Thursday, December 14, 2023

Noah and the Presumed Universal Flood

Noah Fresco in the Catacombs of Priscilla.  Third Century.  

Noah is depicted as praying and receiving a dove.  

The Ark is represented as a small box.

The fresco reflects the belief of early Christians that the account of Noah’s Flood was 

a story of divine salvation.  (Fair Use)

 

Noah and the Presumed Universal Flood

By Ranger

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain.  

“When multiple interpretations of Scripture are possible, the church can benefit from considering what God has revealed in the natural world, because a proper interpretation of Scripture will not conflict with what we find there.” – Biologos Website

“Modern science is now just beginning to admit that there really was a worldwide flood some 4,500 years ago in the days of the Noah of the Bible. The flood really did happen and drowned everyone on earth”.   – Herbert W. Armstrong, World Tomorrow Radio Broadcast. 

While the Flood Story is replete with symbolic meaning, I do not believe it is entirely allegory. The Yahwist (J) and Priestly (P) pericopes are not in agreement in some places in the account, but I believe there really was a Noah and there really was a remarkable flood in history. I just don’t believe key concepts in the ancient Biblical account have been accurately translated into modern English. All translators invest their work with political “enrichment” whether they intend to or not. They come to pen, paper, and desk with a set of influences they received from all the sources they have been exposed to. In addition to this, they sometimes have a lurking constituency to worry about. So, politics insinuates itself into translated word. It is not that translators are moral derelicts. It is just impossible for any of us to wholly set our indoctrination and personal connections aside. Let me cite the case of Noah and the putative universal Flood.

The Three-Story Universe as the Declared Context

The Book of Genesis starts by giving us parameters. It specifies the ideological milieu that it is going to draw on. This is the initial definition stack that the subsequent text will rely on. This set of definitions is almost always neglected by criticizing atheists or people who take an apologetic interest in the universal Flood concept. To neglect the Biblical parameters is to veer off into a grossly mistaken scope for the Flood story – e.g., Herbert W. Armstrong’s statement above. HWA’s statement reflects the broadly accepted view among fundamentalists although I am not sure that scientists in large numbers are really admitting to anything as HWA asserts. Genesis in its first chapters gives the scope of this event by explaining ancient Hebrew cosmology. This cosmological model is very similar to the other cosmologies found among Near Eastern peoples around 3000 BC.

Our modern view is that the earth is a blue planetary orb hanging in the deep space of an immense universe - an understanding that comes from contemporary astrophysics. This is not what the ancient peoples of the Near East saw nor was it what was described in the pages of Genesis. What they saw was a flat earth – like a disc. And stretched over this flat earth was an arched vault of blue called heaven. And the vault had firmness to it, a firmament, and it held back waters. The waters are what made the sky blue. And the vaulted ceiling was close enough so that birds could fly up to it. And men could build a tower that could reach it. And if you ever got up there and could find a door, you could go to the other side and that is where God lives. Celestial bodies were small and embedded in this vaulted firmament and were not far away and they all revolved around the earth.

And the “world” was what you could see in a 360-degree scan of the horizon. And you might fall off the flat world if you got to the edge. There were pillars underneath this flat world that held it up. And down underneath somewhere was Hades and down further Tartarus. This is the Three-Story Universe of the ancient Hebrews and Greeks. It consisted of the underworld at the bottom, the surface of the earth at the middle, and heaven above. And heaven, the top story, was divided into the vault of heaven or sky and a higher heaven where God resided (The Book of Enoch divides heaven into seven levels with the third heaven being the abode of the righteous and the seventh heaven being the abode of God).

And the vocabulary of The Flood in Genesis refers to this Three-Story Universe. The vocabulary does not refer to what you will find in a modern text on astrophysics. This is the cosmological context that the Bible sets up as a given at the beginning of Genesis. To try to impose the modern model of the universe on the Genesis model can only result in frustration and error and maybe disbelief.

One thing is clear – this cosmology leads to an ideology and vocabulary of local events not global events for the Flood account. When the author wrote “earth” he did not have in mind the blue globular planet carefully obeying celestial mechanics that we know. And if the waters stretched as far as the eye could see as you stood on the deck of a boat, that was “the World”. This ancient Near Eastern cosmology comports nicely with the Biblical semantics of the Flood story as a local event, discussed later.

