What is Truth? Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

July 27, 2019

This will be Part 2 of the series entitled What is Truth?

You know, we talked about how that Pilate asked that question of Christ, although he really wasn’t interested in the answer. It talks about how he left at that moment after he asked that. But for us, however, that’s different. It’s much different because we have been called and actually sanctified by truth, the truth, which is the word of God, and then after that point in time, after God begins to call us and draw us to Him, fill us with, bless us with His spirit to be able to see and understand what is truth, then our lives begin to change, we begin to make changes in our life and one of actually seeking to be more fully in oneness in truth, with truth, with God’s truth.

So again, it’s an awesome thing the process we go through and what that means for us in the Church. In this process that runs throughout our lives and through our lives in God’s Church we know that when we’re confronted with anything that is not true we are to expose it, as it talks about in Ephesians. It’s the word for “expose or to reveal” what isn’t true and then come to more fully embrace what is. That means a change has to take place. That’s just the way of the Church. Always has been.

Sometimes, however, that’s gone in a different direction, too, because obviously that happened approaching the time of the Apostasy. Up through the time of Laodicea things became worse and worse and things that were true began to be distorted and watered down and changed, and slowly but surely the Church became weaker and weaker. We know the history then of what happened, the Apostasy.

In Part 1 we focused on, again, some of the history of God’s Church, especially and primarily the final three eras of the Church, and then I explained the purpose for giving this particular series at this time and it was about the fact that it’s now crystal clear that what we have currently referenced on the website as Truth #47 is not true. I was wrong in what I had to say about it. I was in error about what I believed concerning the sequence of specific times of very meaningful end-time prophetic periods, which is how I came to that conclusion that I did. So it’s good to explain some of these things, how these things transpire, how they happen, how they happened through what we’re going to go into here, just about understanding what it means to be a prophet or to be an apostle and so forth.

To me it’s exciting to go through this again, because we went through some of this at one time, of what Mr. Armstrong had to say, and this time I was quite amazed in some ways but shouldn’t be amazed either. It’s not dumbfounding. It’s not amazing when some of this happens. But even when reading some of the letter, how often have you gone back and read something or heard something again, a sermon, and you’re able to pick up on something that you couldn’t see before that you weren’t able to put together? And that’s kind of a bit of this process here.

So it, frankly has given me a lot of peace in being able to do that, and strength, which is an amazing process to live through. I’ll explain some of those things hopefully as we go through more of this.

Then, again, toward the end of Part 1 we had begun to go through that letter of Mr. Armstrong’s. It wasn’t just a letter. Well, it was a letter form, I guess, when he wrote it, obviously, but it’s referred to as The Personal. It was a personal at the beginning of a magazine that was called Tomorrow’s World, and this was the February 1972 issue of that magazine and he was going through, he was addressing how 19-year time cycles impacted his life. Now, personally for me, they haven’t impacted my life. They don’t mean the same thing to me. These end-time sequences of events do. Everything that’s happened since the Apostasy, those are the things that impact my life and very powerfully so. It’s really quite incredible because they’re powerful, those events, those sequences, because everything that God does is so meticulous and so organized.

Since the Apostasy there has been a count of things taking place. We just don’t know where it’s going to end right now. I have no idea, and candidly, will not ever venture there again exactly the same way. We do have these markers along the way and that will be referenced from time to time if some of those become clearer. Right now I’ve looked ahead and I don’t see any so I don’t know what it’s going to be. The only thing that really stands out in my mind that could fit into that is knowing the period of time of what is referred to as the Year of the Eternal, the Year of the LORD, and that doesn’t necessarily, in Hebrews, specifically mean just a year. So it depends on what definition, again, that God chooses to give to it because it’s in His hands, obviously, and He’s not revealing what that is. I thought He had but He didn’t.

Again, it’s good to understand that process and the thinking that went into that and why it went into that. But again, 19-year time cycles affected him mightily. He could see things, he understood things, and candidly, God did things in that manner with him because of when He called him. I don’t want to get ahead of the story here but it’s covered in some of this. But again, it’s inspiring because different things affect different people in different ways and God uses various kinds of things to work with people, to lead people, to guide and direct people, and then we respond accordingly.

So again, I’m going to go through some of this, and since we had just barely begun to go through it I want to go back through some of this. We’re just going to start all over with some of this and I’ll skip over a little bit here in the personal. But again, here this is titled, on that page it says, The 19-Year Time Cycles -- What HAPPENED January 7. Now, for Mr. Armstrong that date was important. That date for him was important. It was meaningful for him. It was inspiring to him. I know we still have people that look at various 19-year time cycles, and that may have an impact on their life, but again, I want to reiterate it doesn’t on mine because that doesn’t work in my life in the same way and there are reasons for that.

But anyway, he also addressed What My Commission IS! …and basically, what it is not.

So he said: SIGNIFICANT THINGS DID happen on January 7th! Again, this is important to him and God worked certain things out so that it would be inspiring to him. He was God’s apostle. He was the only apostle. You know, the early Church had several, had the original twelve and then had Paul going to the gentiles later on. Again here, being the only apostle at that particular time these things were important because, well, why? Might just ask that. Why would that be so important that this is important to him? Because it’s going to affect the way he thinks. It’s going to affect a thinking pattern and those things that he works in teaching and leading and guiding and directing the Church. And he did. That’s why this was important to him and God made it so. God worked with it to drive these points home and that will come out in the letter as we go along.

So he said, In this Personal I want to tell you what happened -- but also to make PLAIN and CLEAR: 1) What our Commission IS, and what it is NOT! 2) What are the criteria for determining through whom God is carrying out the Commission which is HIS WORK on earth today.

Then he went on to say then, Thousands know that I, personally, have been called and chosen for a very definite commission in God's service. But I have definitely NOT been called to be a PROPHET -- except as that word, biblically used, does sometimes refer to a minister or speaker -- one who proclaims the Gospel of Joshua the Christ. Now, again, I’m inserting that because that isn’t what he said but I have to do that. So I just don’t want to use the other name.

So anyway, this is good here in some of what he begins to address here, that he has not been called to that, because as I was coming here today I was thinking about some of this and realizing that at this point, in 1972, it wasn’t really clear in his mind or the Church yet what a prophet is. He knew that he wasn’t. He addresses that in here. But by some of the things he says and what he said later you come to understand that this thing had not been settled in God’s Church yet. We in God’s Church are not accustomed to such things. He addresses this here, that there were some prophets that were in the early Church, and then after that there is nothing stated about anything like that.

So anyway, he addresses that but this was 1972. This was after me being in the Church for three years, only three years. Later on some of that began to be refined in the sense of understanding what the word “prophet” meant, and that’s, candidly, some of the wording or the definition that I used in the book The Prophesied End-Time when I was struggling with that as well. Because for me that was very difficult. It was very foreign because we just didn’t have such a thing in God’s Church.

So anyway, going on he says, Emphatically, I am NOT a prophet, in the sense of one to whom God speaks specifically and directly, revealing personally a future event to happen or new truth. Now, I did in the sense of timing, in the sense of saying and looking toward 2012. I was wrong in that. That’s obvious. What God did and how He worked with the Church at that particular time, the things we went through, are the very things that help bind us closer together, that made us stronger, and we benefitted from that, but it wasn’t right, and neither was 2019, obviously.

So again here, he makes it clear here. He says, “I am not a prophet, in the sense of one to whom God speaks specifically and directly, revealing personally a future event to happen.” So aside from that, candidly, there are prophetic events he spoke of, there are prophetic events I spoke of, but I want to go on and show how he defines some of this. “…or new truth.” And you might say, because I’m saying that I haven’t done that either, a new truth? What new truth?

