Gerald Weston on Herbert Armstrong

Forty years ago on January 16, 1986, Herbert Armstrong died. Various COG groups have amped up their idolization of the guy a lot in the last few days. Here are some words of wisdom from Gerald Weston about Herbert Armstrong. 

HWA brought prophecy to worldly ministers throughout their lifetime. Many never thought about it till Herb mentioned it. Forget decades of false prophecies. To the broader Christian world (and even his own church's eventual leadership), his message contained significant theological errors, unfulfilled prophecies, and departures from historic Christianity.

Several specific prophecies failed to materialize (e.g., predictions tied to 1972–1975 events, a coming "United States of Europe" under a beast power by certain dates).  It only takes ONE failed prophecy, and God says they are liars and not to be followed. Just ask Bob Thiel about that one.

An Emissary of Truth
The impact Mr. Armstrong had on religion during his lifetime was immense. You might say that he put Bible prophecy “on the map,” so to speak. It is difficult to know how many professing Christian ministers read his works and listened to his radio programs, but the number must be sizeable. In the 1960s, you could not drive anywhere in North America at night and not hear his voice, or that of his son, over the radio—usually more than once. 

 

Today, we take for granted many doctrines that God revealed through Mr. Armstrong. One is the meaning of life—that we can be born into the Family of God. This is so obvious from the Scriptures that one must wonder why it is not generally understood by all. But the answer is found in another doctrine God revealed through him. It was while Carol and I were at Ambassador College that God began to open Mr. Armstrong’s mind to a “new” doctrine. He knew that the Bible does not teach that man has an immortal soul, but he also realized that man has a capacity for intelligence shared by no other physical creature. It took him several years to come to understand the truth of the spirit in man—but today, as we read 1 Corinthians 2:11 and other passages on the subject, that truth jumps off the page.

Bob Thiel's African Debacle: Gold, Political Intrigue, Adultery, Bribes, Witchdoctors, Losing Members To Wade Cox

 

Sadly the CCOG owns nothing in Africa. 

A prime example is Evan Ocheings 2 story Church building he has in his backyard. The Feast complex buildings and auditorium,  Evans has on his Property. Evans owns it all. 

Bob has spent upwards of $500,000 or more on these projects, not to mention all other church buildings and properties in Africa.

Bob financed Evans' son Bradox Ouma Ocheings Political involvement in 2017, and in 2022, via Papa Evans. Bradox boy is now running for a 3rd run in 2027 in that same election where Bob says someone put his name on the ballot.

Also, Evans has a Gold mining operation-Bob's excuse is that it's only a small gold mining operation! What's a COG Evangelist in Africa doing owning a gold mining business????

Bob put out his yarn about how much he helps these poor people. The truth is, most of that money is spent on Evans and Radsons' adulterous escapades, bribing people and local Chiefs and villagers to pose and take pictures to manipulate Pastor Bobby in believing he has all these thousands when he has nothing really to show for except providing Money to the witchdoctors and local prostitutes. 

Bob's own words in previous articles tell the tale of when Church income drops it is because of sins. It sounds like CCOG is getting the curses, according to Bob. 

Bob has nothing in Malawi. 3 or 4 thousand disappeared. Sosten caught Church hopping with Wade Cox. The Continuing Church of God, the incredibly fastest shrinking X-WCG church of God by far. Women, Witchdoctors, Woopie, oh my!!!!

Terry Nelson

The Truth About The Truth?

 

God Does Play a Role in Your Understanding!

Herbert Armstrong taught that God had revealed a number of biblical "truths" to him that had been lost down through the ages since Christ and his apostles walked the earth. He also taught that God wasn't "calling" everyone now, and that only those few whom God had "called" would be able to understand and accept the "truths" that had been revealed to him. Unfortunately, as with many of the other things that Herbert taught, these notions about understanding biblical truth were a perversion of what Scripture actually has to say on the subject.

First, Scripture clearly states that God loves the people of this world and gave his beloved Son so that they could be saved from sin and death. (John 3:16-17) Scripture also reveals that Jesus Christ is the way to God the Father, and that he came to this earth to reveal the Father to us. (Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22, John 10:25-38 and 14:6-11) Moreover, Scripture reveals that God has spoken to all of us through his Son, and that he has provided the clearest and most perfect revelation of the Father that has ever been shared with humankind. (Hebrews 1:1-3) Now, this is the context for the passage which Armstrong employed to teach that only the few folks whom God had "called" would be able to understand Herbie's "rediscovered truths."

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read: "For no man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up." (John 6:44, NLT) Without the aforementioned context, Herbert claimed that this passage demonstrated that only the folks whom God had specifically called to Christ would understand his little package of "truth." However, even without that wider scriptural context, the very context of this particular passage refutes its usefulness as a prooftext for Herbert's understanding!