Interchangeable Cosmologies

And why can such an archaic model as the Three-story Universe be used as a backdrop to Noah and the Flood? Because the Flood account is not about science but about theology. The Flood account is a source of theological principle. If you look at where Noah and the Flood are referred to in the New Testament, it is always about invoking some ethical principle and is never about science. The ancient Near Eastern cosmology used in Genesis is as good as any for conveying the central moral message. The ethical and theological principles would remain intact in their presentation even if today’s model based on the Big Bang Theory and Relativity were used anachronistically back then. For that matter, today’s model will one day seem archaic to future scientists so how would it be an effective improvement on the Three-story Universe in conveying the essential message? We don’t know what dark matter and dark energy are. Who knows what revolution in astrophysics there will be when we find out. What cosmology you use makes no difference to the intended ethical and theological message.

The Regional Flood Lost in TranslationThe Flood was a regional event that happened somewhere around 2900 BC. It was titanic because many nations in the Near East recall it. It was a regional event because to people in those days “The World” was local. To the Hebrews, eretz, the earth, was what you could see by scanning the horizon. Shemesh, the sun, was a lamp that hung in the sky and was not that far away. The area affected by the Flood was likely the flood-prone Mesopotamian alluvial plain. Flooding is endemic to this region. In 1954 heavy rains submerged hundreds of miles of this plain and threatened Baghdad with destruction. The Noachian Flood wiped out a small civilization with a limited population of people who were descended from a man named Adam who in the literature of Genesis represented humankind. The Ark was small by our standards but large for the day and the troupe of animals probably came out of Noah’s barnyard and pasture.

The reason why the local Flood became global has to do with the biases of the translators. They brought the idea of a global flood, already formed in their minds, to their work. So, they imbued Genesis 6-8 with universal, global language. The Hebrew word used for earth is “eretz”. Carol A. Hill, a consulting geologist at the University of New Mexico, stated: “In no way can earth be taken to mean the planet Earth, as in Noah’s time and place, people (including the Genesis writer) had no concept of the Earth as a planet and thus had no word for it…The clincher to the word “earth” meaning ground or land (and not the planet Earth) is Genesis 1:10: God called the dry land earth (eretz). If God defined ‘earth’ as ‘dry land,’ then so should we.” So, the Bible is not talking about God destroying the planet but, rather, flooding the Mesopotamian alluvial plain where the descendants of Adam were concentrated. And Mark Twain might say that the Global Flood advocates find in the word “eretz” the lightning bug rather than the lightning.

A further issue is where the Ark settled after the flood waters receded. Mt. Ararat is a favorite of entertainment-oriented documentaries. Yet, the Jewish Study Bible states, “Contrary to a common misimpression, the Tanakh knows of no individual mountain named ‘Ararat’.” A high mountain, like Mt. Ararat, suggests that the flood waters were above the mountain peaks, including Everest. Hill states, “…the Bible does not actually pinpoint the exact place where the ark landed, it merely alludes to a region or range of mountains where the ark came to rest: the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 8:4). Ararat is the biblical name for Urartu (Isa. 37:38) as this area was known to the ancient Assyrians.” And also, “…both Islamic and Christian tradition held that the landing place of the ark was on Jabel Judi, a mountain located about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of the Tigris River near Cizre, Turkey.”

As regards archaeology, Hill states, “There is both epigraphical and archaeological grounds for believing that Ziusudra (the Sumerian name for Noah) was a real prehistoric ruler of a well-known city, the site of which (Shuruppak, or the modern-day mound of Fara) has been archaeologically identified. Flood texts found in Mesopotamia and lands bordering it refer to a flood within Mesopotamia and to a righteous Mesopotamian man who survived the flood in a ship. The archaeological record thus definitely points to a flood within the confines of Mesopotamia, but not to a universal flood of planet-wide proportions.” Ziusudra was on the Sumerian King list as the last king of Shuruppak before the Flood.

