“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves…[The Sermon on the Mount is all the basics—so that’s a basic.]…You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matt. 7:15-18).

I wish I had remembered this verse, and also Matthew 3, back when we were studying the trees of Zechariah 11. Christ calls ministers “trees.” They are either good trees or bad trees. Now, the last two Sundays, we’ve had a team working in the upper woods, there, and we cut over 350 trees down (many of them small) over the last two Sundays. I will be here tomorrow, after Mother’s Day in the morning, and I’ll be cutting a lot more trees. There will be three guys joining me who have been very helpful. We are getting a lot done. It’s going to be a very beautiful woods. I am very careful. Don’t worry. I let others use the chainsaws now. I use a handsaw and cut the smaller ones. But I want to be very, very careful exactly how we do this. I want these woods to be beautiful. Everybody knows I have studied trees all my life. I know why that was. God compares good and bad ministers to trees—that’s just what He said. False prophets…and then He goes and talks about trees.

One of the interesting things I have learned down through the years…When I watch ministers leave…It could have been Worldwide; sometimes, it was Global, and certainly, in the Restored Church of God. Mr. Armstrong saw hundreds of ministers leave. To some newer brethren it might be surprising if they hear ministers leave. They have been leaving for 2,000 years. Hundreds left while Mr. Armstrong was alive—need we even talk about what they did after he died? It’s a big subject. I have noticed that when ministers leave, invariably, there are a couple of things about them. They never served much. That’s number one—they never served much, and the people who follow them always had, virtually, no fruit. They were thorns and thistles…

In the Church, there are always thorns and thistles. They practically poke you at socials and different activities, at times. Down through the decades, I have seen it. I have pastored thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and there are people who are wonderful—warm, loving, spirit-led people—and other people, who God just reduces and says they are thorns and thistles. They are, literally, prickly in some cases. You don’t want to be known as somebody who is prickly. But ministers who leave, take those kinds of people with them.

One of the ways you know a false minister is look at who follows him. Now, Christ’s sheep know His voice, and they don’t follow strangers. What has been exciting to me…I’ve gone back and looked, over the last three-and-a-half years, at the ministers who have left us. Almost all of them—almost all of them—took nobody. We looked back and realized they were terrible ministers. They weren’t serving. They couldn’t take anybody with them. I watched in the earlier years under Mr. Armstrong, sometimes, men would rise up and they would take large numbers. Most of our ministers take no one but their wife and children. A few take a few, and they were always thorns and thistles…problems. Now that might seem strange to you.

Nimrod the mighty hunter against God!!! Nimrod married his Mother, Nimrod was killed. The evergrowing tree sprouted from his grave. The evergreen tree.

Nimrod was shown as a baby. With the pine tree representing Nimrod. Babies were burnt alive as gifts to Nimrod. Angels on trees represent dead babies/ Murdered Babies.

The strings of tensile on the tree symbolize the snake/satan.

The balls on the tree are Nimrods Testicles.

I do not recall how the founder of all of this worlds religions died. I remember that he was cut up and they could not find his balls which is why they put balls on the trees, An evergreen tree was supposed to have sprouted from his grave which is why an evergreen tree is used.

Did you have a picture of your child on Santa's lap?

 To celebrate Nimrods birthday they used to feed babies to the fire. All those angels on the tree represent dead babies that were murdered for nimrod. Why he wears a red suit- it represents fire so any one putting a baby on a fat mans lap wearing a red suit is making their baby pass threw the fire!!!!

Satan is an anagram for Satan

The man-god Attis, after an unsuccessful courtship of the goddess Cybele, mutilated himself, “under a pine-tree, and bled to death on the spot. ... After his death Attis is said to have been changed into a pine-tree … [in worship practices] a pine-tree was cut in the woods and brought into the sanctuary of Cybele, where it was treated as a great divinity … Stirred by the wild barbaric music of clashing cymbals, rumbling drums, droning horns, and screaming flutes, the inferior clergy whirled about in the dance with waggling heads and streaming hair, until, rapt into a frenzy of excitement and insensible to pain, they gashed their bodies with potsherds or slashed them with knives in order to bespatter the altar and the sacred tree with their flowing blood.” (The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer, “The Myth and Ritual of Attis” Chapter 34).

Attis’ bloody act under an evergreen tree, along with—as the historical record points out—subsequent duplications by Attis worshippers, has provided paganism with its seasonal red and green motifs.

