The Lodge depicts the WCG. Doctrinally, it has now moved to the other side of the road. The alterations we are engaged in picture the profound effects our ministry is having, and will have on this organisation and many of those in it.

Why the Changes?

Many Worldwiders, who don't see behind the scenes to understand why the WCG has totally about-faced recently in its teaching, naïvely believe the changes are mostly for the better. They hardly consider that they could be the victims of a massive deception!

However, what prompted this huge doctrinal shift is something which originated from God. However, like the deception in Toronto, Pensacola, and other places (the so-called 'Toronto Blessing'), what originated as something from God, became tarnished by huge demonic interference and counterfeiting.

Voices of internal 'dissent' emerged and reached WCG echelons of power in the late eighties and early nineties. Some of these claimed that the WCG had been grossly in error to label all non-Sabbath-keeping church folks as "professing Christians". I was one of those voices. I may not have been the first. I don't know. It doesn't matter. God uses many to effect His purposes, not just one.

In 1991 and 1992, I wrote several letters to various WCG leaders, outlining my objections to WCG teaching, policy and abuse. The letters were backed up by reasoned biblical exegesis, appropriate examples, and authentic witnesses. The WCG leaders realised they had been backed against a wall. They knew they were guilty of abusive treatment of members, and of denying spiritual freedoms within the church.

But they couldn't admit openly that I was right, or that any other ‘dissident’ was right. That would undermine their power and control over the church. So, later, they decided to cleverly make certain changes, so they would look right in the eyes of critics (especially outside critics such as Watchman Fellowship, who might be able to do great public damage to the church’s reputation if they were not placated). Such internal changes, ‘voluntarily’ made, would then paint them in a good light in the eyes of onlookers, and retain their control over the minds of most members – if the rulership could condition members' minds enough before these changes were introduced.

Tkach certainly achieved that first aim! He won outside admiration. He has been widely applauded in the evangelical sector of the broad Church. But his standing ovation from those WCG once dubbed as "professing Christians" is not without its price internally. Staunch supporters of ‘Armstrong theology’ just couldn't hack this rebellion, and left to form other church organisations.

Meanwhile, and before all this took place, God opened the eyes of others in the WCG to see that Armstrong's theology was deficient. He had brainwashed the WCG into his convenient viewpoint that there could not be true believers in other churches. He was not alone in his stance. Many other Sabbatarians also do not accept that true Christians can exist outside the Sabbatarian mindset. Michael Snyder, when he was interviewed as an official representative or spokesman of the WCG (he has now left), was asked by an outsider if he believed it was necessary for a Christian to keep the Sabbath to be saved. His answer was balanced and correct. It revealed, however, a new approach that would have been unheard of in WCG officialdom ten years before!

He answered that obedience to the Sabbath command was not essential IF God had simply not opened the mind of that believer to that truth.

Previously, Worldwiders just couldn't accept that such an eventuality could exist. They taught correctly that the Sabbath is on the 7th day of the week (Friday sundown to Saturday sundown) and that it should be observed because it is one of the ten commandments given by God originally to Israel, and by extension also to the Church. However, the WCG simplistic approach could only entertain one possibility, it seems – that, since the knowledge of the true Sabbath is available to some, it must be available to all true believers. It never seemed to enter anyone's minds in the WCG that truth could be individually revealed by a very personal God.

Selective revelation was out of the question, as far as they were concerned. HWA taught "the truth". If other Christians could not see "the truth", then they were simply rebellious! This bigoted philosophy was subtly extended to embrace all that WCG taught, so that anyone outside the church was simply not a true Christian. True Christians were only inside "the true Church" (WCG)!

When Michael Snyder and others began to openly say things that undermined this philosophy, the WCG leadership had to act fast to make some radical changes, otherwise they would either be exposed, or lose many members to other organisations, or both. If they could make the changes as acceptable as possible within the church, perhaps they could ‘salvage’ (retain) more members than could otherwise be achieved.

In 1992, without any prior knowledge of Michael Snyder's or others' views, I was moved to write Understanding the Mind of God – A Message To Worldwiders. This publication fully addressed the wrong cultic philosophy of WCG, and exposed it for the unspiritual sham that it was. It explained why a large number of non-WCG folks may very well have the Holy Spirit living and working in them, even though they may have not come to the point of perceiving the intellectual truth about the Sabbaths which the WCG had been privy to (along with other Sabbatarian churches).

The way God worked with us after our WCG experience was to take us into the company of other Christians, especially charismatic Spirit-led believers, who accepted and operated in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. We saw healings, miracles, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues and prophesying for the first time. We saw the power of God MOVE in meetings, unlike the dry formal, uneventful meetings in WCG! We saw true freedom, and we wrote about it in our publications.

We sent hundreds of these booklets out to those from WCG whom we could reach. Few took any notice, understandably. They had been so indoctrinated by WCG dogma, that to entertain such suggestions as I was making was "to entertain the devil".

Some did take note, however, but for the wrong reasons. I heard via the grapevine from a very influential person in the WCG that our letters and publications had penetrated high up into the WCG, even into the 'holy ground' of WCG policy-making.

I even had a letter from a resident in California, close to WCG HQ, who asked penetrating and leading questions about tithing. God spoke to us and simply told us to answer the letter courteously, and go into as much detail as possible. I did. It was a long letter. I heard nothing more from that person again, even though I later wrote and inquired.

Not many months later, the WCG brought out a new booklet about giving. From the way they had phrased and arranged certain things, and from the radical new approach in some of the content, it was clear they had incorporated some of what I had said. But they wouldn't give me any credit, of course. That would have been far too damaging to their need to retain control of members' minds. The members had to think that all these changes were as a result of God's guidance on their leaders. If trust in leadership breaks down, the organisation crumbles.

And it will, eventually. It's only a matter of time.

The dream about the alterations to the WCG's house is one more pictorial representation of what has taken place within the WCG. What is not known to most members, however, is WHY!

The changes the WCG leaders have implemented are dishonest. They comprise a mixture of truth and error – the most potent concoction to unsuspecting minds! It is a recipe for satanic success!