“Merry Chris…, No, strike that. Merry Incarnation. Yes, that will fool them.”Quote from http://www.wcg.org/lit/holidays/calendar.htm:” (Editor: no longer online) 5. Special worship offerings are collected on Resurrection Sunday, Pentecost, the first day of the Festival of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day and the days on which Unleavened Bread, Trumpets, Atonement and the Incarnation are celebrated.”
In light of the fact that the Worldwide Church of God just can’t seem to bring itself to say “Christmas” or “Easter,” we at The Painful Truth wish to help the Worldwide Church of God with their “New” holiday with some new Chris… er… Incarnation Day carols and poems which follow below. Contributed by Mary.
Have a Holly, Jolly Incarnation.
It’s the best time of the year.I just know,
we’ll give you a snow job,
so send your offerings with cheer.
Little Jack Horner
sat in the corner
eating his incarnation pie.
He stuck in his thumb
and pulled out a plum
and said . . .
“First of the firstfruits! I’d better send this in!
What a good boy am I!”
Oh incarnation tree, incarnation tree,
Why are you trimmed with all those monies?
Is income doing well?
Did the campus sell?
Or did you layoff more employees?
We worship you,
‘cuz money is,
the name of the game,
in the religion biz.
Oh incarnation tree, incarnation tree,
Here’s special offerings from me.
Away in a manger
a box for his bed,
Our little lord ex-minister
lays down his poor head.
He lost his job,
he lost all his perks.
He lost all contact
with his fellow jerks.
He wouldn’t accept Jesus,
nor the new covenant.
He wouldn’t join an offshoot,
too loyal for that.
He really thought his church
would get back on track.
Or the world would end,
then Herbie would come back.
But neither has happened
to this very day.
So he sleeps in a barn
in a box filled with hay.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here is a simple Christmas fruitcake recipe compliments of the Grave Yard Church of God:
GYCG FRUITCAKE
INGREDIENTS:
One Herb.
No second bananas.
A lot of nuts.
DIRECTIONS:
Mix ingredients at random.
Take Herb seriously.
Half bake ideas for decades.
After Herb is done, split into hundreds of smaller portions.
Is usually given to hundreds of thousands, but really serves only one.
______________________________________________________________________________
“The WORLD TOMORROW” A NATION-WIDE BROADCAST
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG Analyses Today’s News, with the Prophecies of THE WORLD TOMORROW
The PLAIN TRUTH A Magazine of UNDERSTANDING Publishing
Box 111, Pasadena, California
November 25,1949
Dear Friend:
I don’t believe that I have written you a letter before.
I am happy that you are one who has asked for The PLAIN TRUTH, and I want you to know personally how very grateful I am for your interest. It is a real privilege to be able to send it to you —a blessed opportunity that has come to me to be permitted to write The PLAIN TRUTH for so many, many interested people to read from Coast to Coast, and even in other nations.
You see, we have a very different policy from any I know in practice today. We publish a very different national magazine —without subscription price. Although our policy prevents me from begging for money over the air, or even mentioning its need for this great work except most rarely, I do urge all our listeners in every broadcast to send us their names and addresses for our mailing list, so we may send them The PLAIN TRUTH—and without subscription price.
Do you know WHY I probably have never written you before? And now that I stop to realize the real reason, I want first of all to hasten to APOLOGIZE for this neglect. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.
Let me explain this way: I remember one night I had told a congregation that if we really believed Jesus was right when He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” we would THANK those who permit us to serve them, instead of those who serve us. That seemed very strange to my hearers, I noticed. After the service, Mrs. Armstrong and I drove an elderly lady to her home in our car. On helping her out of the car at her home, it occurred to me I ought to practice what I had preached, so I warmly thanked her for permitting us the privilege of rendering her this kindness. Instinctively she started to say, “Oh, no—I’m the one to thank YOU!”—when she caught herself, remembered the sermon, laughed and said, “Well, you’re welcome!”
And now is my face red! Long ago I should have written you and THANKED you for permitting me the fine privilege of writing for you, and sending to you, The PLAIN TRUTH! For it is, indeed, one of the great privileges of my life, for which I have, time and again, thanked God! You see, I have written to those who sent in tithes, or contributions for God’s work, and thanked them for giving—but I realize new I have neglected to write and thank you, and all the rest of our vast mailing list who are not co-workers, for permitting us to give! The policy I mentioned above is this: Unless a listener to the radio program, or a reader of The PLAIN TRUTH voluntarily, without solicitation, becomes a co-worker, we make no request for money. Approximately 10% of those receiving The PLAIN TRUTH are co-workers—and it is their tithes and offerings, voluntarily sent, which make it possible for us to send The PLAIN TRUTH free to the other 90%, and also to send out the radio program over the most powerful radio stations to a Coast to Coast audience every day (or night) of the year. So now I do, from the heart, want to say THANK YOU! And I shall try, if God will give me strength to write it, and move our co-workers to provide, to send you The PLAIN TRUTH every month this coming year!
Here we are again coming to the Christmas shopping season. Did you ever stop to ask WHY people give Christmas gifts?
Actually the custom started in ancient paganism. If you’d like the real TRUTH about Christmas, how it started, where it came from, what the Bible says about it (and you’ll be SURPRISED!) just write for our free booklet, “The Truth About Christmas.” But people think they give Christmas presents because the wise men presented gifts to the Christ child.
