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Essays for A Commentary — From the Margins A _____________________________ When
I began to reread prophecy and write what I was reading in 2002, I completed
the initial draft of A Philadelphia
Apologetic (APA) in two and a half months. By the fall of 2004, I knew that
APA needed to be updated, and I began
to rewrite chapters, but I did not get far before I realized that enough
information was coming from typological exegesis that I needed to add to what I
had just written. However, the demands of writing for numerous websites
prevented me from returning to APA.
Those demands remain. Thus, to satisfy both the demands for new pieces on my
home website, and to finally return to APA,
I have opted to use the Commentaries
to produce the essays that will become chapters; so the serialized edition will
remain as it presently is until enough Commentaries
have been written for a new published edition. At that time, the serialized chapters
will be replaced by the published edition. * * * * * Chapter Two Forty Years Ago _______________________ Allusions, says Jakobson, are signs that produce an imbalance between signifier & signified, resulting in signified surplus, analogous to overfilling a wine glass, the resulting spill staining the source text in a disordered or unstructured way. Perhaps that's what happened to the Bible— it's been so stained by spills of red wine it's not the book my forefathers read— [from "Us or Them"] _______________________ 1. On
Thursday of the second full week in January 2002, about 10:12 CST, as I was
pulling into the parking lot of Southeastern Illinois College where I was to
teach a class, a thought that again seemed to have substance—a thought
like the one experienced when I was initially drafted into the Body of
Christ—said, It’s time to
reread prophecy. The thought obscured all other thoughts, including ones of
getting out of the pickup and getting to class. For the second time in my life,
a thought seemed to be a thing, seemed to have actual substance, and for
several minutes I sat wondering exactly what had happened. I knew what, but
why? I was unbelieving of what I seemed to hear and think at the same time.
What I didn’t then know was that forty years earlier, apparently to the
day, hour, and minute, an Advanced Prophecy seminar at With a dynamic radio voice and an advertising
background, Herbert Armstrong, beginning in 1934, built a worldwide ministry on
explicating biblical prophecy, but by the fall of 1961, he knew that he had
gotten things wrong. He realized that he did not understand what he thought he
understood; so he scheduled a prophecy seminar for the following spring
semester at his It would have taken Garner Ted about twelve
minutes to arrive at saying there would be no new revelation—it took
twelve minutes for Garner Ted to kill the work his father had spent three decades
building. In just twelve minutes, the last divine Breath of the endtime
Elijah’s second attempt to resuscitate the corpse of Christ was lost.
Forty years would pass before this endtime Elijah would begin His third and
ultimately successful attempt to breathe life into the dead Body. The Worldwide Church of God’s greatest
growth years occurred after 1962. Money poured in; membership increased thirty
percent a year; corporate jets were purchased; antiques were acquired; the
undersized but posh Ambassador Auditorium was built; and Herbert Armstrong
hobnobbed with minor world dignitaries—all after the work of God was
spiritually dead. It wasn’t God who was blessing the Worldwide Church of
God. It was the prince of this world; for concealed within the secrecy of the
corporate structure were serious transgressions of the commandments. Within Christendom, prophecy is a suspect
discipline, made all the more suspect by the antics of prophecy pundits such as
Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong. Prophecies either were fulfilled, or they
cannot be well understood. They are vague, and are often interspersed in
narrative accounts about real events. Thus, long ago and for cause, they became
the domain of the cultic fringe … despite its denials, the Worldwide
Church of God was a cult that splintered into hundreds of slivers following
Hebert Armstrong’s death, with most of these slivers two decades after
Armstrong’s death still clinging to his teachings as if he, not Christ,
were the endtime Elijah who will turn the hearts of children to the fathers,
and the hearts of fathers to their children (Mal 4:6). Mostly unknown sects of not just Armstrong’s
fiefdom but of every fringe on the shawl of Christianity proclaim the
fulfillment of some prophecy with every newscast. A natural disaster here and
one there, and this sect or that one proclaims the end of the age has come upon
humanity, the practice beginning two millennia ago. But the essence of the
Christian message is that the creator of humanity came as the man Jesus, died
and was raised from the dead, and will return as the promised Messiah who will
put an end to the world as it is today. Even sects and denominations that teach
a realized eschatology having the kingdom of heaven being here on earth today,
teach that a new heaven and a new earth are to arrive at the end of this age.