The streets cry out!

As long as we're here let's apply the principle of using names to identify who Jesus is talking to in this letter. Notice that in verse 12 the word God is used exactly four times. Now did you know the following interesting bit of trivia? The Worldwide Church of God's Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, California, is bordered by four main streets. On the north is Green Street. On the west is Orange Grove. On the south is Del Mar. And on the east is St. John. These are all names of streets. Streets are places. Now if you take the first letter of each of the streets that border the campus, starting at the north and moving counterclockwise, they spell G-O-D-S. GODS!!! 

Most will say that this is just coincidence. Is it?! I can heap so many coincidences like this on top of each other that after awhile anyone with a converted mind will only be able to conclude that God Himself is so powerful and intelligent and detail-oriented that He planned all these "coincidences" out some time long ago in the eternity that He inhabits and that when Jesus, who had been God in the flesh, dictated these letters to the apostle John, He knew exactly what He would raise up in the future. He knew down to names of the streets that He would have a Worldwide Church of God in Pasadena, California, USA, eighteen-and-a-half centuries down the road. And He named the streets this way to remind us of our destiny!

2016 will be the 20th year for the Annual Winter Family Weekend, to be held at the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort in Lexington, Kentucky, December 23-26. The event is open to all.

Three Church of God groups in the USA have taken up the tradition of holding a very large social gathering over the Christmas period.

Church of God a Worldwide Association members will be in Louisville, Kentucky, December 23-27, where the Galt House Hotel will be offering a range of seasonal activities for its young guests.

The United Church of God Family Weekend, will be at the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio, December 23-27.

The Family Weekend for members of the Living Church of God will take place at the Renaissance Charlotte Suites Hotel, North Carolina, December 22-25.

“Activities will begin on Thursday evening with a casual themed dance at the hotel. Friday morning there will be a number of targeted seminars followed by an afternoon activity. Friday night and Saturday morning there will be special Bible Studies for everyone. We plan to again live-stream the Saturday afternoon Church service over the Internet. Saturday night there will be a formal dinner/dance for all ages. Sunday we will have the increasingly popular Sports Day with basketball and volleyball tournaments, free play, kids’ games and lots of free food! Sunday night we will wrap things up at the hotel with a Games Night. Last year we had over 800 people join us for the events and we hope that this year even more of you will attend. So grab your dance shoes and your tennis shoes and come join us for an exciting weekend of physical and spiritual rejuvenation!”—Jim Meredith

God created the Internet for the Gospel

I am absolutely convinced that this is a massive door that Jesus Christ has swung open on an unsuspecting world to get His final warning message out to a suicidal planet!! And if Jesus Himself has unlocked this door, then NO MAN CAN SHUT IT!! It will only be shut when Jesus Himself decides to shut it, and then no man will be able to open it!! So we can look to the Philadelphian letter and take courage in the fact that it is God Himself who has opened this door! No man can shut it on us, so we can walk through it with courage and confidence!

Ian Boyne | Are The Gospels Reliable?

It's that time of the year when the big American media focus on Christianity, alleged contradictions in the Gospels, and the controversy surrounding whether the Bible is really true. Often, the discussion is unbalanced, sensational, and less than fully informed.

There are certain regularly regurgitated views that have not, by any means, been proven beyond reasonable doubt, yet they are taken as dogma in liberal biblical scholarship. Take the view, heard frequently expounded by Mutabaruka on The Cutting Edge, that the Gospels were originally anonymous. You will hear Muta asserting with absolute dogmatism many nights: "Dem seh Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John wrote the Gospels, and Christians in Jamaica don't even know seh that when dem book dey did write, no name never deh pon dem."

Well, that same view is written in perfect English and intoned with impeccable diction every day in scholarly circles. But is it beyond reasonable doubt? And how would one prove that the Gospels originally had no authors' names on them? Well, manuscript evidence would help. If we found manuscripts dated early that were anonymous, that would constitute proof. Yet do you know, despite the fact that Muta's view is, indeed, held by many scholars, that there is absolutely no manuscript evidence that the Gospels were originally anonymous? The earliest Gospel manuscripts discovered had the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

To assert that they were added later without supplying proof is intellectually irresponsible. Often, it is a theory that determines a particular viewpoint, not empirical evidence. If the dominant view is that the Gospels are folklore rather than biographical literature, one simply infers that the Gospels were likely anonymous in line with that genre of literature. So in that case, it is the theory that determines the view, not the facts determining the theory.