Notice how it is written: “And when they (the wise men) were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto HIM (Christ) gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” (Matt 2:11). These are not cheap, but the very finest, most valuable—the things most in esteem among themselves. Actually, the truth is they presented these gifts because it was CUSTOM to present gifts to a KING—and Christ was born to be King of all the earth!
But did you notice that they did not TRADE GIFTS among themselves? They did not give presents to each other. They gave their gifts to CHRIST! And what are people doing today? Today, at this Christmas season, people usually forget, or neglect Christ and His work, and spend all their money EXCHANGING GIFTS BACK AND FORTH AMONG THEMSELVES!
The truth is, as we approach this Christmas shopping season, the precious work of Christ is having a terrible financial struggle. It is meeting a severe test of faith. And we know many of our regular co-workers who regularly contribute to this important work thru the year will neglect it or put it off so they can spend all their money trading gifts among their relatives and friends! It is a time of sore trial and great test of faith for those who have given their lives to the work of Christ!
And so without apology I make a bold suggestion: This is not a request—but I pass it on to you as a SUGGESTION for you to think over, and do as you yourself wish, or feel God leads you: THIS Christmas shopping season, WHY NOT GIVE A GIFT TO CHRIST FOR HIS WORK? Won’t you feel better about it if CHRIST is on your list? And, in fact should HE not be placed at the very HEAD of the list, instead of the bottom—for the largest, most generous gift of all?
Let me just say that money given to this work of God is spent in proclaiming the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to a nation- wide cumulative audience of more than SEVEN MILLION people every week—in sending out The PLAIN TRUTH and tons of other literature, all free and without price—and in conducting what we believe is America’s finest and best, the surely one of its smallest liberal arts colleges, Ambassador College, in Pasadena, where young men and women of purpose, nearly all working their own way thru, are being trained in the TRUE VALUES of living, for useful, successful lives, many of them in the service of Christ. Hundreds of precious souls have been thoroughly converted this past year thru this dynamic and glorious work. And, as near as careful tests and estimates can calculate, every dollar placed in this work carries the true GOSPEL to TWO THOUSAND PRECIOUS SOULS! I know of no such economy or efficiency in reaching multitudes anywhere. This work is incorporated as “RADIO CHURCH OF GOD,” and officially approved by the Internal Revenue Bureau as a non-profit religious association, so that any amount up to 15% of your net taxable income sent to this work as a donation is automatically tax-exempt on your income- tax return.
Again, let me THANK YOU, sincerely and from the heart, for your interest. Your name continues automatically on our mailing list. I hope to make the broadcasts and The PLAIN TRUTH even more interesting this coming year!
Sincerely, in Jesus’ name,
Herbert W. Armstrong
You would think that Christian people, even though they may be a statistically negligible percentage of the greater Christian community, would be pleased at any event which made people think about and talk about Jesus Christ. But, HWA’s followers never saw that as encouraging in any way, because Armstrongism only saw and taught black and white. Mainstream preachers have even pointed out that in the stories of the Israelites in the Old Testament, God seems to have often blessed even partial obedience, (like destroying at least some of the idols) and the implications were that He did this as an encouragement, just as we would encourage our children as they seemed to be grasping the important lessons we tried to teach them.
Now that it is known that there is no genetic way that the pilgrims who conquered the new world were direct and uncontaminated descendants of the ancient Israelites, Armstrongites need to seriously consider other possibilities as to why the USA has been the wealthiest nation in planet Earth’s history. Could it be that Rennaissance thinking and technology, combined with the natural resources of our continent made this possible, in ways that the Native Americans had not been able to harvest? Paul says all Christians (people whose religions are based on Jesus Christ) are Abraham’s seed. Could it be that a nation founded upon, or greatly influenced by the principles which were spawned by the Protestant Reformation displayed sufficient partial obedience to trigger blessings from God? Or was evolution the dominating natural process, a process totally devoid of any guidance or probability enhancing by any sort of supreme being, meaning that all leaps forward were simply a part of further evolution? These are just the three major alternatives to Armstrongist thinking on this topic, and there are probably many more, or assorted variations.
This past year, 2015, has been an anniversary year in and of itself. It has been the fortieth anniversary of the failure of 1975. We have now greatly exceeded any variables built into the math equations involving two nineteen year time cycles, absolute year 6,000 based on Ussher’s Chronology, or the times of the gentiles. We are also witnessing the passing of the baby boomer generation born in the year of the rebirth of Israel as a nation. No on-again, off again temple has been built in Jerusalem. Natural disasters have been dealt with and recovered from. Any possible disease epidemics have been contained shortly after they erupted, Europe’s progress as a super power has been slow, painful, and tenuous, and if anything, the Catholic Church’s influence has continued to diminish. All of this, as the bits of shipwreck flotsam and jetsam of what was once Herbert W. Armstrong’s empire continue to diminish and sink!
Let us hope that in 2016, more of those who were infected by cultic thinking will come to greater realizations, and will embrace some life-improving premises for their own incarnations, rather than all of the gloom, doom, and crippling authoritarianism which we have all experienced to one extent or another.
BB
Not to mention that Herbies Pasadena campus has been destroyed and replaced with useful housing. All that work to give the world a taste of Gods kingdom destroyed by Herbie appointing the wrong man to lead the cult after his departure. God must not have been too smart in leading Herbie to appoint Tkcrotch. Or is it the opposite? Herbie wasn’t led by God and appointed his successor thru sheer incompetence? Yes, I think the later. Herbie destroyed his own legacy. His religion has died and imitators have replaced the religion with their own version, building copycat campuses that choke the lifeblood from the membership.