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

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50
The Captivity of WCG Members Prophesied!

The demise of the Worldwide Church of God was prophesied, so too the captivity of its members to demonic powers!

In Ezekiel 22, the prophet writes a scathing condemnation of Jerusalem. Her sins were many! Oppression, mistreatment, slander and bloodshed. Idolatry, lewdness and deceit.

They had provoked the ire of God. Moreover, God said through Ezekiel:

Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them (Ezek 22:26, NKJV).

Jerusalem typifies the Church. What God said to Jerusalem also has its application today to the Church. That is one major reason why these prophecies have been preserved.

The Church today, for the most part, does not distinguish between what God decreed as holy and what is not. When it comes to the matter of observances – of Sabbaths, holy days, and new moons – it ignores what God says and prefers to retain the unbiblical traditions inherited from Church tradition.

Where is Sunday commanded in scripture as a weekly day of rest? Nowhere. Where does scripture indicate it should be observed in place of the Sabbath God gave Israel? Nowhere. Where is there divine authority for keeping it in commemoration of Jesus' resurrection? Nowhere.

However, with spurious arguments and specious reasoning, deceived or dishonest theologians convince millions that the Sabbath as God gave it to Israel is now a defunct commandment. In our 'enlightened' times, we have the benefit of being "in Christ", who is our "rest". This teaching of "new covenant theology" is used as an expedient opt-out for those who don't want to keep the biblical Sabbaths.

Worldwide has adopted this convenient libertine philosophy.

From its formerly strict legalistic emphasis, the teaching of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) has swung to the opposite extreme. It has revoked its former teaching and opted for a more palatable alternative. It has jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Just as God condemned Jerusalem for its rebellion, so God condemns the WCG today! He does not change His stand on sin or make different conditions for mercy.

For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts (Mal 3:6,7, NKJV).

You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths (Ezek 22:8).

This is the condemnation against the Church today. Not only the major parts of the Church which claim millions of followers, but the less conspicuous parts too, such as the WCG.

"But the WCG does keep the Sabbaths," you may object.

Ah, but have you discerned why? What is now the basis of this practice? It is only church tradition. The WCG no longer teaches that the Sabbath is a holy day that should not be violated because scripture says so. If it was more expedient to keep Sunday for the majority of WCG members, the wicked WCG leadership would have no qualms about switching to keeping Sunday instead of their customary 7th day of the week.

Thus, the Word of God has been nullified by WCG teaching.

The WCG makes no difference between the holy and the profane any more. It did 20 years ago. It did 10 years ago. But it doesn't any more. It has thrown out what vestiges of truth it had, and replaced them with a human counterfeit or alternative, justified by humanistic reasoning.

Those who go along with WCG teaching are going along with spiritual lewdness!

In you are men who slander... [to do what they want]; in you are those who eat on the mountains [of false gods]; in your midst they commit lewdness (Ezek 22:9, NKJV).

These words are as apt today as they were to Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Captivity Prophesied

When the Chaldeans swept through Jerusalem, destroying its temple, its palace and its houses, this destruction was:

...to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfil seventy years (2 Chr 36:21).

An explanatory footnote to this verse in the NKJV Believer's Study Bible adds the following:

"In keeping with his purpose, the chronicler provides the reason for the Babylonian captivity: it resulted from the apostasy, idolatry, and arrogance of the people when they were confronted by God's messengers."

The WCG's apostasy, idolatry and arrogance will reap a similar fate! It rejects the prophets God sends to warn of its demise. It slanders them.

On 11th November 1992, the Spirit of God caused me to write a condemnation against the leadership of the WCG. If you want to read that, it is under the title A Message of Warning to the Leadership of the WCG. Here is some of what I wrote there:

"....Why do you honour your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by My people...?"

Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ..."Those who honour Me, I will honour, but those who despise Me will be disdained. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that... you will see distress in My dwelling...

"I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in My heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before My Anointed One always" (I Sam 2:27-35, NIV).

"And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honour My name," says the Lord Almighty, "I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honour Me.

"Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that My covenant with Levi may continue," says the Lord Almighty. "My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered Me and stood in awe of My name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

"For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction - because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi," says the Lord Almighty. "So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed My ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law" (Mal 2:1-9, NIV).

This humiliation and despising is coming!

The Worldwide Church of God was used to promote the knowledge of the Sabbaths in Christendom which is why she invariably possessed the PO Box number 111. There are 111 occurrences of the Hebrew word for Sabbath (Shabbath) in the Old Testament. Now that she has rejected this divine commission, God has rejected her!

Those who bow down before the altar of church leadership in the WCG are bowing before men of corrupt minds who defile the purity of the Word of God! Any who give allegiance to false ministers will pay the price in deception!

If you trust your mentors, you will come to believe what they say. And if what they say is a mixture of truth and error – as it is in the WCG – you will swallow the error along with the little truth which remains.

Thus, your leaders will bring you into captivity to Satan's lies. This is what has happened in the WCG. The leaders have removed the plain truth and substituted it with subtle lies.

Release Yourself!

Isaiah gave an appropriate description of the status quo in the WCG when he wrote:

No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers' eggs and weave the spider's web; he who eats of their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed a viper breaks out (Is 59:4,5).

Jesus labelled the religious hypocrites of His day "vipers". The WCG leaders may be different in their leanings, but their hypocrisy matches that of the Pharisees!

The teaching of "the weaver" (Tkach means "weaver" in Russian) ties people in confused knots which it is extremely difficult for them to untie. He claims he is giving them new clothing, but the truth is much different – and they don't know it!

Their webs will not become garments, nor will they cover themselves with their works; their works are works of iniquity and the act of violence is in their hands (Is 59:6, NKJV).

If you are a WCG member, God says to you:

Awake! Awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city... Shake yourself from the dust, arise; sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion! ...My people are taken away for nothing. Those who rule over them [mock margin], says the Lord, and My name is blasphemed continually every day (Is 59:,1,2,5, NKJV).

Of course, if you are a Worldwider, you will not believe this applies to your church. Being deceived, you will think you have found new freedom. It takes another, whom God sends to you, to alert you to your spiritual blindness and captivity.

God sent prophets to Jerusalem to warn her of her apostasy and rebellion, and encroaching captivity. But their words were not heeded. They were regarded as an unwelcome intrusion into their affairs.

Human nature has not changed. Today's prophets have knocked on Worldwide's door, only to have it slammed again in their faces! Church leaders bent on going their own self-willed route, deluded by demonic spirits, will not listen to a prophet of God when He sends one in their midst. So, the church languishes in its spiritual captivity.

Those who allow their minds to be bent by WCG philosophy are giving heed to seducing spirits and are imbibing doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1). If you want to be taken captive by demonic spirits, sit in Worldwide and soak up the 'new' heresies. But if you want true freedom, loose yourself from your bonds!

Malcolm B Heap, July 1998