There are truths that have been added in the sense of taken from scripture or built upon, and just like what God gave to Mr. Armstrong those were truths being restored to the Church. They’re in the Bible, but the Church didn’t know what they were. They’re in the Bible and so God used him to restore 18 Truths to the Church. Even the matter of women being ordained and so forth, or women, some of the things that are taking place there, the 6,000 years that we understand that has started with what we refer to as the curse and that being removed, again, it’s all out of scripture. We just didn’t know where it was. We didn’t understand it and God inspired then and blessed us to be able to see it then by the scriptures that were there. But as far as something new that has never been written? Not so, except to build upon or to magnify what already exists. I hope that makes sense.

So he said in his case not being used in revealing personally a future event to happen or new truth or new and special instruction direct from God -- separate from, and apart from what is contained in the Bible. That’s what hit me like a tonne of bricks. It’s a matter of what is in God’s word already. It’s a matter of what already exists in God’s word and when you begin to think about an apostle as well, Mr. Armstrong was an apostle, but even in that area he didn’t write new truth. He didn’t give new truth in that regard. It was already there. It’s just the Church didn’t know what it was. It had been lost and had not been seen.

Some things, candidly, were new to the Church that weren’t known in the time of the apostles. Not a lot, but there is some there that they didn’t grasp nor comprehend of things that were written. There were things that John wrote later on and so forth that the early apostles didn’t know and didn’t understand.

Again here, what he was given even as an apostle fits into this category. So not just a prophet but also an apostle. But he was an apostle, and I think that’ll become clearer as I talk about even the function or the way that God is working with me.

He says, And I never have claimed to be. So the key, in this respect is, and what I have come to see in a deeper way is, that it’s a matter of what is already written in the book, the Bible. Okay? Anything that goes beyond that, that doesn’t build upon something that’s already there, that doesn’t have scripture to back or to reveal things that are there it’s something that shouldn’t, can’t be done, because that’s not been given to me. It wasn’t given to him. What was given earlier on to prophets, it’s in there. What was given to the apostles earlier on as far as something that never existed before is in there. This, the Bible, is what we build upon. It is God’s truth. It is the word of God and there is no more scripture being written.

So, important to understand those distinctions because it reveals then the function that Mr. Armstrong was partially struggling with, had to struggle with when God called him, because that’s part of the story here of what took place.

I’m going to read some of this because this is what I wrote in the midst of all this: Now, so it’s clear what I am saying here about being a prophet, I am a prophet but that’s changed somewhat because the understanding of what a prophet is and how we use it in the Church needs to be understood for what is written, what’s recorded. So making it clear here, neither a prophet who foretells new future prophetic events, so anything in the truths that we have written to this point in time, in that respect, are not new prophetic events, they’re already in the Bible. So if we have time we may just go through some of those and talk about some of them, but they’re already in scripture. We talk about them.

The things that God gave to us early on that we began to go through, they’re spoken of, it’s just that we didn’t understand them. I think of things that happened around the time of the Apostasy and what happened after that. That was a prophetic event but we didn’t know what it was. The Church that came through the Apostasy we didn’t know it was an apostasy for some time until we began to see all the things that made it clear we had an apostasy, we had a great falling away.

Ezekiel, it was already written there, the scriptures there that are recorded as a new truth. It isn’t new, it’s always been here, but it’s new to us. That’s why they’re listed like that. So that’s why you have to be careful in that respect sometimes what weight that you put on it. It’s already there and that’s what we had to come to understand or we’ve come to understand, thankfully, because that gives greater peace.

So again, neither a prophet who foretells new future prophetic events… Again, just talking about the Apostasy, we didn’t know what that was in 2 Thessalonians, what that was all about. We didn’t grasp it. The Church never understood. We knew an apostasy was coming but we didn’t know what it was until we’d actually experienced it. Then we could go back and look at evidence and things that were there and say, “Ah, this is what this is about. This is what it’s saying.” Before, we didn’t grasp what it was saying. To you, and especially those of you who are newer in the sense you didn’t go through the Apostasy, you can go back and look at those things and think, “This is so clear. This is so clear what the Church went through. It’s so clear what Paul is saying in 2 Thessalonians 2.”

“Neither a prophet who foretells new future prophetic events…” and the only thing that comes close to that are the Thunders, and those are all in scripture. They’re all there. The reason it’s written the way it is, is for great purpose and we probably won’t go into that right now, although I’ve talked about it in times past.

“Neither a prophet who foretells new future prophetic events, nor one who has been given to write about such things as the Old Testament prophets were.” Now, to me that gave me a lot of peace when that finally clicked and the light went on. They were unique prophets. Those who wrote in the Bible or had things recorded in there were unique in the sense they were inspired to write scripture about things that God was writing into the future. There are things in there, which to me are dumbfounding, that are about the Millennium and the Great White Throne that we don’t even grasp yet. There are some things we’re going to touch upon in the Feast this year that just because of the way God says it and some of the phrasing that He uses we have never fully seen in the sense of understanding why He was saying things the way He was.

God lets us see things in time when He inspires it to grasp what is already written. It’s already there. That’s how God used Mr. Armstrong, to see and understand things that were already there. I think of what it says about Philadelphia, speaking of Christ who has the keys of David, and they were given to Mr. Armstrong. Well, that was new to the Church. The New Testament Church never had any of that. They didn’t know those things that he wrote, not to that level and to that degree as to far as what happened and exactly the way they happened. They understood certain things about some of the migration, and that becomes evident as you go through and see a few of the things that are stated by Peter and I think James, maybe, James talks about it a little bit.

But again here, more was given to Mr. Armstrong to grasp what this was all about because it had to do with the end-time. It had to do with future events that were going to take place. So they weren’t revealed fully until it was time and Mr. Armstrong then grasped and understood we are in the end-time, began to teach the Church that, Philadelphia is in the end-time. If you look at 2,000 years – better yet, look at 6,000 years – we are in the end-time. He was in the end-time more than any other period before.

So anyway, the second thing here: Now I have learned the distinction of what God has now led me to see. Indeed, it is as I wrote about in The Prophesied End-Time in which I was even struggling then about the distinction. It is a prophet who has been given inspired interpretation of God’s word in the context of prophecy. What I was struggling with and didn’t even want to do is what God was having me do. So I’ve gone full circle back to that book. That’s really what it’s all about. It’s because I didn’t really know these things and definitions about a prophet and what their job was, because as I said last Sabbath, who can tell me? Only God can, and Christ, by inspiration, by revealing things. That’s in His ball park not mine. I don’t have that ability. It’s in God’s timing as to when He chooses to reveal various things to us. There are reasons for that because He molds and fashions the Church through it all. He’s known exactly what I would do and wouldn’t do under various kinds of circumstances.

So, with that said, again, I was struggling with that back then and so it’s a prophet who has been given, again, inspired interpretation of God’s word in the context of prophecy, future events seen within the framework of God’s overall plan and purpose that He is working out. There has never been a time when the Church has better understood and seen where we are. There’s never been. The early Church couldn’t begin to grasp these things. They had no concept of what was going to happen in Europe. They had no concept of seven revivals. Candidly, it hadn’t been written yet. There is only one person, he wrote it, John, the last of the apostles, the original apostles, living beyond Paul and the other apostles, and so it was John who continued to write and God inspired him to write what is finally in the last part of the Bible here.

Again here, there are things that God has inspired then, inspired Mr. Armstrong to see that was written in there. He came to see and understand that he was in the Philadelphia era of the Church. He came to understand and see by inspiration. It’s there but it wasn’t understood. He came to understand because of what he lived, that Sardis was a dead Church overall, the people in it. It was dying. What they had was dying and they only had three primary doctrines left. Awesome! It’s only because of that process that he lived and he experienced that and he began to experience God revealing things that had long been lost to the Church. He was moved by that in ways that none of us can fully grasp! I can to a level and point because of things that have been taking place, and you can as well if you relate to those things, to experience it sometimes as a unique situation, obviously. This molded and fashioned his mind and how God worked with him and how he was going to work with the Church. God began to reveal things to him.

