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| God Speaks to the WCG |
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11 Finishing Off The WCG
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Between 1991 and 1995, we consistently notified about 500 members of the WCG, and their offices around the world, of some of the heresies being promoted by the church leadership. I think it would be fair to say that we did more to alert WCG folks to the apostasy taking place under their noses than any other ministry or church group. But as pernicious as dilution of truth is, it was only one aspect of church apostasy that was swiftly consuming the church from within. Other failings were evidence of the strength of Satan’s embrace. I must mention these in this chapter.
WCG Pride
One of the biggest problems in dealing with the WCG mindset is their unwillingness to accept any guilt. Pride is at the root. If people were truly humble, they would be able to accept blame when it is due to them. But the WCG has continually fostered prideful attitudes.
First, the WCG has regarded itself as God’s one and only true Church. This presumption was rife from the fifties to the nineties. With that approach, naturally, it was far superior to other churches. After all, it was not just any church! It was God’s Church!
Then, there was the matter of true biblical knowledge and understanding. Since it was God’s Church, it was the only one which had the truth. And since it had the truth, it is the only true Church. (It’s another case of which comes first: the chicken or the egg?) All other churches had error, but the WCG didn’t. God wouldn’t let His Church fall into error. He would ensure that His ministry would be kept ‘in the way’. It went without saying that God just would not allow them to be beguiled by Satan.
These were the arrogant and untrue premises upon which WCG philosophy rested. They bred complacency and pride like rotting flesh breeds flies. These attitudes are self-blinding. In such a state of mind, people cannot see the delusions from which they suffer. Nor are they open to reproof and repentance.
The WCG claims it has left this cultism behind. It would also deny it still has this pride. But it is evident to those with true spiritual discernment.
Will the WCG Compensate its Victims?
The depth of this pride is so great that to this very day the WCG takes no real responsibility for its past. It sees no need. Oh, it makes laudable sounding statements about having relinquished its cultic past. It has made many doctrinal reversals, thinking they are central to its restoration. But it does nothing concrete to heal the wounds it inflicted on its outcasts and ‘lepers’. It does not seek them out to ask forgiveness – other than in broad, easy-to-say platitudes that give the right impression to others. All that they do is done for men to see, to look good in the eyes of others, but it is not from the heart. It makes no real amends for the hurts inflicted on those it wounded.
The WCG should put their money where their mouth is. Worldly corporations financially compensate their unfortunate victims, but not the WCG. It ignores those it formerly abused.
The WCG leaders make sure they pay themselves, and secure their own pensions. But when it comes to succouring the downtrodden, that’s not on their agenda. They don’t seriously consider the damage, anguish and distress they have caused to many whom they have abused. Some have even been traumatised and driven to suicide by WCG practice and policy! The WCG have their false ministers to blame for the formation of Midnight Ministries and all the ‘WCG-bashing’ which we have engaged in.[1] If they had done as the Bible commands, settled their account with us early on (Matt 5:23), we would not have had to resort to further measures to seek justice and restitution of wrongs.
Our work in exposing WCG hypocrisy and guile cost us dearly. I spent all my meagre savings (about £5,000), plus a legacy of several thousand pounds, and a further five figure sum, to write, print and distribute literature to expose the WCG chicanery and cant. That may not sound like much to a large church organisation, but for me it was a fortune! It was practically everything our family had! And the number of people who responded positively were precious few!
This all stems from WCG sins. It is the outcome of decisions made by false ministers in WCG in 1990 and earlier. It is one result of letting Satan rule in the church. That is only a fraction of what those men cost me – not merely in financial terms. I had to give up my worthwhile job as a self-employed builder, and devote my time and energies to trying to rectify their mistakes and abuses. “Why?” you may ask. Because of the love God put in my wife and me for those who have been trapped by the cult. And because of the commission God placed upon us to try and help release these people from the stifling, repressive spiritual atmosphere in the church. More about this commission is explained on page 70.
If you want to move on spiritually, I would point you to the further reading at the end of this book. A whole dimension of spirituality has been denied to WCG folks.
