The 100% Failure Rate Of Prophecy In The Churches of God

In light of the recent post here about Gerald Weston's whitewashing of Herbert Armstrong, Rod Meredith, and the Church of God's abysmal track record on prophecy, I thought this would be a great separate thread.

Weston's explanation of HWA's 1975 in Prophecy booklet might be more believable if HWA hadn't already had a track record by then of making predictions and setting dates, which can be traced all the way back to early editions of the Plain Truth in the 1930s. For instance, the June 1934 edition of the Plain Truth had a chart in it where HWA labeled 1936 as the "end of the age." When that didn't happen, he simply kicked the can down the road a bit and made other predictions, and set other dates, much like Pack, Flurry, and others do today. For example, in the February 1938 Plain Truth, he declared Mussolini the "Beast" of Revelation, and in January of 1939 he further promoted this idea, saying that "MUSSOLINI UNDOUBTEDLY IS THE "BEAST" and "MUSSOLINI WILL FIGHT CHRIST!"

Weston also ignores the fact that HWA also promoted and taught the idea of 19 year time cycles, and made his own claims based on those time cycles. For example, in Chapter 24 of his Autobiography, he has this to say, 

"God set the earth, sun, and moon in their orbits to mark off divisions of time on the 

earth. One revolution of the earth is a day. One revolution of the moon around the earth is a lunar month (according to God’s sacred calendar). One revolution of the earth around the sun is a solar year. But the earth, the sun, and the moon come into almost exact conjunction only once in 19 years. Thus 19 years mark off one complete time-cycle!" 

He went on to use this statement to promote the idea that God timed his entry into the ministry based on the number of time cycles that had occurred since Pentecost of 31AD. 

It is both a double standard and rank hypocrisy to criticize the "speculations" of others, making the statement that "some never learn" while glossing over and excusing the same behavior in the very leaders you hold up as bastions of "truth" such as HWA and Meredith. 

It would be totally refreshing if just one of these guys was able to admit that HWA engaged in this behavior and was WRONG, as did Rod Meredith and others, and that we need to learn from the false claims and sins of our predecessors so we don't fall prey to repeating their mistakes. 

It is contradictory to claim out of one side of your mouth, as HWA did, that you were not called to "be a prophet" while also writing articles and booklets predicting specific events to be fulfilled by specific people, using titles such as "1975 in Prophecy" and also claiming that you are the fulfillment of an end time "voice crying out in the wilderness" as prophesied in Malachi 3:1. 

"John the Baptist was a voice crying out in the physical wilderness of the Jordan River area, preparing for the human physical Jesus' first coming to a material temple at Jerusalem, to a physical Judah. But that was a type, or forerunner of a voice "lifted up" (greatly amplified by modern printing, radio and TV), crying out in the midst of today's spiritual wilderness of religious confusion, announcing the imminency of Christ's SECOND coming as the spiritually GLORIFIED Christ, to His spiritual temple (the Church resurrected to spirit immortality)." Plain Truth Magazine, January 1980

If you claim you aren't a "prophet" that doesn't excuse you if you then go on to make false predictions, or engage in the same behavior that defines a false prophet.  

Concerned Sister

 In a second comment, there was this:

The date setting, and the abundant evidence of its ongoing denial, backpedaling, and rewrite is exactly why God would have to use a completely new and different group as His end time witness. Armstrongism has burned itself as a credible witness, and current members are just kidding themselves if they think otherwise. The credibility of other Christian groups has also fallen apart.

If you're just pulling into town from the feast, looking forward to a sabbath in your home town, and thinking to yourself "See? We have the truth about God's test commandment, the sabbath, so God will reveal His plans to us!", then you better wonder about the effectiveness of the sabbath as a signifier of God's True Church, because Armstrongism has a 100% failure rate in end time prophecy, dating way back to the WW-II era when HWA was preaching that the war would culminate in Armageddon, Hitler and Mussolini were the Beast, and Pope Pius was the AntiChrist. And, this was before Israel was even reborn as a nation, which was very necessary for the prophecies in Revelation to come to pass. For years, he denied that Hitler's body was Hitler, and preached that he was alive in South America, and would arise to complete the job. Sounds soooo much like a recent president, doesn't he? False leaders are always detached from reality!

