What follows in this chapter is a classic Armstrongite apologetics. He might as well have taken some of HWA's booklet's a copied them. This is all classic COG doublespeak.
It also contains SDA mythology and uses information from Ralph Woodrow's book, "Babylon Mystery Religion". COG members loved this book because it supported their view of Catholics and Hislop's "Two Babylon's" Woodrow several years wrote a book refuting his information in that book. He has this to say about the Babylon Mystery Religion
Chapter 20 CHURCH DOCTRINE TRUE OR FALSE?
(pg. 261) AND WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE PAULA AND ME? WHERE DOES IT LEAVE the others who have spoken out against this corrupt religious organization? One might ask, why we haven't done the same as many of those who have left organizations commonly known as "the cults." Why haven't we proclaimed our escape from Armstrongism as some others who have left the Church have done? The reason we haven't done that, the reason that this book is not an expose of Armstrong's false unscriptural teachings, is simply because basically his teachings have been correct. The problem here is that he is a man who has turned from his righteousness, and in so doing threatens to drag those who remain into a system of growing apostasy. The financial dealings, the way the money was handled, the way that Church leaders did not comply with California state law, all these matters which are a concern of the state authorities, are only a small part of the entire problem. What must be understood here is that this was not some religious belief invented by Herbert Armstrong for the purpose of building his own private Church.
What about the beliefs of the Church as taught by Armstrong? True, there were some erroneous teachings as mentioned earlier regarding the matters of healing, divorce, make-up, etc. Most of those errors have been corrected and are errors in teaching that are not unique to the Worldwide Church of God. Many other religious organizations, many of them highly regarded and respectable, in (pg. 262) corporate some of the same self-righteous errors in their teaching.
As we review the basic doctrines of the Worldwide Church, it can be shown that they are true, but have been criticized as being false, due to the fact that in some cases they are not in line with the teachings of the traditional modern Christian Church.
To begin with, God the Father is all powerful and eternal, He has always existed and is the Creator of all things. With God the Father, and also being Eternal, was the Word. It was through the Word that God the Father created all things. This is clearly spelled out in the first chapter of John and of course ties in with the opening verses of the book of Genesis. The Word, who was referred to as the Lord in the Old Testament, is the personage of the God family who later gave up His divinity to be born as a human being in order that he may be tempted as we are, suffer and die and then be resurrected to eternal life. The various books in the New Testament attest to this fact. He is our Savior, the first born of many brethren, and salvation is only through Him. When we repent and are baptized in accordance with Acts 2:38, we then receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power that God imparts to us in order to enable us to follow His ways. That is not to say that we have perfection, since we can still sin because we are still human. But by asking for forgiveness, those sins are covered under the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is not the third person of some mysterious trinity, an impossible-to-understand concept of three beings in one. In the first chapter of John it is clearly stated that in the beginning there was God the Father and the Word, who later became Jesus Christ. The Trinity doctrine is false and comes out of Babylonian paganism. Only by understanding this and understanding the fact that the Holy Spirit is God's mighty power does it then make sense that Christ was conceived in Mary of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, He could not have been conceived of Himself through some mysterious three in one personage. Nor would Christ later have prayed to God the Father, if God the Father was Himself. In fact, He clearly stated that all the power that He had came from His Father in Heaven.
While salvation comes only through Christ and His grace, and not through keeping of the Commandments, we are nevertheless to keep them. The Commandments are the Royal Law of God. We are not to keep the Commandments out of fear, but for a very simple reason. (pg. 263) Christ said: "If you love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15).
Clearly the Commandments are still in effect. They were not done away with at Christ's crucifixion. What was done away with was the penalty of death under that law, for those who repent and accept Christ as their Savior are no longer under that penalty of death but have the promise of eternal life. What was done away with by Christ's sacrifice was the need to keep all of the ritual laws; and animal sacrifice which was symbolic and prophetic of His sacrifice.
And what is wrong with these Commandments? If all mankind were to strive to keep the Commandments, out of a love for Jesus Christ, the world wouldn't be in the mess it's in. Can any reader find fault with the following?
1. You shall have no false God.
2. You shall not make any graven images (idols).
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbors' belongings.
