INTRO: THE LAST PASSOVER
You are about to enter the twilight-of-the-gods zone. They're angry that their days are numbered and they're going to be permitted by God to wreak havoc on mankind. Then God will step in and punish the world for its sins. You are about to enter Bible Times and the Last Passover.
The First Passover lasted one night and all of the firstborn of Egypt were killed. The Last Passover lasts 3 1/2 years and everyone on this earth will be involved. That means you. God will pass through the nations of Israel this time in a 2 1/2 year Tribulation that God describes as the worst time in history. Then God will pass through the gentiles in the last year -- the Day of the Lord -- the 7th Seal of Revelation.
Who is passed over? Those who know the answer to the question, "God or doctors?"
Just as Pharaoh did not know who God was (Ex. 5:2), so the masses of humanity today do not know. Most think that Passover is Jewish. It's one of God's days (Lev. 23:2). That makes it Godish. Shortly, when He sets up His kingdom on this earth, everyone will be keeping Passover and holy days like the Feast of Tabernacles or they will get no rain -- Zech. l4:l6-l7.
Most, like the ancient Egyptians, are not observing Passover. People who think they are christian are keeping the Last Supper at Communion or Mass. Jews are keeping Passover on the wrong day, the l5th instead of the l4th day of the first month. True christians have the right day but are keeping it in the wrong way.
The "christian" world goes its way eating ham instead of the Lamb on the day of the sex-goddess Easter thinking it is observing Christ's resurrection on a Sunday when it actually happened on the Sabbath. It observes the birth of Christ on a high day of the Sun God in winter when it actually happened in early fall. It is totally oblivious of what is going to happen just like the Egyptians of the First Passover.
The real God commands mankind to observe His Son's death at Passover once a year. He commands mankind to worship Him every week on the 7th day. But the great false church, The Roman Catholic Church, commands Sunday worship, Christmas worship and Easter worship. The Protestants pay obeisance to her by keeping her days and her other doctrines. That's why Revelation says this great whore is the mother of harlots. She has many daughters. All will be passed THROUGH, not passed over.
When will it happen? The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride before the Tribulation and Day of the Lord. They kill 1/4 of the men, women and children on this earth. The Tribulation and Day of the Lord will be worse.
The Four Horsemen are about to ride. God said there would be a falling away before the prophecies of Revelation begin (II Thes. 2:2-3). That has happened. The Worldwide Church of God, God's true church, has fallen away.
The First Horseman rides the white horse of religious deception. He carries a bow. Christ carries a sword. The great false church will once again dominate the world by conquering minds and bodies.
The Holy Roman Empire will rise again, the 10th time of that 4th world-ruling empire of Daniel 2. l0 nations of Europe will dominate the world for 3 1/2 years until Christ smashes them and the hordes of the East at His return. The Germans will be the iron in that iron/clay mixture of nations just like they had been for l000 years. The Empire strikes back. So, of course, the next horseman rides the red horse of war.
The Third Horseman rides the black horse of famine. The Fourth Horseman rides the pale-green horse of pestilence. Doctors will be powerless. That's your first clue to the answer of that all-important question.
There is a sign to watch for immediately before the Tribulation. The King of the North (leader of Catholic Europe) is pushed by the King of the South (the Muslim world) -- Daniel ll. The Beast Power sweeps through Egypt and other nearby nations like a whirlwind (Blitzkrieg) and advances into the holy land (v. 41).
Jerusalem is surrounded -- Luke 21:20. The Beast, not the false prophet, stands in the temple and claims he is God -- the abomination of desolation of Daniel 8:l3 and ll:36. The Tribulation begins with the attack on the chief tribes of Israel.
The world ignorantly equates the Jews as Israel. And the Jews haven't helped matters by calling their country "Israel." In the old days they called their country "Judah." "Israel" was the name of the l0 northern tribes. The division into 2 countries occurred after King Solomon's death. They were rivals and fought one another for several hundred years. Yet the "christian" world forgets the majority of Israelites and that's why this world thinks that only the Jews are the chosen people.
The Jews are a small minority of all Israelites whose numbers God says are as the sands of the seashore and the stars in heaven (Gen. 22:l6-l8). They are only one tribe out of twelve. Where is the silent majority?
"Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." Amos 3:7. Would He have left the greatest nation and the greatest empire in modern times out of prophecy? Would His servants?
Early in his ministry Herbert W. Armstrong sent a 300-page manuscript about the US & Britain in prophecy to the Sardis-era Church of God in Stanberry, Missouri. That church would not accept the truth and he realized it was spiritually dead as God said in Revelation 3. Redone in booklet form, the US & BC became the most requested piece of literature that Mr. Armstrong wrote -- 5 million people requested it. The Worldwide Church of God no longer publishes it.
Many will remember the story of the birthright and blessing that God gave to Abraham. Ishmael was passed over and Isaac received it. That's why there is so much trouble with the Arabs (plus God says that Ishmael is a wild man - Gen. l6:l2). Esau was passed over and Jacob received it. That's why there has been and will be trouble with the Turks. Do you know who received it after Jacob? It is the key to prophecy.
When Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, was about to die, he gave the birthright and blessing to Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh -- Genesis 48. He made them his sons like Reuben and Simeon (an adoption because their mother was Egyptian), verse 5. When the rest of Israel gave a blessing, they would say, "God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh."
Ephraim was to be the greater of the two and become a multitude of nations (v. l9). Genesis 35:ll says "a company of nations." Manasseh was to become a great nation. The British Commonwealth is a company of nations. The United States is a great nation. They are brothers. "Saxon" comes from "Isaac's son."
At one time these two brothers owned half of the world's cultivated, temperate lands, 60% of its crude oil, 75% of its coal, 75% of its steel, 95% of its nickel, 80% of its aluminum, 75% of its zinc, all of its chromium, 2/3 of its rubber, 2/3 of its gold, 2/3 of its electricity, 50% of its merchant fleet tonnage, 50% of its railroad mileage, over 80% of its automobiles and dominated the world's copper, lead, tin, bauxite and other precious metals.
The chief of the Israelites, the most blessed and wealthy, would also possess the gates of their enemies (Gen. 22:l7) -- Gibraltar, the Suez and Panama Canals and the straits around South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, to name a few.
Another part of the story which is in Mr. Armstrong's booklet is about the throne of King David which God said would last forever and be the throne that Jesus Christ would sit on when He returns. The world believes that the Jewish kingly line ended with Zedekiah. His sons were killed by the Babylonians. But few know of Jeremiah's commission "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant [Jer. l:l0]." Few know of the breach between the twin sons of Judah that was to be healed (Gen. 38:27-30). Few know that the throne was to be overturned three times (Ezk. 21:27). Few know that Jeremiah left Judah with Zedekiah's daughters (Jer. 43:6-7).
When Judah's twin sons were born, one stuck out a hand and the midwife put a scarlet thread on it. The hand went back in and then the other son was born who produced the kingly line. The midwife asked how that could have happened and said, "This breach be upon thee." He was called Pharez -- breach. The other twin with the scarlet thread was named Zarah. A breach is usually healed and that happened in Irish history when Herremon of the Zarah line became king of Ireland and married Tephi, a princess brought to Ireland by a white-haired patriarch whose friend was Brach (Baruch). The patriarch was Jeremiah. The throne was overturned from Judah to Ireland, to Scotland and then to England where it is today.
Who are the other tribes? Reuben is France, Dan -- Ireland, Benjamin -- Norway, Denmark & Iceland, Napthali -- Sweden, Issachar -- Finland, Zebulon -- the Netherlands, Asher -- Belgium, Gad -- Switzerland. Simeon and Levi , the Scots and Welsh, are in Ephraim. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are Ephraim.
The Assyrians are also a modern-day nation. God says that in His kingdom Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria (Isa. l9:24). Assyria is the rod of God's anger (Isa. l0:5). It was Assyria that conquered the House of Israel in 721 BC. It will be used by God to do it again.
Assyrians are a proud people that say their princes are like other nations' kings (Isa l0:8). It's in their heart to destroy and cut off many nations. They were the terror of the ancient world just as they're the terror of the modern world. Roman names for some German tribes were the same or similar to Assyrian names for Assyrian tribes. The Germans are not only the iron of the last l0 kings of Europe but are the iron rod that God will use to punish the United States and Great Britain.