So the assurance of Christianity is that life as human beings presently know it
will end at some specific moment in the future. As I sat in the pickup in January 2002,
unbelieving of what had occurred, I suspected “It’s time to
reread prophecy” meant that it was time for me to begin writing about
prophecy. The splintered Sabbatarian Churches of God were not powerfully
delivering the two-house warning of a generation earlier. My prophetic
understanding was within the mainstream of the Churches of God, so I suspected
the command I received was to make a better case for the two-house warning than
was being made. Although the two-house warning had been publicly made for
decades in one of the most poorly crafted books ever published, a book that was
the plagiarized work of another, a book that does not even justify being named,
the two-house warning had fallen on hard times as it should have for that
two-house warning is not of God and never was of God. What about forty years earlier? As I sat in the
parking lot of Why didn’t the senior Armstrong teach more
sessions? Why did he leave teaching the class to his son? But of more interest
is why did the so-called evangelists who heard both that the Church didn’t understand prophecy and that all was known quietly sit through the
remainder of the semester, or so Ray Dick told me after reading the initial
draft of A Philadelphia Apologetic,
completed in March 2002. Ray Dick was then (in 1962) in Fourth Year Bible,
taught by Al Portune, one of the senior men in the Advanced Prophecy seminar.
Ray gave me the names of the men in the Advanced Prophecy seminar. Although
most of the men are now dead, I sought confirmation of what I was told from
Garner Ted Armstrong and from Roderick Meredith, senior evangelist for the
Living Church of God. Garner Ted in three most gracious letters written during
the summer and fall of 2002 neither denied or confirmed the story. Roderick
Meredith, however, seemed to confirm the entirety of the story. Of attendees
who remain alive, Leslie McCullough and Dibar Apartian were also in the
seminar. There is a little more to the story of Garner Ted
(on behalf of the Church) rejecting revelation during that spring 1962
semester. On a Friday morning near the end of semester, Al Portune presented to
the fourth year Bible class information coming from the Advance Prophecy
seminar. Ray Dick was certain what had been said was wrong, so over the weekend
he gathered Scripture passages and he presented what he had gathered to Al
Portune at eight o’clock Monday morning. Fourth Year Bible was at eleven.
Al Portune was late coming to class. When he arrived, he had additional
Scriptures supporting the position Ray Dick had presented to him that morning,
the position being, I believe, that the armies surrounding Jerusalem when the
Mount of Olives splits occurs three and half years earlier than when Armageddon
happens. But when Garner Ted on Thursday of that week learned what Al Portune
and Ray Dick were discussing, Garner Ted pulled Ray out of class. With his
entourage and a cowered Al Portune in tow, he threatened Ray with expulsion
from (Ray Dick kept his prophetic understanding to
himself for decades. However, his understanding appeared in an article
published by Dixon Cartwright’s The
Journal in 2001. The article is still on-line as of 2005.) I can’t say what I would have done if I had
been in that Advanced Prophecy class forty years earlier. I don't know if I
would’ve been like Joshua and Caleb, or if I would’ve sat on my
hands, deferring to the authority of the instructor. The decision wasn’t
mine to make, then. I was a fifteen year‑old high school junior, who knew
to keep the Sabbath but was unwilling to do so. Like the vast majority of humanity, the so-called
evangelists who sat on their hands and on their courage that spring semester,
1962, will have their history assigned to them. Today (2005), Roderick
Meredith’s history is being assigned to him following the shooting spree
in the Daniel's prophecies were sealed until the time of
the end. They could not be understood earlier than the generic period
identified in Scripture as “the time of the end.” Ellen G. White
and Herbert Armstrong and any number of other pundits didn’t live in that
generic period so it’s foolishness to look to these pundits for
understanding of endtime prophecies. And it is equally foolish to listen to the
prophetic understanding of anyone now, myself included, if it is not the time
of the end. But if humanity in the ebb of time has arrived at this generic
endtime period, then the Elijah to come (the glorified Christ Jesus working
through human beings) will restore all things, including revealing prophetic
events, for a sealed prophecy is worthless unless it is unsealed. A proof of
the Most High’s sovereignty is fulfilled prophecy. An even greater proof
is His ability to seal a prophecy so that the revelation cannot be understood,
then to unseal the revelation shortly before the event occurs. Faith now enters
the domain of prophecy. The unsealing will come through the generation of an
additional text, and the validity of that additional text becomes a matter of
faith. The sheep hear the voice of the true Shepherd. The wild sheep listen to
no voice but their own. And the goats betray the sheep that follow them. Some disciples in every generation since ·
Solomon wrote
that God “has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has put [עולם or ‘owlam] into man’s heart; yet so that he cannot find out what God has
done from the beginning to the end” (Eccl 3:11), with owlam variously translated into English
as /eternity/ or the /world/. The world or the creation conceals the things of
God from the natural mind, so that the beginning and end cannot be known. ·
Jesus said He
was “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and
the end” (Rev 22:13). ·
The natural
mind, because the world conceals the beginning and the end, cannot know Jesus
regardless of how often the natural mind hears the name uttered, and the deeds
of Jesus related. Only the person born of Spirit and whose mind is not set on
the things of the flesh (Rom 8:5-8) can “know” Jesus. ·
John wrote,
“Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments
is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). ·
Jesus said He
would love and make Himself known to the person who has His commandments and
who keeps them (John 14:21). ·
The natural
mind is consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) and is unable to keep the
commandments, but the person born of Spirit has been set free from sin and
death (Rom 8:2) “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might
be fulfilled in [disciples], who walk not according to the flesh but according