All the extant copies of the New Testament Gospels date from the second century. The earliest (Papyrus 4) has the title, 'The Gospel According to Matthew'. The oldest Greek copy of the Gospel of Mark, Codex Siniaticus, begins with the title 'The Gospel cording to Mark'. It is felt by liberal scholars that the reason why the anonymous Gospels were later changed to ones with names we know today is because of the need to establish authenticity.

You see, when early Christians began to face competition with different views of Jesus being circulated in the other Gospels about him (Marcionite, Ebionite, and Gnostic), it was necessary to attach the names of apostles or their disciples/companions to our four Gospels to establish their superiority. Remember, liberal scholars see the Bible as theological and political documents, not historical accounts. Their concern is not so much historical accuracy, but faith.

So in the face of the Gospels that eventually lost out, early Christians attached apostolic names to the Gospels. Well, let's test that theory for plausibility. First, why wouldn't the earliest Christians have thought of that from the beginning? Why didn't they attach the names originally to gain authenticity? Were they so dumb that they never thought impostors could arise later to claim authenticity for their rival Gospels? Why circulate anonymously for a hundred years?

But there's more. If the early Christians wanted to attach the names of disciples of Jesus just to confer legitimacy and trump others, why only attach two names - Matthew and John? For, remember, Mark was really written by John Mark, who was an associate of Peter's, and Luke was written by an associate of Paul's. Why wouldn't the early Christians, if they were forgers, as the well-known liberal atheistic biblical scholar Bart Ehrman charges, not attribute all four Gospels to disciples? Why not then have a Gospel according to Andrew or Phillip or Thomas, the Doubting One? (The later forgers did, in fact, name their Gospels after disciples.)

NO EVIDENCE 

If the earliest Christian communities were into deception, why have companions of Peter and Paul (the latter who was not even one of the Twelve) write the earliest histories of Christianity? The anonymous Gospels thesis is implausible. Plus, if the four Gospels were anonymous and later attributed to authors, why is there no evidence of any early controversy or debate over this? There are books in the Bible over which there has been considerable debate about authorship. A number of books attributed to Paul are hotly contested even today.

And there is one book that even conservative scholars admit we don't know who wrote it - the Book of Hebrews. Many thought it was written by Paul, but others have said that it was written by his companion, Timothy, and still others by Barnabas. Church Father Origen in the Second Century famously said, "Only God knows" who wrote Hebrews. There was no such controversy over the authorship of the four Gospels among church fathers.

The Gospels were well attested by all of them. People like Papias (AD 130), who was a disciple of John; Justin Martyr (AD 140-165); Irenaeus (around AD 180); and Clement (around AD 200) all testified to the authenticity of the four Gospels. What about the Da Vinci Code theory that it was pure politics that determined the Christian canon? In other words, that what we have with the Gospels are simply those books that won out in the political struggle?

Why do we have the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and not The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, and the Gospel of Peter, which were another four Gospels in circulation? There is one historical fact that must be noted: These Gospels that did not make it into the Christian canon were later than the four that did. You would sometimes get the impression in the discussion that they were written around the time of the Bible's Four and just didn't make the cut because of politics and expediency. No.

None of them was written in the first century, and the scholarly consensus is that our biblical four were. They were written well within the lifetime of Jesus, the Apostles, and those who followed them. The Gospels were written between, AD 60s and AD 90s, according to most scholars.

University of Notre Dame Professor Brant Pitre, in his brilliantly argued book, The Case for Jesus: Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ (2016) says:

"The destruction of the Temple is never mentioned as a past event in any of the Gospels. If the Gospels were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, then why don't the writers emphasise that Jesus's prophecy had been fulfilled? That would be a natural thing to do."

That is exactly what Luke did, as recorded in Acts 11: 27-28 when he wrote that the prophet Agabus foretold the worldwide famine " ... and this took place in the days of Claudius".

So Pitre asks a logical question: "Isn't it strange that Luke would go out of his way to emphasise that the prophecy of a little-known Christian prophet named Agabus had been fulfilled in the days of the emperor Claudius (the 40s AD) but fail to mention that Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple had been fulfilled in AD 70?"

The indications are that Mark and Matthew were written before AD 70 and the recorded prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem was given as a warning for Christians to flee (See Matthew 24:15, 20).   Jamaica Gleaner

- Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist working with the Jamaica Information Service. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.