It is no wonder then that Ezekiel 5:l2 says that 1/3 of the modern Israelites will die by the sword, 1/3 die by famine and pestilence and 1/3 go into captivity. Many of that last third die during the Tribulation. Those who don't wish they had -- Jer. 8:3.
For about l700 years the world was divided into two groups -- Israelites and gentiles. In 31 AD Jesus Christ started a new group -- Christians. These spiritual Israelites have the most to lose in the Last Passover. The millions of Israelites and gentiles who will be killed, will be resurrected by God in 1000 years and given their chance to understand the truth. But those who already have the truth are having their chance now. If they throw it away, they only have the third resurrection of the incorrigibles and the second death in the lake of fire to look forward to. Parts One and Two of this book are written mainly for them and about them. They have much to do with Passover.
Passover is divided into two parts -- eating unleavened bread and drinking wine. It is symbolic of the body and blood of our Passover Lamb. His body was beaten with a metal-tipped scourge that tore His flesh until He was unrecognizable (Isa. 52:l4). Isaiah 53:5 says that by these stripes we are healed and this is repeated in I Peter 2:24. Matthew 8 :l7 shows that Isa. 53:4 means that Jesus Christ took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.
WHAT HAVE DOCTORS GOT TO DO WITH IT?
God says He is Rapha -- Healer -- Ex. l5:26. That's His name. He has never delegated that authority to heal to doctors. He gave the power to heal to the elders of the church. God doesn't need help to heal or to make that sacrifice for healing. Maybe you can understand how He feels about any group of men stepping in to do a Godly job not having the qualifications of intellect, power, love and sacrifice.
His command is known and simple. When a true christian is sick, he is to go to the elders of the church, be anointed and prayed for, and God promises to heal (James 5:l4-l5). Doctors aren't mentioned. When you know where to go, you know where not to go.
Satan is the god of this world -- II Cor. 4:4. What does that mean? He controls everything -- institutions, governments and people. There is one exception -- true christians. Are doctors true christians? No, they are Satan's agents of healing. When you go to them, you are going to another god and that's idolatry, breaking the First Commandment and committing the greatest sin.
We in the true church knew that the last age of the 7 ages of the church prophesied in Revelation 2 & 3 would be Laodicean -- lukewarm, rich (materially and self-righteously), wretched, miserable, poor (in God's spirit, chief of which is love), blind and naked. I am a little sheep that says, "The Emperor is naked!"
We were taught that half of the church would be Laodicean and destined for the Tribulation. Half would be Philadelphian and passed over in a place of safety. That's not what's happening!
ALL of the shepherds of the church have turned the sheep into Laodiceans!
The mother church has gone down the tubes. The main splinter groups know that -- Global, United, Philadelphia and even the International Church of God. But what about them? Are they all true? Jesus, on passover night, prayed to His Father 3 times that they all would be one. This was read at every passover service -- John l7:ll,21,22.
"Is Christ divided? With l42 sects and several larger groups, He is divided (to our collective shame) right now." Roderick C. Meredith, "Global Church News," March-April l996, p.21,22.
The answer to that question in I Cor. l:l3 is "NO!" "Was Paul crucified for you?" NO. "Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" NO! Three "NO's" for emphasis. Christ is not divided but the Laodicean Churches are! The house divided falls -- Luke ll:l7.
One of the strongest proofs of the true church was the division of so-called christianity. How could they all be true when they disagreed among themselves about doctrine -- the teachings of the Bible? Only one church could be true and all the rest false. But now the fingers of the world are pointing back at the true church because it's divided.
Before I was disfellowshipped in l987 over the doctrine of healing, I started to hear much about love in the church. This is the main definition of shepherds' love: "He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep." John 21:l7. FEED MY SHEEP!
I have read in both Global and Philadelphia Church writings that Ezekiel 34 was written for spiritual Israel as well as physical Israel. God says that He is against the shepherds of Israel because they have not fed the flock. All the shepherds? Yes. Read verse 5. God said there are no shepherds. Read on and He says that He'll do the job Himself. Why? THERE ARE NO SHEPHERDS!