It's that fourth commandment that so many people say does not have to be kept. Protestants claim that the seventh day Sabbath is Jewish, and that Sunday is to be kept as a memorial to Christ's Resurrection. Yet the Scriptures clearly record that Christ and the apostles kept the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the seventh day and the keeping of Sunday has come into most of Christianity through the Roman Catholic Church which in turn got it from the pagan Babylonian religions. They have chosen to follow the ways of false religion rather than follow and believe in Christ's simple statement: "For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." (Matthew 12:8). The Sabbath is the day on which the Lord rested after His six days of creation. To keep the Sabbath is to keep a memorial of that creation. And the keeping of the Sabbath serves to identify those who desire to worship God in truth. "My Sabbaths ye shall keep, (pg. 264) for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." (Exodus 31:13).
In the book "From Sabbath to Sunday," Dr.Samuele Bacchiocchi clearly establishes that Sunday was adopted by the Christian Church as it drifted away from the truth. The introduction to the book states: "The investigation shows that the adoption of Sunday in place of the Sabbath did not occur in the primitive Church of Jerusalem by virtue of apostolic authority, but approximately a century later in the Church of Rome. An interplay of Jewish, pagan, and Christian factors contributed to the abandonment of the Sabbath and adoption of Sunday observance instead. The fact that Sunday became a day of rest and worship not by Biblical apostolic authority, but rather as a result of political social, pagan, and Christian factors, makes it virtually impossible to construct a valid theology for Sunday observance. The author argues that the traditional attempt to justify Sunday rest by appealing to the Sabbath commandment is paradoxical, to say the least. How can the fourth commandment be legitimately applied to Sunday, when it is the seventh and not the first day that the commandment demands to keep holy when it is claimed that Jesus abolished it?"
The book goes through a lengthy scholarly investigation of the factors which ultimately led to the declaration by the Roman Catholic Church that Sunday was to be the day of observance. It was the influence of the sun-worshipping cults, which had their origins in ancient Babylon, that so corrupted the early Church and finally resulted in the abolishment of God's Sabbath in favor of Sunday, the day of worship of the sun.
In addition to the sun worship origins of Sunday, another motivation was the anti-Judaic feeling prevalent in the Church at Rome in the fourth century. Pope Sylvester said during his reign from 314 to 335, "If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the Christians on account of the Resurrection, then every Sabbath on account of the burial is to be regarded in execration of the Jews." This was part of his proclamation of a fast day on the Sabbath as a means of showing contempt for the Jews.
By the middle of the fourth century, Sunday worship had supplanted the Sabbath and only a small remnant of faithful believers remained outside of the established Church. Today, all Sunday keeping groups unknowingly acknowledge the authority of the (pg. 265) Pope whether they are part of the Roman Catholic Church officially or not. This includes every sector of the Protestant Church.
Several years back, in Chicago, a Roman Catholic priest named Father Enright, gave a speech entitled "The Power and Authority of the Catholic Church." He said; "Take, for instance, the day we celebrate Sunday, what right have the Protestant churches to observe that day? None whatever. You say it is to obey the commandment, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' But Sunday is not the Sabbath, according to the Bible and the record of time. Everyone knows that Sunday is the first day of the week, while Saturday is the seventh day and the Sabbath, the day consecrated as a day of rest. It is so recognized in all civilized nations. I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who will furnish any proof from the Bible that Sunday is the day we
are bound to keep, and no one has called for the money. If any person in this city will show me any Scripture for it, I will, tomorrow evening, publicly acknowledge it and thank him for it. It was the Holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, the first day of the week. And it not only compelled all to keep Sunday, but at the Council of Laodacia 364 A.D. anathematized those who kept the Sabbath, and urged all persons to labor on the seventh day under the penalty of anathema. Which Church does the whole civilized world obey? Protestants call us every horrible name they can think of-anti-Christ, the Scarlet Colored Beast, Babylon, etc., and at the same time profess great reverence for the Bible, and yet by their solemn act of keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the power of the Catholic Church. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy', but the Catholic Church says, 'No, keep the first
day of the week', and the whole world bows in obedience."
