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

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43
WCG: Don't Trust Your Leaders
Part 6

The present trend in the WCG is a parallel to what has occurred before. Israel and Judah are historical counterparts of the present WCG apostasy and its inevitable consequences which are yet to follow. Israel didn't heed the prophets God sent to them. Nor does the Church today!

One of the members of the Board of Trustees for the WCG asked me a couple of years ago when all this is going to stop. He was referring to the continual "bombardment" of mailings which he considered, from his vantage point, to be against the Worldwide Church of God.

Another former friend asked something similar when I talked to him some years ago over the phone. He could sense something was seriously "not right" somewhere - although he was too spiritually blind to see just where - and asked: "Where is it all going to end?"

Well, it will end finally in the return of Jesus Christ as you well know. But more specifically, before that, it will end in the final collapse of the WCG and the release of people of God within its walls of isolation.

When will I stop all my efforts to see the WCG finished? When I am dead! Or when all whom God wants released from the WCG's clutches are released, whichever arrives sooner!

From the general response, I would hope the former would come first! But the latter is preferable.

Stubbornness of Worldwiders

What lies behind these sceptical dissatisfied questions is the problem at the heart of the current WCG malaise. Jeremiah described it in his prophecies concerning Judah and Israel. The sequel is with us today in the Church. It is stubbornness.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words (Jer 19:15, NKJV).

No one likes to hear the words of God's prophets. They chafe. But they are given for the good of the people. If everyone were to heed their words, problems would be minor.

Instead, because people adamantly refuse to hear what God is trying to tell them, the resultant problems are great! Judah was crushed in the most terrible of defeats. Jeremiah prophesied that, too:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle (Jer 19:3, NKJV).

There was another prophecy given to Samuel which was similar and equally emphatic:

Behold I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle (1 Sam 3:11, NKJV).

A calamitous catastrophe occurred to Eli's house. God had said:

I will judge his house [family] forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them (1 Sam 3:13, NKJV).

God told the young Samuel what He was going to do to his master's household because of their contempt for God's law. Samuel was a prophet. God spoke to him about what was on His agenda.

When God decrees judgement upon His people for their sins, it would not be in keeping with God's nature to fail to warn them beforehand. He always gives people every chance to repent. He longs for their turn-around. He gives them time. Only when they refuse to change and continue on their downward spiral does He then fulfil His word. So it was with Eli's house. So it was with Israel and Judah. And so it shall be with the WCG.

The leaders of the WCG have held God's law in contempt. They have snubbed their noses at God, preferring to be like all their deceived Christian neighbours.

God winks at ignorance, because He allows the majority to be deceived. But He does not wink at wilful disregard. The leaders of the WCG ought to have known better than to throw out the truth about the Sabbaths!

Greg Albrecht was a 1969 AC graduate from Bricket Wood. I was at college when he was. He knew the truth as well as I. He knew what the WCG espoused and why it espoused it. He knew what Paul's letters meant in the controversial passages about "law". But he has thrown away all that knowledge to retain his job and salary. He has sided with Joseph Tkach, heretic emeritus, in his new-found discovery about "new covenant theology".

New covenant theology? It's new-found heresy!! But why hadn't he seen it before if it was truth? Why hadn't he noticed that we are saved by grace? It was there all along and staring everyone in the face as clear as daylight! Was he such an ignorant twit that he couldn't read his Bible the right way up?! Perhaps he never read it.

I heard it preached in sermons many a time that we are saved by grace, not according to works lest any man should boast (Eph 2:8,9). But I also read other passages too by the same author saying that he considered God's law good and the commandments to be holy, just and good (Rom 7:12).

That same author pointed out that what was evil he found within himself (Rom 7:19). He didn't want to sin, but he found himself being dragged by spiritual forces working within himself to trap him and cause him to do what he didn't want to do (Rom 7:20,21,23). Paul wanted to obey God's law. He delighted in it (Rom 7:22). So did James. He called it the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25).