Someone I once knew who is now in the Philadelphia Church asked me, "What about GRF [Gerald Flurry, the head of Philadelphia]?" Logic would have it that there should be one true splinter group and all the rest false. But Revelation says that there are no shepherds. There are no true splinter groups headed by a shepherd.
So what is Jesus Christ going to do? Read Malachi. God says that the Levites, God's ministers today, are not doing their jobs so He will send a special messenger. If just one shepherd was doing his job then no special messenger would be needed. The special messenger sent to set things straight before Christ's first coming was John the Baptist. Jesus called him an Elijah. Malachi says that there will be another Elijah before Christ's second coming -- another special messenger.
Elijah III will be two - the two anointed ones of Zechariah 4 -- the two witnesses of Revelation ll. Zerubbabel and Joshua were types of the two witnesses. Joshua was the son of the high priest. So it looks like one shepherd will repent before the Tribulation and be one of the two witnesses. Will it be Garner Ted Armstrong?
Who am I? A sheep with the truth, waiting for years for a shepherd to tell it. Now I know that the shepherds won't. But Matthew 25 says someone will awaken all the sleeping virgins -- true christians. It's not Jesus Christ and it's not a shepherd. Could it be me? Time will tell. In the meantime I will tell the truth. I can't hide it under a bushel. I am my brother's keeper. I have food for the sheep and if I don't feed them their blood will be on my hands.
In times past on certain days of Pentecost, I wondered if God would infuse His church with great power on those days. Then I finally realized that He said the Philadelphia Church would have little strength -- little "dunamis" ( miraculous power) -- few miracles. And, of course, the Laodicean Church would have far less if any. Don't look for any splinter church to perform mighty miracles. That kind of power will be given to the two witnesses.
The sleeping virgins are awakened just before the bridegroom comes. There won't be time to do more that talk to one another as Malachi 3:l6 says. Then it's off to the place of safety where Christ makes His jewels (v. l7).
God is not going to leave His sheep in the lurch like His shepherds have. The doctrine of healing is not one of the least of the commandments. Mr. Armstrong said it was one of the doctrinal pillars of the church. It is half of the passover service. I hope you can see how important it is.
Malachi says that God will purify His shepherds with the fire of the Tribulation to bring them to repentance. The ones most responsible for the condition of the church today, the evangelists in high places for many years, are in their late 60's. They will have a chance to repent before they die. Time is short. If this isn't the cry at midnight at least it is a cry at midnight.
PART ONE -- THE WAY IT WAS
Pilate asked the question but didn't wait for an answer. Jesus had just said, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."
There was a time when the answer to the question was easy. The truth was God's Word in the Bible as taught by the true church, The Radio Church of God. There was one man who led that church under God -- Herbert W. Armstrong.
But the church changed more than its name when it started calling itself the Worldwide Church of God. And now Herbert W. Armstrong is gone and the church is "riven by dramatic changes in doctrine" as stated by the Los Angeles Times, ll-26-95, A3.
"The self-proclaimed prophet, while he lived, foretold many things that were to be.
He spoke of a coming worldwide upheaval. He spoke of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
But Herbert W. Armstrong never foresaw the upheaval now being visited upon the church he founded.
It was not to be the end of the world, but the end of the Worldwide Church of God as he knew it -- and his vaunted place on the battlements of belief.
Less than a decade after Armstrong's death in l986, members of the Pasadena-based church are facing a crisis of faith."
The Times article listed many changes in the church but it didn't mention the first change. I sat through sermons in the Global Church and read their material and the Philadelphia Church's material on the changes going on in the Worldwide Church but they never mentioned the first change.
Raymond McNair of Global gave a sermon in which he stated that he had a part in implementing the first change. He said it was the change of the day of Pentecost from Monday to Sunday. THAT WAS NOT THE FIRST CHANGE!
"Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father." I John 2:24. John also wrote in Rev. 3:ll, as the last command to the Philadelphia Church, to hold fast to what they have so no man can take their crown.
We are in the last days and there are many antichrists that went out from us as I John 2 says. They deny the Father and the Son with change and we are warned in verse 26 that this is how they seduce us.