to the Spirit” (v. 4). ·
To know Jesus
sets a person free from sin and death in order that the righteous requirements
of the law might be fulfilled in this person, and when “set free” this
person will keep the commandments that, in turn, keep the person free from
bondage to sin and death; thus, the righteous requirements of the law are
fulfilled in this person through this person keeping the commandments. Paul
wrote, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress
the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the
world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse”
(Rom 1:18-20). Therefore, ·
The visible
things of this world reveal the invisible things of God, including His power
and His nature; hence, what conceals the beginning and the end [Christ Jesus is
both] from the natural mind also reveals the power and nature of God “to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom
1:16). ·
What is
natural precedes what is spiritual (1 Cor 15:46); so a person’s mature
natural mind will precede the same person having a mature spiritual mind, just
as the person’s human birth precedes this person’s spiritual birth. ·
As there was
a first Adam, a man of red mud, there is a last Adam, a life-giving spirit (1
Cor 15:45). Between this first Adam and “the last Adam as a life-giving
spirit” is the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was born of woman, baptized in
water, received the Holy Spirit [A<,L:" U(4@<], and died on the cross at Calvary. ·
The natural
body of Jesus put on immortality after being raised from the dead, but the
natural body suffered no decay in the grave. Likewise, the Body of Christ that
died as Jesus died in the mid 1St Century CE will suffer no decay
throughout a single long night that began at Calvary and extends until Jesus
returns to fight on a day of battle (Zech 14:3-4). In his gospel, the Apostle John wrote, “In
the beginning was the [7@(@H – Logos], and the [7@(@H] was with [1,@< – Theon],
and the [7@(@H] was [1,@H – Theos].
…And the [7@(@H] became flesh and dwelt among us” (John
1:1, 14). Grammatically, Theos and Theon are both “God,” but
are not the same entity. The creation conceals the 7@(@H, the man Jesus, who is the beginning of the
creation through being its Creator (v.
3), from the natural minds of
humankind. Inevitably, the People of the Book will have the Father [1,@<] being the creator of this world because the
existence of the 7@(@H is not known to those who have not been born of
Spirit. The person who is of the Book and who perceives Elohim and YHWH to be
linguistic icons representing a single entity has not been born of Spirit.
Likewise, the person of the Book who would have the Creator of this world being
the Father lacks spiritual understanding and has not been born of Spirit.
Hence, the person of the Book who uses the icon Allah or Yah to represent
the Father [1,@<] lacks spiritual understanding. This world has
concealed from the person knowledge of Christ Jesus, the beginning and the end
of this world—and because the person does not know Jesus, the person is
not “saved,” but is part of the mass of humankind to be born of
Spirit at a latter time [either before Jesus returns or in the great White
Throne Judgment, the eighth day of Sukkot]. If the person does not know Jesus as demonstrated
by the person not keeping the commandments but nevertheless expects
“Jesus” to catch the person up to heaven, the person has a rude
awakening coming. Flesh and blood cannot enter heaven. But it isn’t in
not being bodily Raptured into heaven with the associated personal
disillusionment where the greatest danger lies for so-called Christians; it is
in these “Christians” returning to the faith once delivered (Jude
3), with the faith to which they return being the faith delivered by
Hellenistic philosophers as the Trojan horse they would use to win an empire
from the Romans … it was not just prophecies that were concealed by God
in a play of shadows, but the very plan of salvation. Without knowledge of
Christ Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, no person of the Book can understand the
beginning or the end of this creation. And without taking understanding from
Scripture through using the things of this world to reveal the previously
concealed things of God, no person of the Book, especially the person caught up
in “the struggle,” can understand the prophecies of God. For the
visible man Jesus, the historical figure used to spread murder and mayhem
across six continents, is a “thing” of this world that has been
used to conceal the things of God from all who have natural minds. Yes, the
“Jesus” everyone knows is not the beginning and end of what God has
done and will do, but rather, a dark cloud that conceals the Jesus who was born
of Mary from the world, and even from the People of the Book. Jesus does not and will not manifest Himself to
anyone who does not have and does not keep His commandments. And He is the same
today as He was yesterday and as He will be tomorrow. The disciple who keeps
the least of the commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called
great in the The person traveling the board path remains on the
board path until after there is true repentance, which causes the person
to keep the commandments. Only then can the person know Jesus, and be known by
Jesus. ·
Every person
is predestined to labor along the wide path as a bondservant to the prince of
this world, who makes this broad path personally attractive to those who might
otherwise escape. It is especially attractive to his servants who appear as
minister of righteousness (2 Cor 11:15). ·
Jesus said of
John, “‘This is he of whom it is written, “Behold, I send my
messenger before your face, / who will prepare your way before
you””’ (Matt 11:10). ·
John points
the way to Jesus; John is the one who makes straight the way of the Lord (John
1:23). And the way to Jesus is through repentance, where a narrow, faint path
leads away from the broad road. ·
Only those
individuals who turn from disobedience and are baptized with John’s
baptism find the way to Christ Jesus. And because the Holy Spirit empowered the
twelve at Note well the following: The model for salvation that was established in the 1st-Century
Church that would have the Holy Spirit being received prior to repentance after
a representative group was baptized by the Holy Spirit forms the copy and
shadow of the endtime third part of humanity (Zech 13:9) that will receive the Holy Spirit when it
is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) when
the single kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of the father and His Christ
(Rev 11:15; cf. Dan 7:9-14; Rev
