A Lesson for the Churches of God
(and all humans)
Was there ever a time in your past when you wondered what would be going on in the year 2011? If you speculating as someone then immersed in the 50's or 60's or 70's it would have seemed like a million years away. If you were a member of the Worldwide Church of God, and could know, the following truths now revealed by then would be as follows.Surely by then...Jesus will have returned
The Kingdom will be here
I'd be ruling over others (this one never appealed to me. I wanted to go fishing and be left alone for a few thousand years)
The deaf would hear, the blind would see and the lame man leap as a hart
The Lion and the Lamb would be best buddies
Everyone would going to the Feast and I mean everybody....or else.
Sermons would be given by the real Apostles when God and Jesus were away on business
We would be proven to have been right about everything
Well, maybe not Mr. Waterhouse.....
However and Actually...................................
Jesus did not return
The world grinds on
Herbert Armstrong would be dead for 25 years
Garner Ted Armstrong would be dead
Hermann Hoeh would be dead
Dean Blackwell would be dead
Dibar Apartian would be dead
Stan Radar would be dead
Gerald Waterhouse would be dead
All the youthful Evangelists and ministers would be very old
Your local church will be gone
Ambassador would be gone
Ambassador would be sold to Evangelical Sunday keeping, Christmas Keeping, Easter Celebrating Pagans
The Worldwide Church of God would be keeping Sunday, Christmas, Easter and wallowing in the mysteries of the Trinity
The Worldwide Church of God would have broken up into 700 splinter and sliver churches each being the true one.
Mr. and Mrs. Ron Weinland would be the Two Witnesses
Twenty one other men would also be the Two Witnesses
Dave Pack would be the only true Apostle heading the only true remnant of the only true church.
Gerald Flurry will have recreated a hologram of Ambassador College and continue to be the reincarnation of HWA, but Dave Pack would be upset about that wanting his own hologram of HWA, WCG and Ambassador College
You would still be sending it in to someone if still unconscious.
The United Church of God would divide again and again.
The Brotherly Love Church of God will forbid you to talk to your brothers unless they belong to said church. This is commonly known as Influrryating.
The Living Church of God is dying.
60 years later we'll still be waiting "3-5, no more than 10-15, 20 tops years to go brethren, and I mean it."
The Big Sandy Egrets will have flown to Oklahoma along with HWA's prayer rock
Few will have ever heard of the Plain Truth
Few will have heard of The Philadelphia Trumpet
Few will have heard about the Grace Whatever Church of God, formerly known as Prince
Whew, and there is a whole lot more where that all comes from.
Life, in all it's constructs, hopes, dreams, speculations, mess ups and insanity is one big Mandala. Crafted over time only to be brushed away to return to it's source as if it never existed. Or rather, it takes on a different form, rejoins the universe and goes on to be part of the much bigger picture.
And now we know....
13 comments:
And if Herbert Armstrong told the truth that British Israelism was a farce and disbanded his heretical sect there would never had been a need for the "Painful Truth."
As it stands, the Armstrong family business has now broken into hundreds of family unfriendly franchises. Mental health services has never been in higher demand.
Can anyone say anything positive about the Armstrong unfriendly family business?
"Can anyone say anything positive about the Armstrong unfriendly family business?"
No. It is too bad that Herbert's mother didn't have a miscarriage before he was born. Thousands would have been spared lives of poverty and other miseries.
If it is really true that Herbert Armstrong was committing incest, it's too bad he didn't get a prison term.
He would have never made it out.
it's a funny thing to me that while Mr. Armstrong was alive that all of you went along with what you call the painful truth and no one said a word until he died. A dead man cain't speak for himself.I guess you forgot that none of us are perfect.I have to speak up for the truths that he taught. If you had proved for yourself from your own Bible what he taught,you would not be bashing him,besides we follow the truth and not a man.Men also hated the prophets and killed them for what they preached in essence they hated God.SHAME ON YOU.....
it's a funny thing to me that while Mr. Armstrong was alive that all of you went along with what you call the painful truth and no one said a word until he died.
MY COMMENT: That's not true. Many brave souls spoke out, even in the beginning, only to be shown the door, never being allowed to return. I was fed up with Armstrong before he died, but was too chicken to do anything about him. If you said something, you were ostracized from the vast majority of the group and blackballed by the "ministry", if not "disfellowshipped". The only alternative was to "speak up" with your feet, but I was too brainwashed to believe that there wasn't another "true church" out there, and that if I left, I would be in the "lake of fire". This is the kind of "truth" we were fed for decades.
A dead man cain't speak for himself.
MY COMMENT: The dead man STILL speaks from the little cults that he has left behind.
I guess you forgot that none of us are perfect.
MY COMMENT: This is always the excuse of why Armstrong was the way he was. "Well, he wasn't perfect. He made mistakes. So, let's excuse him for being a liar, a cheat, a thief, a charlatan, and a greedy, selfish old man.". Unfortunately, for him, what he did and said were not mistakes. He KNEW what he was doing, and for that, he'll have to give an answer...IF he ever awakes again.
I have to speak up for the truths that he taught.
MY COMMENT: What truth did he teach?
If you had proved for yourself from your own Bible what he taught,you would not be bashing him,besides we follow the truth and not a man.
MY COMMENT: If we had proved for ourselves from our own bible, we would have realized that what he taught wasn't truth.