God says He does not change. It's interesting that this is found in Malachi, a book to His ministers. What is truth? TRUTH DOES NOT CHANGE. What were we taught in the beginning in healing? That going to doctors and taking drugs was going to another god and committing idolatry. How many times has that been changed?
The first change by Herbert Armstrong in l969 was not even told to us. We were just told that the booklet was no longer being published. It was to be "revised" but we weren't told what the revisions were. The second change was the Systematic Theology Project put forward by Garner Ted Armstrong in January l978. The third change was Herbert Armstrong's second healing booklet in January l979. The fourth change was Joseph Tkach's "new understanding" on healing in March of l987. A fifth change was Gerald Flurry's admonition to go back to Herbert Armstrong's second booklet. This was not truth.
In the beginning in l929 Loma Armstrong was healed by God when a doctor had given her 24 hours to live. Herbert Armstrong then made a year-long study of health and healing. So that doctrinal pillar started 5 years before the Radio Church of God and 2 years before Mr. Armstrong was ordained.
The healing doctrine was finally published as a booklet in l952, "Does God HEAL today?" Mr. Armstrong quoted II Chron. l6:l2: "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians."
If physicians were God's agents instead of the devil's agents, then the Bible would have said that Asa went to God by going to doctors!
What is truth? "Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." Jeremiah l7:5.
Dr. Herman Hoeh once asked me why I had the job of archivist for the church. I told him that I had the job because God wanted me there. I could have been more specific. I held the job from January l983 - June l987 and from the start I knew that the church had a big problem in healing. The facts were now at my fingertips.
I found a treasure about healing in the early ministerial conference notes of C. Paul Meredith. He was the man who produced the Bible Correspondence Course for the church. He took good notes. I found a lot of truth there.
I also found a very interesting "Good News" article (for members only) of August l964 written by David Jon Hill. "You can go to doctors for your healing if you want -- the Church of God advises you that this is NOT the way to be healed."
That was a big change from Mr. Armstrong's booklet which was still being sent out at that time saying that going to doctors and taking drugs was idolatry. The Ten Commandments are not suggestions that you advise people to keep. Of course, the ministers in high places did not believe that they were permitting idolatry. They no longer believed it was idolatry.
During the ministerial conference of l968 ministers were told that going to doctors was not a black sin. In other words, it was not idolatry. When the booklet was canceled at the conference in l969 for "revision," the revision was idolatry.
I was a freshman at Ambassador College at the time and was completely in the dark about what was going on. But I have never changed my belief that it was idolatry to go to doctors since I first read the booklet in l964.
The church was left without a healing booklet, no doctrinal pillar, for l0 long years. When the 2nd booklet came out in January l979, idolatry wasn't in it It was like it never existed. It was a non-word. And after l0 years of limbo, it was also a non-issue.
Faith was now the main thrust of the 2nd booklet. Mr. Armstrong now said that God healed but if a person didn't have the faith for healing, he had better go to doctors.
THEY LACKED FAITH BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT FED! AND NOW THEY WERE TOLD WHERE TO GO!
At the time I didn't realize what a damnable heresy this was. I felt the new booklet was wrong but God would correct Mr. Armstrong. That did not happen as far as I know.
He died in January l986 taking drugs and being visited by a doctor, sometimes twice a day. At the time of his lengthy illness (5+ months) I felt that he would never leave his house alive, just like King Ahaziah, unless he repented. He never left his house alive.
I wasn't sitting on my hands through all of this. In the summer of l985 I finished a 28-page report on how the church got off the track in healing called "Liberalism and the Healing Booklets." When Mr. Armstrong was too sick to speak to the brethren at the Feast of Tabernacles, I felt the time was right to submit it to my boss, LeRoy Neff, head of Financial Services.
After the weeks wore on and after Mr. Neff showed me the stack of papers on his desk saying that mine was in the middle somewhere, I felt the paper was being pigeon-holed. I told myself that I would resubmit the paper through different channels so the new leader would get it if Mr. Armstrong died.
Was anyone as shocked as I was when he did die? I kept hoping that he would repent and correct the church. What would happen to him if he didn't? At his last passover he said before God and the church that he was responsible for so many people going to doctors. At that point in time I really felt he would do something.