As regards geology, Hill states “At Shuruppak (and also at Uruk), the last Jemdet Nasr (an archaeological time period corresponding to the age of the Flood – author) remains are separated from the subsequent Early Dynastic I Period by clean, water-lain clay deposited by a flood. This flood clay is nearly five feet thick at Uruk, and two feet thick at Fara… Above these flood deposits, a new era of building and technology was established in southern Mesopotamia starting in the Early Dynastic I Period…”

There are many more considerations too lengthy for this venue, and for a much more comprehensive analysis, see Carol A. Hill’s articles cited in the Reference section below.

A Case of Misdirected Literalism among Fundamentalists and Atheists

Fundamentalists and atheists like to get literal about the English translations of the Flood story. This is because Fundamentalist believe that the word of God was delivered to mankind by some kind of automatic writing and later mapped, with fidelity, into the English language. And atheists like literal interpretations of the English translations because they are an easy target – and atheists have all their arguments already packaged and tuned for that body of writing. But this is not an issue of literalism directly. It is about being literal about the wrong thing. It is the wrong thing because the traditional Flood story has been improperly translated and exegeted. If anyone wants to get literal, they should get literal about the original language, not modern English translations. Otherwise, they’re just flogging a dead horse.

Conclusion

I wrote a longer conclusion but I thought the following statement by Augustine, though I differ with him on some unrelated points of theology, makes my point exceedingly well:

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.”

The battle between those who are proponents of a local flood and those who are proponents of a whole planet flood has been going on for some time. In the last analysis, there is no archaeological, geological or genetic evidence for a worldwide flood in the Biblical timeframe. Further, there is no solid Biblical exegesis that affirms a global flood. There is abundant physical evidence for a large and catastrophic but regional flood in Mesopotamia. The traditional global flood account makes a good story-time fantasy for children. It’s fun to imagine the orderly march, like parading soldiers, of interesting and exotic animals into the Ark. But it does not comport with either Science or the Bible.

References

Enns, Peter. Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible, Chapters 3 and 6, 2019.

Hill, Carol A. A Time and Place for Noah, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, v. 53, no. 1, 20001. https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Hill.html

Hill, Carol A. The Noachian Flood: Universal or Local?, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, v. 54, no. 3, 2002. https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Hill.pdf

Note: In reference to the fresco at the top, thanks be to our Christian brothers and sisters in the Third Century for receiving the deep meaning of the Flood story. Almost two millennia ago, they were way more spiritually advanced than many modern fundamentalists who are still squabbling about the impossible logistics of how kangaroos got all the way from Australia to the Near East and then back to Australia again. Bravo, brothers!

Dave Pack: Herbert W. Armstrong Was Not Nearly As Usable By God As We Used To Think

 



Doctrinal Precisionish

 

The Restored Church of God once valued the concept of doctrinal precision and stability. Pastor General David C. Pack used to care about the nuanced details of Scripture to preach what the Bible taught accurately.

 

But for the last few years…not so much. This is especially true regarding beefing up Third Tithe offerings and implementing New Moon ceremonies. They want to stress what the Bible says while simultaneously ignoring what the Bible says.

 

"The Greatest Unending Story!" Parts 480-483 are a self-contained cycle of doctrinal establishment and whiplash debunkery. For David C. Pack, it IS, and it IS NOT are both correct answers. It just depends on the timing.

 

 

The topic of New Moons is sure to be THE hot topic at RCG socials until Dave walks it back into the cardboard box tucked on that dusty high shelf in the garage. But, in the meantime, during Part 480, he had to squeeze past another reminder that Herbert W. Armstrong of The Worldwide Church of God was Not-Nearly-As-Usable-By-God-As-We-Used-To-Think. How could a man claiming to be an apostle during his lifetime die misunderstanding so many of the things he taught and still be considered an apostle?

 

Dave may want to chew on that one for a bit.

 

Part 480 – November 18, 2023

@ 1:09:38 Now, it's all this. It's the proverbial it’s just easy-peasy. It’s simplicity. We had a couple people quit the church, “I’m not gonna keep New Moons. Mr. Armstrong didn’t teach it.” Mr. Armstrong said it was optional.

 

Yet, Dave is making it mandatory due to “because I say so” theology.

 

@ 1:09:51 So, then maybe they shoulda just stayed and not kept New Moons. They’da been in bad shape, but still. But, no, the the the that the the they're not they're not gonna stay.

 

Since when is that an option in The Restored Church of God? Dave must not have been in the room for Eager Edward Winkfield’s New Moon Smilefest. There was no mention of compliance wiggle room for the more discerning members.