11:15-19). Every person will then be
born of Spirit prior to personal repentance; thus, this third part of
humankind must, necessarily, live through the last three and a half years of
the seven endtime years of tribulation. And the promise is that all who endure
shall be saved (Matt 24:13). All who live through these last three and a half
years will have overcome the old dragon, Satan the devil, who when cast to
earth, comes as the true Antichrist, claiming to be Christ and requiring all to
take the tattoo of the cross to buy and sell (do business). Thus, those who
endure to the end will be those whose faith in God overcame their perceived
need to buy and sell; will be those who trust God to preserve their lives
rather than trust their lives to a failed and failing economic system. Again, the present model for receiving the Holy
Spirit is found in the second covenant (Deu chaps 29-31), where when in a far
land [or on the broad road] a person—whether physically circumcised or
uncircumcised doesn’t matter—turns towards God and by faith begins
to obey His voice in all that He commands in the book of Deuteronomy. This
obeying by faith all that God commands is hearing Jesus’ words and
believing the One who sent Him (John 5:24). Nothing else qualifies as hearing
Jesus’ words and believing the Father. Nothing short of having the law of
God and keeping His commandments will cause Jesus to make Himself known to the
person (again, John 14:21), and nothing short of keeping the commandments
reveals to man and God that the person knows Jesus (1 John 2:3-4). Therefore,
repentance in the form of keeping the commandments marks the narrow path that
leads to Jesus and from Jesus to salvation. There is no other way to God other
than through Jesus. All People of the Book are expected to come to God through
Jesus, for the person who by faith has repented and now lives by the
commandments must still profess that Jesus is Lord and believe that the Father
raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:6-13, especially v. 9). A person cannot call on the name of Jesus while
armed with an Uzi or an AK-47 or an M16. The person must first turn from the
ways of this world and be baptized with John’s baptism, which ends the
condemnation of the Law and the Prophets and begins the restoration of all
things. The Body of Christ is restored to life through many disciples being
baptized with John’s baptism, then with these many disciples journeying
down the narrow but straight path that leads to Jesus where they will be born of
Spirit. Not until they reach Christ Jesus will they be born of Spirit, and not
until they are born of Spirit will life return to the collective Body of Christ.
And today (2007), very few disciples have found Jesus although hundreds of
millions claim that distinction while actively engaged in disobedience. Today, repentance and demonstrated love of God
through obedience by faith precede being born of Spirit, and no
“Christian” repents of disobedience by attempting to enter into
God’s rest on the 8th-day. No true Paul wrote that from the same lump, God makes one
vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable usage (Rom 9:21) …
“God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured
with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make
known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared
beforehand for glory” (vv.
22-23). The person who has made a covenant with the cross is not the one whom
God has prepared for glory. Rather, it is the circumcised and uncircumcised
person who, by faith, keeps the precepts of the law that has been prepared
beforehand to be with God. When Christ Jesus returns, outside the heavenly city
of 2. Herbert
Armstrong never understood about being born of Spirit as evidenced by his
senior ministers, especially Gerald Waterhouse, claiming that he was the Elijah
to come. Spiritual birth and Elijah restoring all things, while not initially
seeming to be related, actually are jointly linked in the resurrection of the
dead Body of Christ. For five plus decades (1930s-1980s), Herbert
Armstrong taught that a person would not be born of Spirit until the person
receives a glorified body when Jesus returns to reveal judgments. Evangelical
Christianity teaches that a person is born of Spirit when the person accepts
Jesus as his or her personal savior. The truth lies between these two extreme
positions, and is most easily seen by working backwards from the end of the age
… on the 12th of Abib, two days before He would be delivered
up to be crucified, Jesus taught in the temple, delivering perhaps His most
memorable teachings and parables, and when He was going away from the temple,
His disciples pointed out to Him the buildings of the temple. He said to His
disciples, “‘Truly, I say to you, there will not be left one stone upon
another that will not be thrown down’” (Matt 24:2). As the Passover Lamb of God, a Lamb appropriate to
the size of the household of God (Exod 12:3), Jesus was “penned” in
Jerusalem so He wasn’t going far, certainly not much farther than the
Mount of Olives which was on the edge of the city. So as Jesus sat on the Mount
of Olives, to which He returns when He fights on a day of battle (Zech 14:3-4),
His disciples came to Him and asked privately when the stones of the temple
would be thrown down “‘and what will be the sign of your coming and
of the close of the age’” (Matt 24:3). His disciples did not ask
about world conditions between then and when Jesus returns. They asked more
narrowly focused questions: when would the temple be destroyed and how would they
know when this age ends. And Jesus’ answer is to these narrowly focused
questions— ·
When Jesus
was taken before the chief priests and the whole council was seeking false
testimony against Jesus and none was found, two men finally came forward and
said that Jesus claimed He was able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild
it in three days (Matt 26:59-61). ·
In
Mark’s account of those who bore false testimony, the witnesses said,
‘“We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made
with hands and in three days I will build another, not made with
hands”’” (14:58). Above this, the false witnesses testimony
did not agree—what they agreed upon and what was true is that the temple
of God would no longer be a stone building of granite and marble, but a stone
building constructed of disciples. ·
Thus, the
stones of the temple that would be cast down were first the granite and marble blocks
of the temple Herod built; however, the “Wailing Wall” remains as
foundational stones, one atop another, of this physical temple that Roman
soldiers did not cast down (ca 70 CE). One stone remains on another to this day.