After his death I submitted the paper through local church channels by giving it to Murray McClung, a local elder. I thought that he would give it to my pastor, Mr. Van de Venter, who would pass it on to Mr. Tkach. Mr. Van de Venter never got it. It went to Murray's boss instead, Mr. Helge, the lawyer for the church, and to Mr. Neff again. I don't know if Mr. Tkach heard about it but he may have, and Mr. Armstrong too.
I remember a sermon by Aaron Dean, Mr. Armstrong's right-hand man. He said that Mr. Armstrong had told Mr. Tkach to take care of healing because some wanted to go back. Dean also said that Mr. Armstrong asked him if he (HWA) had done everything he was supposed to do before he died. Aaron Dean told him that he had.
As Mr. Tkach's first year continued, I heard more and more sermons that made me believe that things would not be corrected but was still shocked when the "new understanding" on healing came out just before Passover in March l987. Mr. Tkach changed the passover service that had been kept the same way since Mr. & Mrs. Armstrong started keeping it over 50 years ago.
I went to see Dr. Zimmerman. I thought he might understand since he was once a chiropractor. Shortly afterward I was called on the carpet by my pastor. Doc Z had turned me in. I was then called in by Joe Tkach Jr. who is now the leader of the Worldwide Church of God. He gave me one month to agree with the "new understanding." My wife was called in. Then she went to see her former boss, the man who gave her away at our wedding, Mr. Neff. He told her that I said things that the church never taught. She sided with him and I realized that I had lost my wife and 3 children.
During the next 3 weeks I copied all I needed from archives into the wide margin of my Bible. Then I told Mr. Van de Venter in a note that the new understanding was false doctrine. In the afternoon I was told by Mr. Neff that I was suspended from my job and from church.. It was the 23rd of June l987. After one more meeting with Joe Jr. before Atonement, I was disfellowshipped.
I wasn't shocked. True christians were kicked out of the "true" church before -- III John 9,l0. I thought some ministers would leave. None did that I know of. Some left later and started churches but they didn't leave over healing. I have been keeping Passover alone for 9 years. I'm not worried, anxious or offended. I have the truth.
When I heard that Gerald Flurry left and started the Philadelphia Church of God, I called him and told him I would send him a letter on healing. He said he would send me his booklet on Malachi. He didn't know that I had Malachi heavily underlined as a message to the Laodicean Church several years before he left Worldwide.
I didn't get a response from him on healing. Later I did receive a reprint article in which he told people to go back to Mr. Armstrong's 2nd healing booklet, an "update" of the first booklet. It was not an update. It was a giant step away from God!
When Mr. Meredith left, I went to his second sabbath service and wrote him a long letter on healing. His third sermon was on healing. He said that not all doctors were connected with Baalzebub -- a euphemism for saying that it was not idolatry to go to doctors. I stayed on for a while to see if some of the sheep might understand. None did. But one did give me a copy of that first healing booklet. Thanks.
When Mr. Armstrong was sick, I called Mr. Meredith to kind of sound him out to see if he might be a successor. The church had just reprinted his "Seven Laws of Radiant Health" and fasting for health was in it. I had been giving speeches on that kind of fasting. I asked him why the church was so easy on the medical profession. He said that when we were small we could get away with talking against them but if we did it now they would shut us down. I remember Joe Jr. telling me later that Mr. Meredith had mellowed a lot. Too bad.
THE TWO WITNESSES WILL CRY ALOUD AND SPARE NOT!
By the time the United Church of God was started, I had given up on the ministry. I did attend one service though and inquired about a former pastor, Selmer Hegvold. I was given an answer in the announcements -- he would be having triple by-pass surgery that following Monday.
What is truth? God told Moses, "I AM." THIS IS. "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him."
"Species" and "specious" come from the same Latin word, "speciosus" -- appearance. "Specious" means "seeming to be good, sound, correct, etc. without really being so." Medical Science is not what it appears to be.
"Science" comes from the Latin word meaning "to know." I've read Second Opinion by Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld. We're all advised to get second opinions. Why? Because the first one might be wrong. And if the second opinion is different from the first, YOU must choose between the two or get a 3rd or 4th opinion. Is that "to know?"
