Articles for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG

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35
Confusing the Minds of the Simple

The WCG is confusing the minds of its members. It says it is more Christ-centred than it ever was, but it rejects as unnecessary some of the most elementary teachings Christ taught. It says it is no longer cultic in its approach, but it still has not reconciled those it formerly abused.

The Worldwide News of 10th June 1997 contains classic examples of WCG duplicity. There, it promotes the fact that the WCG is a "bridge builder between denominations" (p. 8). Yet, when Malcolm and Helena Heap promoted the fact of the spiritual authenticity of other churches [beginning in 1991], particularly Pentecostal groups, they were laughed to scorn. One WCG minister actually ridiculed them openly from a WCG pulpit!

The Worldwide Church of God, it seems, can accept other Christians outside its walls, but it cannot accept Midnight Ministries. Yet Midnight Ministries said long before the WCG ever did, that true Christians existed in other denominations. It was that stand we took in accepting non-Sabbatarian believers which was one factor in our repudiation. Prejudice against us on that ground was instilled in WCG members' minds by the WCG ministry, and it caused many former friends to become hostile towards us or regard us with disdain.

Ironically, it is now the WCG which claims to be friends with outside Christians! But we are still repudiated. Where is their consistency? Clearly, it is absent!

Sabbath Sedition

Then there is the matter of the Sabbath. What does the WCG now teach on that? Many members don't know.

In one breath the church claims it still keeps the Sabbath. Yet, in the next breath it says there is no need to keep it under the New Covenant. So why is it 'keeping' it when it is 'not necessary'?

Apparently, it is only because the church hierarchy say it is worthwhile to still keep it. So, members are following men, and not God. What church leaders say is still the standard of WCG conduct underlying moral behaviour! That should send tingles down your spine, if you are spiritually alive! It's cultic.

Actually, the only reason the WCG leadership has not totally ditched the Sabbath, to become more acceptable to outside Christians, is because they knew they would lose too many members if they did, and their income would take a kamikaze dive!

It was only a few years ago that the WCG found out that a whole group of Sabbatarian believers existed in the Ukraine. The news of their discovery was welcomed with joy. It's not often that you are encouraged to learn of others of like faith hanging on in remote areas of the world.

The WCG made overtures to them and wanted to lure them into the 'Worldwide fold'. They sent them emissaries and aid. But now what? Apparently, the WCG was wrong all along about the Sabbath.... so these poor deceived souls in the Ukraine were wrong too! I wonder what the Ukrainians think about the sudden doctrinal shift in Worldwide? I bet they would be shocked if they knew!

Paul wrote to the Galatians:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ to a different gospel (Gal 1:6, NIV).

But it's even more astonishing how fast Worldwide has thrown out the truths God gave it to hold onto for the rest of the broad Church to learn from! It makes the Galatians look like they were standing still!

One young man who is still attending Worldwide came and visited us during our 'exile' from the church. He knew us quite well and came to see how we were doing. Although he's not 'turned on' spiritually, he can still see through a lot of the church's duplicity.

When we asked him about the Sabbath, and what the church now teaches about that, he dryly said: "Oh, that doesn't matter now; you can do what you like."

He grew up believing that the observance of the Sabbath as a holy day every seventh day of the week was an integral part of obedience to God. Now he thinks it doesn't matter. Others in the WCG think it does matter, but they can't refute the theological rhetoric coming from the clever clogs in Pasadena, so they have to keep their mouths shut. And some are undecided. What a mess! What utter confusion!

To say that the Sabbath command is rescinded under the New Covenant, because our rest is now in Christ, is as heretical as saying that you can commit adultery so long as you have 'love' for all parties concerned. Love is not a cover-all for sin. Love is first based on, and defined by, law. That law is the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25), but the liberty it offers is within it, not outside it.

Worldwide mentors are heretics saying that the freedom we have in Christ is outside that moral code. That is a lie (Matt 5:17-20).

They dare not meddle with the other nine commands, because that would be too obviously wrong, but they meddle with the fourth one, since that is in line with what is accepted by most of Christendom.

One basic question, however, which remains unanswered is: "When were the majority ever right?" Isn't it usually the majority which is wrong, and the minority which is right? It is commanded:

Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong (Ex 23:2, NIV).

But then, that doesn't matter any more. That was Old Covenant, not New. Who cares about the Old!

