Jesus Christ told the religious leaders of His day, "Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:3).
So it is today. [Wait a minute! Your idol, Herbert W. Armstrong, said Christ will return in 1936, then at the end of WWII, then in 1975, then within twenty years of publishing his masterpiece of deception Mystery of the Ages, now your 'Bible Study Course' 'suggest' 2017. Is that discerning the signs of the times?]
Many professing ministers of Jesus Christ are highly educated in the technicalities of theological jargon, Semitic languages and biblical literature. They are often very intelligent men, but in the theological seminaries they are seldom taught about the REAL God of the Bible [meaning heretical and inaccurate Armstrongism] who intervenes in human affairs...
In the rest of this editorial he goes on his familiar spiel of doom and gloom which he has been preaching with unerring inaccuracy. At the end comes his sales pitch (Words in brackets are mine):
May God [who allegedly works with such hopeless date setters and false prophets] help all of you who sincerely want to understand to begin reading carefully each issue of Tomorrow's World. [So those who do not want to study Tomorrow's World are not sincere? Meredith is leading the reader.] And may He guide you to enroll in and to study the vital lessons of the Tomorrow's World Bible Study Course. [Look how he hides behind God's name, telling the reader that God is telling him to get their self indoctrination course. As though a false prophet like him could possibly know God's will.] There is no other course on earth with the same degree of accuracy and depth—yet you may receive the lessons absolutely FREE. [There is no charge now, but if all goes well you will OBEY and hand over three tithes to the Living Church of God. Then he offers advice on how to do it.] Just write to the address of the regional office nearest to you (listed on page 2 of this magazine) and request enrollment. Genuinely study your Bible along with this course, and ask the Great God of creation [who can only be discovered through the madness of Armstrongism] for real understanding [Armstrongism]. The entire panorama of prophesied END-time events is now beginning to unfold. You need to understand—and to ACT. [This false prophet has been saying the very same thing for decades and has always got the dates completely wrong. There is no need to fear his fear inducing rants.]What does the Word of God truly say about such false prophets as this?
"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)
We are free of such madmen. There is no need to worry about what they say. God is not working through them. He never has. They are empty words. The Living Church of God desperately needs to repent of spreading hopeless fear. God is not with them.
It is interesting to note that HWA had the set the same year(1975) for the second coming as the JWs' prophet of mid twentieth century(Fred Franz)
ReplyDeleteAlso, of interest, I have heard from three other ministers, who claim they had a part in the writing of MOA. Bernard Kelly claims that HWA plagiarized from some of his articles in the Plain Truth, and also Aaron Dean claims to have proof read the original manuscript, and I notice that GTA stated in some of his sermons that HWA plagiarized from some of his Plain Truth articles in the book.
Since the Tkach takeover of the WCG, Herman Hoeh edited the finished book for some reason known only to him and Tkach, but I suspect it was an attempt to give it a little more of a Protestant flavor.
I, myself, find it suspicious and strange that the Watchtower latched onto the very same date for the Second Coming as did HWA. This YouTube video features a JW official describing 1975 as the 'end of 6000 years of history', very similar to Armstrongism. As far as I can tell the JWs adopted that doctrine around the mid-1960s. And HWA adopted the 1975 doctrine around 1953. It is a very curious alignment of false prophecies.
ReplyDeleteOne fact I did not mention previously is that the JWs are in fact related to Armstrongism, for both are descended from the Millerites of the 1830s-40s.