How to Get Into the Kingdom: Step 1 – Submit to Headquarters. Step 2 – There Is No Step 2

No one back in 1986, the moment Herbert W. Armstrong finally checked out, could have possibly predicted that the Church of God would one day turn into this flaming dumpster fire of theological insanity. Everyone was dead certain we’d already be in the Millennium by now, happily beating the survivors with iron rods while the elite taught classes at the Ambassador Colleges of the World Tomorrow. Herbert would’ve had the corner office right next to Jesus.

Instead, we got 2026 — and a parade of spectacularly unhinged men who make the old Worldwide Church of God look like a model of sanity.

There’s Bob Thiel, the human equivalent of beige wallpaper, who got shown the door by basically everyone and responded by declaring himself a prophet and starting his own little church in Africa like some kind of spiritual colonizer cosplay. Then there’s Dave Pack, who has spent years screaming that “Christ” is personally returning to Wadsworth, Ohio to walk the holy sidewalks for His third coming. Because of course He is.

And then, sitting at the very top of this pyramid of delusion, we have Gerald Flurry — self-appointed King of COGland, professional Irish dance enthusiast, and the man who has somehow convinced his followers that he and his headquarters now hold the actual keys to salvation.

Yes. You read that correctly. (posted as written)

What is the key of David? IT IS THE ROYAL GOSPEL VIEWED THROUGH THE EYES OF THE FATHER, AND THE HUSBAND, AND THE HEADQUARTERS BRIDE---the highest level of God's government through all eternity.that's right---the headquarters Bride. That Bride consists of those who will go no more out from God's Headquarters temple---those who will be ruling with Christ there in Jerusalem foreverv(verse 12). That is the highest calling for a body of God's people ever! That is the resplendent reward awaiting those who teach the key of David! They will be sitting on the Headquarters throne of David forever! So this is the gospel viewed through their eyes too.

Those during this Laodicean era who reject the key David will not have that reward. Fifty percent of them will repent and be in God's Family, but they will not be at Headquarters, because they reject rejected the key of David , the greatest vision of the Bible. Revelation 3 makes it clear that anyone who goes into the Tribulation will not be stationed at God's Headquarters. 

The very ELECT comprehend God's family government far better than most of God's people. 

 

The big question is this: Will you understand and submit to this government in the age of man's rule of man and act while there is time?

Consider this carefully: THE ROYAL KEY OF DAVID GOSOEL IS UNDERSTOOD NOW ONLY BY THE HEADQUARTERS KINGS AND PRIEST IN EMBRYO! If you fully understand and submit to this teaching now, you are going to reside in Jerusalem forever.

Only 5vpercent of God's own people in the Laodicean era have remained faithful to God---and only that 5 percent will qualify for that level of royalty in this end time. We can't drift into such an exalted position. We must work hard and fervently support God's Work toady.

In past ages, God has only prepared a small number of His people to rule from the Jerusalem Headquarters. 

It is hard to fathom the level of royalty God's Philadelphians truly are. God has given them knowledge He never gave to the other eras of His Church because He is specifically training His Headquarters personnel who will teach the key of David vision to the world. That is why God gives us that vision from the perspective of Headquarters in Jerusalem forever! He is revealing this vision with greater clarity all the time. Christ personally gives it to the Philadelphia era and to the Philadelphians in the Laodicean era. But only a small percentage of both eras qualify for Headquarters rule in Jerusalem. 

Armed with this key of David knowledge, we will be better able to support the prophets, apostles and leaders that God prepared in part ages."

According to the current PCG gospel, Jesus is apparently far too occupied trying to get back to Wadsworth and working with Bob Thiel preparing to flee to Petra, to bother with minor details like saving people. So Gerald and his loyal Headquarters staff have graciously stepped in to handle the whole “eternal life” thing themselves. If you don’t submit to their “royal government,” you’re apparently not getting in. The pearly gates now require a Headquarters stamp of approval.

This isn’t just weird. This isn’t just “different doctrine.”

This is straight-up, grade-A, gold-plated blasphemy.

This is the theological equivalent of saying the only way to get into the wedding feast is to have the right stamp from the right committee. It turns the gospel into a corporate loyalty program with eternal consequences. It takes the beautiful promise of Revelation 3:12 — “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God… and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God… and I will write upon him my new name” — and turns it into an exclusive club for those who stayed loyal to one particular splinter group’s leadership.

