Bob Thiel and Dreams

Dr. Robert Thiel has posted about a dream he had a few years ago and about a dream one of his supporters in New Zealand had about a month before he left LCG. He seems to think these dreams are prophetic dreams from God and are supporting evidence that he is a prophet or that his leaving LCG to form a new Church of God fellowship is a right action endorsed by God. He compares his dream with Loma Armstrong's dream that Mr. Armstrong relates in his autobiography, which seems prophetic.

Here is a link to his post:
http://www.cogwriter.com/news/doctrine/dreams-and-the-continuing-church-of-god/

I won't cover the dream of the woman in New Zealand. To me it is a bit of a stretch to connect this dream with Bob Thiel at all. It is one of those things that require a great deal of "interpretation", and I suppose it could be interpreted more than one way. Things in her in her dream seemed to make her think she should leave LCG, and there is a reference in her dream to the Old Testament "ark of the covenant". Dr. Thiel seems to connect this with his practice of reading from the book of Deuteronomy during the 2013 Feast of Tabernacles.

But in Dr. Thiel's own dream, he dreamt that there were two lines, one representing Dr. Meredith and one representing himself. These were parallel horizontal lines, one above the other. Dr. Meredith's line was above Dr. Thiel's line. Then in his dream, the lines crossed and his line was above Dr. Meredith's line. Dr. Thiel said he had this dream a few years ago, when he was 50 years old, but does not give the date. I do not know how old Dr. Thiel is now, so I cannot say how many years ago this dream occurred. But at the time it occurred, Dr. Thiel said he had good relations with Dr. Meredith and did not understand the dream. Now that things have come to pass as they have and Dr. Thiel has left LCG, he seems to think the dream was prophetic.

But there have been indications of a parting of the ways between Dr. Thiel and Dr. Meredith long before he actually left LCG in December 2012, almost a year ago. For example, around February 2012 and earlier, Dr. Thiel was posting about his view that Church of God members should not watch football while Mr. Wally Smith, an LCG minister, was posting that it is not wrong for Church members to watch football. I sent an email to Dr. Thiel February 14, 2012 about that and another matter in which he contradicted LCG, telling him that I did not think he was doing a good job of representing LCG in his blog and he should not be contradicting his own Church of God organization he attends and their ministry while he is with them. So the disagreements with LCG had started before he left, by about a year, possibly more.

As I say, I do not know the year of Dr. Thiel's dream. But if it occurred at a time when he already disagreed with LCG about some points of doctrine or Christian living or Bible prophecy, it could easily be explained as the result of natural causes even before Dr. Thiel thought about leaving LCG. I am no expert on dreams, but I understand that things can come out in a dream in various ways that a person has been thinking about subconsciously, but has not yet consciously faced and thought out.

I will use myself as an example. I will tell you one of my dreams I had while I was in Worldwide. I do not regard it as a prophetic dream, just a dream.

Some people dream more than others. I have dreams almost every night. I usually don't remember them very clearly when I wake up, but sometime I do. Usually they are just crazy dreams. I could probably entertain you with some of them, but I won't waste time on that.

While Mr. Tkach was making changes, at first I was not upset by the changes, but researched them with an open mind. Eventually I proved from the Bible that the changes were not according to the Bible, and I left Worldwide. During this time, before I thought about leaving Worldwide, I had a dream that I was in a kind of building that was also a machine. It is hard to describe. The best comparison I could make would be with something like the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek, but this "building" was on the earth. I was inside, in a passageway, with about 5 or 6 other brethren. And in this building or machine, I felt a strong sense of uncleanness about the place, a feeling of dread, of corruption, of revulsion about the place, like the building was a bad and dangerous place to be in, or that there was an evil presence in it. It was a strong emotion. Then I woke up.

Later, after I left Worldwide, I thought that the dream could have been about Worldwide, that the building or machine I was in was Worldwide and I needed to get out.

But I never assumed it was a prophetic dream from God. Why? Because my mind and brain already had enough information at that time to know that I needed to get out of Worldwide at some point - I just didn't consciously arrive at that conclusion yet. It could easily be explained as my subconscious mind telling me something in my dreams that I was not yet ready to face when I was awake.

I don't think that kind of thing is unusual.

Now, could God have inspired the dream? It is possible, but I never assumed that and I don't assume it now. I do not regard it as a prophetic dream, and it definitely does not make me a prophet. It can be explained as the natural workings of the human mind, and I leave it at that. Even if God did inspire the dream, that does not make me a prophet, and I know that I am NOT a prophet.