Enright said simply that the Catholic Church could establish Sunday as the day of rest because, "Show me one that claims or possesses the power to make laws binding on the conscience. There is but one on the face of the earth - the Catholic Church – that has the power binding upon the conscience, binding before God, binding under pain of hellfire."
And just to make it more interesting, Dr.Bacciochi's book distributed in the United States by the author, in Berrien Springs Michigan, is printed by the Pontifical Gregorian University Press, in Rome and carries the Papal Imprimature on its cover. Dr.Bacciochi is a Seventh Day Adventist, and was the first non-Catholic (pg. 266) to graduate from the Pontifical Gregorian University.
The book is from his thesis for his doctorate. There can be no question, then, that Sunday observance is a man-made observance contrary to Scripture. And just as pagan, just as contrary to Scripture, is the observance of many days commonly accepted as Christian holidays. Days such as Easter, Christmas, New Year's Day, and lesser days such as Valentine's Day, May Day and Halloween, have all come to us from the pagan Babylonian religions through a Christian Church that long ago departed from the truth. It is a historical fact that Christ was not born in December. It can be proven from the Bible that He was born six months after John the Baptist, and John the Baptist was born around the time of the Passover. This would place Christ's birth at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall. By December, the area around Bethlehem is very cold and there are no flocks in the fields for the shepherds to be watching over, as the Scriptures record having been the case at the time of Christ's birth.
Easter is a paganization of the Passover. The other days and their origins can be found in any good encyclopedia. In the book "Babylon Mystery Religion," Ralph Woodrow the author shows that the pagan beliefs that are now part of Christianity originated with Nimrod in ancient Babylon. The author states: "After Nimrod's death, his wife Queen Semiramis, claimed that he was now the Sun-god. And later, when this adulterous and idolatrous woman gave birth to an illegitimate son, claimed that this son, Tammuz by name was Nimrod reborn. Now the queen-Mother of Tammuz had no doubt heard of the prophecy of the coming Messiah to be born of a woman, for this truth was known from the earliest times (see Genesis 3:15). Satan had first seduced a woman, Eve; but later through a woman was to come the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan, the great counterfeiter, also knew much about the Divine Plan. Thus, he began to set up counterfeits of the true plan centuries before Jesus came. Queen Semiramis, as an instrument in Satan's hands, claimed that her son was supernaturally conceived and that he was the promised seed, the 'Savior'. However, not only was the child worshipped, but the women, the MOTHER was also worshipped as much (or more) than the son! As we shall see, Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz were used as (pg.267) puppets in Satan's hand to produce false religion - though often appearing as the true! - and this corrupt system filled the world."
This Nimrod and Semiramis were the origins of all the Sun-god legends that have come out of the middle East and spread throughout the world.
Christmas trees, rabbits, eggs, all the other trappings associated with these so-called Christian days, are merely pagan symbols of fertility and have no place in Christianity. The early Roman Church, in its attempts to spread its religion throughout Europe, took the easy way. Instead of teaching people the truth, they forced the people to convert to what they called Christianity and, to make it easier, allowed the people to continue with their pagan practices, and absorbed these practices into the Church by "Christianizing" them.
As an example, after Woodrow refers to the Encyclopedia Britannica reference to the Easter egg as a symbol of fertility he then says, "How then, we ask, did this custom come to be associated with Christianity? Its adoption into the Romish 'church' is but further evidence of the great compromise that was made with paganism - a compromise to gain popularity with both sides! And as when other rites were adopted by the 'church', apostate leaders attempted to find some similarity between the pagan rite and some Christian event; so in this case, it was suggested that, as the chick comes out of the egg, so Christ comes out of the tomb! Thus, fallen church leaders - void of God's Holy Spirit - told the people that the egg was a symbol of
the resurrection of Christ! Pope Paul V even appointed a prayer in connection with the egg! 'Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of EGGS, that it may become wholesome sustenance unto thy servants eating it in remembrance of Our Lord Jesus Christ.' And so another 'mixture' passed into Babylon Modern and has in turn become part of our present day customs."
