Articles
for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG
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15
Controlling the Minds of WCG Members
What you must do is discern who is doing his evil work in the
WCG!
I explained in Falsely
Accused how the devil works to thwart God's plan in the Church. He even knows
beforehand some, if not much, of what is to take place. So, he pre-empts God's moves by
doing his own.He is much less powerful than God, of course, and no match for the
Almighty's omniscience. God always has the final word, and what He allows Satan to do, He
permits for important reasons.
Many brethren cannot understand why God allows tragic division and upset in the Church.
But He has very good reasons. Paul stated one of these:
...there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval (1
Cor 11:19, NIV).
You Are Being Tested
You also need to consider that God is testing people. He is testing you:
...to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything (2 Cor 2:9,
NIV).
One test in the present predicament in the WCG is whether you will follow men or follow
God (Acts 5:29). He has allowed false ministers to take control and they have introduced
pernicious but very subtle heresies into WCG teaching. Many have swallowed these errors
whilst others have passively tolerated them even though they may not subscribe to such
views themselves.
Why don't they leave the church? Why don't they stand up to the heretics and confront
them? When heresy is preached from the pulpit, why doesn't someone stand up and interrupt
the speaker? Why should Satan be allowed to spew out his venom from WCG pulpits without a
ripple of dissent from the congregations?
One reason is that members are too afraid or too conditioned not to behave in such a
manner. Heckling never has gone down well in the WCG. I have only seen and heard two
hecklers in the WCG in my 22 years there, and those two dissidents didn't last long.
'Bouncers' soon shoved them out of the door.
It was my privilege to be bounced out of one church meeting for contesting the
speaker's heresies, but that was not the Worldwide Church of God. It was in the meeting of
another evangelical group God told us to attend. As I listened to the speaker promoting
false views and condoning Christmas paganism as if it had God's approval, God spoke to me
to contest his error. Why? Because heresy must be countered at source. It is far more
effective to do it then than when minds have been contaminated later. Far harder, then, to
help people unlearn error.
In that particular meeting, I said enough for the spiritually alert to realise there IS
something drastically wrong with Christmas - before I was bundled out of the door by two
thugs who more resembled night club security than followers of Jesus! The incident was
ugly but necessary. It was enough to demonstrate that not all men have faith and that some
in the Church masquerade as children of God when they are of the evil one. The episode
tested the people.
The Synagogue of Satan
Believers are like sheep. Unfortunately, they tend to follow the ones they perceive as
their leaders. Hence churches with persuasive and effective ministers are the most stable.
That is all very fine so long as the ministers are preaching truth and representing God as
authentic servants of Jesus Christ.
Many, however, are in their positions because of effective personalities, not because
of an effective call from Christ. These are self-serving, and they constitute the majority
in churches. This is why Jesus says:
I know the slander of those who say they are Jews [i.e. true believers] and are not,
but are a synagogue of Satan (Rev 2:9, NIV).
I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they
are not, but are liars - I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge
that I have loved you (Rev 3:9, NIV).
You need to take very seriously the revealed FACT that satanic elements hold sway in
churches. These are the modern-day 'synagogues', and those who rule over the people in
them are tools of Satan, not of God. (The true Church is contained within and outside
these structures, where the Holy Spirit resides. in believers who willingly follow God's
leading.)
Consequently, there are great dangers in giving your loyalty to ministers in churches.
Some are men of God, but many are not. As Jesus pointed out in the parable in John 10,
some are thieves and robbers. They did not enter in through the gate, but climbed in by
stealth.
If you have been ignorant about such facts before, perhaps you can see now how easy it
is for Satan to lead a whole church astray. It is not difficult for him to commandeer some
in leadership positions and use them for his dastardly ends. He can lead masses of people
astray through false leaders. This is what has happened in the WCG.
While it is easy to follow men in ministerial capacities in church
organisations, it is
not right. You should follow Jesus. He is your Leader, and He has provided leadership
through His Spirit. That is something which is individual, and which also occurs through
Spirit-led ministries. There are five stated ministries in the Church at this time:
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds) and teachers. You won't find apostles
and prophets in the WCG. They are not there. They are to be found outside their borders.
So there is a dire need for WCG members to wake up to the fact that they will always be
spiritually undernourished if all they open their ears to are the mouthings of the WCG
paid ministry. Most of them are hirelings.
Controlling Your Mind
As a member of the Worldwide Church of God, the chances are that you are abysmally
unaware of how you have been conditioned by their preaching.