If anyone thinks the WCG leadership are honest, sincere and well- meaning.... that they are guided by God.... that they seek peace and reconciliation, let them put their money where their mouth is and prove it. When they compensate me and all the others they have victimised – and don’t forget, many of these cases were not mistakes, they were premeditated orchestrated political moves, meant to destroy people so they would not undermine those WCG ministers’ influence – when they really do compensate their victims, then I will gladly say to all the world, “THE WCG HAS CHANGED! It is now a church of the living God, and has come under His umbrella of grace.” Until then, it is under His fierce judgement, and will not escape one flame of its justified torment!
WCG Have Opted To Pay the Bill in Full
Jesus advised strongly:
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave the gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift (Matt 5:23,24, NIV).
The WCG never did this with us nor with any others whom they deliberately abused for political reasons. We have a mountain of evidence in all the letters I wrote to various WCG personnel, seeking reconciliation and a fair outcome to the dispute WCG ministers began by their victimisation of us. We also have plenty of evidence on video, taken on several occasions, of how we tried to meet with WCG ministry to rectify the situation, and how they just would not address the points at issue, how they continually sidestepped the moral issues at the heart of their problem with us, how they tried to ignore us and hope we would just go away. They hoped that out of sight would be out of mind.
Well, it was so for a while, but God predicted on several occasions during the nineties that this dispute would erupt into something much more far-reaching and devastating than WCG overlords ever imagined! Even as I write (May 2000) it still has not happened, but it will! And soon. (There has been a minor shaking in the church, caused by the separation of breakaway groups, but that is only part of what is to occur. Much more is to follow.)
The WCG leaders will not get out of the prison in which they have incarcerated themselves until they have paid their debt in full (Matt 5:26). It’s not that God is unmerciful. It’s that they have not sought to do what is right and place themselves under His mercy. They have only attempted to cover up their sins and wrongdoings. That does not bring repentance, merely repression and regression.
The Devil Rules the WCG!
I was saying earlier that WCG-bred pride prevents the WCG mind from accepting blame or from being corrected. A WCG lady (who may still be in the church today) wrote to me after I sent her some spiritual material. She didn’t take kindly to it, because it contained references to WCG misdemeanours. She just could not accept that her church could have anything serious to answer for. After all, she had believed that it was God’s Church, and why should His Church be culpable when it is guided by Him?! This antiquated dogma was still at the root of her thinking. My reply was probably more unwelcome to her ears. (I never heard from her again.) I wrote:
“.... A church which unjustifiably causes conflict, and then fails to compensate its victims, is corrupt. A church which protects its ministers when they do wrong (which WCG has done on many occasions) is doubly corrupt. And a church which cannot see when its ministers ARE wrong is even more deceived. It is not guided by the Holy Spirit, but by demons. This is why I said what I did to you in such uncompromising tones. I hold nothing against anyone in the WCG who is deceived. But God holds the culprits responsible who know better but who have preferred expedience than standing up for justice and truth. They will not go unpunished. Many WCG ministers have a lot to answer for!”
What they have done is bring their converts into subjection to the devil. It all begins very subtly, innocuously, ‘innocently’. Just like it did for Adam and Eve. But the end result is that people turn away from obeying and worshipping God, to worshipping the devil. (Of course, they think they are worshipping God, but they are seriously deluded.) I will explain one common pitfall in the WCG which led to this transference of loyalties.
A Warning Dream From God
On 1st May 2000, a WCG friend came to visit Helena and me. The night before, God gave me an explicit dream. What He showed me was perverse and shocking. I saw a strong man, ready to sexually exploit a woman. His sexual parts were so big that any woman who had to suffer his abuse would have been raped and terribly hurt. He tried to cover his sexual parts, but he wasn’t able to do so.
The sexuality in this dream is an analogy like that of Revelation:
By her teaching she misleads My servants into sexual immorality... and... adultery... (Rev 2:20,22, NIV).
God was not referring to literal sexual immorality. That was a metaphor for accepting false teaching. And adultery was a metaphor for the way the Church was allowing false teachers to introduce heresies which led the people into error,and ultimately thereby, the worship of Satan in place of God.