So the physical temple in ·
The principle
temple of which no one stone would remain atop another is the temple not built
with hands, but the temple built without hands, the temple constructed from
“living stones” (1 Pet:4-5). Paul identifies disciples as the ·
Therefore, beginning
in the 1st-Century, when many came in His name to lead many astray
(Matt 24:5), enough disciples were lead astray that not one living stone
remained on another of the temple of which Paul laid the foundation (1 Cor
3:10-11). All fellowships in ·
At
Paul’s first defense in The
curtain separating the Holy of holies from the rest of the sanctuary was torn,
top to bottom, when Jesus died (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). The earth
shook. Rocks were split. Tombs opened. But there is no record of blocks of
granite and marble being cast down from the temple when Jesus died. So the
temple Jesus destroyed was not then physically destroyed, but destroyed as though
ending the marriage covenant that made Israel the holy nation of God (Exod
19:5-6). Yes, Jesus destroyed the temple [and temple covenant] made with hands
by submitting to be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God, and yes, He built
another temple after three days when He breathed on ten of His disciples and
said, ‘“Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). So 70
CE is less important as the date when the stones of the physical temple were
cast down as it is the date after which the living stones of the temple not
built with hands were cast down, for the physical precedes the spiritual (1 Cor
15:46) and the visible reveals the invisible (Rom 1:20). Hence, the “living
stones” of the spiritual temple were not cast down until after The When Jesus answers His disciples’ question
about when the temple will be cast down, Jesus took His answer outside of this
physical realm and placed it in the spiritual realm, where the ·
Jesus said
that wars and rumors of wars are not a sign of the end of this age (24:6), nor
are famines and earthquakes in various places (v. 7). Let’s
again pause for a moment. What is the foremost concern of today’s
prophecy pundits? Wars and rumors of wars, correct? Have you listened to any of today’s prophecy
pundits? What are they discussing? War with Wow! There are so many prophecy pundits looking at
wars and rumors of wars that to paint the many as false leaves brush marks into
which some will slide to escape being so labeled, thereby continuing their
deception into the seven endtime years. It was easy to identify false prophets
when one only had to look at whether the pundit inserted The prophecy pundit that identifies Islamic
nations as the king of the South, and European nations as the king of the North
has no spiritual understanding and little imagination, for this pundit would
again have the Cross fight with the Crescent in yet another crusade to recover
present day Identifying false prophets who look for physical
events to fulfill endtime prophecies is actually easier than it first seems,
for those who look at wars and natural disasters also insert The mind that is set on earthly things is set on
war and rumors of wars as well as on the concerns of the belly, such as famines
and natural disasters. The mind set on earthly things is the mind of the
prophecy pundit who teaches that the eleven horns of Daniel chapter seven are
eleven Roman emperors, Augustus through Domitian, that 1st-Century
Rome’s great crime was its emperor worship, that the last three and a
half years of Daniel 7:25 and of Revelation 13:5 are the last three and a half
years of Domitian’s reign when he demanded that the whole world worship
him [scripturally, these periods are not the same three and a half years: taken
together, they form the seven endtime years]. The mind set on earthly things
inevitably has the iron legs of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw being the divided
Roman Empire, and has the fourth beast of Daniel chapter seven being the Roman
Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire, or the Roman Church when, again [and said
loudly], Rome is not mentioned in biblical prophecies whereas Babylon, Persia,
and Greece are. The mind set on earthly things cannot believe that Returning now to Jesus’ Olivet discourse: Jesus
said that all the physical things that would happen—famines, earthquakes,
wars, the rise and fall of nations, including Rome—were but the beginning
of birth pains through which Israel would deliver sons of God (Matt 24:8). Everything that physically occurs to
humankind is not a sign of Jesus’ coming and of the close of the age. And
this is what the many false prophecy pundits cannot comprehend; this is what
the natural mind cannot comprehend. To the many false prophets, the recent
rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism must be a sign of the end of the age.