A Parallel in Sin

You know, there are several interesting parallels between the behaviour of the Church and that of Israel. Israel was called by God out of Egypt to be a model nation. He gave her truth that none of the surrounding nations had. He gave them a standard which would set them apart and remind them that it was He who made them holy (Ex 31:13).

He promised them a phenomenal future if they obeyed Him. But they failed to keep His covenant. They went off after other gods. They preferred to lust after the ways of the decadent nations around them and accept their customs and practices.

This was spiritual adultery! God had chosen them to be His wife, but they had played the harlot! This sin was detestable in His sight. Jeremiah wrote of them and her sister nation, Judah:

They are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people (Jer 9:2, NIV).

A feature of their depravity was deceit:

They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies; it is not by truth that they triumph in the land. They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge Me (Jer 9:3, NIV).

This behaviour has been copied by the church. Many who stood up to defend truth and uphold justice in the church have been shot down by lies! Lies will always seem to triumph over truth when evil men are in power.

There will be those who will say that the WCG is different now than it was in their sordid past. They now acknowledge Christ, whereas before they didn't. If that is so, then why don't they acknowledge those Christ sends to point out their errors?

They don't want to know about their errors. They didn't when we pointed them out over the past seven years, and they still don't want to know! They are pursuing their own self-willed path. It is a path that they think will succeed because it is acceptable to the majority. But it will fail, because it actually denies God!

How does it deny God? A man is at the helm. God is merely a second thought. The man who rules the church has become God to the church, and God becomes a mere man.

God has been reduced to man's level. It is gross blasphemy! That is the first error. Then there are other secondary errors in teaching that have resulted from the blind path these heretics have pursued. Heresy is promoted through deceit. Jeremiah knew that too:

Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge Me (Jer 9:4-6).

That is the tragic situation in the WCG. Friends don't know who they can trust. Silence and superficiality is the result. Some believe one thing, some another. You don't know who believes what. Nor do you know who is friend and who is foe. It is a very uneasy peace. That's not true unity. It's disunity, covered with a disguise, the disguise being this so-called new covenant 'love'. It's a sham! True love is based on God's law!

If you want to know what the eventual outcome will be, read the rest of Jeremiah 9. The parallel will be repeated, just as it has been before to those who chose to do evil in the Church (Rev 2:22, 23; 3:3).

Jeremiah is blunt about the cause of demise:

It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed Me or followed My law. Instead they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts (Jer 9:13,14, NIV).

History repeats itself with monotonous regularity!

Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference... and they shut their eyes to the keeping of My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them (Ezek 22:26, NIV).

There you have the problem in a nutshell! The Church today by and large still fails to see its sin in this regard. Most don't want to see it! So they shut their eyes and refuse to study into the issue. They would rather not know the truth. It's just not convenient.

So, elaborate theological arguments have been devised to 'get around' the problem. They spiritualise the Sabbath command away. But it does not fool God. Jesus didn't pay with His life so you can go flouting what you like from His law. He gave His law as a guide-line for living. And He expects very high standards of righteousness from you. Don't kid yourself you can 'accept Christ' and disobey His law. He gave that law at Sinai, and He upheld it in the N. T. In fact He did more than uphold it, He enhanced it! (Matt 5:17-20.)

So, don't be fooled by the specious arguments of 'wise scholars' who are actually fools! Jesus said:

I will repay each of you according to your deeds. Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets... (Rev 2:23, 24, NIV).

What were these 'deep' secrets? They were heresies of the kind we are witnessing being introduced into the WCG today - subtle antinomian doctrines. The demonic source is Jezebel (2:20). Her teaching is pictured in metaphor as luring people into sexual immorality - what God condemned Judah for - and into eating food sacrificed to idols (2:20). Food sacrificed to idols is not the bread of life. It is false doctrine.

The WCG revolutionaries are proud of their achievements. And so are many others who welcome their apostasy. But Jeremiah wrote:

Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom... but let him boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight (Jer 9:23,24, NIV).

WCG mentors don't delight in any of those virtues. Abused former WCG members have never received any adequate apology or reparations from the WCG hierarchy. The downtrodden and slandered have received no restitution of wrongs. Not surprising really! Justice is not on the WCG agenda. Control is. They are still uncircumcised in heart (Jer 9:26).

Malcolm B Heap, 7 March 1998