Because apostles and prophets are not present in the
WCG, its philosophy will omit
relevant mention of these ministry gifts Jesus has placed in His body. And because the WCG
hierarchy don't want you running off to join some other group, depleting the funds they
want to retain from you and other members, they will polarise your mind against any such
consideration. They will avoid mentioning that prophets and apostles exist outside their
borders - if they know. They prefer that you be kept in ignorance about spiritual benefits
to be obtained elsewhere.
They certainly will not concede to the fact that prophets may come from outside to
reach their members. To the WCG leadership, that is a ridiculous and unacceptable
proposition. They are so arrogant, they think they are sufficient to give all spiritual
leadership to their sheep, or, if they might invite an outside speaker, he is carefully
vetted to ensure he won't steal the thunder from Tkach and his cronies. In any event, WCG
hierarchy must maintain ultimate control. That is paramount.
To maintain their control, minds are polarised against prophets. WCG leaders exert
subtle mind control by dropping comments and innuendo, which has the effect of painting a
prophet in a negative light.
H W Armstrong began this practice decades ago and it has been perpetuated ever since.
WCG folks rarely consider where their distrust and suspicion of the notion of prophets has
come from, but it began with HWA and has been ingrained into WCG personnel ever since. It
is radically unbiblical.
Such conditioning by suggestion is very powerful in any cohesive group. People rarely
go to the Bible independently and ask God to show them the truth about such issues. Their
minds are already prejudiced and they are happy to retain such prejudices. Few ever
question them.
This is one aspect of the subtle, but effective mind control WCG leaders exert over
their flocks. Besides prejudice infused into WCG minds to stem the influence of God's
prophets, there are other weapons.
False accusations are powerful. They are easily believed and absorbed by the
membership. For example, I was falsely accused by WCG ministers of "attacking the
church" and of doing so out of wrong motives. These alleged motives which the WCG
liars suggested were: hatred, resentment, unforgiveness, hostility and revenge.
None of them are true, but they are easily believed by gullible people who have not met
me, nor written to me to ascertain my real motives. They wouldn't want to, either, after
hearing such bad reports. Nor would I if I believed a person to be filled with such
antagonistic, venomous attitudes!
Do you see the power such false accusations have in controlling your mind? They
effectively turn you off from reading anything which comes from me, lest it contaminate
your mind. That was another exaggeration - a LIE - WCG leaders used to cause members to
conform. They don't mind lying to people if those lies keep them in the church, and
prevent them listening to "dissidents". It isolates them from learning further
truth.
I trust by now that you are seeing this is not just a conspiracy of church leadership.
It is much deeper than that. Church leaders don't have the ability to conspire that
ingeniously. The origin of the conspiracy against God and His prophets is from Satan
himself and he has masterly employed unsuspecting church leaders to do his evil work for
him.
I'm not making these things up. What I am writing to you here is the result of seven
years' firsthand experience suffering venomous attacks from polarised WCG members whom we
are trying to alert to the spiritual dangers of their position. We have had countless
pieces of literature destroyed by close- minded former friends whom we had hoped would
begin to open their eyes. What I was writing was for their benefit so they could see some
truth and be released from the spiritual and psychological captivity imposed upon them by
their autocratic masters.
Instead of reading my articles objectively, most members (and those who have left and
joined off- shoot groups) have casually binned or burned them. One man wrote insultingly
that my booklets should be printed on thinner paper as they take too long to burn! We
laboured with love, and sacrificed financially, to send those items, and he can only reply
with hostility!
Where did that hostility come from? From church leadership. Those satanic attitudes of
resentment, hatred and close-mindedness are the product of WCG indoctrination against a
prophetic voice.
He was not an isolated case. We have boxes full of returned mail from equally
vituperative and myopic lemmings who cannot discern between good and evil. This is the
legacy of a cult mindset, one which is trained to honour and respond to its own human
dictators, and repudiate the worthwhile efforts of those its leaders refuse to
recognise.
For those who do not know me, let me repeat. I am not hostile to anyone in the
WCG. I
am merely calling a spade a spade, pointing out where the devil is cunningly at work. If
people repent I would be the first to put my arm around those who contritely ask my
forgiveness. I am not unforgiving. I am not vengeful. I am not hateful - except towards
sin and corruption.
The false allegations that have been fabricated to discolour my work for God and
discredit His name through me are part of a conspiratorial ploy that comes from the
Adversary. What you must do is discern who is doing his evil work in the WCG!
Malcolm B Heap, Feb 98
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