The global dislike of the ·
Jesus’
disciples delivered into tribulation, put to death, and hated by all nations
for His name’s sake (Matt 24:9). ·
Jesus’
disciples would fall away, betray one another, and hate one another (24:10). ·
From
Jesus’ disciples would arise many false prophets to lead many astray
(24:11). ·
Within
Jesus’ disciples lawlessness would increase and the love of many would
grow cold (24:12). If a person were to stop right here, an argument
could be made that all of the above occurred in the 1st-Century
before Domitian perished. But that would be an argument based on physical
events, and it is difficult to make the case that 1st or 2nd
Century hatred by all nations was a sign of Jesus’ return, or that the
growing Jesus movement in the 2nd-Century was based on disciples
falling away, betraying one another, and having their love grow cold. But it is the next thing Jesus told His disciples
that separates the false prophets from those who have been called to do the
work of restoration: ·
With the
above four points occurring, Jesus said that the one who endures to the end
shall be saved (24:13). And this is the first “good news” that
follows His disciples being put to death, hated by all nations, falling away,
betraying one another, led astray by false prophets, returning to lawlessness,
having their love grow cold. ·
This good
news [gospel] of the kingdom—what good news does Jesus reference if not
the good news of the preceding sentence—would be, Jesus said, proclaimed
throughout the world as a testimony to all nations (24:14). ·
After the
good news that all who will endure to the
end of the tribulation into which Jesus’ disciples are thrust is
delivered to the world, the end of the age would come. ·
Thus, the
sign of the close of this age is the tribulation into which Jesus’
disciples are delivered and the worldwide proclamation that those who endure shall
be saved. ·
But the
gospel delivered to the world by the visible Christian church is not a message
about enduring to the end, but a message about the person Jesus of Nazareth. So
the only sign Jesus gave of His coming has not yet happened. The gospel to be delivered to the
world before the end of this age comes is NOT a message about Jesus, nor the
announcement of the arrival of Jesus’ kingdom, but the more narrowly
focused message that every human being who “endures” to the end
shall be saved. Why? Yes, why is everyone who endures to the end
saved? What about repentance, professing that Jesus is Lord, bringing forth
fruits? Why is enduring tribulation the basis for being saved? Will a Muslim
enduring tribulation be saved, it would seem so? That is what Jesus said,
isn’t it? It is here, with the only sign of the close of
this age, where understanding spiritual birth is required. Because Herbert Armstrong, Ellen G. White, Perry
Stone, and thousands of others who make and have made their livings explicating
biblical prophecy have not understood spiritual birth, the only sign Jesus gave
of the close of this age has been misunderstood. And without understanding spiritual
birth, the focus of these false prophets can only be on wars and rumors of
wars, on the return of Jews from Jesus said, “‘Truly, truly, I say to
you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father
doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. … For as
the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to
whom he will’” (John 5:19, 21). So if the Father raises the dead
and gives them life, to whom does the Son give life? He cannot very well give
life to the dead, for the Father has already raised the dead and given them
life. And if the Son cannot give life to the dead, He must necessarily give
life to the living. Continuing, Jesus said, “‘The Father
judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the
Son, just as they honor the Father’” (John 5:22-23) … the
Father raises the dead and gives them life, but He judges no one. All judgment
has been left to the Son, who gives life to the living. Thus, judgment by the
Son is the giving of life, or the withholding of life from those whom the
Father has raised from the dead. And the question must be asked, what happens
to the one whom the Father has raised from the dead and to whom the Father has
given life when the Son withholds a second giving of life? Actually, Jesus partially answers this question in
the following: “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word
and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is
coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live’” (John 5:24-25). If the dead could hear, when Jesus was speaking,
the voice of the Son of God—and all who heard Jesus speak were then
hearing the voice of the Son of God—then “the dead” are
those who heard Jesus speak on this Sabbath
day when the invalid of 38 years was healed. And if these “dead men”
believed the one who sent Jesus, then these dead persons would have life
without coming into judgment. But the Father must raise the dead and give them
life— The Father would give life to those who heard
Jesus speak not through a physical resurrection from death, for these dead men were physically alive [these
are the “dead” whom Jesus said should bury the dead], but through a
second birth, a birth by Spirit (John 3:3-8), an additional life given to the
dead-but-physically-alive person who heard Jesus speak, an additional life
received through the divine Breath of God [A<,L:" U(4@<], a life that is not of this world and cannot be
seen with eyes or discerned through the physical senses, but a
“real” life that makes the dead-but-physically-living person alive
spiritually. A person is born of Spirit when the Father draws
the person from the world (John 6:44, 65) and gives to this person life through
receipt of His divine breath. This person has now been “raised from the
dead,” but this person who has been raised from the dead is not the tent
of flesh in which “this son of God” is now domiciled. This new
creature is a life within the mind and heart, a life that has not been born
subject to disobedience but born free to keep the commandments of God. This new
creature is, literally, a son of God, for this new creature has no parent but
God the Father. And the Son must give life to this new creature in the form of
the mortal flesh putting on immortality. In Christian dogma, “personhood” is
not defined by the actions of the flesh, but by the thoughts of the mind and
desires of the heart. Thus, the person is not the body. The person dwells in
the body as the patriarch Abraham dwelt in a tent. And Greek philosophers long
ago borrowed the pagan concept of the immortal soul to represent Christian
“personhood,” whereas a human being has no spiritual life until
born of Spirit, which is a second birth not now received until the fleshly body
has reached maturity and is capable of repentance. This gift of a second birth,
spiritual life, is of God (Rom 6:23) and is not of human parents. The physically-living person who hears
Jesus’ words and believes the One who sent Jesus does so because the
Father has given life to this person, for “the dead” must be made
spiritually alive because they can hear the spiritually uttered words of Jesus.