"As we’re preparing all of these transcripts, one of the things we’re doing, brethren, is we’re cutting large swaths of it out wherever there was error and wherever there was any kind of exaggerated emphasis on me that could be offensive. I want all of that…I want to look like a mustard seed through the 49 or 50, 52 different parts of this. There are just some things I want to not say to everybody outside that they don’t need to hear. They don’t need to understand. 

"I want them to understand this terrible trial they’re going to go through, that they can escape it; how the Kingdom of God will come, and where their part in it is. They don’t need to hear all the error that we’ve had to walk out of through this long series. They don’t need to hear what my role is, or there are just certain things that don’t need to be in it. Partly, to make it shorter and less daunting for even the most serious Bible students, who might say, can I really read all that? The serious ones will and others won’t, and we may break out certain ones for the people who say I don’t want to read them all, and we give them a chance to read certain key ones. The three on the Man of Sin might be such a case—this one, and Part 31, and one other that came a little later. 

"So, in some of these parts of the series, I speculated, and some of that speculation is being cut out; some will be left in. But we’re going to speculate here."

The other day, I was reading a comment on a blog regarding COGs (Church of God churches) and it basically grouped them all in the term “Armstrongism.” I have heard the term before, but honestly, I have never really looked into what defined something as being “Armstrongism” until reading some derogatory comments regarding COGs. 

I am not at all easily offended, and I know a lot of people can’t seem to get over the bad things they went through in the past due to Worldwide Church of God (WCG) and the churches that split off from them. Bitterness is a hard weed to pull out of oneself once it has rooted deeply within one’s soul. However, I never knew that the observance of Sabbath and Holy Days were created by Herbert W. Armstrong. Yes, I am being a little sarcastic here, but seriously, it is considered “Armstrongism” if you believe that we are to observe God’s Holy Days. 

Well, I would like to set the record straight. Armstrong wasn’t alive during creation week when God created the sun, moon, and stars to mark His seasons also known in Hebrew as moed, appointed time, place or meeting (Genesis 1:14). This term is the same term in Leviticus 23when God tells Moses to teach the Israelites about His appointed times/Holy Days. In addition, Armstrong was not there when the first Sabbath was created and sanctified (Genesis 2:2-3). In fact, I am positive that he was not the first Christian to desire keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days either. I can see from the Bible that the Sabbath and the Holy Days were kept in the New Testament by not only Jesus but also His disciples, after His crucifixion (some references: John 7:1-44; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:4; Acts 17:2; Acts 20:6; 1 Corinthians 11:23-29). Never in all their teachings did they teach that they were done away with either.

Armstrongism was the teachings of Herbert W Armstrong that many could not be verified with the Bible but they can be refuted with the Bible. The doctrines of his church could be liken to a potluck where some vain person sampled everything that was offered and claim they were all his. He borrowed some of the beliefs of the Catholics some from the Baptism, and some from secular beliefs and teaching, such as the modern-day identity of Israel, he even borrowed or should we say stole beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist who for the most part he condemn. Armstrongism was based on new revelations that he only had access to. The number one doctrine that was kept hidden was to convince the people to support his personal business better known as the Worldwide Church of God. 

Can you imagine Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Apartian allowing themselves to be filmed in such a disheveled state? It would never happen! Not only does RCM say hello to all of us in "radio land" but being in his pajama's makes him look like a crazy old man.

I could almost understand it if they had him in a suave, neatly pressed smoking jacket like Hugh Hefner but instead he looks like a nursing home patient.

This reeks of sabotage. The underlings and boot lickers should have stopped this but they didn't. Could it be that they WANTED him to look stupid?

How does this look to the other COGs? Does this make people want to join LCG? What was the point? Is the average LCG member embarrassed?

CCOG after 4 years: Unique start and growth

Today marks the fourth anniversary (on the Roman calendar) of the official formation of the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) as a separate entity.

Despite comments from various detractors in and out of the various Church of God (COG) groups, the Continuing Church of God has flourished beyond what many said/posted.

Compared to the formation of other groups whose leaders were once part of the old Worldwide Church of God, there have been several things that were unique about our formation. But actually, more similar to the start of the old Radio Church of God.

For example, a dream preceded the start of the old Radio Church of God, whereas two people (myself and someone who I did not know at the time) had dreams that preceded the start of the Continuing Church of God.