I've done a study of medical science. The general public does not know, nor will they be told, what medical students of some famous physicians were told. In four years half of what students are taught is no longer true. In another four years half of what is left is no longer true. Dr. Robert Mendelsohn says in the best book ever written about doctors, Confessions of a Medical Heretic, that students aren't told which half is no longer true. "TO KNOW?"
How about the etiology of disease? The dictionary says that "etiology" is the science or theory of the causes of disease. It's mainly theory because medical science has to admit that it doesn't know most of the causes of specific diseases. So they don't treat the cause, they treat the effect. The cause is left to keep causing disease. That's why no chronic disease has been eradicated from off this planet by medical science.
Chronic diseases are the ones that stay with you until you die -- cancer, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, etc. Now medical science has been observing, studying and experimenting with these diseases for a long time. I guess you could call that science. It fits one definition -- the systematized knowledge derived from observation, study and experimentation. But it does not fit the definitive definition -- TO KNOW.
One thing we do know. It costs a lot. Jesus Christ paid the price for the health care of every man, woman and child who has ever lived and will live. Why then do doctors rake in so much? l950 -- 12 billion dollars. l960 -- l5.5. l970 -- 67.5. l980 -- 229. l985 -- 500. l995 -- l000 or 1 trillion dollars! That's for the USA alone for one year.
You should all have glowing health for that kind of money but Americans are sicker than ever. Why? You're going to the wrong health care provider -- the wrong god. And you're being cursed by the real God.
Medical science is not a science or an art. It's a religion. To find that out you have to go back to the beginning. And that's not easy. You won't find medical history books on bookstore shelves. You won't find many in public libraries. At Ambassador College I found some that were old and out of print in an annex building off campus. I happened on my very own copy at an Irish Fair. I found another one the other day in a thrift store in Ventura.
At the beginning of the book I own is this admission: "All the ancient writers have said again and again that medicine was the gift of the gods...." C. G. Cumston, The History of Medicine, p. 9. I found another quote in a paper entitled "Origin of Medical Practice" written by Charles Sherwin McMichael. "Almost every nation of antiquity came to refer to the origin of medicine to the immediate instruction of the Gods." Hamilton, History of Medicine, Surgery and Anatomy, p. 9.
The name Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, means man-instructing snake. He was always shown with a staff and one snake wrapped around it. The modern medical insignia, the caduceus, is the winged staff of Hermes, messenger of the gods, with two snakes wrapped around it (apparently a double-dose).
True christians know that the gods are none other than Satan and his angels -- Deut. 32:l7, Ps. l06:34-38, I Cor. l0:l9-20. They have their stamp on doctors and medicine. The Rx on every prescription is the eye of Horus. That same eye is in the pyramid on the back of our dollar bill. And that's real apropos when you realize that drugs provide the greatest profit margin of anything produced.
"Hence, they [prescriptions] were recorded in writing at an early date, and in all ancient civilizations medical texts are found among the oldest literary documents preserved." Sigerist, A History of Medicine, p. 21. There was one nation that did not have medical texts among its earliest writings. It had the Ten Commandments. Early Israelites and early christians did not go to doctors. They weren't primitive. They were obedient.
If doctors were God's servants, then Israel should have been the cradle of medicine. But it's Egypt. The 2nd pharaoh of the 1st Dynasty (according to Manetho) was Athothis, a physician. Medical schools existed there from the 1st Dynasty.
Greeks and Romans extolled the antiquity, wisdom and scientific knowledge of the Egyptians. Homer in the Odyssey: "Each is a physician with knowledge beyond all men." Herodotus: "The art of medicine is thus divided: each physician applies himself to one disease only and not more. All places abound in physicians...." Medical science had to wait for specialization to occur again until the last half of this century. Athothis wrote a book on anatomy and the dissection of the human body. Medical science had to wait for anatomy until the l6th Century.
Dr. Arturo Castiglioni, a former professor at the University of Padua and then Research Associate in the History of Medicine at Yale, wrote a classic published in l94l called A History of Medicine. In the most ancient Ebers Papyrus he shows that the Egyptians knew that the heart was the center of the blood supply and that vessels were attached to it for every part of the body. This knowledge was lost to medical science until Spencer. The papyrus also contained about l000 prescriptions, some whose components were not all known in the l940's. The "medicines were prescribed in all the forms still in use today." He said this about the Edwin Smith Papyrus (written in the l700's BC from an earlier manuscript): "The clinical observations are so accurate and clear that it does not appear possible to the physician who reads these pages that five thousand years have passed."
