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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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