Furthermore, unlike other groups we are aware of, no other group also declared that it was fulfilling the second part of the dream that Loma Armstrong had which preceded the start of the Radio Church of God.

Non-believers and Laodiceans often will not accept how God works.

Interestingly, someone not in CCOG mentioned to me in Illinois this past October that CCOG was one of the only, if not the only, COG group he knew of that formed mainly because of doctrinal/integrity issues, as opposed to personality issues. Details on why CCOG had to form are in the article.

Within hours of the formation, I posted that the Continuing Church of God would reach more people in the first 30 days after it formed than any COG group that was not directly related to the late Garner Ted Armstrong. 

Well, similar to what happened with the late Herbert W. Armstrong, I unexpectedly ended up being on radio. I ended up being on two radio programs, one of which the host claimed to have over 2,000,000 listeners. Additionally, over 100,000 different computers were reached over the COGwriter.com website in those thirty days. I believe that this accomplishment helped demonstrate the application of various dreams to the CCOG.

As far as other proclamation fruits, both the COGwriter.com and Bible News Prophecy channel have reached people in over 215 nations and territories around the world.

Another project to mention is that some of the literature of the CCOG has been translated into 100 languages (watch Behind the Work 2016: All Nations, Tribes, People, and Tongues). Some people may not consider that important, but notice what Jesus taught:

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

Actually, since its formation, the Continuing Church of God has been the fastest growing of all COG groups.

We now have over 2,000 people around the world, with most of our congregations in Africa 

Earlier doctrine was mentioned.

In this area, the CCOG has restored more than other groups we are aware of.

This includes church history.

Matthew 7:15-20The Message (MSG)

15-20 “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.

Rod Meredith's Super Special Not So Special Christmas Sermon  

Jerry Weston informed readers of the following in last week's LCG Weekly Update (formerly authored by Doug Winnail), "This week, Dr. Meredith spent a good amount of time preparing his message for the live Sabbath Service transmission, where we expect somewhere around 750 to 800 to be in attendance, along with several thousand tuned in over the Internet. We encourage people to “share” the posts about the Charlotte Family Weekend live special Sabbath Service on Facebook".

Members of LCG were given the impression in the weeks leading up to this year's Winter Weekend that Mr. Meredith's sermon was going to be a show stopper

As I prepared to listen to this "special message" I hoped and prayed and prayed and hoped that it would be inspired but alas, it was the exact same sermon he has been giving for years. Nothing inspired. Nothing uplifting. Nothing that gave evidence of putting in extra preparation for this "special" event for which hundreds of LCG members flocked to Charlotte.

Rod Meredith's sermons are so tediously redundant that many no longer even attempt to pretend to be taking notes because he uses the same scriptures over and over again. It is painful at this point.

It's become increasingly difficult to keep from rolling my eyes after church when people are gushing about how "great the sermon was" or how "inspired" it was. I feel like shouting, "it was the same exact sermon we have heard a thousand times!" but I just nod in agreement because I know better than act anything other than enthusiastic.

The title of the sermon was "The Future of God's Work" but RCM says nothing about the future of anything.

Instead, like EVERY Rod Meredith sermon The Future of God's Work included the following:

• Idolatry of HWA
• Telling us how he's the best, most awesome evangelist on earth because he spent the "more time than anyone else alive" around the worshipped HWA (they had many, many meals together, etc)
• Then RCM proceed to go through his resume for the 1,000,000 time starting with his calling, AC and his ordination, teaching freshman Bible and the Epistles of Paul, baptizing tours, beginning Global and Living (he leaves out the part about forging checks and stealing money from Global with the help of Don Davis to start LCG), how he's the only evangelist in the world ordained by the greatest man to ever live HWA...  yada yada yada
• Then we get into how the gays and transgenders are ruining the world (not a sermon goes by without mention of the gays)
• THE LADY WITH THE WITHERED ARM  - can we please have a sermon without this story? Please!
• "Horny teen-aged boys" and homosexuals (again, forevermore)
• Time is short
• British Israelism  (even though most ACOGers no longer believe this completely disproved, outdated theory)
• Church government (I'm not sure if I'm more sick of hearing about church government or the lady with the withered arm)
• Back to how he knew HWA the best so therefore he's the best because of osmosis

Rod Meredith's Super Special Not So Special Christmas Sermon

My family left LCG about two years ago.

