Sabbath 20/10/37/120
Dear Friends,
In 2005 we turned our attention to the false prophecy of the WCG system and the sections concerning H. W. Armstrong and Rutherford etc of the JWs was included in a number of Sabbath Messages. The period of the early 30s was covered in the work http://www.ccg.org/weblibs/2005-messages/S_02_12_05.htm. The WWII period to 1975 was covered in the Sabbath Message http://www.ccg.org/weblibs/2005-messages/S_02_12_05.htm. The further papers were compiled into the work False Prophecy (No. 269).
The basis of the False Prophecy of the WCG was based on the pure ignorance and self aggrandisement of Herbert Armstrong and the fact that his ministry were very badly trained and very poorly read regarding prophecy and history.
They knew nothing about Commonwealth Military forces and their training and capabilities. They also understood nothing of Bible Prophecy which was surprising given the sheer amount of funds squandered by them under the false premise that God was using them to preach the activities of what they saw as the Last Days.
They also had developed a very serious spiritual weakness that plagues them to this day and was the reason that they had to be destroyed as a functioning church of God. They operated on spreading internal division in order to control groups. They used gossip and slander as a weapon against each other. What they did not know they made up and their ministry not only condoned it but encouraged it and used it to their advantage.
After the great failures of 1975 and the fact that Herbert Armstrong had proven himself the greatest false prophet ever to hold office in the churches of God, he set about reaching new heights of falsehood and intrigue. He tried to introduce the Trinity through what was the Systematic Theology Project (STP) but underestimated the integrity of the brethren and their rejection of the Trinity. So he had to lie about it and deny all knowledge and can the project. He lost some genuine officers who were not liars and knew the truth.
He was by then industrially incompetent and blind in one eye. He undertook, with Al Portune, the greatest corporate theft in the history of the churches of God since Christ and the Apostles. He signed under perjury a declaration of a referendum that did away with the constitution and vested sole ownership of the WCG in himself. No such referendum took place. Portune was to have taken over but the transfer was made to J. W. Tkach Snr., and all of which was totally unlawful. The senior ministry knew of and condoned this theft.
On 16 January 1986 Armstrong died and was buried at Pasadena. For a week people went to his grave expecting his resurrection. In 1987, before the Passover, Tkach Snr. made a world tour informing the brethren that the Church was being measured in accordance with Revelation 11:1-2. That was the only prophecy that the church got correct in its entire existence. It was the same as the High Priest Caiaphas prophesying that Christ had to die to save the people. Neither of them knew what they were saying.
The Church was measured from the Third year 1987 to the next Third year 1994. In the New Moon of
1 Abib 1994 CCG was formed and the WCG church was smashed into a multitude of pieces.
It was a totally dysfunctional group of people slandering and defaming one another and unable to follow the laws of God and form a serious Holy Spirit led Church of God. Tkach Snr. was killed 40 weeks to the hour adjusted for the time he gave the sermon doing away with the law of God to the hour he died in agony. Yet still they did not repent and turn to God and change their behaviour.
They had been brainwashed by their ministry and did not understand what they were doing and they also did not understand the power of repentance and baptism and declared it as nothing by their treatment of the brethren.
It is in this spirit of defamation and slander that the offshoots continue to this day. We have to be very careful not to allow it inside of CCG. Many have tried to bring it into us but fortunately God has protected us from it.
In the work http://www.ccg.org/weblibs/study-papers/p043.html The Devil’s Designs(No. 043) we deal with the motivation behind this “Spirit of Slander.”
"The spirit of slander"
In weaving this false doctrine before Eve, Satan also displayed an aspect of his perverse character we must take note of: He is the Slanderer. Satan lives on slander, gossip, rumour, character assassination and accusation. In the account of Satan's creation and downfall in Ezekiel 28 there is an interesting twist in the Hebrew to what is recorded on how sin developed in him when he was still the Covering Cherub:
Ezekiel 28:14-16 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, 0 covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. (KJV)
Verse 16 opens with by the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned. The NKJV translates this as by the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned. The word of interest in this passage is merchandise (KJV) or trading (NKJV). In the Hebrew this is rekulla meaning traffic. It is derived from rakal meaning to go about. The "interesting twist" is that there is another word deriving from rakal, which is rakil, which means slanderer. This term appears six times in the Old Testament (Lev. 19:16; Jer. 6:28, 9:4; Ezek. 22:9; and Pro. 11:13a, 20:19a). It is translated as talebearer or gossip, but the intent is slanderer,
Leviticus 19:16 You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbour: I am the LORD. (RSV)
The implication in Ezekiel 28 and the account of Satan appears to involve a dual meaning. Through literal trading, the city of Tyre became a city of robbers and thieves and filled with violence. But in the anti-type of Lucifer or Satan, the meaning appears to be that it was through the abundance of his slandering, his going about and gossiping and starting false stories about God, that he was filled with violence within (hatred towards God) and thus sinned.
Today, Satan is the source of this kind of destructive behaviour among men and women, and even children, when (figuratively) he whispers in their ears and urges them to spread false tales about one another. Satan is the accuser of the brethren:
Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.” (RSV)
One of Satan's most powerful weapons in his battle is to trap Christians into doing his bidding by gossiping about one another and accusing each other of things. It's literally like causing the army of God to begin fighting against itself. Gossip is a disgusting sin. It is extremely serious in God's sight. As we saw in Leviticus 19:16, to gossip or slander is considered by God to be taking a stand against the life of our neighbours – be they in or out of the Church:
Leviticus 19:16 You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not standforth against the life of your neighbour: I am the LORD. (RSV)
Gossip and slander are at the heart of many things, which the Lord hates:
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers. (RSV)
Gossip and slander are violations against God's commands and equal to murder in His sight. They do not spring from a wellspring of love and outgoing concern for others, but from the perverse nature of Satan. Jesus warned us:
Matthew 15:18-19 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. (RSV)
Matthew 12:33-37 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (RSV)
James, the brother of Jesus, also warned against the same destructive nature of gossip and slander:
James 3:8-12 But no human being can tame the tongue -a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh. (RSV)
It has been said that before we gossip, accuse and point the finger, we need to consider carefully what the fingers on our hands look like. For the one finger we point out at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at us. It has also been said that, when we make assumptions about others and say things against them, we need to consider the composition of the word "assume". "Assume" is made up of ass, u, and me. When we assume something about another person, we are invariably going to make an ass out of u (you) and me.
Gossip and slander are extremely serious sins in God's sight. But they are, as James noted, so easy to slip into. Before we go to say something, in fact anything, about someone else to others, we need to run it through the "Gossip Filter". In three points this is:
Gossip and slander are things we all need to strenuously contend against in our own lives. Satan is the author of these attitudes of heart and will use these weapons to destroy us if he can. No person can enter the Kingdom of God with this motivation and that was why the WCG had to be destroyed and scattered to the winds. Many of their ministry conduct themselves like this to this very day and they cannot enter the Kingdom of God without repentance.
With this attitude in the churches of God no sinner could achieve repentance and salvation through baptism and not be defamed by the brethren on an ongoing basis. Such evil is not to be seen among us. For so we ask: “From whence cometh our baptism.” We refuse people entry to CCG with this form of Satanic accusative attitude.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General