A similar transition has occurred in Worldwide. However, what God showed me in this vision was more horrible than what Revelation depicted. There, the people were being seduced, but in my dream this beast of a man was ready to force himself upon the woman and get what he wanted from her. It was vile. It is a picture of the WCG leadership’s approach in the spiritual. It is not my opinion; it is God’s! If you don’t like to hear such things, don’t blame me. If you do, you are blaming God, because He is the One who gave the dream to me.[2]
This man who came to see us is a victim of very astute, very devious, cunning and subtle manipulative tactics which the WCG leadership employ. By so doing, they force their views upon their subjects, and get church members to do what WCG leadership wants. They are master manipulators.
Manipulation, coercion and control are all tactics Satan employs to one degree or another, and in various shades of colour, to achieve his ends. God does not control. He allows everyone free moral agency. He lets everyone choose which way they will go and what they will believe. But the WCG leaders have come to force themselves upon their hapless subjects. The majority of WCG folks don’t realise what is going on. They think they are merely submitting to church authority – and they are – but whose authority? God’s or the devil’s? [3]
When you submit to men, no matter whether they are ministers who claim to represent God – and no matter how subtly – you are not giving God homage. You are giving men homage. And that is the essence of the underlying principle which God condemns in Revelation 13 with the stamp of 666 and the mark of the beast. It is worship, or obeisance to man, instead of to God. It is worshipping man in God’s place. It is blasphemy.
This individual who came to see us was under the thumb of the local WCG minister. He liked him. He wanted to co-operate with him and do whatever he requested. Oh, it all seemed laudable enough. It was part of the WCG’s agenda, activity and outreach. He thought he was doing good. And it made him feel good.
He had formed an emotional bond with the minister and, by extension, with the church organisation. He felt part of a ‘family’. He felt needed, wanted, accepted and ‘loved’. That is fine if you are in the right place, but you don’t want to be in the wrong place. Would you want to feel accepted and needed by a witches’ coven, or by hell’s angels? Some do! There is a great feeling of comradeship, acceptance, belonging, etc. in the successful cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and other pseudo-Christian cults. But the Synagogue of Satan (Rev 2:9; 3:9) is very much in control! The subtle traps wh ich Satan uses to hold people seem innocuous, but they have far-reaching negative consequences.
What our friend did not perceive was that he was part of a corrupt church, giving homage to corrupt leaders who do not objectively seek truth, but who use their membership for their own ends, politically and financially. The gospel of Christ is merely a convenient mask to hide behind, but not their true motive for living and operating. In this church, he did not see that he was giving his loyalties to these impostors and renegades of the faith once delivered. And – even more shocking – by so doing, he was transferring his loyalties to the devil! Because, Satan is the mastermind behind the WCG facade.
Of course, many will vehemently object at this point, saying I am exaggerating or falsely accusing; that these are good men leading the WCG, but that I am grossly deceived and misrepresenting them. Sorry. But you are wrong! Dead wrong! I have a mountain of evidence to incriminate them. Besides our personal experience, much of which is written evidence, and some on tape and video, there is also that of Ambassador Report and others. Then there is the voluminous testimony of scores of dreams God has given us about the WCG over the years. Revelation settles any dispute – for those who want the truth.
When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal Myself [and God’s mind] to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams (Num 12:6, NIV).
It’s up to WCG folks whether they want release, of course. Too many are content to stay in a compromised spiritual environment and allow themselves to be exploited and corrupted. It’s easier than leaving and moving on. It’s less hassle. So, many don’t want to know the truth, because it’s comfortable continuing to believe a lie. And the longer you have believed it, the easier it is to continue down the same well-trodden path.
What God Said to Me Years Ago
Many will naturally wonder about our commission. “What is it? What did God say to you and command you to do?”
About a year after we were falsely accused and chucked out of the WCG, God spoke to me cryptically one morning. He woke me up earlier than usual and kept repeating over and over in my mind the words Jeremiah 22, Jeremiah 22, Jeremiah 22, Jeremiah 22, Jeremiah 22... etc.
At first I didn’t know what to make of this. I had never had a ‘voice’ in my head before. You hear of those who hear ‘voices’ and mostly they are off their ‘rockers’ or under severe demonic bombardment. But this was not demanding, although it was persistent.
Even though I read all of Jeremiah 22, I still was not sure what God was trying to tell me. I mused on it for some while, but it was months later when He spoke again and made it clearer what He meant. He highlighted these words:
.... deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor... (Jer 22:3).
