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February 13, 2005 Mr. Raymond Dick June 2002, I drove to Mr. Herbert Armstrong taught the
first class session of the Advanced Prophecy Seminar in January 1962. He told
the men that any and all ideas would be considered, that they and he didn't
understand prophecy, that nothing was too silly to be explored. But HWA only
taught the first session of the Advanced Seminar. The second session and every
session after that was taught by Garner Ted Armstrong (GTA), who began the
second session by saying that there would be no new revelation, that his dad
was just having doubts, that the Church understood biblical prophecies and had
them correct, that he had personally proved them to be correct. When I learned, in March 2002,
from Ray Dick about the Advanced Prophecy Seminar and about what GTA said, I
realized the draft notice I had received to reread prophecy on Thursday of the
second full week of January 2002, at approximately 10:12 CST, occurred forty
years to the day from when GTA rejected revelation, and probably forty years to
the minute. I wrote GTA and asked if the story about the Advanced Prophecy Seminar
were true. He replied in a most gracious manner, but neither confirmed nor
denied the story. I wrote him a second and a third time, and each time I
received very gracious replies, but no confirmation nor denial. However, Rod
Meredith seemed to confirm the story when I wrote him asking if the story were
true: Meredith remains one of the few men still alive who were in the class
(Leslie McCullough being another). Thus, I inserted the story and additional
details about being drafted to reread prophecy in A Philadelphia Apologetic, which went to press summer
2002—the book is still available, but is really first year student
writing and needs to be revisited. Ray Dick wasn't in that Advanced
Prophecy Seminar. He was taking fourth-year Bible, which Al Portune taught. But
Al Portune was in that Advanced Seminar and he reported to his class what was
covered in each session of the Advanced Seminar. Near the end of the Spring 1962 semester, in a Friday class, Al Portune
expounded a prophetic teaching that Ray Dick believed was incorrect. When I
went to visit Ray in 2002, I had hoped he would tell me exactly what Al Portune
had said, but my visit was cut short by an intestinal bug. Thus, informed
speculation remains that the subject was endtime armies surrounding Ray Dick was an older student. He
had spent WWII in a Conscientious Objectors' camp near Downy, What Ray realized was that there
were still three and a half years of tribulation left after armies surround For forty years, one man quietly
accepted the authority under which he had placed himself. He could have
rebelled. He could have gone out on his own to do a work for God. But he
accepted the premise that God was in charge of the only work that he knew being
done with the energy and dynamism of the Worldwide Church of God. And for this,
Ray Dick deserves praise. If God wanted to unseal endtime
prophecies in 1962, GTA couldn't have stopped their unsealing. Rather, it seems
that the Armstrongs were in the unique position of being able to influence a
course of events if righteousness and honesty had prevailed when HWA
figuratively had a knife in his hand. He was spiritually tested as Abraham was
physically tested, and he failed his test concerning his son, who really killed
his ministry on Thursday of the second full week of January 1962. I was a fifteen-year-old high
school Junior in January 1962. I attended the Seven years almost to the day
after I began attending WCG services, I began writing. I was sitting in a damp
cabin of a boat at Today, members of the so-called
independent churches of God are an unruly lot, determined never again to let
any man get between them and God, not realizing that most of them stand between
God and themselves. They stand with their backs to God, ever ready to take
offense at the slightest affront. They stand with wallets that cannot be opened
with screwdrivers and pliers. They stand with their salvation under lock and
key. They do no work for God; they are truly unprofitable servants. But they
are beholden to no man. Their loyalty is to themselves. And no one will ever
again teach them anything. How many disciples today will wait
for God to correct the leaders of a corporate church that teaches many disciples
to live within the laws of God, but also teaches prophetic error? Ray Dick was
willing to wait. He trusted God. And it would have been presumptuous of him to
have begun doing a work on his own. It would have been presumptive of
David to take King Saul's life even though God seemed to have delivered Saul
into David's hand … what does it mean to be a man after God's own heart?
Ray Dick was a man after God's heart in that he was not presumptuous. He had
been, for whatever reason, given prophetic knowledge that HWA didn't have. He
didn't use this knowledge to build for himself a spiritual house as some former
WCG ministers are now doing. He waited for God, waited with faith that God was
capable to taking care of the problem. And he lived to see the problem
corrected through the destruction of the theological empire HWA had constructed
for himself. He lived to see GTA pass from the scene, and he lived to read
where I took (and have taken) the prophetic knowledge he alone carried for
forty lonely years. I did not write about theology,
nor speak about theology until after I was drafted to do so, a claim for which
time will judge its truth. It would have been presumptuous for me to have done
so. But since that specific hour arrived three years ago, I have taken the
student position I had that was orthodox WCG, and I have moved into a larger
arena, where with that baton Ray Dick carried without fanfare or acclaim, I
sally forth, jousting with windmills. Although Ray never fully
understood typological exegesis, nor how radically different typology is from
precept-upon-precept exegesis, he recognized that few yet understood the
knowledge he had held for so long. He offered to sponsor an One COG writer wondered if I have
ever been a part of a real COG—yes, I was. And I remained under authority
until God ended an administration of the Church that received its death
sentence in 1962, a decade before I began attending its services. And once I
began attending, it would have been presumptuous for me to speak as a lay
member. Like Ray Dick, I too waited for God to correct a work that had jumped
the tracks. Unlike Ray Dick, I now have the opportunity to deliver endtime
words about patient endurance. The good news that must be proclaimed to the
world as a witness to all nations is that all who endure to the end shall be
saved. The last Eve will deliver three sons during the first half of seven
years of tribulation. A spiritual Cain will murder his righteous brother,
leaving one son marked for death and the other dead. Then, when the kingdom of
the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ, Satan will be
cast from heaven. The Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, and the last
Eve will give birth to a spiritual Seth who only has to endure to the end to be
accepted before God. Enduring, though, will mean living by faith for another
three and a half years. Thus, all who endure to the end shall be saved, for all
will have the Holy Spirit and will be born-from-above. If a person reads the chat-group
posts about the hierarchical authority of the Armstrong administration of the
COG, a person would think that it is foolishness to remain under the authority
of an arbitrary government. It would be much more foolish to insist upon a
person's rights and turn his or her back to God … as a Kenny Rogers' song
went, there's a time to hold your cards and a time to fold. Too many COG
members have been quick to fold, thereby taking themselves out of whatever game
that is being played. These "independent" members need to put themselves
back into a game, even if it is their own. Right now, they are many David wannabes
who have slain Saul and don't know what to do next. They stand bloody, ahead of
God, and ready to devour their neighbor. * * * |