Banned on Alton Billingsley and COG predictions–but Gary Leonard ignores the truth

(Photo from UnSplash)

COGwriter

The webmaster of anti-COG Banned by HWA website, Gary Leonard, posted the following:

The Church of God is positively bursting at the seams with so many self-appointed, truth-challenged false prophets these days that keeping score is getting downright exhausting.

We’ve got Dave Pack, whose “Christ” is apparently making a special detour to Wadsworth, Ohio, just to squeeze in a quick shopping trip at the Giant Eagle. Then there’s Gerald Flurry, waiting for his version of Christ to show up in Edmond, Oklahoma, ready to be crowned King of Kings on some ridiculous chair with a grimy rock from Oregon shoved under the seat. And let’s not overlook Ron Weinland, the pioneering Church of God prophet who achieved the rare distinction of becoming a convicted felon. All of them are batting a solid, unwavering .000.

Don’t forget Alton Billingsley’s legendary 2021 prophecy masterpiece—truly groundbreaking material… if you happen to enjoy predictions that come with a complimentary industrial-sized salt shaker. (Every other “prophecy” this man has ever made has crashed and burned so spectacularly that failure might actually be his spiritual gift.)

Possibly close to the Passover, April 4, 2023, will begin the famine to last for three and one-half years that God in heaven above is bringing on His people, the House of Joseph, America and Britain, and other tribes of Israel.

Prophecy also makes known the devil will release Assyria-Germany from the bottom- less pit. Therefore, bringing into existence the Holy Roman Empire sometime during the year, 2024.

Then the severity of the famine, with pestilence, Covid 19 mutating into the black plague, will commence destroying America in particular—then the same to come upon the other Israeli nations in 2026! All this is to be followed by nuclear warfare (Ezekiel 5:12)—with the lone exception of Judah. Her fate will come later.

Before all this, there will be a civil war, 2024-2025 (Jeremiah 51:46 “… Violence in the land ruler against ruler….”) Could the civil war begin because of the possible assassination of President Trump? Something momentous will have to happen to trigger it! The civil war will start before the finality takes place. Details will follow in other writings.

This year, 2023, will lead into unparalleled and frightening times! This nation and the world are presently asleep to what will soon befall them, similar to the pre-flood world of Noah, and Sodom and Gomorrah (Luke 17:26-30 “… so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed …”).

May God have mercy. The Ezekial Watchman

The cover letter had this:

This is a cover letter for the Ezekiel Warning Messages to begin appearing monthly on the Church of God Faithful Flock Website-Warnings from God’s use of His promised Elijah of the end-time to a people who have rejected and forgotten their God.

In view of Prophetic Biblical teachings, connected with major disastrous events, now occurring, and projected to worsen on a national and international scale over the next few years, strongly implies Jesus Christ will be standing on this earth in the year-2029. This is eight years from now, 2021. How quickly time flies!

They also make known this nation is in mortal danger of being destroyed, as a nation, along with Britain, and other nations of Israel, in the year 2026-no more than five years from now, 2021. Prophesied to be destroyed by a super-power far greater than America.

Though it has not yet appeared, it is prophesied to be fully developed by the year-2024. This is only three years from now, 2021.

Now, it is true that Alton Billingsley was wrong about that as well as many other predictions he made. I have long warned against his false predictions (e.g. Biden-Harris Inaugurated: Gerald Flurry and Don Billingsley again proven wrong., CGFF’s Alton Billingsley again projects Hillary Clinton as President of the USA, but let’s also look at what he wrote before, CGFF’s Don Billingsley glosses over his error regarding Hillary Clinton, then switches to why God allowed Donald Trump to win, PCG & CGFF misidentify Herbert Armstrong as the restrainer of 2 Thessalonians 2:7, etc.).

I have also long denounced false prophets like Ron Weinland (see CGPKG: Concerns About Ronald Weinland’s Church of God-Preparing for the Kingdom of God), David Pack (see RCG: Why Not the Restored Church of God?), and Gerald Flurry (see PCG: Teachings Unique to the Philadelphia Church of God).

That being said, here is what Gary Leonard at Banned put up after quoting Don Billingsley:

In the end, the modern-day Church of God movement has produced an unbroken parade of self-proclaimed prophets whose batting average sits at a pristine .000.