He was telling me that there were severely plundered people trapped in Worldwide (and also trapped in other cults that have broken away from the mother church). Spiritually, these poor folks are blinkered. They have been oppressed and that spiritual oppression has robbed them of the freedoms they should be able to enjoy in Christ. It has also deprived them of the riches that are obtainable when freed to see that outside their deceptive ‘bubble’ there are other Spirit-led teachers, evangelists, prophets, apostles and pastors from whom they can learn. They don’t have all truth, but they have some, and if you are willing to be open-minded and search, you can find much to uplift, edify and enlighten in several quarters.
Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. It is the devil who comes to steal away the abundance God offers us through His Spirit (Jn 10:10). Worldwide, despite some good points, did much unfortunately, to restrict people and deny them the freedoms that Christ offers through the Spirit. They denied their people true abundance.
God is now saying “Come out! Enjoy the fruits of true spirituality that I am offering you. Taste the benefits of worshipping in the spirit. Receive My supernatural spiritual gifts. Don’t be shackled any more by the lies of men who have held you down, who have oppressed you and denied your full spiritual expression. Set yourself free.”
It’s up to you. You don’t have to willingly submit to illicit spiritual restrictions and even abuse. It may seem harder to free yourself from the shackles of following men, but it is the best and only true way – if you want to come out and follow God.
People thought that my wife and I would either wither and die spiritually after we were thrust out of the church, or that we would soon be back, bowing down to the wishes of ‘higher command’.
What they never appreciated was why I joined Worldwide in the first place. I was only 16 when I first learned ‘the truth’ (those aspects of it I understood then). I fought tooth and nail to withstand my family’s strong Methodist tradition, so I could adhere to what God had shown me in His Word. It was not men I followed when I joined Worldwide in 1968. It was God. He was the One who called me, and He had His reasons for calling me into the WCG.
So, when men ejected me 22 years later, I realised it was another favourable development, once I was able to see what God was doing through it all. It was a step forward, not in reverse. And no one would persuade me to come crawling back into a far-from-ideal spiritual environment to give obeisance to hirelings! It is God I serve and obey, and God I worship, not man.
I have compassion for those whose psychology is bent by WCG indoctrination and habit. I feel for them. Some are trapped through blindness. They don’t realise church leaders are promoting serious heresies. They don’t have the perception or knowledge of the scriptures to be able to sift through the changes and separate truth from error.
Then there are those who are still there because they don’t know what else to do. They don’t know where else they can go. They attend out of habit, and long-standing habits are hard to change.
The “better-the-devil-you-know than the-devil-you-don’t-know” syndrome holds some in. Others still consider it a mark of loyalty to remain inside, even if they don’t agree with what is taught. And there are some of the old-guard who still believe that it is God’s Church and that God won’t let His Church go seriously astray. Or, if error enters, He will correct that error through the leadership. They still believe this fallacy which has no support in scripture (3 Jn 9,10; 1 Tim 4).
Whatever the reasons, these must not deter you from leaving the WCG in its myopic, corrupt state. You will never find more of God while you let the devil hold you captive. You’ve got to set yourself free. Here is what God says to you:
Awake! Awake! O Zion.... free yourself from the chains on your neck, O captive daughter (Isaiah 52:1,2, NIV).
Wake up! Get out! (Rev 18:4.) Trim your lamps, the time is late. A Midnight Cry is going forth (Matt 25).
The Lesson to All
The WCG is an example to all other churches of what can happen when prophetic input from God is ignored. The difficulty for most people, being physical, is to perceive when God is actually speaking, because He uses human instruments to convey His words.
It would be obvious if He were to always speak audibly and with a great show of power, like He did to Israel from Sinai (Ex 19). But that was a ‘one-off’. After the request of the people, who asked that God would NOT speak to them directly any more (Ex 20:19 — and you would have reacted the same way), God worked through humans He appointed – prophets. He still works through prophets today (Eph 4:11-13), despite what some say to the contrary. Although He will also speak in part through spiritual people in the Church (to anyone who has accepted His baptism in the Spirit), when the Church as a whole fails to heed serious words and desperately needs restoration and redirection, that’s when the prophet is indispensable. He is the mouthpiece God uses. What the WCG situation illustrates to other groups is several things:
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