I think the most inspiring and exciting of all was not too long after he began his ministry that God began to reveal to him the holy days. They had been lost! Awesome! Think of all the truths in the holy days and a better understanding of the holy days than had ever been grasped before. I’m talking about the original apostles, okay? God magnified those things because now it’s headed toward the end-time, it’s in the context of Christ returning, and they didn’t really grasp all of that. They dealt with in a very large part his first coming and that was their message – he came, he was nailed to a pole, he died for our sins. The world didn’t know about this so that was their primary message very powerfully so and that’s what they focused upon.

They weren’t focused upon what God gave Mr. Armstrong to focus upon. God gave Mr. Armstrong to focus upon, “This is the end. There have been six revivals.” It wasn’t until after WWII that he came to understand some of those scriptures in Revelation as well, because that’s what was happening. God inspired him to see that there was a sixth revival and there was one more to come…one more to come. The focus of the Church ever since that time, since WWII, has been, “When is it going to be?” Because now we are so close, we know it, because six revivals have taken place and there is going to be one more great revival in Europe and that being so awesomely important because that’s the one that is followed by the return of Joshua the Christ as King of kings, who returns as a Lion. Awesome!

God blessed him to see and understand various things in the very early part of his ministry. For seven years him and his wife kept the holy days to their ability of what they understood and knew and during that period of time Mr. Armstrong grew in his understanding of what those holy days were about. He didn’t know everything all at once. He grew in understanding thorough that period of time to a point in time where he felt totally comfortable, “This is it,” and he taught the Church. Seven years of observing it and growing in understanding of it to where then he knew this is for the Church.

I think of what we did early on when we realized there was an apostasy and we wanted to know where is God working? When you finally come to a point in time where you have to make a decision it’s nowhere out there, we have to do what we see God doing and what is right and have a different Feast of Tabernacles. That’s not an easy thing because if you’re presumptuous before God, God will take care of you. You’re in hot water, so to speak, if you understand what I’m saying. So it’s not a light thing to do, what took place back in that period of time. Those of you who experienced it I think you understand what I’m talking about more fully.

So again, Mr. Armstrong didn’t have anyone to tell him how to do these things so he struggled with some of that. He struggled with coming to the point where he realized, “I’m an apostle. God’s using me. He’s helping me to see things and work with His Church as an apostle.” Not an evangelist, not a pastor, but an apostle. He also came to see that he was not a prophet though God revealed to him things having to do with things of prophecy because now we’re in Philadelphia, we’re toward the end, Christ is coming soon, we were beginning to focus, the Church was beginning to focus on “When is this going to take place?” So even after WWII, candidly, they started looking right away. He started preaching about the possibility of the seventh revival and what was going to take place. That’s been the focus of the Church.

By 1950 when the European Common Market was beginning to have some of their formation and various things that they were working with, the Church was there, The Plain Truth magazine was there because that was going to be it. Some things began to fall into place but not everything.

You think about the Seven Seals. We didn’t understand that. We didn’t understand that until after the Apostasy. It wasn’t new truth; it’s just that we didn’t grasp it. Because we thought certain things had to happen in the world in the first four Seals, that that was going to be great tribulation. Anyway, that’s a sermon in itself because there’s a lot contained there. But we came to understand, “No, that is about the Church.” Was that something newly written? No, it was all in the Bible! It’s just a matter that we didn’t understand it yet and so God blessed us to begin to see and understand it and begin to teach it in the Church. It’s about the Church!

So today we do have three prophets, if you will, through whom God is working in His Church. These are a matter of being given the ability to see and understand God’s plan and God’s will, one given to see means of working with people. It’s a position of ministry. It’s a position in government in God’s Church. It’s not Old Testament prophet. It’s not prophet even in the same respect as God has worked with me in some of these things. We have two who are prophets serving within the Church who have that kind of help and inspiration that God gives in working with situations, with people, with circumstances within the Church as a matter of His governing the Church. Best way of saying it.

So it’s a matter of ordination; it’s a matter of government on the part of two. You should be able to figure that one out.

Going to go back and read Ephesians 4 and what it has to say. So this is just a matter of tweaking, clarifying some things that we haven’t fully grasped. Any time that we don’t fully grasp something and we come to see something more clearly it means the truth is going to be clearer, we’re going to better grasp what God is doing and how God is doing it. It’s going to mean more to us. It’s going to become more inspiring. There is a peace in just being able to see things more clearly for what they are.

Ephesians 4:11, speaking of Christ and what he did: He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists and pastors… Now, I’m going to say first and foremost I am an apostle. I know that, okay? Candidly, I’m a minister, I’m a pastor, and I’m an evangelist; I fulfill those roles in God’s Church but that isn’t my primary job. It’s within the job of an apostle. Even the prophet that God has given me to fulfill is within that realm. So first and foremost I’m an apostle. And candidly, when it comes to it, if someone were going to introduce me as, you know, within the Church or whatever it might be, if someone was going to do that, it would be either just my name or say the apostle to God’s Church. Not prophet. Because I’m not referred to as the evangelist. I’m not referred to as the pastor, a pastor. It wouldn’t be “the” pastor anyway; it’d be a pastor in the Church, and on and on it goes. I hope you understand what I’m saying, okay?

So again here, it’s about government, it’s about how God leads, guides, and directs His Church. He gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. Within these categories of pastors and teachers and those who work with the Church we’ve had different things. In Worldwide we had different structure but it’s all within the ministry and how it was organized. Sometimes those things and titles changed but it was all within government and order within the church to serve the Church. It’s been in our time as well because of size, because of a change in circumstances, because of different reasons of our administration, how we are able to work and function better we’ve used different names within this category, that fit within this work of government.

Just like we don’t have regional pastors. They used to have regional pastors, and that changed at different times. There were district superintendents. That changed. There were still ministers serving in this capacity in some of these areas. Now, some were very specific, they were ordained as evangelists. Some were very specific, you are ordained as a pastor, and on it goes. We had a breakdown in elders, preaching elders, local elders, elders. But that was for that structure in Worldwide, but it all fit within this framework. It’s just that everybody has to determine in the Church how that’s going to work, and Mr. Armstrong did during Philadelphia. That was his job. That was his responsibility.

…for the perfecting of the saints. It’s about the Church. It’s about what God is doing. It’s about what Christ has been given to do because he is the head of the Church. Everything comes from Christ to the Church. …for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ. The edifying, the teaching, the guidance, the direction, the correction, the counsel, whatever it might be that comes from God, that comes from inspiration that God gives.

Because, candidly there are all kinds of situations that come up in life and there is no pat answer. I learned that a long, long time ago and I learned it primarily in marital counseling a long, long, long, long time ago in the ministry, that there is no pat answer. You can’t judge things the same. What is some of the worst things that people would do in the Church is compare their situation with someone else’s situation that they thought they knew and understood, but they didn’t because they weren’t involved. Everything in that area requires different counsel because it requires different judgment, because everything isn’t the same. God gives that through the Church, if we understand that, if we believe that, if we live by that, because we’re God’s people and Christ gives that for the sake of the Church, for the edifying, for the strengthening of His people.

As it says here …until we all come in the unity of the faith. That means a unity of what we believe, and that can’t be done without government. I keep thinking of Feast sermons. Interesting. It’s going to be hard to stay away from some of those. Government, what God is doing, how God does it, to understand it is so important.

You know, it’s the first thing attributed to Mr. Armstrong that he reestablished in the Church. Government, God’s government. After the three in Sardis it’s government, and it was one of the things probably the least likely understood by God’s Church, truly, and not even understood, well, I can’t say “at all,” but not well by His ministry. That’s why we ended up with an apostasy once we got into Laodicea.

I can think back on our history and all the battles Mr. Armstrong had. I think of all the battles he had when he was sick, near to death, did die for a short time, God blessed him, raised him back, he came back stronger than ever before. He talked about putting the Church back on the right track because he saw what had happened while he had become weak and all these things had taken place in his life, and he came back and people were jockeying for position in God’s Church in Philadelphia. You’d think, how could such a thing be? But it was in preparation for an apostasy that was going to come later on.