An earlier, more detailed book on the same subject was written in 1853 by Alexander Hislop, a minister in the Church of England. At that time, there was a rather large movement to bring about correction in the Church, and bring about a repentance and a return to the truth, away from the pagan beliefs that it had adopted from the Roman Catholic Church. Entitled "The Two Babylons" it goes into (pg. 268) great detail documenting that the traditional Christian holidays are pagan. It states: "In leading proof of the Babylonian character of the Papal Church, the first point to which I solicit the reader's attention, is a character of MYSTERY which attaches alike to the modern Roman and the ancient Babylonian systems. The gigantic system of moral corruption and idolatry is symbolized in this passage by the emblem
It's interesting that the only time anything close to the current practice of Christmas is mentioned in the Bible is in Jeremiah 10:24: "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."
And Easter customs are also mentioned in a similar way. In Ezekiel 8:16, God is showing Ezekiel various abominations, regarding the worship of Tammuz. He then tells Ezekiel to turn and he will see greater abominations. "And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east."
God called it an abomination for people in His temple to be facing the east worshipping the sun. It appears that the Easter sunrise service was in existence long before the time of Christ. It is purely of pagan origin.
And what about hot cross buns and the Queen of Heaven? In Jeremiah 7:18, God inspired Jeremiah to write: "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women kneed their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." And in Chapter 44:19, it again records the making of cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and that God poured out famine and pestilence on Jerusalem for such practices.
(pg. 269) The Worldwide Church correctly teaches that these pagan practices should not be followed, and instead God's true Holy Days should be kept. These days were mentioned earlier in the book and are outlined in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus. It says in the first and second verse: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts." And the feasts were then listed as explained in the opening chapter. The forty-fourth verse concludes: "And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord."
Those feasts were kept by Christ and the apostles, as we are to keep them today. In I Corinthians 5:7-8, Paul wrote: "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
Christ, in keeping the Passover with His disciples before His Crucifixion, changed the method of observing the Passover. He instituted the foot washing ceremony as a sign of humility, and instructed us to continue doing so, as recorded in John 13:14-15; "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do, as I have done to you".
Regarding the taking of the wine and the unleavened bread, Christ said in Luke 22:19 and 22: "And He took bread, and gave thanks and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given to you: this do in remembrance of me."
Likewise also the cup after supper, saying: "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." We are to keep the Passover service annually as Christ did, and are not to keep a monthly, daily, weekly communion or any other such observance.
Pentecost also is to be observed, for it is quite clear that the New Testament Church continued to observe the day. In Acts 2:1, it says: "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."
This is the account that tells of the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Had the early Church not assembled on the day of Pentecost after Christ's Ascension into heaven, those not there (pg. 270) would not have received the Holy Spirit. By the example set forth in the Scriptures, we are to continue observing this day.
The Fall Holy days - the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day - are also to be observed. It was so important for Christ to keep the Feast of Tabernacles that just a short time prior to His Crucifixion, He kept the feast in disguise, as His time was not yet come to be killed. At that time the religious leaders were seeking to kill Him, as recorded in the seventh chapter of John. The disciples attended the feast without Christ and then John says in Verse 10: "But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, where is He?" After attending the feast secretly, Christ later spoke out publicly and caused
quite a commotion. John records: "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' (But this spake He, of the Spirit, which they that believe on him shall receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)." (John 7:37-39)
If we are to believe on Christ, and have the Holy Spirit, we must do as He says: "And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Luke 6:46.
Other pagan beliefs that have permeated Christianity are the ideas that when one dies, one either goes to heaven, if they were good, or to an ever-burning hell, forever to be tortured if they were bad. There is no scriptural support for this belief. The dead are dead in their graves. "For the living know that they shall die; the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
The apostle John made it quite clear that no one had gone to heaven other than Christ. In Chapter 3, verse 13, he said: "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down fromheaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." And in the Book of Acts, Peter is recorded as saying, in Chapter 2, Verse 29: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day."
The truth of the matter is very simple. It is that at Christ's coming, (pg. 271) all of those who have received His Holy Spirit and had died will be resurrected. The entire chapter ofI Corinthians 15 should be read to get a clear picture of this. Paul makes it quite clear that a natural physical body that has died, when it is resurrected, will be a spirit body. He says in Verses 52 and 53: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruptibn, and this mortal must put on immortality."
