After Malm's death, his son set up a GoFundMe account and expected people to donate $90,000.00 CAD! His son was going to get evicted from their apartment because both he and his father did not have jobs but relied upon Canadian Government assistance. If there is one thing that COG members were good at it was scamming other church members for as much money as they could get from them.
Now almost 9 months later very few people have given money to this scam.
A comment was made on a previous thread about how the church has always claimed that no one could join the church unless God had called them. The problem then arose, did a minister ever have the right to determine who was in and who was left out? Potential members had to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to impress ministers that they were "called." From reading Mystery of the Ages, countless booklets, and a grand litany of does and don'ts, potential members needed to jump through a myriad of man-made and totally useless things to do.
The COG loved to mock the Mason's for all steps they needed to climb in order to reach the top, while the church required the same amount of nonsense for members to become enlightened and part of God's privileged "called-out" ones. Then at that point, the church began to instill the fear into members that they could never leave the church and if they did they would lose their salvation. What utter nonsense!
LCG Expositor has left a new comment on "Doug Winnail: God Is Watching You!":
LCG's practice of secret meetings stems from the old practice of WCG, where they tried to position themselves as an elite, sacred group. "We are the only ones who know the truth. The only ones God is working with on this entire planet. You can't just make yourself a member; God has to put you in. And we determine whether He is doing that. And once you are in this secret, elite group, it is so special you'll never want to leave, even if there is some abusive leadership. There's nowhere else to go. If you leave us, you're turning your back on God and on His selected leaders, and headed for the lake of fire.
As far as I know, Flurry and LCG still engage in this detestable behavior, although LCG has toned it down.
This practice started with the idea that "church" comes from "ecclesia" and means called-out ones. And we in the ministry get to determine whether you are called out or not. The problem is that while the word ecclesia is derived from "call" and "out-of", that is NOT what it means. Look it up in any Bible dictionary. Ecclesia means "assembly". Often an assembly of Christians, but not always. And nowhere in the Bible do we see any inkling of this arrogant exclusivity.
Greetings from Charlotte,
Everyone should now be home from the Texas Teen Camp that we shut down because of COVID—most likely the Delta variant that is sweeping across the world at this time. Both Carol and I, as well as others who were at the Texas camp, have come down with it. I took Carol to the emergency room per doctor’s orders, but she was not put in a room and was sent home after a long day sitting up.
It is truly remarkable how so many threads are coming together to present a picture leading to the end time and affecting some of our brethren here in the U.S., South Africa, and elsewhere. Leviticus 26 points out that when we come to despise God’s commandments, terror (terrorism) would follow. And following that would be wasting disease. This scourge of COVID has not gone away. And then it says in Leviticus that we will sow our seed in vain, for our enemies shall eat it. Mr. Gene Hilgenberg reported that there are shortages of food supplies, as he was having trouble getting some basic products for the camp. We see the western United States and Canada experiencing extreme drought conditions and high temperatures never before seen. Serious floods have ravaged parts of Europe and China. South Africa, countries in the Middle East, and parts of Asia are facing internal turmoil. See below for news about the situation in Haiti. We are now in a cyberwar with many bad actors disrupting basic services, such as water treatment plants. The big picture shows that this world is entering a time of trouble. Now is no time to fall asleep. While we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, we need to realize that very difficult times are ahead.— Gerald Weston
Church of God News has this up:
Announcement from Gerald Weston, Living Church of God, 22 July 2021:
“By this time all of you are aware that we had to shut down the teen camp in Texas.
Tuesday morning we had a case of Covid from one of the ladies. We quarantined several of the ladies downtown in separate hotel rooms for several days as a precaution. One of those ladies, my wife, came down with Covid. The others seem to have escaped it, for which we are thankful that it was not any worse. The regular camp program began Wednesday morning. We seemed to be containing it, but then on Thursday and Friday we had several other cases … it seemed like there would only be about five total. Never the less, we could see a trajectory that, if we got into the next week, it could escalate significantly. It has, because some have come home from camp with it, so we know that more people were exposed, more people have caught the virus than we knew of for certain on Friday.
Friday I called a meeting for all our department heads and all our our ministers … We realized that either we take control of the situation, or this could get out and outside authorities could take control of it and shut us down, so we decided to shut it down ourselves.
We are not going to hide the fact that there was a Covid outbreak. We could have decided not to test and simply say there was some sickness, but the fact of the matter is it was Covid, we tested for it when somebody got sick.”
This camp in Athens, Texas, has also been utilized by COGWA, which had one report of Covid during camp, and by Church of God Assembly, which has not made any public announcement.
It has to be tiring to be a Church of God member anymore, especially being an LCG member. Always having to be on alert and anxious because God is watching their every move. The problem with LCG lies in the fact that if you do not do everything that they expect of you then their god will also not be on your side later on. The entire New Covenant is built around the concept that it was IMPOSSIBLE for people to keep the law and to be perfect. That perfection was granted through the NC to all who follow that Jesus. That enormous logbook of sins that COG leaders what to shame members into having has been filled with disappearing ink. It's no longer there.
Trials and Trust: Tests and trials are a major part of life. Our challenge as Christians is how we respond. Will we trust in God and follow His instructions—or will we give in to our emotions and respond in kind, or compromise and quit? To come through tests and trials, we need to remember that God says, “all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28) and that He “will make the way of escape” if we trust and obey His instructions (1 Corinthians 10:13). Those instructions include “do good” and trust God (Psalm 37:3, 40), forgive (Matthew 6:14–15), don’t return “evil for evil” (Romans 12:17), be patient and not easily provoked (1 Corinthians 13:4– 5), endure and don’t compromise and quit (Joshua 1:6–9; Matthew 24:13), learn from the experience and grow (James 1:2–4; 2 Peter 3:18). We need to remember that God is watching to see if we will trust Him and obey (1 Corinthians 3:13–14). We also need to remember that God is looking to see where He can “show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). So, when tests and trials come, and they will, trust God, obey Him, and keep your eyes on this big picture.
Have a profitable Sabbath,Douglas S. Winnail
If only Doug and LCG truly believed this:
