Herbert W. Armstrong
Saturday, January 11, 2014

I never met the man but I did read just about everything he ever wrote. I listened to him on radio and television and I was a member of his church, the Worldwide Church of God, for ten years. It was an experience that would be difficult to describe to you unless you were there and a part of it. Armstrong had a powerful grip on all the members and was thought to be the Elijah to come and our connection to God as the Apostle. After Armstrongs death, the church came under the leadership of Joseph W. Tkach and late in 1993 the WCG came out with a booklet entitled “God Is…” and in the preface readers were told to fill in the dots.  Well, I read the booklet and came away with the idea that the church was introducing the trinity and that they had no idea about what God is.  Herbert W. Armstrong taught that God was two beings; the Father was the greater God and Jesus the lesser, a binary God.  What I have been led to see is that God is one single solitary being and Jesus was not God but the son of God and the Holy Spirit is just another name for the Father because God is holy and God is a spirit therefore God is a (singular) Holy Spirit.  The church Herbert W. Armstrong built no longer exists but many splinter groups do.  Armstrong was an unconverted carnal man and did not have the spirit of God.  He was not an apostle or a prophet and he tried to combine the two covenants of law and grace effectively canceling both. There is not a thing Armstrong ever wrote or taught that should not be closely re-examined.  How can a carnal man like Armstrong ever know anything about spiritual things?  The man did not have Gods Holy Spirit therefore anything that he taught needs careful scrutiny because a few of his teachings are true.  Armstrong is no different than Jack VanImpe or Harold Camping. No lie is of the truth and Armstrong taught his share of lies but on some things he had bits and pieces of truth just like all false churches do.  Never go to the teachings of some unconverted man to find the truth, go to God.  Gods spirit is the teacher. No man can teach another anything, it is the spirit of God that teaches.  So if you came out of the WCG you may be carrying along with you some of the things Armstrong taught.  You need to dump it on the manure pile and start over new by going to God, repent, ask forgiveness and that God by His spirit teach you the truth.  The same words can be said of Mike Vinson or any other splinter group that came out of the WCG.  Never look at some man as your “leader” .  Jesus is to be your leader so dump the man on the manure pile and go to Jesus.  According to all that God has taught me Herbert W. Armstrong, who died without ever knowing the gospel, will be in the second resurrection. I had to dump things onto the manure pile and start all over again proving with the help of the HELPER what Gods truth is and you will have to do the same.  This will require you to invest time in study and prayer and begin a diligent search always looking to Gods spirit as your helper and leader through Jesus our mediator.  You must also learn that you must put the negative experience of the WCG behind you and not bear a grudge that can development into a root of bitterness.  Your focus should be on your growth and not on tearing apart any man or organization that hurt you.

Learn the lesson of being under the school master that is to lead you to Christ. Do not hate the law because it is what is to draw you to Christ and the grace of the new covenant.  One can never fully understand the freedom in Christ until you have lived under the yoke of the law.  This is an advantage the Jews had over the gentiles.   Romans 3:1-2  It is good that we in the WCG went through the law to Christ, to have born that yoke. Lamentations 3:27-28.  We learned that we by the law could never be free of sin because it’s letter is death. We learned the law never addressed the true source of sin, the thoughts and intents of our human spirit. Yet the law is holy, just and good; it is to produce Godly sorrow, the fruit worthy of repentance as the Baptist said.  Matthew 3:7-12.  The law is like a mirror that was to show our nature as a sinner covered with wounds, bruises and putrefying sores  Isaiah 1:6 , not some idea of self righteousness thinking we actually kept the law.  Proverbs 14:12.  We confess our inability to keep this law and repent throwing ourselves upon the mercy of a loving God where mercy triumphs over judgment and where sin abounds grace abounds much more.  Rejoice in this knowledge for it is what will save you.