 

If some members fled the biblical corruption and prophetic insanity, that means not all of them are entirely asleep or spiritually destroyed yet. Maybe there is hope for more to wake up and walk out of the religious horror show in Wadsworth.

 

@ 1:09:59 Even though New Moons is mentioned. What’d I read? Twenty times in between Sabbaths and Holy Days. You’re to observe them. Forever.

 

Also, twenty times NOT commanded. Forever once the Kingdom gets here. God willing, I shall be observing New Moons when Jesus Christ returns. But not now.

 

@ 1:10:08 “No, Mr. Armstrong didn’t teach it.” Mr. Armstrong didn’t teach any of these Kingdoms. So, you know, let’s just get rid of ‘em.

 

Dave is accidentally on to something here. Usually, his mocking and misspeaks tend to be truthful when his declarations slide onto the false side of the reality partition.

 

Then, Dave projects what a dead man will say to him after he is resurrected to learn of the trashing his “not-really” protégé did to a majority of his doctrines.

 

@ 1:10:16 I’muh-nuh see him someday, and he would say to me, I know what he’d say ‘cause I spent so many hours talking about prophecy with him. More than any other man.

 

David C. Pack was not privy to Herbert W. Armstrong’s phone schedule. Dave has no idea who HWA spoke to when, how often, or for how long. This is a fantasy from the corrupted imagination of a sad little man who so desperately wants to be relevant to the legacy of The Worldwide Church of God. At the same time, he systematically dissolves their doctrines. He reduces his "Father in the Gospel" to a religious footnote who partially understood the Sabbath, Holy Days, tithing, interracial marriage, and a version of British Israelism.

 

@ 1:10:25 He would say, “You were you learned all those things and didn’t have the guts to teach them?” That’s what he’d say to me. And I’d say, “Sir, you’re right.” Except, I wouldn’t say that.

 

Dave just went to the Witch of Endor to summon the spirit of Samuel to consult with him from beyond the grave. Dave just knows what HWA would tell him. This sounds more like Dave’s conscience is gnawing at him. He just has to believe a lie in order to sleep at night to alleviate that awful feeling in his gut for slaughtering HWA’s doctrinal legacy.

 

So, in Dave's mind, Herbert W. Armstrong wants Dave to dismantle his doctrines, counter decades of the church's "administrative judgments," give excuses why HWA was unable or not allowed to understand things Dave discovered and remove the keystones of his ministry. Dave is granting himself HWA’s approval posthumously.

 

@ 1:10:35 I couldn’t face my own human father if he really understood that man. If I didn’t have the guts to teach those things.

 

The guts to teach things and get them wrong. So says Parts 480-483.

 

Davey is such a brave little boy. He makes such wonderful doodies in the toilet and not in his pants. But now, he displays his doodies on the table in the Main Hall of Headquarters.

 

@ 1:10:43 I knew that we would lose two or three or five people.

 

Quite frankly, I did not think Dave would lose any over this. If people stayed for his assimilation of titles of Jesus Christ and the White Horse of Revelation 6 is the true Jesus, not the false one, then I thought those left in RCG would buy anything. I wonder how the remainder of the hold-outs will fare when sacred names come to The Restored Church of God.

 

@ 1:10:46 Maybe there'll be some still dumb enough to quit because we go back to Four Kingdoms, or they think over New Moons. “I’m not gonna keep another one.” I made a little comment on Tuesday here that I doubted we’d keep another New Moon together as we are and I still doubt that. That much I’ll tell you.

 

The New Moon Dave doubted happened on December 13 at some point. You can check the ccg.org website if you are burning to know the exact moment science proved David C. Pack wrong again.

 

 

Dave returned for Part 481 but was not quite done driving over Herbert W. Armstrong's body with his short bus.

 

Part 481 – November 21, 2023

@ 54:11 This is the most stunning stuff in the Bible. You can understand why I battled it. You know, 31,102 verses’ll do that to you when you’re starting with the Millennium as your foundation.

 

What Dave was really saying was, “Thanks a lot, Herbert W. Armstrong. You made my life so much harder than it needed to be.”

 

@ 54:26 So, I thank God (again) for Mr. Armstrong. He saw all kinds of things.

