Dave Packs: "Bigger than the Bible Fable "

Did you know that Scriptures Predicted Bob Thiel and the Improperly Named "continuing" Church of God?

In his ongoing quest to prove he is legitimate in the eyes of Laodicean church members, the great Bwana Bob Thiel is pulling more rats out of his hat to make us believe he is the one and only TRUE church out there today do a work.  Scriptures point directly to him:

The New Testament does specify some in the last days:

17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18) 

We in the Continuing Church of God have those biblical signs. Plus unlike the Eastern Orthodox, we teach much more that agrees with the Bible. 

Being faithful to the word of God is more important than signs and wonders. However, for the Philadelphian faithful signs and wonders can help show who the most faithful church is.

Self-appointed Church of God leaders down through the decades have pulled scriptures out of the Bible AFTER they have started their little personality cults, to PROVE they are the chosen ones.  Anyone can go to the Bible and pull out some obtuse scripture to support whatever loony idea they want to hold.  Fake COG leaders are extremely adept at doing this.

Bwana Bob Thiel can spout all he wants that because he dreamed a dream and some crazy person on the other side of the world also had a dream does not prove he had the right to start yet another splinter personality cult of Armstrongism.

Bwana Bob is always looking for scriptures to legitimize himself, but for some reason ignores this one:

Jeremiah 23:1-6 New International Version (NIV)
The Righteous Branch

23 “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!”declares the Lord. 2 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. 3 “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. 4 I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

Or this one:

 Ezekiel 34 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Israel’s False Shepherds

34 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. 4 You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.

7 Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As I live, says the Lord God, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 Thus says the Lord God, I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them.

Or this:

Matthew 24:24

24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

And this:

2 Timothy 4:3-4
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Or this:

Acts 20:28-30
28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.

And this one:

Matthew 7:15-20 New International Version (NIV)
True and False Prophets
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Or this:

Titus 1:10-16
Rebuking Those Who Fail to Do Good

10 For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. 11 They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”[b] 13 This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

Jim Crow Church of God

There has always been an uncomfortable relationship between British-Israelism and White Supremacy. That fact probably played a role in why COG7D rejected it. British-Israelism is one of the two pillar doctrines that set HWA apart, giving him his niche to start his own information marketing business, the Radio Church of God. The COG's know this and is why they are having such a hard time departing from this debunked theory. They also need it in order to continue creating a sense of urgency surrounding the return of Christ.

Lambert Greer gave a sermon at the feast on the promise to Abraham's seed of physical blessings at the end of the age. He claimed that when he first started hearing the phrase, "white privilege" that he was offended by it. That is the typical knee jerk reaction from white people. They instantly apply it to themselves. They reason that they personally are not recipients of benefits at the detriment of people of color. They argue that no one gave them a hand-out or a free ride but that they fought for and earned everything they have. And that probably is true but white people fail to view the term in its over-arching social context and how it effects individuals of color.

This nation was established by genocide and built by stolen labor. Even after abolishing slavery, whites were quick to install Jim Crow laws, enforce segregation, establish Planned Parenthood with its real aim to abort non-white babies and federalize a fake war on drugs to supply a prison system with free non-white labor.

And so a minister says he is offended by the term, "white privilege" at first but then after thinking about it in the context of the promise made to Abraham's seed in the end times, he now understands white privilege in the framework of British-Israelism and that we should actually be INSPIRED by it!

To be inspired by white privilege achieved by the degradation and subjugation of non-whites in most horrific ways for hundreds of years exposes an egregious flaw in the world-view well-meaning white folks in the churches of God hold dear.

Just recently, LCG was very quick to point out a genome study reported by Live Science stating that there is no "gay" gene. Yet the same church refuses to acknowledge those same studies in genome research disproving British-Israelism.

When viewed critically from a long view of human history, the rise and fall of British and American empire is the most recent of a chain of empires over thousands of years. How they came by that dominance in no way differs from the way all empires rise to prominence: war, subjugation and genocide. Might makes right in this fallen world so we should take great pause before attributing blessings from God to current events.

After Abraham demonstrated his faith, God says:

"blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."  --Genesis 22:17-18

HWA herded his followers into viewing everything through his selective interpretations of the Old Covenant, as well as Old Testament prophecy, and gave them life in an urgent present. Instead of trying to make this fit into current events, how about we accept the largeness of the blessing far beyond what we see today. Does Britain and the United States possess "all" the gates of their enemies? There is an estimated 1 septillion stars in the universe and over 7 quintillion grains of sand on earth and yet the Brits and Americans fail to outnumber over 1 billion Chinese or Indians. And finally, are "all" the nations of the earth blessed because of Britain and America? Hardly. The fulfillment of blessings on Abraham's seed are still set in a future very different from this present reality. And more importantly, when that blessing is fulfilled, what makes up Abraham's seed will be a spiritual entity. Accepting Jesus Christ as Savior should reorient our thinking about what it means to be sons of Abraham.

"just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness, Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed."  --Galatians 3:6-8

"Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ."  --Galatians 3:16

I know those who cling to British-Israelism insist that their identity is the key to unlocking prophecy BUT the reality is the growing genome research is making it impossible to discern just what an Israelite descendant would be today. And secondly, what Christ reveals concerning prophecy in the New Testament is sufficient without knowing where physical Israelites are today. This skewed perception of needing to know who the physical descendants of Israel are today is a distraction from the bigger spiritual picture.

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” --Galatians 3:26-29

My advice to the leaders in LCG is to not cherry-pick genome research. And instead of finding inspiration in "white privilege" find it in Jesus Christ. Drop all the racist baggage inherent in British-Israelism and reorient the brethren to think the way Paul worked painstakingly to do; to tear down the wall of partition between flesh tones and genealogies, and make a new people through the power of His Holy Spirit.

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God..."          --I Peter 2:9-10

Stoned Stephen Society