Herbert Armstrong had plenty of issues, but even he would have taken one look at this nonsense and thrown these people out so fast their heads would spin. He did not raise up a church so that some guy could later declare himself the new toll booth operator between humanity and God.

This is what happens when unchecked ego, narcissism, end-time obsession, mental illness, and a total lack of accountability are allowed to fester for decades. You don’t get stronger Christians. You get people who genuinely believe their salvation is tied to whether they recognize Gerald Flurry as the Royal Kingly Headquarters Representative of Jesus Christ.

The Facebook post quoted above is not some fringe comment from a confused member. It is the logical endpoint of everything that has gone wrong. It is the distilled essence of the very “quagmire of heretical stupidity” that represents Armstrongism today. Who could have imagined that the highest reward in eternity is not found in Christ Himself, but in proximity to “Headquarters.” We are told that the “Key of David” is not ultimately about Jesus, but about recognizing a physical organization and its leader as the pinnacle of God’s government. We are told that only a tiny elite — the self-described “Headquarters kings and priests in embryo” — will sit on the real thrones in Jerusalem, while everyone else who fails to submit to this system gets a lesser seat in the Kingdom.

This is not biblical Christianity. This is not even a creative misreading of Scripture. This is a man-centered, headquarters-centered religion that has quietly replaced Jesus Christ with an institution and one elderly man as the practical gatekeeper of salvation and glory.

Yet here we are in 2026. The same movement that once preached Christ as the Head of the Church now has influential voices teaching that only those who accept “Headquarters” as the highest expression of God’s government will receive the highest reward. The irony is almost too perfect: the very people who claim to be the most faithful to Herbert Armstrong’s legacy have created a system he would have found utterly intolerable.

This is what happens when the focus shifts from Jesus Christ to an organization, from the Head to the “headquarters,” and from grace to government. It doesn’t produce humility. It produces spiritual arrogance dressed in royal language. It doesn’t produce people who are desperate for Christ. It produces people who are desperate to be recognized by Headquarters.

How unimaginable this future would have seemed in 1986. The conclusion is even more sobering: not only did no one see this coming, but the very people who claim to be preserving the truth have managed to create something far more dangerous than simple error. They have created a system in which loyalty to men and institutions is presented as the highest form of faithfulness to God.

That is not the Church Jesus Christ is building.

That is something else entirely.

And the longer it continues, the clearer it becomes that the real tragedy is not just that these men exist — it is that so many sincere people have been convinced that submitting to them is the same thing as submitting to God.

Why Preach a Dead Christ Still On the Cross When You Can Restore 1,900 Years of Missed Truths Instead?

A Church of God member wrote recently:

The WWCG became the Laodicean Church. With out putting HWA on a pedestal, when you look at the Bible, God used HWA to restore many truths that went against the grain of mainstream Christianity. He was criticized because he didn’t initially preach Christ. However none can come to Christ lest God the Father calls. But the true Gospel begins with the Gospel of coming the Kingdom of God. Just the way John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles proclaimed it. Depending on how each person responds, God the Father calls those with a broken contrite heart to Christ to have their sins cleansed. But that is not where the Gospel ends. That is where mainstream Christianity ends-with a dead Christ hanging on a cross. The sacrifice of Christ is not enough. Christ said if a house is cleaned and swept and remains empty we come to a worse spiritual state. We are cleansed by Christ’s blood but we are saved by His life-Romans 5:10. The resurrected Christ imparts His Spirit to our cleansed spirit and begins transforming us-Romans 8:9. Christ fulfilling the Wave Sheaf Offering presents us to God the Father and then we also receive the Holy Spirit of God the Father joined to our cleansed spirit-Matthew 20:10. Fulfilling John 17:21. That is the full, complete Gospel.

Ah, the Armstrongite classic: "We didn't preach Christ at first because reasons... but look, we restored ALL the truths mainstream Christianity missed for 1,900 years!" This comment is textbook legalism dressed up as "deeper truth," and it perfectly illustrates why starting with anything but Christ as the blazing center leads to the fractured, authoritarian, prophecy-obsessed mess Armstrongism became.1. "HWA didn't initially preach Christ... but none can come to Christ lest the Father calls"Brilliant strategy! Don't lead with the actual Person the entire Bible revolves around. Instead, start with British-Israelism, end-times flow charts, "God's Law" (your selective version of it), and radio broadcasts hammering Saturday Sabbath and holy days. Christ can be an afterthought once the Father does the heavy lifting.  