People vying for power or who they would back in power, what they conceived as power within the Church, his own son and different evangelists. It was a nightmare, candidly! And frankly, at that time I’m so thankful we were really spared from that. The Church, we didn’t know those things were going on. We didn’t understand all that what was going on. We saw a little bit here and there from time to time, but we didn’t see it in the way Mr. Armstrong saw it, because now all those stories that have come out since the Apostasy and what has happened during that time.

I marvel at what we went through. It was good for the molding and fashioning of those that God was molding and fashioning to be in His government, see. Awesome! They went through those things to mold and fashion them. Incredible, when you see how God works and how He works in our lives and the things He lets the Church even experience, if you will, and what He let different prophets and different ones of old experience, and then bless them and molded and fashioned them to a time that they’re going to be in His government when Christ comes. Awesome, to understand that and see how that works.

…for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith in what we believe, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Isn’t that amazing – still growing in that. Still growing. You think, that knowledge that was given to us – Joshua – how simple, his name. That’s what he was supposed to be called. That frees us. Some of this that I’m talking about today frees me. It frees me, it really does, and I am deeply moved by it. Just like the name Joshua freed us in an awesome way. I felt that, I feel many in the Church, if not all of you, felt that. You’re freed from all that out there. We’re not the same. We don’t carry that same name. We don’t have any association, whereas before we still did. How do you explain that? Back then. Now you can’t even try to attempt to because then you really, “You are crazy! We know you’re out there!”

Verse 13, again, until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, or spiritually matured, if you will, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we are no more as children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, the cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. So how blessed we are when we have this order that God has given within the Church to lead, and guide, and direct us, to bring us into a unity of the faith. The stronger God’s government is, the more faithful it is to God the stronger we can be as a body, truly.

Verse 15—But speaking the truth in love, beautiful, speaking the truth in love may grow up into… Because you’ve got to love the truth. If you love the truth, when you talk about various things and so forth, that love is going to come across in a unity and a oneness you have in what you say and how you say it and it strengthens your life. It truly does. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in him in all things, who is the head, even Christ. So he is the first of the firstfruits and we all want to attain to being in that family, that same family, obviously.

I’m going to return now to what Mr. Armstrong had to say in the personal. But again, some of these things sometimes that we have grappled with in times past, again, I think it’s good to understand Mr. Armstrong had to grapple with these things. How do you organize a church? That’s why he finally came to a point where God began to raise up churches because of the Radio Church of God all around the world. How do you take care of that? That was incredible. He realized there was a need for an organized ministry to be taught, to be instructed in an organized fashion – government. That’s government. How do you do that? Well, started a college—incredible—in Pasadena, then Big Sandy, and then in England, three colleges, and people were taught.

Now, the difficult thing there in that is he couldn’t teach all the classes and sometimes people start straying away a little bit. That’s why it was so important to learn that no matter how large the Church would become it’s incapable of governing mankind. A Church is incapable of governing large… small is hard enough, large, impossible, because that means every person has to be, that teaches, that preaches, has to be in absolute unity with what has been given to them through (in this case) Mr. Armstrong. Didn’t happen. Ministers started having some of their own ideas. Evangelists started having some of their own ideas. The very ones who were at the beginning of Ambassador College had some of their own ideas.

From what I understand Mr. Armstrong wrote a book primarily to one of those individuals who would become an evangelist to help him to understand there is no 14/15th Passover. But you know what? He never, never changed. He conformed, but he never changed, because in time when he was a professor, if you will, an evangelist but teaching at Ambassador College, he began to teach classes. He began to interject things about a 14/15 Passover. Those same ministers went out and began to teach some of the same (you know what I want to say but will refrain today) to the Church. What a hideous thing. But God allowed it. God could have stopped it, but He allowed it for a great purpose. It’s all headed toward the apostasy.

Candidly, that helped me when we came through the Apostasy, and I’m going to tell you why. Because that was one of the primary doctrines that God strengthened me on more, revealed things to me about what was said in the Old Testament down to the nitty gritty – bane ha erebyim, ba ereb, ereb, ma ereb, those things that I’m saying to you right now that you think, “What in the world is that?” It’s all about things having to do with the evening and what it all means to where you couldn’t argue with what it says in Hebrew. Though there were just three scriptures, if people would have accepted them, proved it already it’s not a 14/15 Passover, it’s strictly in the 14th.

Because of that I came to know that the largest group that was out there that we had affiliated with, and didn’t affiliate with some of the others because I knew too much about some of them, I knew some of the things that they taught or had been involved in in times past and wasn’t comfortable. So basically, because God made that a strong issue in the area we were in up in Toledo, Detroit, and so forth, and then Cincinnati, and began to talk about it, became very aware that within that organization there was a very large amount of the ministry who believed 14/15 Passover. That made it easier for me to say God is not working here, so that I was able to do what I needed to do to be a part of something that is a remnant.

So anyway, incredible some of the things we go through sometimes to get where we’re going and how God works with us.

So going on here in the Personal: The Bible is the written Word of God -- and, for our time now, it is COMPLETE! Never have I believed or claimed that God reveals to me new truths not contained in the Bible… Okay, I missed that mark a little bit because of 2012 and 2019. I see a big marker right now, 2020, and I’m hoping, but I don’t know and I’m definitely not going to set it. But I see it; it’s a marker, and God have mercy on us if it goes beyond that because I’ve looked at different dates and I don’t see any patterns. But God can reveal something different within that that we don’t know about yet, you know. But it’s very clear by looking at various things in the world that we are getting so close, because certain people have been put into position. God molds and fashions. He puts people into place and He removes them in governments, and He allows certain things to take place because it changes the effect and the thinking of other people in other government.

I still marvel, and I’m kind of blown away by, even though I knew it had to happen, I just didn’t know how. Just like the Apostasy, how is it going to happen? The same thing is true with what is happening with Europe. It’s becoming so much clearer now they’re not happy with us. They’re speaking in terms they’ve never spoken. To lump us together with China and Russia, this is not a small thing, as an enemy, as a potential enemy? That kind of blows the mind. Because you know they have to do what they’re going to do. It’s already started. It’s already there. It’s already in place. Some of these things that are taking place you realize the door, it’s cracked open, but it’s not all the way yet. Can’t get through it yet. But we’re there; it’s just a matter of God’s time.

I think very clearly so God has shown us we have to be ready. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps it’s you. Perhaps it’s several of us. Perhaps it’s all of us. I don’t know. But we’re going to be ready. We’re going to be at that point when we have to be at that point because there has to be a certain number that’s absolute before God. So I am not of such pride that I can’t say perhaps it’s me, perhaps it had something to do with some of this that we weren’t quite ready yet, perhaps I went a little too far in some things, perhaps I was a little presumptuous in some things because I didn’t understand the job that was given to me. Not an excuse, just a reality. So, hey, fine, so be it. It’s all a part of molding and fashioning all of us as we yield to the process. Somebody want the job? Well, I can’t do that, you know, but I’ll tell you, it’s not something you want. I sometimes think about Jonah. It’s not going to do any good to run away from it either. You know, really, you have all these kinds of thoughts sometimes that go through your mind that you realize this is not a fun thing. It really isn’t.

So sometimes people think they want to be ordained, because we’ve lived with that in the Church in times past, where there were struggles, and especially after the Apostasy. People wanting to be ordained thinking I want, I want, I feel like God’s called me to this, I feel like this is what I want to do. And think, you don’t know what you’re saying. You really don’t know. To have that opportunity for a time or whatever to learn, to be molded and fashioned, what an awesome blessing, you know, and different things that people can learn, because we’re not all being molded and fashioned for the same thing so God gives to us what we need when we need it and we learn something else from the other process as well that we couldn’t otherwise learn.

