When Are You Going to Admit that Bill Watson IS RIGHT?

Pastor Bill Watson of the Church of God International is certainly consistent – I’ll give him that! He has never wavered in his conviction that he has the truth, and that it is his job to try to convince everybody else to conform to the dictates of his conscience.

Pastor Watson opened his remarks with a warning about a potential widening of the ongoing wars involving Israel because of that nation’s counterattack on Iran. Turning his attention closer to home, the pastor reminded his audience that the general election was rapidly approaching in the United States. Watson said that he saw some of Trump’s most recent rally, and that “DJT” was “essentially trolling the Marxist group of people, the Marxist party, frankly, that stands for killing children – I’m not going to make any apologies for that, because that’s what that party stands for - open borders, by-the-way, higher taxes, and let the prices continue to rise. If you like it, you can vote for that particular party of Marxists…” Once again, however, Bill insisted that he wasn’t talking politics – that he was talking “policy.”

Then, finally, Mr. Watson waded into the main topic of his message: How important it is for everyone to observe the festivals outlined in Torah. Hewing close to the Armstrongist party line, he insisted that Christians need a yearly reminder about what God is working out here on earth. Ironically, after fifty years of observing these festivals, Bill still hasn’t learned what they symbolize or mean! Indeed, instead of underscoring how they ALL point to CHRIST, Watson parroted Mr. Armstrong’s nonsense about how they portray the “truths” which he alone had deciphered and revealed. For Bill, the Eucharist is only to be performed within the context of the yearly Jewish Passover. Likewise, Christians MUST make a concerted effort to deleaven their houses, cars and toasters. The Day of Atonement is all about Satan, and the Feast of Tabernacles is all about the Millenium. And, of course, Bill means that all of them should be observed according to Armstrongist tradition (don’t worry about all of those instructions in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy).

Talk about a true-believer, Mr. Watson is it. He believes that physical observances (rituals) repeated over and over again are the way to grow in grace and knowledge. Never mind that mushy love stuff! For Bill, true spirituality is found in performing all of the rituals which Mr. Armstrong identified in Torah as being binding on “true” Christians. For him, the New Covenant is built on the foundation of the Old one – an updated version of the same deal which God made with the children of Israel. According to Bill, Christ’s fulfillment of the Law of Moses does NOT mean that we are exempt from obeying it. Forget that stuff about Christians not being justified by the works of the Law. For Bill, Christians would be lost without the Torah!

Come to think of it, Bill may be right to worry about his flock’s observance of those Jewish rituals. Indeed, all of the clips that I looked at of ACOG feast sites showed a lot of empty seats, and most of the ones that were occupied were supporting elderly men and women. In fact, there were quite a few empty pews at Medina this past Sabbath for Bill’s sermon!