Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
In this episode, I chat with Barbara about her experiences growing up in Herbert W Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. We discuss the difficulties in committing to the church as well as supporting family outside of the movement. We discuss the topic of cult-hopping and the tragedy of spiritual, financial and physical abuse along with ex-communication and family alienation. The choices Barbara and her family had to make throughout her experiences were impossible.Worldwide: The Unchosen Church -
Who is David C. Pack, Pastor General of The Restored Church of God?
2 Peter 1:20 – Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
Matthew 24:48 – But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming.
Luke 21:8 – And He said, Take heed that you be not deceived: for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draws near: go you not therefore after them.
2 Peter 2:3 – And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.
Zechariah 11:5 – Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
Ezekiel 34:3 – You eat the fat, and you clothe you with the wool, you kill them that are fed: but you feed not the flock.
Revelation 3:17 – Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
Acts 20:30 – Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Matthew 7:15 – Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Jeremiah 14:14 – Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
Deuteronomy 18:20-22 – But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: you shalt not be afraid of him.
1 John 4:1 – Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Peter 2:1 – But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 – For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
Zechariah 11:16 – For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that stands still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
2 Peter 3:16 – As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Ephesians 4:14 – That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
Matthew 16:4 – A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign.
Psalm 31:18 – Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.
Psalm 10:7 – His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
1 Kings 20:11 – And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girds on his harness boast himself as he that puts it off.
Isaiah 59:3 – For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness.
James 3:11-12 – Does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
Isaiah 37:23 – Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? And against whom hast you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
Amos 8:12 – And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.
2 Corinthians 11:4 – For if he that comes preaching another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.
Matthew 12:31 – Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men.
Revelation 22:18-19 – For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Exodus 20:7 – You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.
1 Corinthians 14:8 – For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
James 1:8 – A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
2 Timothy 3:7 – Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
“Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
The earth shook. The rocks split. Tombs broke open.”
—Matthew 27:50–52
Not metaphor. Not parable.
“The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.
They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection
and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”
—Matthew 27:53
The Gospel says this happened.
No explanation. No follow-up.
Just: the dead walked.
We don’t know their names or what they looked like.
We don’t know who saw them—only that “many” did.
Imagine: you buried your grandfather years ago.
You see him walking through the city gate.
Would you be terrified or happy?
This moment appears nowhere else in Scripture.
Only Matthew records it.
Theologians debate why.
Is it a foretaste of the general resurrection?
A symbol of victory over death?
Or did something crack open that day which couldn’t be undone?
The Gospels don’t shy away from the strangeness of Good Friday.
-Darkness at noon.
-The veil in the Temple torn top to bottom.
-An earthquake.
And then this—
Holy dead walking into the city like silent witnesses.
Early Christians believed this happened.
The dead walked.
Not as zombies, not as spirits—but as a sign.
A moment when the old world was undone.
A hinge in history when death itself faltered.
St. John Chrysostom believed the dead who rose were prophets and martyrs.
Others say it was “holy ones” known to the people of Jerusalem.
Not generic souls.
People with names.
And what did they say?
Did they speak?
Did they vanish again?
Matthew doesn’t tell us.
He leaves it hanging with this mystery in the middle of salvation.
Was it terror or joy the living experienced at the sight?
This moment is not the Resurrection.
It’s not Pentecost.
It’s not joy yet.
It’s grief and rupture and shaking earth.
A world destabilized.
As if creation itself could not bear what had happened on Golgotha.
For early Christians, this wasn’t just a sign.
It was a warning.
That Christ’s death didn’t just forgive sin—it judged the world.
It split history in two.
The end had begun.
And the dead knew it.
We like to rush from Cross to Resurrection.
But there is a deep, dark pause between them.
On that Friday, it was not only the Savior who died.
The world that had *been died with Him.
And the dead rose to prove it.
The grave loses its grip not when Jesus rises—
but the moment He dies.
That’s the terror of Good Friday.
And its hope.
Even in death, Christ is Lord.
. Sources:
-Gospel of Matthew 27:50–53
-Early Christian interpretations (e.g. Chrysostom homilies)
-NT Wright on resurrection theology
-Catechism of the Catholic Church (638–640)
-Various commentaries on the passion narrative
What do you make of the graves breaking open?
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