Christ had just told his disciples that he was the true "bread of life" - the real manna which came down from heaven. (John 6:22-42) Now, this was NOT well received by many of the folks who heard it, and they did NOT understand how Christ could insist that folks would have to consume him to be saved. Then we read: "But Jesus replied, 'Stop complaining about what I said. For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. (Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only I, who was sent from God, have seen him.) I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.' Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' they asked. So Jesus said again, 'I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever." (John 6:43-58, NLT)

Clearly, God wants EVERYONE to be saved, and he has "called" or invited EVERYONE to come to Christ in order to have access to him! Indeed, most Christians understand that Jesus was explaining to his followers that salvation is found through his broken body and spilled blood, and that he was speaking about the Eucharist which his followers would be required to participate in for the rest of their physical lifetime on this planet. In reality, NOTHING in this passage suggests or supports a claim of exclusivity of understanding!

Moreover, I believe that part of Herbert's blind spot where this teaching is concerned can be attributed to his rejection of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. "Why do you say that?" Because Scripture reveals that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ALL have important roles to play in our ability to understand God and his plans for us! We've already seen the role of the Father and the Son. Next, we will look at the role assigned to the Holy Spirit.

Again, in the Gospel of John, we are informed that Judas asked Christ about how he would reveal himself to them, and not to the world as a whole. Christ replied: "All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you." (John 14:23-26, NLT) A little later, in the same account, Jesus went on to say: "But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry." (John 15:26-27, NLT)

Paul wrote to the saints at Corinth that ordinary humans do not understand what God has in store for them. He continued: "But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us." (I Corinthians 2:10-12, NLT) Thus, according to Scripture, we can see that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ALL THREE have significant roles to play in the revelation of God's will and plans to our minds!

Moreover, the passages which we have explored together make plain that the goal of the Godhead is spiritual understanding for ALL. However, even for Christians, this is NOT a "one and done" kind of phenomenon! It is NOT accomplished over the course of a few months in a public library or by reading a series of booklets. The PLAIN TRUTH is that even Christians are expected to grow in grace and knowledge. (Ephesians 4:11-13 and II Peter 3:18) Currently, we (Christians) see through a glass darkly. (I Corinthians 13:9-12) In short, we must NOT forget that the earth being filled with the knowledge of the Lord is a PROPHECY about the future (Habakkuk 2:14), it is NOT the present reality for ANYONE (including Christians). THIS is the truth about "the truth."

by Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix

Crackpot Prophet Blows His Cork Over Being Called A False Prophet

 

Oh wow, it took barely any time at all for God's Greatest Gift to the Universe to pop his precious self-righteous cork today. All because of a post calling out all of the lying COG false prophets. Shocking, I know.

Being the ultra-fragile man-child he is (seriously, not even his stint in the military could sand down those razor-sharp edges), he absolutely lost it over a single Grok-generated photo. 

The horror. 

The audacity. 

Someone fetch the fainting couch and a participation trophy—he's clearly been mortally wounded.

It just twists the sacred, silk-lined depths of his prophetic Fruit of the Looms—that the second someone shines even a tiny flashlight on the Armstrongism false-prophet clown car, his fragile house of cards starts trembling.

This self-anointed Oracle of All That Is True is absolutely convinced (with the unshakable certainty usually reserved for flat-earthers and people who still think pineapple belongs on pizza) that HE is the sole surviving vessel of genuine prophecy on planet Earth. Everyone else? Deceived dupes. Satanic plants. Discount-bin Elijah-wannabes selling expired rapture coupons. Meanwhile, the scoreboard of spectacularly failed prophecies looks like a CVS receipt after Black Friday.

False prophets in the Church of God movement? They’re a dime a dozen these days—more like a fire sale on apocalyptic hot air. There have been so many over the decades that even Herbert Armstrong himself must be tossing and turning in his grave, wondering what in the world he unleashed. “Did I really restore all truth… or just open the floodgates for every wannabe Elijah with a typewriter and a self-righteous grudge?”

Poor Herb. He started the fire… and now the whole backyard is ablaze with mini-mes screaming “I’m the real one!” while the rest of us grab popcorn and watch the show.

And what a show it is! 

The world's greatest theologian and Church of God leader to ever walk this earth had this to say about Billingsley, Pack, Flurry, and Weinland:

Now, it is true that Alton Billingsley was wrong about that as well as many other predictions he made. I have long warned against his false predictions...

I have also long denounced false prophets like Ron Weinland, David Pack, and Gerald Flurry...

But when he got to his name being mentioned...Holy Herbal Pills, Batman! Things didn't go so well with the Great Bwana!

That being said, here is what Gary Leonard at Banned put up after quoting Don Billingsley:

In the end, the modern-day Church of God movement has produced an unbroken parade of self-proclaimed prophets whose batting average sits at a pristine .000.

Every. Single. One.

I felt that butt-hurt all the way down here in Pasadena. No amount of butthurt cream will ever restore the Great Bwana to his self-righteous wholeness!

He then goes on to quote two COG men whom many thought were pillars of righteousness and had prophetic insight, when all they were were just news readers that parroted things already well known around the world. No prophecies were involved.