So, unique. We’re all unique. We all fit some place within the temple. God is preparing us for some place in the temple even if it’s a thousand years from now, okay? Even if it’s a thousand years from now you’re being prepared for a certain place in the temple, because you know what? After the Millennium starts there are people that cannot experience what you’ve experienced. There are people that can’t have molded and fashioned in them the same things that have been molded and fashioned in you because of what you’ve lived through. Because they didn’t live it, they didn’t experience it, and God uses those experiences to mold and fashion certain things in our being, in our minds that can’t get there anywhere else, any other way. I hope you understand that process because it’s exciting.

So again, I’m going to read this again: Never have I believed or claimed that God reveals to me new truths not contained in the Bible -- in addition to, or apart from the Bible.

So he went on to say, Let's take a look at the Church of God of the first century— At the beginning of this we looked at the last three eras because there are things you can always learn. He’s going to talk about some things here—as we find it revealed in the Book of Acts, beginning from the day of Pentecost, 31 A.D. The Bible was not fully written -- only the Old Testament -- in 31 A.D. God then was still communicating new truth, instruction, and knowledge directly and personally to prophets. As the Church progressed, it was the function of a prophet to communicate to the apostles special messages which God had personally revealed to them. Others were inspired in the writing of the books of the New Testament.

So again here, there were some things that happened in Acts. He speaks of Agabus here next in Acts 11 and Acts 21 because there was a transition of time here from things that were happening in the world, in the sense of Judaism, and in the sense of the Church, and so again here, this was new to them and so God did work through some prophets in the beginning.

I’m just going to go ahead and read part of this the way he wrote it. I’m just going to add this because this wasn’t, hadn’t fully gelled yet because it’s still this thing of learning of the structure and the order and how God works and how He’s worked with people through time. But primarily the apostles, they were given things that had never been written. They wrote a lot about, especially the first four books, those were things about the life of Christ and so forth and the things that they experienced, they witnessed, they wrote about those things. Then we get in the book of Acts and they begin to write about what was experienced, Luke did, about things that were being experienced by the Church through that time period and he brings in the subject matter of Saul who was struck down, had the name of Paul, was given the name of Paul, and became an apostle and some of the struggles.

That was a struggle within the Church in itself because he was giving his nod of approval, because he was an authority in that world, to kill people in the Church, to put them to death, and he was there when Stephen was put to death and gave his approval. He was guilty of that and the Church knew it! Can you imagine then God working with him and him coming into your area and you know this history, someone you loved, you loved Stephen, you knew Stephen and he, he is the one that gave his nod of approval and you’re telling me that God’s working with him!? That’s just nuts! You think there weren’t some of those kinds of feelings? There were. We’re human beings.

So, incredible some of the things they lived through in the beginning, in that period of time in the early Church. He talks about that here, as the Church progressed it was the function of the prophet to communicate to the apostles special messages. Not much, just a little bit, because, candidly, it was given to the apostles. You look at what Paul was given, there is no record – Christ taught him. It makes it very clear Christ taught him what he had. He went out and began to teach, gave him things that were indeed new. Paul wrote about a lot of things. You talk about all the books of the Bible he wrote, incredible, and God was revealing things all the way through there. A lot of it inspired interpretation of things in the Old Testament, but so much that was new. Christ gave it to him. He taught the Church those things, and the other apostles learned from some things, obviously, that Paul wrote that they didn’t know about. 2 Thessalonians is one of them. “Don’t be soon moved by, don’t be worried by what you’ve already heard, that there are going to be those who are antichrist,” basically is what he’s talking about, “that that day of Christ is coming, until this happens.”

He goes on to say, Now a word about what my Commission, what it is and is NOT. It is NOT to become an infallible expert on, or preach, chronology. Took me a while to get there. I’m sorry. What can I say? Because I have to say the same thing. I’ve come to understand that, I am not to preach chronology. To preach, yes, about those awesome, incredible times that God has revealed, end-time periods. Just the mathematics involved in that, the probabilities of those things, the timing of those things that have led us all the way up to where we are in 2019. Those are not small things. To me they’re much, much greater, for me, than 19-year time cycles because we’ve experienced something that no one else ever has. We have been experiencing a countdown from the time of the Apostasy and God has given us those things as evidence, as inspiration to be moved by how awesome it is what we’ve been living through. Awesome!

He’s helped us with those markers along the way, to say, in essence, you have this one, add 70 to it; what does that mean? Then when you put them all together and you see Satan’s number and the exact number of days that come up to that. Those things are inspiring to me, moving to me because they’re impossible except that God brought them about and told us about them and gave us those things. The time we’ve had already now, two more periods of time, where does it go from here? Well, I don’t know. God’s made that abundantly clear to me. Not only that, do I not know, He’s made it very clear to me, “Stop it. No more. They’re markers.” We’re watchmen. We’re like watchmen; that’s what our job is. That’s what it is to have a marker like that, to prepare for those things.

So, infallible? No. There is one group of people that claims they’re from Peter, that claims they’re following that process of time, who are the “vicars of Christ,” who have “the power of infallibility” that when they sit in a certain place that supposedly that anything that they say is absolutely true and can’t be changed. You look at all the things that they have that they think is true and you think, boy, oh boy, oh boy, is the world so deceived. There is no human being that isn’t without fault, that isn’t without mistake, that isn’t without error. That’s why I love how Mr. Armstrong wrote this, and I believe inspired to write it in this manner, because it wasn’t just for him, it was for us. Awesome!

Everything that happens in that respect, as far as an overall method of molding and fashioning God’s Church, God’s in charge of. We’re His servants. He knows. He’s known through time all the things that different prophets did, all different kinds of things that some of His leaders did, the kings and so forth. There are things that God knew what they were like and what they would do under various circumstances, and God used those circumstances to help mold and fashion them into something. I think of king David. What a life, incredible life, and God knew him inside out. And yet God has molded and fashioned him for one of the greatest jobs in the Kingdom of God that there is under Christ, but powerful because of everything that he went through and everything he experienced. Incredible.

I marvel at God being able to do those things with fallible, weak, selfish human beings, because I know me. I know my nature and I just loathe it. I, candidly, hate selfishness. I hate those things in the mind of human beings, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life that exists in us. And candidly, the more we hate it the more when God shows us whatever that is inside of us the more we can fight against it and reject it and come into greater unity with God. Because if you don’t hate those things they just control you. You either learn to control them or they control you. God’s called us to learn to bring those things under control, into subjection. That’s what that means. To bring those things into subjection in life to what is right, what is true that comes from God, to be in agreement with God. Awesome! Awesome, to understand those things and how God works.

So he went on to say here, and I’m just going to take the time to go through these because there is much here and there are things we can relate to and grasp and understand and see more deeply as we go along.

It says, As of the present I, and a majority of our historians in Ambassador College, and the researchers in the School of Theology, feel that it is utterly unsafe to try to SET DATES… I wish I had seen that a long time ago. I’m serious! I wish I could have had that kind of conviction. I’ll just be candid with you, because I love mathematics. I love how things work out just so. To me there is an awesome process there of that when you see things about probabilities. To me I enjoy that. Some people don’t like it at al,l but I enjoy it. I love when I’ve given sermons about and talked about the awesomeness of the universe and how large some of those things are that are out there and to understand, which we don’t, the space in between is so much greater. We can’t comprehend it, so to see some of those things and to think about the speed of light, how long it would take to travel, to think how great this is that God created it magnifies God then. Because it truly does.

The most that David could see… I mean, how many stars do you think he could see at one time? He’s talked about that when he marveled in looking to the heavens, and marveled, “What is man that You’re mindful of him?” The most he could see out there weren’t that many stars. Today, because of science, because of ability, the Hubble and all the things that man has been able to piece together, to see how vast, and we’re just scratching the surface. You think, which you can’t, how long did it take to create all that? The more we candidly see and the more we grasp of those things the greater God has become. In my mind… I’m without words. What can you say? How great is God?