Apparently, Tkach, Albrecht and Feazell have missed these scriptures in their poor scholarship! Or perhaps their frantic search to justify their lawlessness and be accepted by the evangelical fraternity at large has caused their myopia to delude them!?

They prefer an "interpreted" (actually MIS-interpreted!) Paul, to the Son of God, who said plainly:

No one is good but One, that is God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments (Matt 19:17, NKJV).

For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matt 5:18, NKJV).

It seems that Tkach and his cronies think they know better than Jesus, or James and Paul! According to Tkach, some aspects of the law of God are not perfect and need human amendment by intellectuals! They can't trust the words of Jesus who said ASSUREDLY... That's just not sure enough for them!

The Price of Compromise

In their bid to get accreditation for Ambassador University, they were willing to compromise the truth they knew so they could "get in with" the world. It was no big deal to them to ditch their non-Trinitarian concept of the Godhead and adopt the traditional Trinitarian idea. It bought them favour. That was good, so they thought!

It may have bought them favour for a time with some evangelicals, but it has bought them judgement from God.

For whatever is not of faith is sin. And whoever continues to transgress his own conscience, there is no more sacrifice for sins. He has crucified the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.

Sin does not pay! It never did, and it never will. The judgement of God always catches up with sinners in the end (Gal 6:7). Do you recall that John defined sin as the transgression of the law? (1 Jn 3:4, KJV.)

Oh, but I forgot, John still had not reached Tkach's high level of spirituality and theological interpretation. Sorry, I overlooked that! So, we should dispense with John's words and accept Tkach's!

There were several problems in the early Church which the New Testament records. They are recorded for us to learn from. What we are seeing enacted before our eyes is a parallel to what occurred then.

Impostors had gained entry into the Church, as Paul had forewarned they would (Acts 20:28-30). Peter prophesied also of false teachers bringing in damnable heresies (2 Pet 2:1) who would beguile MANY (2:2). Jude wrote of these deceivers, turning the grace of God into unlawful permissiveness (Jude 3,4). John foretold of antichrists (1 John 2:18; 4:3) who would deceive through cunning subtlety, undermining the way of truth which is fundamentally centred on obedience to God's law (1 Jn 3:22-24).

For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome (1 Jn 5:3, NKJV).

This is love that we walk according to His commandments.... (2 Jn 6, NKJV).

It's so elementary, it's almost childish to have to repeat! Worldwide members under Tkach ought to have known better than embrace his specious arguments that actually deny Jesus, violate God's law, and impugn the standards of holiness God has given His people!

THIS IS SERIOUS!! I know some who think nothing of the heretical watering down inside WCG. They are fools! They can't see the insidious and pernicious nature of what has been going on under their noses for the last few years! They are asleep.

IF THAT INCLUDES YOU, YOU NEED TO WAKE UP!!

The punishment decreed upon the WCG and upon you as an individual member who tolerates this heretical landslide is the same fate Judah suffered. It is awful beyond words to consider. No wonder God sends prophets to warn first!! It is horrendous:

These things says He who has the sharp, two-edged sword: I know your works and where you dwell... But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam [willingness to compromise for expediency and perceived financial gain, see Num 22]... to eat thing sacrificed to idols [accept doctrines of demons (1 Cor 10:6), which is the latest WCG teaching] and to commit sexual immorality [be unfaithful to our Bridegroom].

Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes [hierarchic rulership in the Church is one fulfilment] which thing I hate.

Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth (Rev 2:12-16, NKJV).

These things says the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass: I know your works, love, service, faith and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first [fits the WCG].

Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sick-bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works (Rev 2:18-23, NKJV).

Jesus means what He says! He's no wimp like some "grace merchants" make Him out to be!

Compromise exacts a horrific price. God rejected Israel for her lukewarmness, sent the ruthlessness of the Babylonians against Jerusalem till it was crushed, and He will deal with errant apostates with no less severity!

To be continued...

Malcolm B Heap, 16 March 1998