Jesus Is Coming Back… to Enforce the Shadow While the Substance Sits in the Front Row Looking Confused

 

The Importance of Truth (Armstrongism Edition)

Or: How to Preach John 8:32 While Running a Multi-Decade Fact-Free Zone

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Beautiful verse. Timeless.

Now watch the Living Church of God, and the rest of the certified Armstrongist truth-cartel, try to weaponize it with a straight face.

Doug Winnail earnestly informs us that we live in an age of misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories. Satan is the real author of confusion. Prophets of old warned that truth would perish. And when Jesus finally returns, Jerusalem will become “the City of Truth,” and the liberating truth of His law will blanket the planet—thanks, of course, to the faithful remnant He is currently calling (i.e., whoever still mails in the tithe checks).

Because nothing says “we are the guardians of truth” quite like a theological movement that has spent the better part of a century cranking out failed prophecies the way a bakery cranks out doughnuts. Herbert Armstrong’s “1975 in Prophecy” aged about as well as milk left on a dashboard in July. The successive waves of “this is the year,” “the Great Tribulation starts next Tuesday,” and “Christ returns before I die” from the various splinter apostles have been so consistently wrong that the only remaining mystery is why anyone still treats the next prediction as anything other than performance art.

And the current flock of certified truth-merchants? 

• Bob Thiel, the self-anointed prophet who discovers new “truths” with the same reliability as a Magic 8-Ball on a bumpy road. 
• Gerald Flurry, still insisting the Philadelphia Church of God is the sole repository of pure doctrine while the rest of the world is Laodicean trash. 
• David Pack, whose “Christ will return by [insert date that has already expired]” series has more reboots than a comic-book franchise. 
• Ronald Weinland, the convicted felon who announced the Day of the Lord so many times the calendar itself filed a restraining order.

These are the men (and the organizations they lead) who now lecture the world about the “global epidemic of misinformation.” The irony is so thick you could spread it on unleavened bread and call it a holy day.

Then comes the theological head-scratcher that Winnail’s little Sabbath pep-talk never bothers to address.

The law—the very law they insist will be enforced worldwide when Christ returns—was, according to the same New Testament they selectively quote, a shadow. A tutor. A pointer. It pointed to Him.  

So the plan, apparently, is this:

Jesus returns in glory, the King of kings, the One to whom the entire sacrificial system, the Sabbaths, the holy days, and the clean-and-unclean distinctions were pointing…

…and His first official act is to reinstate the shadow and force everyone to keep it forever.   

 

It’s like the entire movie building up to the hero’s reveal, only for the hero to walk on stage and announce, “Great news, everyone—we’re going back to the trailer!”

What, exactly, was the point of the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and the entire “I have come to fulfill” speech if the endgame is just “keep the law harder this time, under divine martial law”?  

Armstrongism’s answer is essentially: “Because we said so, and if you question it you’re Laodicean.”  

Which brings us full circle.

The same people who spent decades moving the prophetic goalposts, rewriting history, and demanding absolute loyalty while the facts changed underneath them now want us to believe they are the ones who will usher in the “City of Truth.” 

Sure.

And I’m the King of the North.

Have a profitable Sabbath, everyone.
Just don’t look too closely at the invoice—or the track record.

The Importance of Truth: Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Today, we face a global epidemic of misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories that generate mistrust of the media, governments, individuals, and major institutions. The Bible reveals that Satan is the god of this age and that he is a liar and the real author of the confusion we see around us (2 Corinthians 4:4; John 8:44; 1 Corinthians 14:33). The ancient prophets foretold that the time would come when truth would perish and be suppressed (Isaiah 59:4, 14–15; Jeremiah 7:28; 9:3–5; Romans 1:18). However, when Jesus Christ returns, His capital of Jerusalem will be known as “the City of Truth,” and the liberating truth of His law will be spread around the world by His servants He is calling today (Zechariah 8:1–3; Psalm 119:142; Isaiah 2:2–4; 11:9; 1 John 3:19). This is your exciting future—if you hold fast to the truth (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Have a profitable Sabbath,

Douglas S. Winnai