 

Herbert W. Armstrong—He saw all kinds of things.

Just not the RIGHT things.™

 

According to David C. Pack in "The Greatest Untold Story!" Series Herbert W. Armstrong's "all kinds of things" were untrue.

 

HWA mistakenly thought the church did not need to observe New Moons.

HWA mistakenly thought the Seventh-Year of Release applied to Third Tithe.

HWA mistakenly thought Adolf Hitler was the Sixth King.

HWA mistakenly thought the Branch was Jesus Christ.

HWA mistakenly thought That Prophet was Jesus Christ.

HWA mistakenly thought the God of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ.

HWA mistakenly thought the Messenger of the Covenant was Jesus Christ.

HWA mistakenly thought the White Horse of Revelation 6 was false Christianity.

 

This list is woefully incomplete with what David C. Pack teaches that Herbert W. Armstrong got “sincerely” wrong. For those looking to find a church that upholds what The Worldwide Church of God once taught, you better move along. It is NOT The Restored Church of God.

 

 

In the pursuit of the midst of the years and when a year actually begins, Cheshvan 1 lost favor in Dave’s eyes.

 

Part 483 – December 2, 2023

@ 09:11 Well, it’s not Cheshvan 1. But, Cheshvan 1 (you will see) absolutely mimics (and that’s the best word I can use) it mimics dozens of things that seem that to that that seem to point to it when they do not. Cheshvan 1 comes almost [chuckles] as an impostor that maybe was designed to slow us down till we got close to when God was really gonna carry out His word.

 

David C. Pack’s god is a deceiver. It uses trickery and deception because Dave works too hard and fast. That lying god needed a ruse to cool Dave’s jets until it was ready to spring into action.

David C. Pack discovered that years are reckoned by the earth’s rotation around the sun instead of the lunar cycles. This means he finally caught up with third graders and thought he deserved a cookie.

 

@ 1:11:39 I never could get it right, but I was right that we would someday…we would. Cheshvan 1 does not end the year, but it does wonderfully mimic the end of the year, though.

 

He could never get it right but thought one day he would. That is the true theology of The Restored Church of God. With enough doctrinal monkeys on enough prophetic typewriters, someday David C. Pack will compose a complete and accurate version of the Mystery of God, the lock on the magic chest will pop open, and the rainbow unicorn will spring forth and carry him into the clouds of Never-Never Land.

 

Never is right.

 

The implication for the shift from Cheshvan 1 to Tevet 10 has a financial impact on the brethren of The Restored Church of God. This tiny Third Tithe mistake favors the coffers of The Business and Accounting Office. Do not ask for a refund.

 

@ 1:23:55 So, now, if time went on I would have to tell the brethren, “Brethren, can I just tell you you count your Third Tithes from the Winter Solstice. Thank you if you began to pay ‘em. And I’ll just tell the whole church, our Third Tithe income exploded. God’s people are listening.

 

But not reading their Bibles.

 

Deuteronomy 14:28

At the end of three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your increase the same year, and shall lay it up within your gates:

 

You pay Third Tithe at the end of the third year. Not throughout, like RCG wants. Following a verse to the letter is subjective to administrative judgments and not about doctrinal precision when it does not serve their purpose.

 

@ 1:24:12 [laughs] I mean, it’s a unbelievable. Way over what I thought it would be. We tried to project it and it more than doubled what I projected.

 

Why is Dave projecting Third Tithe if it is solely for the widow, orphan, stranger, and Levite? He smells the end of the fiscal year just over the hill and cannot wait to unethically misappropriate those funds to spend on "whatever we'd do."

 

David C. Pack is broadcasting to the brethren of The Restored Church of God that he is a thief. He is counting those Third Tithe eggs before they hatch. The Common cash grab is now compounded with the deceptively-acquired Third Tithe cash grab. The financial ship is sinking, and he needs as many buckets to bail water as possible.

 

While the foolishly zealous in RCG may have been considering all those widows and orphans and strangers inside the gates of RCG who are finally going to get a dry, warm bed, clean clothes, and a hot bowl of soup instead of freezing and starving if not for their blindly obedient generosity, Dave is chuckling all the way to the bank. You all got hoodwinked with your eyes open.

 

Dave’s Because-I-Say-So doctrinal approach is literally paying off.