Oh, the dead can hear the sound that
Jesus’ words make as they move air molecules, just as the dead saw the invalid healed on the
Sabbath day as a self-evident violation of the Sabbath commandment—after
all, the man had been an invalid for 38 years; he could have been healed on the
following day, the first day of the week, or so the dead evidently reasoned. But the renewing Breath of God (Ps
104:30) was “uttered” on the Sabbath, not on the following day when
Israel could not enter into God rest (cf.
Heb 3:16-4:11; Ps 95:10-11; Num chap 14), with the “rest of
God” that caused the renewal of the invalid coming through Jesus
delivering the Father’s words. Therefore, in order to hear Jesus’ words and
to discern spiritual things, a person must be born of Spirit, and the person
born of Spirit who believes the Father passes from death to life without coming
under judgment. The Son will automatically give this born-of-Spirit disciple
immortality, but will not necessarily give immortality to the flesh of this
person while he or she lives physically. The inner new creature born of Spirit
and the flesh are separate entities. And except for those who remain physically
alive when Jesus returns, the flesh of every born-of-Spirit son of God will
return to dust before Jesus returns to reveal judgments (1 Cor 4:5), or as the
case might be, lack of judgments for the ones who have passed from death to
life. The fleshly body of the born-of-Spirit son of God
belongs to the same world as wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and
false prophets. The born-of-Spirit new creature belongs to the heavenly realm,
where all who hear the words of Jesus and believe the Father pass from death to
life; all who endure in belief will be saved and will not come under judgment.
And the good news that must be
proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations is that all of humankind
will be born of Spirit before the end of this age can come. And when born
of Spirit, there will no longer be Muslim or Buddhist or Hindi. All will be
spiritually born People of the Book; all will be of the holy nation of If all of humankind must, necessarily, be born of
Spirit prior to the end of this age, then the baptism of the world in Spirit
(Matt 3:11) through the Holy Spirit being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28)
must also occur before the end of this age. The physical The tribulation that comes upon Israel and that
produces the hatred, betrayal, false prophets and lawlessness that form the
backdrop for the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved begins
with the second Passover, when a division of humankind is made apparent by
firstborns covered by the blood of the Lamb living while firstborn not covered
by the blood of Christ die. Was it coincidence that I was drafted to reread
prophecy forty years after Garner Ted Armstrong told senior evangelists there
would be no new revelation, that his dad had it right? The defense of my claim
about being drafted is in what I write. My asserting the validity of the claim
means nothing of itself. Only when a second Passover occurs can anyone be
certain, and for the firstborns of If,
however, it isn’t coincidence that I was drafted forty years to the day
from when Garner Ted said there would be no new revelation, then the work of
Herbert Armstrong was as he claimed, the restored work of God, albeit the work
of an imperfect messenger. But his work was spiritually dead long before it
achieved most of its physical success. The greatest amount of opulence came
after its spiritual demise … the work of Herbert Armstrong is now being
mocked by many who once supported this self-proclaimed endtime apostle. I
won’t join in the mocking, for in 1973, in Blythe Arena, I sat on a short
section of elevated bleachers behind the speakers’ platform when Herbert
Armstrong addressed more than 7,000 feast attendees. Before he arrived in the
arena, I noticed a padded chair in the front row of seats that wasn’t
there previously. He entered without fanfare, and took his seat in the chair. A
few mothers with infants approached him. He greeted the mothers and patted the
infants on their heads, and was generally approachable and accessible to anyone
who desired to say hello to him. Most of the attendees didn’t realize he
was in the building. He didn’t have managers or handlers or an entourage.