Every. Single. One.

https://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2024/02/alton-billingsley-jesus-christ-will-be.html

Those anti-COG statements are false.

For example, in the old WCG at the Feast of Tabernacles in Tucson, AZ in 1979, I heard the late Dr. Herman Hoeh state that the Eastern Block nations, who were then behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ would end up uniting with Western Europe–that has happened.

In 1971, the late Gene Hogberg wrote that Europe would get its own currency (Hogberg G. EUROPE’S COMMON MARKET RISING WORLD COLOSSUS. Plain Truth, May 1971), and it now does.

Getting back to nonsense from Banned, that site likes to try to connect me to false prophets like David Pack, Gerald Flurry, Don Billingsley, and Ron Weinland (see also 21st Century Church of God Prophets). And Gary Leonard referred to me as “that other global heavyweight of almost-truth, Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel.”

Guilt by association has long been a tactic of Satan–he had his minions do that related to Jesus (Matthew 11:19; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:13). Anyway, on September 21, 2025, Gary Leonard posted the following:

No man alive in the Armstrongist churches today has ever authenticated the gospel message through signs, wonders, and miracles. None of them—including Bob Thiel and Ron Weinland— will ever do so in the future. They cannot even get a prophecy right,

Well, that, of course is not true in the case of the myself in the CCOG. For details, check out the article: Does the CCOG have the confirmed signs of Acts 2:17-18?

We do have the confirmed miraculous signs of the last days.

Notice something that Herbert Armstrong wrote in 1985:

In these last days, according to biblical prophecy, knowledge, spiritual as well as material, was to be increased. The true Church of God was to be set back on the track, restoring the glorious knowledge of the faith once delivered to the saints in the days of the original apostles. (Armstrong HW. Mystery of the Ages, 1985)

Would not spiritual and prophetic knowledge include making predictions inspired by God and having a better understanding of prophecy than the non-Philadelphian COGs?

That said, Gary Leonard likes to state that I have never made any predictions that came to pass. As regular readers of this COGwriter Church of God News page are aware, that is more false nonsense from Gary Leonard and his anti-COG supporters.

We even have a prophetic list in a chart, by the way, for he and others to consider. You can find it in the article: Does the CCOG have the confirmed signs of Acts 2:17-18?

But for now, let’s just look four of them:

Prediction: On December 5, 2013, I, Bob Thiel, posted that governments, particularly in Europe,  would one day not allow cryptocurrencies like BitCoin to be private and unregulated.

Fulfillment: In late November 2021, the European Union released a paper called “Proposal for EU Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets.” On December 7, 2022, the EU passed rules to rules that are to “be extended to the entire crypto sector, obliging all crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to” eliminate the possibility of privacy through various customer “due diligence” requirements.

Prediction: On December 27, 2024, Bob Thiel posted: “Gold will break records in US dollar terms.”

Fulfillment: Gold hit daily record prices in US dollar terms over 50 times in 2025 (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/commodities/a-golden-run-after-60-surge-and-over-50-all-time-highs-this-year-whats-next-for-gold-in-2026/articleshow/125800646.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com&from=mdr). It also hit records in 2026. And despite ups and downs, that is not over.

Prediction: On November 6, 2024 (https://www.cogwriter.com/news/prophecy/media-declares-donald-trump-won-the-election-now-what/), I, Bob Thiel, wrote, “Donald Trump won re-election. … Europe will get more serious about trade deals with others internationally, such as being more motivated to approve the trade deal with the Mercosur block of South America.”

Fulfillment: On January 9, 2026, the European Union voted to approve the Mercosur trade deal, despite strong opposition (see https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-countries-endorse-mercosur-trade-deal/)–and part of the reason it was approved was because of concerns related to Donald Trump.

Prediction: On November 26, 2024 (https://www.cogwriter.com/news/2024/11/page/2/ ), I, Bob Thiel wrote, “If the EU-Mercosur deal is approved, there will be protests in parts of Europe.”

Fulfillment:  This month (January 2026) there were (e.g. https://www.euronews.com/2026/01/13/hundreds-of-tractors-rumble-through-paris-in-protest-over-eu-mercosur-deal)

Jesus said that fruits were the criteria to determine true vs. false prophets (John 7:15-20). The Continuing Church of God has the true fruits.