Men also hated the prophets and killed them for what they preached in essence they hated God.SHAME ON YOU.....
MY COMMENT: So, you think HWA was a true prophet? Would a true prophet steal people's money, purchase expensive items and live an extravagant lifestyle, then turn around and tell people to give him more and more money to "do the work", all the while making more and more expensive selfish purchases? Would a true prophet steal other writers' material, plagiarize them as his own, then tell people that God revealed them to him? Would a true prophet give one "prophecy" after another for 50 plus years "in Jesus' name", never to have ANY of them come true? Would a true prophet live a life of luxury, while many of those he had duped, lived in extreme hardship? Would a true prophet lie, telling people that he was the "end-time apostle", be filled with the self of having people believe that he was more important than anyone else("You're only here to hold my hands up")?
Would a true prophet tell dying people that they couldn't be treated by a doctor, while he himself had his own personal physician? Do you want me to go on?
"It is too bad that Herbert's mother didn't have a miscarriage before he was born. Thousands would have been spared lives of poverty and other miseries."
MY COMMENT: There's plenty of charlatans that would have taken his place, and suckers are born every minute, so, I don't think it would have made much difference.
Shame be upon Herbert Armstrong and all his little godlet spit-offs: He rebelled against the Church of God Seventh Day and they rejected his bid to take them over in his arrogance, he seized upon British Israelism invented by an insane Canadian from the 18th Century as an excuse to leave the CoG7, spun easily disproved heresies and was a false prophet.
Anyone who wants to be an Armstrongist apologist is defending a vile idolater who was exceedingly profligate, wasting the meager contributions of orphans and widows who could ill afford the sacrifices they made, all to provide an outrageously preposterous lifestyle of utterly selfish manic insanity.
So now, is anyone going to step up and apologize to the Church of God Seventh Day for participating with Herbert Armstrong for his slander, libel, character assassination, plagiarism against them?
Herbert Armstrong is not the injured party here.
o.k I have read all of the comments about mr. Armstrong. What proof do you have first hand about the things you have said. can I trust anyone ofyou.why did you stay knowing what he taught wasn't the truth?The congregations of a church have no way of knowing the behind the scenes of ministers.so can you prove what your saying?where can I find the truth about him??????
I never dreamed in 1970 that I would someday live to be 20, 30, 40 or 50 years old or more. It was so drilled into my mind by Armstrong and the Church that “time was very short” and “the end was very near”.
I never ever dreamed that I had a future to live in this life, and subconsciously deferred life experiences, even after I stopped attending the church, because I believed time was very short!
By their fruits you shall know them, and the fruits of Herbert Armstrong are not good. Anyone to say otherwise is in extreme denial - particularly because such a person would have to come to the realization that they have spent a lifetime in a church that was a complete fraud.
It takes a big person to admit they have been defrauded for a lifetime!
Richard
How was HWA a false prophet? http://www.hwarmstrong.com/prophet-1.htm
Anon, start with this:
http://tinyurl.com/y8otl62
I never found about this incestuous corrupt bastard until the 1990's like most of us here. So here you have a document that exposes HWA's absolute and illegal, immoral corrupt behavior. The ministry knew about it and never said a damned thing.
Does this even phase you or will you continue to support your wonderful memories of a child molesting false prophet?
If Herbie screwed your five year old daughter, would you give him a pass? I bet that you would. I know, I have meet your kind before. Accessory after the fact and amoral.
Anonymous: Go to "The Painful Truth" and read the fund raising letter that HWA wrote while his wife lay dying for a very treatable bowel blockage. Look in it for the attitude of blaming others and self serving arrogance in which he blames his wife's dying on the church folks for not sending in enough money. Rather than gratitude for "what God has given him," he accuses and blames his profligate spending on the common church member for not giving him enough to spend. Read it carefully and see if you can ascertain his attitude.
Start going through the co-worker letters and articles from the beginning of his ministry (they're on the web). You'll see how Herbert Armstrong morphed his teachings over the years. Create a timeline of those teachings and proclamations and line them up against the known and provable events in his life. Breaking away from the 7th day Adventists, the death of Loma Armstrong, Marriage and divorce with Ramona Armstrong, the 1978 "rebellion", break up with Garner Ted Armstrong.
Use the HWA searchable library. Look up key words like Petra. See what Herbert Armstrong said at first and then later. Look at the number of times the word "grace" appears and then the number of times "law" appears then ask yourself if this is balanced.
You can find it in his own words. It isn't a pretty picture.
Review the source quotes used by him to prove his points. Read them word for word and see how they have been altered from their original context.
Then look at the newpaper archive copies provided at the links noted above. If these were lies, the church could have sued for damages. But there were no law suits.
Look at the Ambassador Reports that people were required to turn in without looking at. I was a child but I remember the pronouncements against them. Again, there could have been some serious lawsuits involved. But none ever materialized.
It's easy to tell yourself that he was taking the high road and refused to mire himself in litigation but listen to the recordings of Herbert Armstrong, look at the transcripts of his sermons (these are on the net too) and ask yourself if the character portrayed to the church as a person who refuses to back down where his own will is concerned was of that sort.
Most of us have been down these roads. It is a hard one to walk because it means accepting you were wrong and that your world views must change. Despite the anger and pain expressed through the process I think most will agree that it is ultimately rewarding emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Okay, getting off the soapbox now:) Best of luck to you, anonymous, if you decide to look into things further.
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