 

@ 1:24:19 So, God’s people are listening. I apologize. Sorta chalk it up to the urge. You didn’t have to do it. [smiling] You had to came a little early because the Winter Solstice which is the start of the year of when the harvest is over, that’s the season of harvest.

 

When it comes to money with The Restored Church of God, error only favors one direction: In. With New Moons and Third Tithe, having doctrinal precisionish is good enough assuming the checks clear, and they can hold off on putting a Campus house up for sale.

 

As long as the brethren of The Restored Church of God allow David C. Pack and the hireling enablers at Headquarters to continue lying to them, lying to them, they will.


Marc Cebrian

See: Doctrinal Precisionish

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

UCG on Magicians, 10 Commandments, Mark of the Beast, Fox Mulder, UFO's and SAAAAAAAAATAAAAAAAN


Last week we had Living Church of God worried about the most powerful god in COGland and this week it is United Church of God's time to weigh in the all powerful one. With UCG though, they toss in the magicians, 10 commandments, mark of the beast, UFO's, Fox Mulder, and Simon Magus to keep their members  fearfully looking over their shoulders.  Reading their missive you quickly see that they consider all Christians outside the minuscule COG fantasyland as blithering deceived idiots who are easily entreated by big meanie Satan who is always portrayed as more powerful than Jesus. 

Revelation 13:16-17 says: “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” 
 
The answer to how people will be misled and tricked is a remarkable thing to consider in this modern time. Deception comes from a direction most people wouldn’t suspect. Interestingly, this is precisely how Satan has worked to defraud humankind throughout history since Adam and Eve in Eden. 

If you really want a test case in deception look no further than Church of Godland and batshit crazy church leaders we have today. No one could have ever imagined the agents of deception that litter the COG universe with the likes of Bob Thiel, Dave Pack, Ron Weinland, and Gerald Flurry. But then they learned it from Gerald Waterhouse, Rod Meredith, GTA, HWA, and others that spoon fed lies and half truths to members for decades. 

Revelation 12:9 warns us: “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” 
 
Satan the Devil has interacted with mankind in various and sundry ways since humans came to dwell on earth. As a result, in the garden of Eden, Adam was misdirected to disbelieve God. So now we have a world which largely rejects God and His word. Most churches reject the Ten Commandments and teach their parishioners they are done away and nailed to the cross at the crucifixion of Christ.

COG leaders have an absolute meltdown of Christians who say thee 10 commandments are not in effect today completely ignore this:

“Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, 
came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading as it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?”

2 Corinthians 3:7-8

To most COG leaders and many members the 10 commandments are the Golden Calf of the church, more important to many than Jesus. These church leaders never talk about Jesus or defend him or the New Covenant they way they do the 10 commandments.

The 10 were a contract between God and humans in the old covenant. In the new covenant the contract is between God and Jesus and their faithfulness to each other, humans are not part of that. The old covenant was based on the God and the peoples faithfulness. The people failed, not God. The new covenant is based the Father and the Son's faithfulness to each other. Humans are now beneficiaries of this covenant. Beneficiaries do  not have to do anything, it just is. Grace, justification and sanctification all rolled into one.

Anyway, back to the rebellious seducers:

In the early times of the Church, Philip successfully preached the gospel in Samaria. He encountered Simon who practiced sorcery or magic. Acts 8:9-11 says he had, “Astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, ‘This man is the great power of God.’ And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.” 
 
No doubt Simon not only was a master at magic tricks which hood-winked the inhabitants of Samaria, but he had demonic help as well which helped deceive people. Jannes and Jambres used magic when they confronted Moses and Aaron in Egypt (Exodus 7:11-12, 22; 2 Timothy 3:8-9). Incidentally, a possible meaning of their names in the Hebrew is “he who seduces and he who makes rebellious” (Gateway Encyclopedia of the Bible, Jannes and Jambres). Moses performed real miracles by the power of God, such as making his rod a serpent, which the sorcerers with their magic and satanic help also appeared to do. It is to these events that Paul is referring in 2 Timothy 3:8.