The Bible clearly shows that the traditional doctines of either go to heaven or go to an ever-burning tormenting hell are false. The truth is that when Christ returns after the great tribulation, which is a time of trouble, atomic war, famine and all types of natural disaster, soon to come on the earth, He will descend from the sky with power and great glory, and, according to Matthew 24:30, all the earth shall see Him.
The apostle Paul in I Thessalonians 4:13 through 17 makes the entire chain of events that will take place quite clear. He says: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
That does not mean, however, that we will remain forever in the air. It means we will be with the Lord wherever He is going. And He is going to Jerusalem to descend on the Mount of Olives.The prophet Zechariah in the Old Testament tells of this coming of Christ, as He comes to destroy all the waring nations who have given themselves totally over to Satan's ways. In Chapter 14, verse 4, Zechariah says: "And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south."
(pg. 272) And the apostle John, in his prophecy in Revelation 20:4, said: "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither hath received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."
That is the destiny of all the true believers and worshippers of Jesus Christ: to be given immortality at His coming and to reign with Him for a thousand years over the earth.Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords from Jerusalem, which will be the capital city of the entire earth. During that thousand years, Satan will be bound and will not be able to go out and tempt and deceive the people of the world. It will be a time of great cleaning up and reconstruction, which will be a necessary result of the great wars which would have
just previously encompassed the entire earth. This, then, will be the Kingdom of God. All living at that time will then have the opportunity to see what it is like to live in a world of perfect government under Christ as King. The saints, those then reigning with Christ, will have the wonderful opportunity to assist Him in instructing the human inhabitants of the earth in the good and righteous ways of God. One may ask what will happen to all the other dead people. If they haven't gone to heaven or hell, where are they? The apostle John records in the same chapter of Revelation: "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years are finished. This is the first resurrection."
This means that the people who have died, not having attained salvation during their human life, will remain in their graves during the time of the Kingdom of God. At the end of the thousand years they will be resurrected into a perfect world. This would take place after Satan will have been let loose for a short period of time to continue to attempt to deceive people who had had the opportunity to live under Christ for a thousand years. Those who then follow Satan will be destroyed, not eternally tormented, but destroyed. Satan and all of his demons, being spirit beings, will not be destroyed and they are the ones that will be tormented forever and ever.
After this takes place, and the rest of the dead are raised at the end of the thousand years, they will be judged according to their works. Christ, in His righteous judgment, will then give each one of these people either eternal life or death. That second death will be (pg. 273) permanent, but not a time of eternal torture. And at that time death and hell, hell meaning the grave, will also be destroyed.
The last two chapters of Revelation describe a wonderful scene, where at the end of the thousand-year-reign of Jesus Christ on earth, God the Father will bring His throne down from Heaven to the earth where He will then reign over the entire universe. The earth will then be the headquarters of God's entire creation, with inhabitation by God the Father, Jesus Christ, the angels, and all of the millions who will then have been given eternal life and will be as Christ; in other words they will actually be gods as He is God.
One may ask, what then? This can only be understood by grasping the wonderful reality that God created the entire universe. In order that man, after conversion to spirit beings and sons of God, may have dominion over it, Hebrews 2:b through 8, says: "But one in a certain place testified, saying: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him."
What Paul is saying here is that eventually man would have authority and rule and control over the entire universe. And this is what will begin to take place after God places His throne on earth at the end of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The universe is endless; the stars and planets and other heavenly bodies are uncountable. Man cannot begin to grasp the immensity of God's creation. But yet the entire universe, except for earth, is void and barren. It will not remain that way, however. Under God the Father and Jesus Christ, all of the born-again sons of God will have a job to do. That job will be to make new creations throughout the universe, to make the entire universe a creation of great beauty that would be so wonderful that we cannot even conceive of it in our human minds. This is the purpose for which we were created. This is straight from Scripture and this is how it has been taught by the Worldwide Church of God.
Since the teachings of the Church are true, it would be foolish for one to reject those teachings because the leader, the one who brought that truth, has gone wrong and turned from God's ways. If only the Church leadership would repent. God is so merciful, that (pg. 274) as He says in the Book of Ezekiel, He would forget their sins if only they would repent and turn to His ways. The fact that the leadership has now turned from God's ways, and is leading so many of the members back into Babylon from whence they came, is no reason to reject the truth that they had brought.