And So It Begins: Church of God International, Another Petri Dish Feast Site

From Church of God International:

Subject: Fwd: Sabbath Services Cancelled

Hello Everyone,

Hope all are safely home from the FOT and doing well. However, due to an abundance of caution, we have decided to cancel Sabbath services tomorrow. Some of those who attended the FOT at Hot Springs have tested positive for Covid and many others have been in close contact and others are not feeling well and are otherwise potentially symptomatic.

We plan to resume our normal schedule with a great service, including a pot-luck and Sabbath School next Sabbath (10-9-21).

Please spread the word to anyone you think might not receive this email.

Thanks and see everyone next Sabbath!

Larry & Kitty

Gerald Weston: Making Excuses For The 1975 In Prophecy Booklet Lie

 

From Gerald Weston:

He later wrote a booklet titled 1975 in Prophecy. It was never intended to set that year as the date of Christ’s return, but instead was highlighting a significant milestone in the future as many others have done; for example, George Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, and William and Paul Paddock’s Famine 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive?, written in 1967. Today we might highlight a future year such as 2050, not intending to imply that 2050 is a specific year during which we expect something earth-shattering to happen. But in the course of time, 1975 in Prophecy took on a life of its own. Some Ambassador College faculty began calculating, using 19-year time cycles, that the work of the Church could end in 1972 with the three-and-a-half-year period mentioned in Revelation taking us to 1975. 

How easily he glosses over the fact that Rod Meredith was the champion of the 1975 lie. 

It was taught to us in the Dayton area as FACT and we even had a sermon once where the minister outlined on a rolling blackboard on the stage and drew a chart right down to the month that we would flee. My mother faithfully copied this crap down and put it inside the kitchen cupboard where she crossed off the days till we were supposed to flee to Petra. This came straight from Pasadena. The fact that Weston denies that anyone thought this was a fact is a blatant falsehood.

I do not know when Mr. Armstrong began to consider that 1975 could be the year, but I do know firsthand that, as late as 1969, on the occasion of one of the Senior Dinners that he hosted in his home, he thought it possible for things to wrap up by then. At the same time, however, he strongly warned the Church not to set dates. And Dr. Meredith was already saying as early as 1968 that “the end of the Work in 1972” and “the return of Christ in 1975” were dates that would come and go without those expected events. 

 

When it was clear that 1972 was not the end of the Work, people looked for other dates and some concluded that the error was in subtracting the seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity from the 2,520 years from the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. This recalculation brought us to the year 1979 for the end of the Work, with Christ returning in 1982. That was nearly 40 years ago—obviously, speculators were wrong again.

There has never been a Church of God prophet that was part of the Armstrongite dispensation that has ever told the truth. Not one single one and that includes Bob Thiel, Rod Meredith, Ron Weinland, Dave Pack, and Gerald Flurry. 

Liars all.

Perhaps we can be forgiven such errors, as we are in the company of the Apostle Paul, who wrote, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). This certainly applies to some people, perhaps many of us, but Paul wrote to a contemporary audience, while God inspired it for all times. Paul did not set any specific dates as far as we know, yet it may seem in his epistles that he thought they were living very near to the end of the age—certainly not 2,000 years away from it! 

 

It is natural to want to know how long we have left to wait, and it is natural to hope that Christ’s return will be within our own personal lifetime. This natural tendency to speculate must be tempered by mature thinking whereby we learn from the past. It would seem that, given the history of the last 100 years, we should have learned not to attempt specific predictions. Dr. Meredith realized this, refusing to be specific, but when pressed for some indication he would say that he thought it would be seven to 17 years—and he repeated that for a decade or more, as a moving target. 

 

This is not a criticism of Paul, Mr. Armstrong, or Dr. Meredith, but it should be a lesson for all of us. Sadly, some never learn, and they go beyond simple speculation and count on specific dates. When one date fails to bring Christ’s return, they set another—then another, then another. And sometimes they become discouraged and leave the faith. While it is fun to speculate, the problem is that some people begin making important decisions based on their speculations: not furthering their education, not getting their teeth fixed, rushing into a poorly matched marriage, etc.

Oh, how they want to ignore this Bible quote:

Deuteronomy 18:22

If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.

Purge them from the church! Kick them to the gutter where they belong.

The False Prophet
13 “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, 2 and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let us follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us worship them,’ 3 do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. 4 You must follow the Lord your God and fear Him. You must keep His commands and listen to His voice; you must worship Him and remain faithful[a] to Him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.