The same kind of thing could have happened with Bob Thiel and his dream. At some point, while he had disagreements with Dr. Meredith and the LCG ministry over this point or that of Bible doctrine, prophecy, or Christian living, points that may have seemed minor to Dr. Thiel at the time, yet points that suggested to Dr. Thiel that he had a better understanding of these things than LCG, these points of disagreement and the sense that he knew better than LCG may have motivated and caused this dream long before Dr. Thiel was ready to face, while awake, the possibility of leaving LCG over these disagreements. So his dream could easily be explained by natural causes. If he disagreed with LCG about anything when he had this dream, or if he felt he had a better grasp of prophecy and doctrine than LCG, then the seeds for this dream were there in his mind. It does not require any supernatural cause.

In the case of Loma Armstrong's dream, this was not the case. According to Mr. Armstrong's autobiography, Mrs. Armstrong had a dream that an angel appeared to her and said that Christ had important work for Mr. Armstrong to do. It was an unusually vivid dream. This dream occurred in Chicago (where the Armstrongs were living at the time), and this occurred long before either Mr. or Mrs. Armstrong learned the truth. Mr. Armstrong was working in advertising at the time. There was not a hint of information available to Mrs. Armstrong that would have suggested to her the possibility that her husband might become a minister. In retrospect, after Christ did begin to use Mr. Armstrong to do important work, it became clear that this dream probably was from God. It cannot be easily explained by natural causes. Mr. Armstrong was not religious and Mrs. Armstrong did not even know about the Sabbath at that time.

But I will raise the question, what if Bob Thiel does receive a dream from a supernatural source, one that cannot be explained by natural causes? What if he has a dream that an earthquake will occur in a certain place at a certain time, and he is told in the dream to use his blog to warn the Church? And what if he does post a message in his blog stating that he had a dream that there would be an earthquake, stating a specific date and time in the future, maybe to the very day, hour, and minute, and then stating a specific location by degrees and minutes of longitude and latitude, even specifying the exact strength of the earthquake on the Richter scale, and then a few days or a few weeks later it happened EXACTLY AS HE PREDICTED! Would that make him a true prophet or prove that he is a true prophet of God?

EMPHATICALLY NO!

I believe it would clearly put him in the category of Deuteronomy 13:1-4: "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods'-which you have not known-'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him."

Notice we are to obey God's voice.

How would Dr. Thiel fall into the above category? He does not obey the instruction to give no heed to prophecies from pagan or non-biblical sources that do not follow the Bible. In teaching and spreading prophecies from non-biblical sources, as he does in his books and his blog, I believe he is violating the clear intent of God's voice in these scriptures: "Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:31). "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you" (Deuteronomy 18:9-14).

"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods'-which you have not known-'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 13:1-3). "And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people" (Leviticus 20:6). In other words, do not give regard to "prophecies" or messages from the spirit world given by those who do not teach the truth. Do not regard spirit-inspired messages, possibly Satan or demon inspired, from a Satan-deceived world. Don't look to these pagan prophecies, publish them, spread them, in order to know or teach details of the future that God does not reveal in the Bible. That is not for God's people, as God says, "the Lord your God has not appointed such for you" (Deuteronomy 18:9-14).

When we seek out, publish, and try to learn from so-called "prophets" of this deceived world, who themselves receive messages from the occult, from mediums, etc., it is the same as if we tried to make contact with Satan and the demons themselves, for they are the source of the prophetic messages they inspire.

If Dr. Thiel has a dream which he regards as inspired from a spirit source, I hope for his sake that he is wrong, that it is just the natural workings of the human mind, not supernaturally inspired at all. For how can God use Dr. Thiel as a true prophet as long as he teaches and spreads pagan prophecies contrary to scripture?

After Dr. Thiel left LCG, I published a series of posts showing why we should not give heed to this world's non-biblical prophecies. Here is a link to one post, and in that post are additional links to posts that go into more detail about this:
http://ptgbook.blogspot.com/2013/04/do-not-cause-others-to-sin.html

If Bob Thiel stops using pagan prophecies in his publications, I do not rule out the possibility that God could use him as a prophet in the future. It seems unlikely to me, but I can't rule it out. But I believe there is NO chance God will use Dr. Thiel as a true prophet while he continues to publish books filled with pagan prophecies and publishes blog posts with pagan prophecies. Rather, if he continues on the path he is on, I think there is a danger God may allow Satan to use him as a false prophet.