Asplode Alert: UCG Lectures on Lying

Here is a quote from United Church of God on how lying  affects one's health.  This is rich coming from UCG considering the incredible amount of lying that went on when they were apostatizing from WCG in the 1990's and then again when they ruptured with the COGWA split.  Armstrongism has a sad legacy of lying.  Justified lying has always been a fixture of the church, just as it has been in other cults like the JW's and Adventists.

Feel Better – Quit Lying!…
[Steve Myers] There’s a new research study that is just out from the University of Notre Dame. I ran across an interesting article that talked about the “science of honesty” – that’s the name of the study. So, can you imagine that? The science of honesty. And so it involves lying, imagine this. Here’s what the researchers found at Notre Dame. They found that when people manage to reduce their lies – this is over a 10 week period – they reported significantly improved physical and mental health in those same weeks. So they found there’s a direct correlation between not telling lies and feeling better. And it’s an interesting study when you begin to look at the details of this and the effects of lying on our mental and physical health. There is a connection.

[Darris McNeely] And that shouldn’t be surprising to us because lying is certainly something forbidden by one of God’s Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not lie” (Exodus 20: 16 and Deuteronomy 5:20). He put that in there as a very important spiritual principle. And all of God’s law has certain physical connections to our well-being as well as certainly our spiritual relationship with God. So, from a scriptural perspective, that shouldn’t be surprising.

asplode

verb (asplode, asplodes, asploding, asploded; n. asplosion, asplosions)

A mixture of an explosion and implosion, usually affecting only a person's head, though anything is subject to asploding.

It is a spontaneous and violent act, though usually its effects are only temporary, restoring its victim to continue normally or asplode again. An asplosion may occur if a person is overwhelmed by current circumstances, or if the existence of an object must suddenly cease to exist.

Six Hours of Hell With Apostle Malm

The wanna-be apostle and spiritual leader of the true remnant of Armstrongism is doing a "study" on Nehemiah.  One of his acolytes asked for the apostle to explain the hours mentioned in the scripture below.

Neh 9:1-4 “Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them.
And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.
And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the LORD their God.
Then stood up upon the stairs, of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God.”
This passage seems to say that the people stood for 12 hours (two fourth parts of the day)while they were either read to or publicly confessed their sins. How could that be given the limits of human endurance and the biological necessities common to all people?


I suppose that there were certainly some comings and goings by individuals and maybe official breaks as well. Also please consider that this is talking about daylight and not a 24 hour day. I doubt very much that they were trying to read in the middle fo the night, in the dark while most were nodding off.
Twelve hours of daylight divided by four would be three hours or just a bit longer than a standard COG service today. Then a break of about three hours for personal prayer and discussion, followed by another three hour service in the afternoon. This may have been even shorter than three hours each, as I would think that the scripture here was a general estimate concerning the timeframes.

Imagine three and half years in Petra spending six hours every Saturday listening to a Malmite preach the law.  The lake of fire looks really appealing!