How exactly are people supposed to respond to the Father's call if no one is proclaiming the One they're supposed to come to? Romans 10:14-15 has some awkward questions for this approach: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?... As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'"  

Apparently, those beautiful feet were too busy restoring "truths that went against the grain" to mention the Grain of Wheat, who actually died and rose. That's why Armstrongism is such a mess today — dozens of splinter groups all claiming to be the "true" continuation, still arguing over who keeps the law purest, still waiting for the same failed prophetic timelines. When your foundation isn't Christ the Rock (1 Corinthians 3:11), but a man's "restored package," it predictably crumbles into legalistic factions.2. "The true Gospel begins with the Gospel of the Kingdom of God... mainstream Christianity ends with a dead Christ hanging on a cross"Yes, because nothing screams "we have the full gospel" like accusing billions of Christians of worshipping a dead guy on a stake (God forbid if you call it a cross) while you have unlocked the real message: a future government you qualify for by keeping the right holy days. Newsflash from the actual New Testament: The gospel is about Christ. Mark 1:1 calls it "the gospel of Jesus Christ." Paul defines it as the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). 

The Kingdom of God is real and glorious — but it's His Kingdom, brought by the crucified and risen King. Jesus didn't say "Preach the Kingdom... and oh yeah, me too if there's time." He is the Kingdom in person. 

The apostles didn't tiptoe around the cross to get to the future government; they led with "Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).  

Calling mainstream Christianity "ending with a dead Christ" is peak projection. We celebrate the empty tomb every single day! The living Lord is at the right hand of the Father right now. The comment's version reduces Christ to a ticket-taker for the coming Kingdom while you work on your law-keeping résumé.3. "The sacrifice of Christ is not enough... We are cleansed by Christ’s blood, but we are saved by His life... Wave Sheaf Offering... full complete Gospel"Here it is — the heart of the error. The cross is just the beginning of your spiritual house-cleaning. Now you have to keep it occupied with... what? Your obedience to Old Covenant shadows?  Hebrews 10:10-14 laughs at this: "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all... For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." One offering. Done. Perfected forever. Not "start with the blood, then add Sabbath-keeping and holy day observance to finish the job."  Romans 5:10 ("saved by his life") doesn't mean "the cross got you in the door, now keep the law to stay saved." It means the living, risen Christ continues the work He began — interceding, giving His Spirit, keeping you. The New Covenant doesn't pit the death against the resurrection; both are His finished work applied to us.  The Wave Sheaf Offering typology is cute. Christ fulfilled it perfectly as the firstfruits. We don't need to reenact the shadow to "present ourselves." That's the whole point of the New Covenant replacing the Old (Hebrews 8–10). The comment turns fulfillment into "now you do your part by keeping the feasts."4. It always boils down to enforcing the law over grace, justification, and sanctificationThis is the core rot. The comment admits the cross cleanses but insists it's "not enough." We still need the "resurrected Christ" plus (implied) law-keeping to complete the deal.  New Covenant reality check:

• Justification is by faith in Christ apart from works of the law (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16). 
• Sanctification is the Spirit writing God's law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10) and producing fruit — not external observance of shadows (Colossians 2:16-17). 
• Adding Sabbath, holy days, or tithing as requirements for ongoing favor puts you back under the tutor that was meant to lead to Christ (Galatians 3:24-25). Paul is brutal in Galatians 5: "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace."

The "house swept clean but empty" warning (Matthew 12:43-45) is about the danger of not being filled with the Spirit — not a call to fill it with Old Covenant rituals. The New Covenant promise is precisely that the Spirit does come and transform us from the inside.

The comment tries to sound profound by saying "mainstream ends with the cross, but we have the full picture." In reality, it diminishes the cross, subordinates Christ to a coming government + law checklist, and justifies starting a "restoration" ministry without leading with the Restorer Himself.  That's why it produces spiritual pride ("we have the truth others missed"), division (endless splinters), and a focus on external observances rather than the indwelling Christ who is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30).  The New Covenant doesn't say "Christ's blood gets you started — now keep the law to finish." It says Christ finished it. Preach Him — crucified, risen, reigning, and coming again. Everything else flows from there. Anything else is just rearranging Old Covenant furniture in a house Christ already tore down and rebuilt in Himself.  

Silent Pilgrim