His physical stature was small, and he was easily concealed by the few people
standing around him (multiple clusters of attendees had gathered in various
locations throughout the arena). Thus, my impression of the man doesn’t
come from seeing the opulence in which he lived, but from seeing mothers walk
up to him and extend their hands. He seemed to genuinely enjoy contact with
“ordinary” people. The
above doesn’t mean that I approve of him living as how he envisioned that
glorified saints will live in the kingdom. Nor does the above mean that I now
support any of his prophetic understanding. Rather, the above means that I saw
a man history will judge more kindly than will the generation that followed
him. On
another day at the same Feast and from the same short section of bleachers, I
also watched Garner Ted and Stanley Radar with their entourages arrive after
the opening prayer, and leave before the closing prayer. Both men didn’t
have time to fellowship with those people who were making their lifestyles
possible. So while the present generation of in-house skeptics bravely attacks
the deceased Herbert Armstrong, determining that he was a plagiarist who was
possibly guilty of incest, I will point back to me being drafted to reread
prophecy, and to this apologetic. If Herbert Armstrong was not, prior to 1962,
doing the work of God, then the forty years to the hour and likely to the
minute from when Garner Ted said there would be no new revelation as a length
of time is purely coincidental. If the senior Armstrong was, however, prior to
1962 doing the work of God, then the forty years correspond to the length of
time that the holy nation that wouldn’t enter the promised land because
of unbelief (Ps 95:10-11; Heb 3:19) wandered in the wilderness until dead. This
juxtaposition suggests that the Churches of God are today dead. So
that there is never any miss-understanding: the man Herbert Armstrong was
either doing the work of God prior to 1962, or the forty years to the day from
when his son, Garner Ted, said there would be no new revelation is purely
coincidental. The either/or argumentative fallacy does not here apply, for the
two positions are absolutes. Either Herbert Armstrong was doing the work of
God, or he was not. He could not be almost doing the work of God. And if he
was, then Garner Ted killed that work by rejecting revelation, for
Armstrong’s prophetic understandings were physical [were of wars and
rumors of wars] and did not come to pass. His prophetic understandings were not
of God, a reality his detractors have used to label the entirety of his work as
false. But this label of falseness is too tightly glued to the entirety of his
work if Garner Ted killed his work in 1962. And it would be problematically
impossible for the forty years to the day, hour, and minute to be anything but
unusually coincidental if Garner Ted did not kill Armstrong’s work on
Thursday morning, at about 8:12 am PST (two hours behind Central Standard
Time), of the second full week of January 1962. The
divisions of Armstrong’s work that cling to his prophetic teachings also
cling to keeping the precepts of the law. Many disciples within these divisions
have mentally journeyed far from the landscapes of their nativity. They have
cleansed their hearts, but they do not understand prophecy. Thus, Christ cannot
use them to teach the third part of humankind that will be born of Spirit
halfway through the seven endtime years. They look forward to a place of
physical safety: that place will be the grave for them. If they faithfully
continue in their spiritual understanding, they will die physically during the
first half of the seven years of tribulation, and they will be resurrected when
Christ returns. And with physical death they will be spared the horrors of
living through all seven of the endtime years. My
argument is that as the first Elijah took three times lying over the dead body of
the son of the widow of Zarephath before breath returned to the body, the last
Elijah takes three times lying over His dead Body, breathing into this
corpse’s nostrils, before divine Breath is returned to the Church. The
first time involved Andreas Fischer and the Sabbatarian Anabaptists of the
mid-16th Century. The second time occurs in America and extends
through the German Seventh-Day Baptists of the 18th -Century until
Herbert Armstrong was, early in the 20th-Century, called into
fellowship with the Oregon Conference of Church of God, 7th-Day [a
division of Seventh Day Adventists that did not subscribe to the teachings of
Ellen G. White]. The successful third time will occur at the second Passover,
when the Church is empowered by the Holy Spirit. If the forty years aren’t coincidence, then
Father and Son are working on a very precise timeline, suggested by Israel
leaving If the forty years aren’t coincidence, then
those who now mock the senior Armstrong need to temper their criticism with the
understanding that Father and Son corrected a problem according to their
schedule, not ours. Those who mock risk becoming permanently crosswise to
Father and Son … disciples within the Armstrong fiefdom regularly prayed
that God would intervene in the affairs of the fellowship. When God did so
intervene by ending the mockery of second level administrators trying to
undermine the teachings of the fellowship, everyone became Armstrong’s
judge, with some condemning him to hell and others exalting him to Christ-like
status. He is not worthy of either. My claim of being drafted to reread prophecy is
either true or false. I can relate what happened on that Thursday morning, but
the truth of the claim will be historically assigned. Until then, a person will
have to determine truth by hearing the voice of the true Shepherd, for my claim
isn’t of having studied
prophecies until I understand them, but of being a student through which (or to
whom) understanding has been given. The claim is simply that I have been given
a job to do by the Elijah to come, the spiritual Elijah who will restore all
things. Understanding has not come through vision or through apparent
supernatural means, but by “rereading” the text that I had read
before. Thus, what I write will seem shallow to some, and over-the-top to
others, for what I find in Scripture is radically different from what pundits
before me found. But the unsealing of a sealed text requires the production of
a new text that discloses previously revealed but secret knowledge. Thus, the
case for me being drafted is, really, in whether a second Passover liberation
occurs at the beginning of seven endtime years of tribulation. This liberation
was foreshadowed by the physical liberation of |