We’re little peons. I mean, we’re nothing, and yet just like David said, look at what He’s doing. His focus is on us and that is so incredible to understand, the opportunities He’s given us. All we have to do is yield to that process of being thankful for our Passover, of repenting of our sins, and constantly when we see sin to say, “Father, forgive me through my Passover. Forgive me, and thank you that I can continue on.” That’s how He works with us. He accounts that to us as righteousness, and we’re not, and we know that, but He gives us that so that we can come through all this and become something different, so this mind can be transformed. I mean, how awesome is that?

So again, I am moved by mathematics, I’m moved by certain things. I hated calculus but there are certain things in math, and even then, when I did catch on to certain things, like, oh, yeah, that is amazing, it works. Anyway, that’s where me and mathematics started to part. In college, that’s where I changed my major. I was trying to major in math and physics and I was biting off way too much so I think I kept the math part because they wouldn’t let me continue in the physics without the math. Anyway, so I had to struggle in some of that as far...

Then, thankfully, God called me and said, “You don’t have to learn this.” During my senior year in college that’s when God called me so I didn’t have to continue on in that. So anyway, saved out of that one. But again, because those things move me, the way I think, when God began to show these periods of time and dates that they came out on, things that were working out, things that we were going through in the Church, that took on a meaning for me that was in my mind; I don’t have to wait 19 years and think about 19 years.

Now, God did some things with Mr. Armstrong in specific periods of time, though some have mocked and made fun of that in saying, “No, that’s not the exact line up of planets…” They missed what he was talking about. For him it was 19 years. God worked with him in that process exactly that way. They wanted to make it a celestial thing as far as (if I said that right), exact alignment. He was showing something that does happen even in the universe, not putting his weight on that but on what God was doing through him through what the Church had gone through in 31 A.D. when it began and when God called him one hundred time cycles later to restore truth to the Church, and then when it went out to Europe the same time period that it did a hundred time cycles before that, that was moving to him! That gave him strength. He saw two incredible periods of time, one hundred 19-year time cycles and he saw what God was doing through him, and exact days. For him it was January the 7th. God brought it out on those days for a purpose and for a reason for him because He knew he was moved by that, He worked those things out for a purpose to work with Mr. Armstrong exactly that way, so that it would be moving to him. Awesome!

For me it’s been something different. For the Church it’s been something different because those time periods that I’ve told you about should move you as much as this when he wrote it to the Church moved us, because it did, because it meant a lot to be able to look at those things and say, that is awesome! It’s awesome what God did. It was one hundred 19-year time cycles later that He raised up Mr. Armstrong to begin preaching the gospel in a new era of the Church. It was one hundred 19-Year time cycles when the gospel started going into Europe. Incredible! To the day as well.

So he went on to say that it’s utterly unsafe to try to SET DATES in regard to future prophesied events — See, I can laugh about this now. It hasn’t been so funny to live through this. —especially the return of the living Christ in supreme Power and Glory to rule all nations of the earth. But we are only human, and it is natural that we should have been curious to know, as far as possible, how much time we had to GET THE JOB DONE. That, however, in fact, is not our MAIN PURPOSE, OR COMMISSION -- which is to proclaim Christ's Announcement of the advance good NEWS of the coming Kingdom of God to rule all nations -- and the message commonly called salvation -- the fact we may be born again through Joshua the Christ -- born into that Kingdom. Our Commission is to GET THAT JOB DONE and we are GETTING IT DONE!

Now, that’s a marvel in itself when you realize what God called him to, to do in a commission that he saw so clearly, he was focused upon so clearly. To me that’s inspiring and a marvel because that was his motivation to press forward, because he saw Matthew 24:14 powerfully so. It was etched in his being, in his mind.

The question which Christ, the Head of God's Work, has NOT revealed in the Bible is, HOW THOROUGHLY He intends it to be done! In other words, that commission and going out. So he was grappling with that in 1972 and he addresses some things that were stated about 1975 later and so they realized no, we’re not to set dates and though that was a target of something at one period of time farther back, of thinking this is potentially it, but there were several periods of time in there when it was believed this could potentially be it. Not specifically preaching about a date though. That was the closest the Church came. I failed to learn the lesson because I thought, I believed that it was under the job or something I didn’t understand about a prophet. God’s not working with me that way, so I’ve learned that. You’ve learned that. You’ve been refined in learning something that maybe you didn’t want to learn, but you’ve learned it.

The prophecy of the proclaiming of this Message IN OUR TIME, is in Matthew 24:14. Joshua said: "And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached (and published -- Mark 13:10) in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end (of this age) come."

Again here, he understood that very powerfully so. Now, even though that was what God gave to him the Church still didn’t understand this fully, didn’t understand and grasp that when that job was done, when Mr. Armstrong died, it was over. That answered it. It wasn’t given to any other man to do those things. It was very clear in scripture in Philadelphia and a specific job that was given to an individual, that that was over with.

Mr. Armstrong then continues by talking about certain things that had taken place. Again, I think I mentioned some of this but I want to read it: “…whereby it then appeared that this verse may have been fulfilled concerning the gospel going into all the world, and it was still unclear as to what extent or how extensively it was to go out into all the world.” So again, he’s looking at this not knowing because it’s about time. How much more are we to do because it looks as though by January of 1972, that by all rights it’s happened, this has gone out? But it appears there’s more before us so how does this fit into this? And where is that 19-year time cycle, or whatever it is that God is going to perform and do?

Again, that was of great concern to him and how much more before this work of the gospel would come to an end. That’s what it’s about and the final events of the end-time begin, because that’s the context of what he’s addressing.

So he goes on to say here: Go back, once again, to the beginning and founding of the Church. First, Joshua called his disciples, whom he taught and trained to START getting this job done. Whom did he call? The most highly educated, the leaders of the world? No, Peter and Andrew, brothers, fishermen by trade. That’s why they were mocked and made fun of later on because it’s like these men are unlearned, as we are here in Jerusalem, and some of those that had various schools and teaching and so forth. These have never been taught like we have been taught. Mr. Armstrong explains this as we go on.

So he says: No, Peter and Andrew, brothers, fishermen by trade. Then next he called James and John, brothers, also fishermen. He chose Matthew, a publican (tax collector) -- and tax collectors were held in no high regard in Judea. …and they’re still not. Just kidding.

It says, After Christ's resurrection, Peter and John were brought before the high priest and chief rulers. They were accused of benefiting and healing a man crippled from birth. It is recorded (Moffatt), "They were astonished to notice how outspoken Peter and John were, and to discover that they were uncultured persons and mere outsiders" (Acts 4:13). These apostles were from Galilee -- outsiders in Jerusalem. The AV (Authorized Version) renders it, "... and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men," but that is misleading; as the Greek implies, NOT ignorant and illiterate, in the ordinary sense but, as Moffatt renders it, uncultured in technical learning of Jewish scribes and rulers, and in their acquired mannerisms. So they were looked down upon by that society that was in Jerusalem.

So he went on to say, Again, speaking of true Christians, we read, in I Corinthians 1:26: "For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh (intellectually), not many mighty, not many noble, are called ...." There are a lot of reasons for this. So often those individuals have much, that too often tend to rely on self then and that becomes a battle then, sometimes the wrong influence in the Church, which has happened in times past. But nevertheless, God wants us to understand that who we are, we’re not great, we’re not mighty, but God’s making us that. God’s transforming our minds to become that, so much so it’s going to confound and dumbfound those who think they are, of things we know, of things we grasp, of things we see, of ability that God is giving to us that sometime you don’t fully grasp or know until you’re put into a place. Then you’re going to understand, “Now I understand why I went through those things, why I had to address different things,” and whatever it might be in your life. How blessed are we to be called to what we are? We should marvel at that, that God calls us, knowing what we are.