Who are our modern day hood winking seducers in the church? Look at Dave Pack and his endless stream of failed predictions, or Gerald Flurry and his Irish dance/prayer rock/coronation stone, or Bob Thiel and his endless half truths and outright lies about prophecy, and his right to be a church leader and the manipulation of his Africa followers. Also, how can we forget Rod Weinland? This fool has a track record of prophetic failures longer than Dave Pack's current list. Plus, Ron Weinland is our only convicted felon leading a COG today (well, maybe we should include Bob Thiel's African evangelists here). Who could have ever imagined the morons we have leading COG's today!

Next, Simon Magus enters the picture along with simony:

When Simon (Magus) the sorcerer saw this power being used by the apostles through the Holy Spirit as being genuine, unlike the trickery he had used to bewitch the Samaritans, he offered to pay money to the apostles so he could have this same ability to bestow the spirit to whom he chose by the laying on of hands. The apostle Peter’s words were resoundingly stout against his request; he rebuked him and said, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money!” (Acts 8:20). The act of simony, or paying for position, is named after Simon Magus. He did not repent, and later in history he would play a role in the emergence of the false church of Rome.

The modern day version simony in the COG is tithing. People are taught that their salvation depends upon (which it doesn't). Buying their way into the kingdom, or as the great Led Zeppelin song says, "buying their stairway to heaven".

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to Heaven

There's a feeling I get when I look to the West
And my spirit is crying for leaving

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason

And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one, and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll

Then, the article jumps to a soon coming invasion from outer space of UFO's to divert peoples attention away from Christ's return. I could have swore Bob Thiel wrote this shit, but no, it was Jim Tuck regaling us with his amazing wisdom once again.
The guardian.com on June 9, 2023 published an article, “A whistleblower claims the US has alien vehicles. But where’s the proof?” The article states:
“According to the Debrief, Grusch’s knowledge of non-human materials and vehicles was based on ‘extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials.’ He said he had reported the existence of a UFO material ‘recovery program’ to Congress and filed a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general. That complaint contained classified locations, program names and other data, the Debrief said.
“But in a follow-up interview with NewsNation on Tuesday night, Grusch said the US had also found alien pilots. ‘Well, naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots and believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true,’ Grusch said. Grusch said there was a ‘sophisticated disinformation program targeting the US populace’ to suppress information on UFOs, which is a common conspiracy trope in the UFO community.”
Many feel the intelligence agencies are suppressing this information and hiding it from the American people. The effect is, the more it is covered up, the more it is discussed. Many are tuned into Sci-Fi and the old X-Files television series which often showed the poster above Mulder’s desk which said, “I Want to Believe.”
It is possible the UAP issue, in the form of an invasion from space, could be utilized to fool people into believing Christ has returned and by this means the Beast’s one world government could be brought to fruition. It is something many might think could not happen, but it is a strong possibility.

The apostle Paul states in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

Scary times are ahead for UCG members:

People will be swayed and deceived by unbelievable signs, and by Satan’s magic show will be made to believe. If they refuse to believe, the other option is death (Revelation 13:15). In like manner, the ancient King Nebuchadnezzar erected an image and commanded all to bow down and worship the image or be cast into a fiery furnace and die. Death will be used as a powerful motivator to submit to the Beast and what is coming (Daniel 3:16-18).

Tuck goes on to talk about how church members let people sway their lives, though he really means their people of the world since no real COG member could ever fall into such a situation.

People will be swayed and deceived by unbelievable signs, and by Satan’s magic show will be made to believe. If they refuse to believe, the other option is death (Revelation 13:15). In like manner, the ancient King Nebuchadnezzar erected an image and commanded all to bow down and worship the image or be cast into a fiery furnace and die. Death will be used as a powerful motivator to submit to the Beast and what is coming (Daniel 3:16-18). 
 
Shadrack, Meshak and Abednego, as well as the prophet Daniel, set an incredible example for all those upon whom the ends of the world are come, to follow. When commanded by the king to bow and worship the idol they resolutely stated, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18). 
 
Our minds must be set, as Daniels friend's hearts were, to face the challenges we have ahead of us. Our love for righteousness and truth must be such that we would be willing to suffer and die for it if need be.

Real Christians have been willing to suffer and die for Christ for centuries, and still do to this day, but now COG member needs to suffer and die to support a COG minister or leader. 

If your life is in upheaval because of COG leaders and ministers then remember this, there is another road you can take:

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on