What are the responsibilities or duties of those who are now outside the WCG or any of its offshoots?
Are we really a part of anything? Are we even important in the scheme of things?
To that I answer Yes! We are now more important, as individuals, than we ever were as members of the WCG or any group that we can name!
It all boils down to the same questions we heard so many years ago: Who am I? Why was I born? What is my purpose?
Is there a God? What is my relationship, if any, to that God?
When you walk away from the various WCG offshoots, you are now forced to ask that question of yourself. Not as part of a group, but as an individual! We might ask “Who am I NOW?”
“What do I do NOW?”, “Am I important as an individual NOW?”
You are more important now than ever before! You, of all the masses and millions who exist on this earth, are able, perhaps for the first time in your life, to ask the above questions, As an individual, and that alone makes you more important than the masses of people who dare not step out and live as individuals!
You and I have now discovered that there is no church of God we can join. We have now discovered that all the religious organizations of men are a farce, a scam, and we have been suckered for the final time.
But really, isn’t that exactly what the bible told us all along? Can we organize in the name of God? Can men rule over us in the name of God? Does any person on this earth have the right or the authority to represent God on our behalf?
No, and they never did! What did Paul tell us in Romans 8:7?
“Because the carnal(fleshy, natural) mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can be”.
If your natural mind is not and cannot be subject to the law of God, who, then, can make you subject to that law? Well, God would, IF we could prove there is a God, right? Can we prove it? No! We simply can’t! We can hope there is a God, believe there is a God, and do everything possible to make others agree that there is a God, but we simply don’t know!
So, let’s assume someone comes up to you and say “I represent the truth! I know why you were born! I can tell you what you need to know!”
If you’re like me and most others who have left the “true church”, you’re going to say, “Yeah, right, head on down the road, Jack, and don;t let the door kick you in the rear as you leave”.
If there is one thing that we can agree on, those of us who have taken that step to freedom, we know better!
If somebody comes around saying “here is Christ!” We can look them squarely in the eye and say “Prove it!”.
But they can’t, and we know they can’t!
But isn’t that exactly what Jesus told his followers in Matthew 24, the big chapter that HWA used to show us the ‘Key to Revelation”?
Jesus told his followers “Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many”.
Does that mean we should listen to no one who comes claiming that THEY are Christ? Who’s going to be deceived by that nonsense? Of course no man living today is Jesus. We know that from simple logic. If there was Jesus, he lived two thousand years ago, and he was put to death. No man coming today can be him.
Old Herb actually had a point. If any man comes in the name of Christ, or saying “lo, he is here, or there”, Jesus told us plainly to “believe it not!(Matthew 24:23)”.
Of course! If the natural mind is enmity against God, and cannot be subject to God’s laws, and a whole bunch of people come claiming to either be the Christ or represent the Christ(messiah in that time), how in the world are we going to prove it? You can’t prove it. It’s impossible!
If it were possible, why are there an estimated 38,000 versions of Christianity? Why does the number keep growing? When I was a boy, it was estimated at over six hundred. Now, it’s over 38,000!
God did not create us to stand around and follow orders like some kind of robot! If he had, we would be able to prove what those orders are, know how to obey them, and understand them completely.
But here’s the problem: if we can do that, we can program those same orders into a computer, and make that computer a perfect representative of God! If we can understand it, we can translate it to language. If we can do that, we can translate it to algorithms, and if we can do that, we can fully program God’s law into a computer! But we can’t do that!
How do we know? Romans 8:7! The natural mind cannot be subject to God’s law! Godel;’s theorem! In any consistent axiomatic formulation of number theory, there exist undecidable propositions. In other words, we know from both the Bible and ,mathematics that there is no way any man or group of humans can represent God by any process of law!
Did Jesus tell us that? Yes, in Matthew 24:23! Did Paul tell us that? Yes, in Romans 8:7!
You cannot join into the collective, finite, rational, logical laws of men and expect to be the son of God! It cannot be done! Paul told us this emphatically. God foreknows his children, he predestines his children. he calls his children.
Who is “called”? I have no idea. Who are “elect”? Not a clue. But neither does anyone else on this planet!
Jesus said that you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What is the truth? The truth is that I am the truth. YOU are the truth, YOU are the individual who has a right to live freely according to your conscience, and no other person has the right to tell you otherwise!
Those of you who have come this far, YOU are the “salt of the earth” to which Jesus referred. YOU are the individuals now prepared to “come out and be ye a separate people”. YOU are now empowered, AS INDIVIDUALS, to question the rules and powers of men, to live by the rules and freedoms that God grants you, here and now, on this earth, at this time.
“Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
It’s is not and CANNOT be about collective rules and laws and governments. It’s about YOU as a child of God, a free individual, now empowered to think, to question, to learn, and to grow!
YOU, the individual who reads this, are free! You are free from the collective will of men, free of collective religions, free to live by your conscience, free to live peaceably with all people, free to demand that you have the right of your conscience.
This “alienation” that you are now feeling is actually the greatest gift you can be given! You are more than rules, more than laws, and more than the collective will of men. You are free before God!