He went on to say, The sophisticated churches of the world seek leaders who are intellectual, socially cultured, leaders in the community. A lot to this, those who have greater responsibility or recognition and so forth fit into these categories. But when GOD chooses His human instruments, He is more concerned about the sincere and honest of HEART. He calls imperfect (ALL men are, anyway) but sincere and dedicated human instruments. THEY ALL MAKE MISTAKES! This fact needs NO APOLOGY!

When I was first called -- autumn 1926 -- spring 1927 -- I first looked for PROOF, one way or the other, as to whether GOD exists. I had had little or no religious interest previously. I did not ASSUME, because of my Protestant ancestry and parentage. I wanted to KNOW -- to be SURE -- I wanted PROOF one way or the other.

After much careful research, involving study of evolution… Because that had a tremendous impact on the world and thinking in the world, and so he wanted to study some of these things that were written by these so-called scholars at that particular time. So he talks about -- the writings of Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, the earlier Lamarck, plus Spencer, Vogt, Chamberlain, and other modern geologists and evolutionists -- as well as a careful study of Genesis and other parts of the Bible -- of all the scientific facts bearing on the subject I could find -- I became SURE! I had PROVED that God IS! Awesome!

Next I entered an intensive study… This is a marvel in itself. God knew the kind of individual, prepared the kind of individual that was needed through his earlier life. God does that. So often in life there are things we go through sometimes long before we’re ever called to have various kinds of experiences, too, because they impact who we become, how we think, and God works with that to transform it. But there were things that were needed in some of those experiences to become what we are, if that makes sense. It certainly was in his life and that should be clear, some of the things if you’ve read his autobiography and things he went through and things he experienced before God called him and drew him. He was a kind of person that would do this. This was needed. He was motivated and inspired by God to do these things and God opened his mind to grasp and comprehend those things that were written on a physical plane by physical scholars to begin to see very clearly, and by reading Genesis, no, God is Creator. It started with God. We didn’t climb out of some slime or whatever. So he became deeply convicted of these things. That was important for him. He knew that God is.

Next I entered an intensive study to determine whether the Bible can be PROVED to be the inspired Word of God -- the revelation of knowledge from the Creator to mankind. By many infallible proofs that was PROVED! Awesome! It’s like the process we go through except it’s all there for us easily to be attained and things about the Sabbath, things about the holy days, and it’s all there and it agrees beautifully then. We see those, that when the apostles came along and they said the various things in Corinthians and so forth, different places of scripture, we know what they’re talking about, and yet the world of traditional Christianity, when they read those things, they don’t grasp it because they don’t know anything about, for one thing, the holy days. Yet they’re clear in the New Testament. The Sabbath keeping and so forth, that’s all clear. We’re able to prove those things along that line as well.

After that, I had a SOLID FOUNDATION on which to start. I began then to learn God's Truth, but not until after surrender to Him, repentance, believing, baptism, and receiving His holy spirit. This opened my mind to UNDERSTANDING of the Bible. Never before could I understand it! It’s a process we all go through. Awesome! We don’t do it on our own; God has to lead, guide, and direct us.

Now I began to learn, a truth, a subject, a teaching, or a doctrine at a time. Baptized in 1927 (late spring), I was not ordained to the ministry until late May, or early June 1931. He went on to say, (Pentecost was May 25th). Which, anyway, we were a day off in some of this. In my study, I did not receive everything perfectly all at once. There were instances where, having felt I had come to understand the true Biblical teaching on a certain subject, other scriptures discovered later put a different light on it. That happens in our growth sometimes; we think we understand something and then early on when we start this process and then we read another article and oh yeah, now it makes sense. It all starts fitting together. But that, so much of that work has been done for us. We didn’t have to go through the same thing he did, unless it’s something new that God has given to us.

The parable of the virgins. We didn’t understand it. Finally, we did. So many other things of things that are already written there but we didn’t grasp. All these things that Mr. Armstrong was talking about are things that are written there that he began to see and understand in doctrine that’s already there but didn’t know it, and then teach it to the Church.

The Apostle Paul, telling us under God's inspiration of how he came to KNOW God's Truth, said: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is NOT AFTER MAN. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Joshua the Christ." Awesome! He received it, as he implies, from an appearance of the living Christ, in person, even after his resurrection and ascension. So I mentioned that earlier; again, he was directly taught by Christ for a long period of time.

So he went on to say, I, too, received Christ's Gospel NOT from MAN. I, too, certify that the Gospel I have taught and proclaimed is NOT AFTER MAN. I entered no theological seminary, where I would have received a particular denominational teaching and set of doctrines and practices. I was not taught by MAN. But I was taught, as was Paul, by the revelation of Joshua the Christ… These things weren’t there. There was no one to teach him, to show him, to tell him, and so God had to open his mind to be able to see those things that were here, inspired him to see and grasp and comprehend those things, already working with him as an apostle, and he didn’t even know it because that is very much about the job of an apostle, for God to reveal things that are already there, truths that are there that now are to be given to the Church. They can come in no other way to the Church. That’s how God gives it.

So we have learned that through time and primarily because of what Mr. Armstrong himself went through within the Church. That’s why I mentioned last week about the one individual who sat in his class and came up with this 14/15th Passover and so forth, the one who said at a meeting, at a service, at a Sabbath service: “Mr. Armstrong is not a prophet.” I told you how he was presumptuous for what he did, for what he said, and that attitude of mind that he was not fully in subjection to government because he didn’t grasp it yet…and sadly, never did.

So there is a process that the Church went through and we began to learn those things, we began to come to understand those things more deeply. Thank God that He raised up Mr. Armstrong, or not a one of us would be here. That’s why after the Apostasy there were so many ministers out there, many of them who totally discredited Mr. Armstrong, but those who gave any credit at all, basically the best they could say was he was a great teacher and I learned a lot of good things from him.

I used to do a slow boil and burn inside whenever I’d hear that because not a one of them would be around if God hadn’t worked through that man to give them what they had. They had nothing that they received on their own. Everything that was true that they had, that they were able to hold on to, which they didn’t hold on to at all, but all that they were able to hold on to came through Mr. Armstrong. You think, yeah, but he was a great teacher and I learned a lot from him. You see the hideousness of that and why that ought to cause a person to do a slow boil inside and want to tell them off? That’s what I inside wanted to do. “You fool! You insane, stark raving mad person! You didn’t know a thing but that it came through him. Good teacher? No, he was a great teacher that God used to teach you, you fool.” Sorry, that’s what people were to not understand that, to not grasp that, to not grasp what they’d been given.

To not understand how God works is a sin once you’ve been given that. Once it’s been offered and a person doesn’t receive that? Because it’s about His government. It’s about how God works. It’s about how God works in our lives. That’s why we’re told never forget where, how you learned what you learned. There’s only one way that God teaches us. That’s why I don’t forget that the entire foundation of it all came through Mr. Armstrong. We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for what God gave through him. Does that raise him up? Well, in some ways, yes, absolutely. As God? No. But a servant of God? Yes. As an apostle? Absolutely.

He says, I, too, received Christ's Gospel NOT from MAN. I, too, certify that the Gospel I have taught and proclaimed is NOT AFTER MAN. I entered no theological seminary, where I would have received a particular denominational teaching and set of doctrines and practices. I was not taught by MAN. But I was taught, as was Paul, by the revelation of Joshua the Christ -- Paul from the living Christ IN PERSON -- who is the Word of God in PERSON -- but I from the WRITTEN WORD OF GOD -- which is the SAME revelation, now set in print. Beautiful! It’s like, oh, yeah.

I did not get it all PERFECTLY at the beginning. No one could. Most of God's truths, assuredly, were revealed perfectly and in truth from the beginning. But, as an example, even Peter says "... our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you; as also in his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction" (II Peter 3:15-16). He went on to say, And sometimes, in the light of other scriptures, I had to confess error AND CORRECT IT. So it’s just the right thing to do whenever those things come to light. As he said, he’s not infallible, no one is. Shouldn’t be hard for any of us to say.