The first three months or so were somewhat lonely, but we looked around for community organizations we could join to meet people with shared interests.

By six months out, we had a social routine that was as busy as our old LCG routine, except that we never had to drive more than a half-hour to go to a meeting with any of our new friends.

After about a year, we had started to develop some close friendships with our new friends.

Around that time, my wife became seriously ill. We let our old LCG acquaintances know about her illness, and one of our children who still has some close LCG ties even got his mother's name on a prayer list.

So, who was it who came to visit my wife in the hospital? Was it the LCG friends she had known for nearly 20 years? NOT ONE of the LCG friends visited or even phoned to express their concern or support. It was our new friends, people we had known for no more than a year, who rallied to my wife's side and gave her the encouragement that she so needed.

When she was discharged from the hospital, my wife reminded me of my own time in the hospital about a decade ago. Even while we were LCG members in good standing, nobody from LCG had bothered to visit me in the hospital. At the time I didn't think anything of it, as I just assumed everyone was busy with their work and with their many church activities. But seeing how non-LCG-members rallied for my wife, the contrast was too great to ignore.

If you are still in LCG, do not fear. Life is much better on the outside. You will have friends. Real friends. Better friends than you ever had in LCG.

People would be horrified to think they turned an angel away. Even though the angel didn’t need any of the things that it might appear to when it came as a human being. You see. You’d be horrified to think “Ohh, I turned an angel away? Well, then how much worse would it be to turn a son of God away? Nobody would turn an angel away. No one would turn Christ away—Lord, when saw we Younaked, or hungry, or a stranger? And He said, Inasmuch as you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it unto Me. [Paraphrase, Matthew 25].

Do you realize God could test you? And He says so right here. If there are no strangers near you that you would need to take in, He might actually send an angel to test you. There can be no other reason. Angels don’t need beds. They don’t need food, or water, or clothes, and if you said no to them, they would just fly away. So that would be a problem—but if you say no to a little one, or “the least of these, My brethren”—Christ said, “You did it to Me.” Nobody would ever say no to an angel, and that’s better than saying no to one who Christ said was the equivalent of saying no to Him.

So, you may have never thought about that verse, but that’s the context, and it’s the chapter, that it follows, quoting Haggai. And now that we understand the resurrection of the dead, a lot of people I was talking to after services were just floored. They had never thought about thousands of people with enormous needs.

God will test you, even if there isn’t somebody with a need. If you live in outer Slobovia, He might send an angel. I don’t think there is such a place. Wherever it is, it’s outer…[laughter] I think maybe more of you are familiar with inner Slobovia…but I was referring to the outer one.

“Also of your own selves shall men arise…[Men who were faithful and turned. There’s a difference. We’re going to see that’s important later on.]…speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). Now “perverse” means “distorted, misinterpreted” That’s what it means. If you look up the word, it can be translated “perverse or even corrupt,” but the primary meanings are “distorted or misinterpreted.” 

I have watched ministers leave the Church for many years…they will fire off emails where things are distorted or misinterpreted. Now, a lot of stuff in a recent round of emails is just pure fiction; written by inventors of evil things. Almost suggesting the man who wrote these emails is outright demon-possessed. To be in this category, all you really have to do is distort and misinterpret, and that’s a form of perversion and corruption, so that’s important. Men of God can turn and become that way. Never mind those that creep in and never were of God. Here is what struck me, in addition to what I’ve said…

Now, I know I say this every week—and I’m going to continue to say it until it’s not true—but each sermon presents awesome, inspiring new things that are game-changing and, in many ways, continue to make the entire Bible come clear. It has almost become a tradition, not by design, but by accident, that I will open with certain interesting things by way of just “settling the score” on certain questions that have existed for decades and making things clear.

Now we have seen that God will resurrect vast billions at once; 144,000 at another point. Who knows how many were resurrected on the day Christ died, or individuals—the widow’s son, Tabitha, aa, Lazarus, and so forth. He is willing to do one at a time, or medium size numbers, or great numbers. God has a plan for resurrecting each and every person. I have wondered…This is speculation. I don’t know…I have wondered if…At the time we all are born into the Family of God and made of the Holy Spirit, which the later part of this chapter talks about, I wonder if certain ones like Abraham or Moses or others will go first…Noah, Daniel, Job…We are all there, and God will honor certain people and they will come up first. This is important, because I can prove to you, right here—Mr. Armstrong is going to come up ahead of other people.