Lemme tell you about Shekinah," she said, tilting her head back and looking out somewhere beyond the chain link fence that surrounded the church - the one with the barbed wire curled all around the top that had been put up after the 1967 riots that I was trying to get the diocese to take down. Well, at least the barbed wire.

"Oh, she come to you. Sometime when you call her and sometime when you don't. Sometime, she talk all sweet and nice and sometime she knock you upside the head and knock you on your behind so's you can't talk no sense no how. It all depend on how long she been tryin' to get your attention and if you've been mindin' her."

"First thing she do, though, if you haven't already met Jesus, is to introduce you to Him. So, you start listenin' and readin' an learnin', and pretty soon, your life gonna be completely turned upside down."

"That's if you payin' attention," she said. "If you not, then Jesus calls Shekinah back in to start working over your soul."

"Lemme tell you somethin'," she said, "That girl is crazy. CRAZY. You know what I'm sayin'? C.R.A.Z.Y.," she laughed.

"Shekinah will stop at nothin' - absolutely nothin' - to get you right with God.

Jesus will talk and teach, but if you don't be gettin' it, Shekinah will come into your life and slap you silly until you do."

"Now, lemme give you a for instance. Remember Rosa Parks? Yes, chile, I know you do, cuzin' you preached on her jus the other Sunday. And, you preached it, girl. That was good preachin'. I about had a 'glory attack', flat out, jus hearin' a white girl preach so well about one of us."

"So, Rosa Parks is tire. She tire to the bone. Weary in her soul kinda tire. Bus driver say, 'Back a the bus', and she don't wanna. She know it ain't right. She know it cuzin' Jesus tole her so."

"She knowd the teaching of Jesus, but what she gonna do? The White man say, 'Back a the bus' and you know you gotsta do what the White man say do."

"Well, chile, I knowd women like Miz. Parks. She jus roll her eyes and prayed, 'Lawd, gimme strength'. Now, here's the thing," Miz Jefferson said, leaning into me so I would hear her clearly.

"You gotsta be real careful what you pray for wid the Lawd," she chuckled, "because sometimes, you gets jus what you prayed for, and then, your whole life be turned upside down until you got it right with the Lawd."

"Well," she laughed again, "the Lawd done answered her prayer cuz fore you know it, here come Shekinah, big and bad as life. She done took one look at the situation, looked right at that sign that said, 'Whites only' and it caused her to get so mad  cuzin she knew that the Lawd didn't write that sign. White men wrote that sign."

"So Shekinah, she start to breathin' fire and she done blowd that poor woman, Miz Parks, right into that seat that was supposed to be for White peoples only."

"And the rest," she said, as she sat back in her folding chair, "is Civil Right's history."

"Yes, chile," she sighed, "that's the power of Shekinah. That's Holy Ghost power. Jesus will teach you what God wants, but Shekinah shows you the glory of God. And, that glory look like justice."

We were quite for a while as we both let that story swirl around us before the power of it sunk into a deeper place in our souls.