I know some of the biggest battles that some people have had is relatives, others around them because they’ve told them things, and then when something didn’t happen in a particular way it’s like that becomes, can become a great trial, did become a great trial to some. I have heard of some make various kinds of comments of how great that trial was, some who aren’t with us anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong not to have a trial like that, in that sense, but you need to understand what you’re going through and why you’re going through it and where you place your emphasis then. It doesn’t change the truth of God. It doesn’t change the spirit of God that lives and dwells within you. But we have to ask at times like that, where is our greater concern? Where is our greater conviction of what we do and why we do it?

Going on: There were at least two occasions… In other words, it’s hard, it can be hard if we’re worried about what others think of us. It can be hard to stand firm for God’s way of life even when you’re in error. Shouldn’t be. It should be an easy movement. When we came to the point of Pentecost – it wasn’t on that date? Fine. It’s very clear what day it is now. You’ve shown us. It’s clear. God’s spirit reveals it. It makes you at peace with the truth. It doesn’t take very long after you’ve been down a certain road you think, “I don’t know how we could have ever believed the other way.”

He went on to say: There were at least two occasions when I was accused by hostile women, bent on discrediting me, of error. On more thorough research, in these two instances, I discovered I had unknowingly been in error -- and they were correct. Humiliating or not, I OPENLY AND PUBLICLY CORRECTED THESE ERRORS AT ONCE. This is a matter of growing. It’s a matter of a process he went through in his growth. It has to be a process in our growth. The truth is the truth, and when it’s in error you just say it and it shouldn’t be a matter of being humiliating. It is what it is. The more we grasp and comprehend we’re fallible, we make mistakes, every one of us, and so thank God when He lets us see those things. Thank God He blesses us to see the mistakes and errors in our life from time to time and we can refine those to where we make fewer mistakes and don’t sin because there are things in our minds that God continually shows us about how we think that we have to come to grips with, and when He shows it then we have to go to work, repent, and change.

He went on to say, Even the first century Church at Antioch was UNSURE about a truth, and when they appealed to the headquarters Church at Jerusalem, so were the apostles there -- UNTIL THE HOLY SPIRIT corrected them, and revealed the real truth to them (Acts 15th chapter).

Let me ask you this question. Do you know of any large, established, well-recognized professing Christian denomination which has PUBLICLY confessed it had been WRONG in what it had been teaching, and which then CORRECTED the error, and turned to the TRUTH? No, the big established churches and denominations feel they cannot afford to admit having had any error -- having ever mis-taught the people. That’s easy to see, that’s in the world. We have experienced that in the Church. 14/15 Passover – how do you deal with that? Well, I know a large group that had a wishy-washy method in their approach of trying to deal with some of those things and they had a battle because they knew that they had a bunch that believed one way and a bunch that believed a different way, so what do you do? You know what you should do. The truth is the truth and here it is.

But are they ALL perfect and correct in what they teach? …speaking of those churches. If so why do not any two AGREE in all points of doctrine? The REASON is simply that they DO teach certain errors which they are afraid to confess, for fear they would lose members. We’ve experienced that in God’s own Church. It doesn’t have to be in the world. It can be in God’s Church. So what is it about? Is it about God and what is right before God? People have to go through those things in their life and evaluate those things in their life. Why am I making the choice I’m doing? Why am I going with a specific group? So again, everyone has had to go through those kinds of things.

He went on to say, THUS THEY HAVE EDUCATED THE PEOPLE TO SUPPOSE THAT IF ANY LEADER, ANY CHURCH, AND WORK OF GOD CAN BE FOUND TO HAVE BEEN IN ERROR IN ANY POINT, THEY CANNOT BE TRUSTED. To confess and correct error is to be branded a false prophet! I know that feeling. Yet they are all HUMAN. They are ALL subject to error, and so are YOU -- and so am I -- and so is this Work of God. Even though it is God's Work, directed, empowered, and blessed by Him, He carries it on through frail, weak HUMANS, and we humans are ALL of us subject to mistakes! That’s why I love how he addresses some of this as we go on. I want to read a little bit more before we stop here today. Might just get through this part.

What are God's CONDITIONS for salvation? 1st, is REPENT. Repent means CONFESS YOUR SINS -- your errors -- your mistakes -- where you have been WRONG! It means CHANGE from the wrong, and TURN TO the right! A church or a group activity, even such as ours, is made up of HUMANS. Such church or work is merely the INDIVIDUAL HUMANS that comprise it, COLLECTIVELY. If no one of the humans is infallible, NEITHER CAN THE ORGANIZED GROUP BE.

If I were looking for God's one true Church, I would assuredly LOOK FOR ONE THAT HAD CONFESSED AND CORRECTED ITS ERRORS! FOR ALL HAVE HAD THEM -- even the early churches (Rev. 2:4, 14, 20, speaking of those eras). Any criterion assumes God's TRUE Work through humans is absolutely perfect, unable to be wrong or make mistakes or hold to any error, is a false measuring stick and will mislead you.

Now, I’m going to interject here. There is a difference in how some people might look at some of this because of what I have stated that I know that I am. I know that I’m a prophet. But I am not, which I’ve come to understand very deeply so, one who has written things that are in the Bible, like in the prophets that are here and so forth and that’s different. How can I put that? It makes things different because of our definition of not understanding what a prophet was. That’s why I’ve gone through and clarified some of those things as well. So, not an easy thing to do, but again, to understand them helps us to grasp and comprehend how God works, and I’m doing that in the best way I know how to give to you.

Because the reality is Mr. Armstrong struggled with it, and I struggled with it at the beginning, and have come to circle back to the beginning. This is what I was supposed to do from the beginning anyway, I just didn’t understand fully what a prophet was. Thank God He’s helped me in my mind to clarify it. Those things that are written here determines that kind of prophet and I am not that kind of prophet that writes those things or gives those things that are brand new, that have never been seen, that aren’t already taken from something previously written and given by God. Hope that makes sense. I said that fast.

He went on to say, You may ask, do I, then, feel that we in this work are full of errors, misleading the people? MOST EMPHATICALLY NO! We have not had to correct error many times. But each time we have corrected an error, we have had one fewer error left. If we KNEW of any error still remaining, now, we would CHANGE it! If and when we find one in the future, we shall correct it! The one who follows that principle is THE MOST FREE FROM ERROR!

So we’ve had to change one. God may show us we may have to change another one. I can’t say absolutely no in some of that, and a couple of those things that are stated there. I’ll go through some of that later on. But I believe that He’s inspired to give us what we have to this point in time and I’ll leave that for now.

So, confessing such an error is one of the SUREST proofs to identify the people through whom the living Christ IS WORKING -- and whom HE is USING! If you are looking for a leader who claims that he is PERFECT, and you think you have found him, and he is human, HE IS A FALSE LEADER. There is ONLY the ONE Leader who is perfect today -- and he is the LIVING CHRIST! We follow HIM -- and we trust YOU, with us, will do the same.

So, some ways I don’t like this last part here, reading it, because the reality is we know these things, we understand these things. I’ve explained why we have addressed what we have to this point in time and I may just end this particular series. I think I’ll end that today here on this What is Truth? and at some point, here may go through some of the truths that we do have. I’m not sure yet. So anyway, I have to wait and ask what I’m supposed to give because reality is I don’t know what to give to the Church week by week unless God gives it to me. Just like this one here I didn’t know until Friday of a week ago that this is what I needed to give.

So again here, hopefully that clarifies a few things for some and that’s for you, it’s for the Church. It’s not for the world. It’s not for others in the world because they like to look at such things and say, “Yeah, we already know. We already have our mind made up.” They’ve got a lot of ammunition, some pretty good ammunition on a carnal, physical way.

1. Chapter 1