For example, in the old WCG at the Feast of Tabernacles in Tucson, AZ in 1979, I heard the late Dr. Herman Hoeh state that the Eastern Block nations, who were then behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ would end up uniting with Western Europe–that has happened.

In 1971, the late Gene Hogberg wrote that Europe would get its own currency (Hogberg G. EUROPE’S COMMON MARKET RISING WORLD COLOSSUS. Plain Truth, May 1971), and it now does.

He take particular offense at being associated with Flurry, Billingsley, Pack, and Weinland 

Getting back to nonsense from Banned, that site likes to try to connect me to false prophets like David Pack, Gerald Flurry, Don Billingsley, and Ron Weinland. And Gary Leonard referred to me as “that other global heavyweight of almost-truth, Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel.”

He claims that because I have associated him with the Unholy Tetrad. This besmirches his prophetic status. It is "guilt by association".

Guilt by association has long been a tactic of Satan–he had his minions do that related to Jesus (Matthew 11:19; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:13). Anyway, on September 21, 2025, Gary Leonard posted the following:

No man alive in the Armstrongist churches today has ever authenticated the gospel message through signs, wonders, and miracles. None of them—including Bob Thiel and Ron Weinland— will ever do so in the future. They cannot even get a prophecy right, 

 

Well, that, of course is not true in the case of the (sic) myself in the CCOG.

He continues:

We do have the confirmed miraculous signs of the last days. 

 

Notice something that Herbert Armstrong wrote in 1985:

In these last days, according to biblical prophecy, knowledge, spiritual as well as material, was to be increased. The true Church of God was to be set back on the track, restoring the glorious knowledge of the faith once delivered to the saints in the days of the original apostles. (Armstrong HW. Mystery of the Ages, 1985) 

 

Would not spiritual and prophetic knowledge include making predictions inspired by God and having a better understanding of prophecy than the non-Philadelphian COGs?

If God had actually breathed divine inspiration into those so-called “predictions” and “prophecies,” then sure, we’d all be falling to our knees in reverent awe. But spoiler alert: that is emphatically not the case with Bwana Bob Thiel. God has done precisely zilch of the sort. Not a whisper. Not a nudge. Not even a vague celestial Post-it note. Bwana Bob is a pure, 100% self-manufactured wonder—so far off the prophetic charts that we’re all left breathlessly speculating what fresh, gourmet-grade lunacy he’ll serve up next. Will it be another dream where he’s hand-delivered the keys to the kingdom by an angel wearing a name tag? Or perhaps a brand-new “I told you so” about something everyone else predicted five years earlier? The anticipation is positively thrilling (said no one ever).

Then—because nothing screams “I’m the One True Prophet™” quite like a victory lap—he proceeds to parade a bunch of his supposed “prophecies” for our viewing pleasure. And what do we find? Every single one is just a news story he scraped off the internet, slapped a “Thus saith Bwana” sticker on, and called it revelation. The “end results”? Things that had already been shouted from every other Armstrongist rooftop, Reddit thread, and late-night YouTube rant for years. Real, original, specific, verifiable predictions?

None.

Zero.

Bupkis.

The Great Bwana then goes on to conclude with this:

Jesus said that fruits were the criteria to determine true vs. false prophets (John 7:15-20). The Continuing Church of God has the true fruits.

The Bible teaches:

16 The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes

Than seven men who can answer sensibly. (Proverbs 26:16) 

 

Do not simply accept nonsense and other anti-CCOG statements posted at places online. 

 

The Apostle Paul wrote:

20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21) 

 

The webmaster at the Banned by HWA website refuses to do that. 

 

Oh please, let's wrap this glorious trainwreck of a spectacle with the mic-drop it so richly deserves.

You bet I do! Given the horrendous, laughably abysmal track record of lying false prophets in the Churches of God—failed dates, recycled headlines masquerading as revelation, endless “I’m the real Elijah” meltdowns, and enough splinter groups to fill a convention center—there is absolutely no way any sane person who actually follows Jesus Christ would ever hitch their wagon to these self-appointed upstarts.

Thiel with his dream diary turned prophecy factory, Pack with his never-ending “final dates” that somehow never quite happen, Flurry with his royal throne and dirty rock, Weinland with his revolving-door prison prophecies, and now Billingsley joining the chorus of “trust me, bro, I’m the one”—these clowns aren’t successors to anything except the long, proud tradition of biblical warning labels.

They’re not shepherds.

They’re not watchmen.

They’re carnival barkers in ill-fitting apostolic robes, desperately trying to sell expired tickets to an apocalypse that keeps getting rescheduled.

So to every weary soul still caught in the COG hamster wheel:

Step off.

Breathe.

Open a Bible without the commentary track of ego and delusion.

And maybe—just maybe—realize that the true end-time sign isn’t another vague headline or self-proclaimed prophet. It’s the moment you stop listening to men who keep getting it spectacularly wrong… and start listening to the One who never does.

Until then, the popcorn supply is endless, the show is free, and the next episode is always “just around the corner.” Stay sane out there, friends.