The world stands in awe of ancient Egypt. A college history professor of mine at Cal State LA told the story of meeting with Albert Einstein who made a low bow of deep respect when he found out that the professor was from Egypt. God did not think highly of Egypt. He made it a base nation and scattered Egyptians throughout the world (Ezk. 29:l2,l5). He equated Egypt with sin -- something we are to come out of.
The medical baton passed to Greece and Hippocrates (5th Century BC) was called the Father of Medicine. That title should go to Imhotep who lived several thousand years earlier. The reason Hippocrates is touted is because he was supposed to have taken medicine out of the hands of the gods.
Young doctors have been taking the Hippocratic Oath since that time. "I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment the following Oath..." You can find it in the Encyclopedia Americana.
Dr. Keith Lasko MD in his book The Great Billion Dollar Medicine Swindle asks, "Now instead of the Judeo-Christian covenant with God, is our budding doctor making a covenant with another type of being?" OF COURSE!
The Hippocratic Oath has been revised, not because doctors swore to pagan gods but because doctors swore not to perform abortions. After 2500 years they were quick to change a time-honored belief after governments made abortion legal. So now they offer pre-natal care or pre-natal death. The Oath should be called the Hypocritical Oath.
DOCTORS HAVE ALLOWED THE HOLOCAUST OF MILLIONS OF UNBORN HUMAN BEINGS! AND THEY KILL THEM. AND THEY GET PAID. For a true christian to go to these snakes for pre-natal care and the delivery of their children is like the Jewish inmate of a Nazi concentration camp going to a guard extracting gold teeth from dead bodies and asking him to be his dentist after the war. I used a midwife not connected with the medical profession.
It would be interesting to see what Elijah would have done. He's the one who told Israel to get off the fence -- either worship God or Baal. He didn't leave them in the lurch. He helped them make up their minds.
He gathered them at Mt. Carmel and had them make two sacrifices. The God that burned the sacrifices with fire from heaven would be their God. 450 priests of Baal were there and 400 prophets of the groves. They tried all day to get Baal to act. Satan kept his mouth and miracles shut. God was in charge. Always will be.
After a l5-second prayer by Elijah, God sent fire from heaven. Elijah told the people to take hold of the false prophets and Elijah killed all of them by the brook Kishon. Just as the doctors of the pharaohs from the first to the last dynasty were higher ecclesiastics, so Baal's doctors and all other gods' doctors were priests. Out of those 850 priest/prophets not a few were doctors.
Elijah knew a lot about doctors. He was from Gilead, much of which was in the tribe of Manasseh. There's a medical maxim -- where there's drugs, there's doctors. For millennia Gilead was famous for its balm. "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my people not been restored?" Jeremiah 8:22.
Manasseh today is the USA. We have the most drugs and doctors. We spend the most money. The medical establishment's economy in this country alone is the 7th largest economy in the world. Every 6th American works for it. But the health of our people has not been restored.
Elijah also lived during the end of the long reign of King Asa of Judah. He knew that Asa had been a good king but when he was old and diseased he went to the physicians instead of God and died. Elijah knew that doctors weren't God's servants.
Elijah had to confront King Ahaziah of Israel, Ahab's son, about doctors. Ahaziah had taken a bad fall and sent messengers to Baalzebub, god of Ekron, to see if he would live. Elijah stopped them on their way and told them to tell the king that he would not leave his bed alive because he went to another god.
Kurt Pollack MD in The Healers, p.20 and 21, states the fact that the ancients believed their gods of healing also sent disease. Thorwald Jurgen in The Science and Secrets of Early Medicine, p. l40, gave this historical fact: "From ancient Babylon and Assur to the Mediterranean coast of Phoenicia and the land of the Philistines, it was common knowledge that the fly possessed a dangerous power to spread sickness." Ekron was a Philistine city. Baalzebub was Lord of the Flies. His priests were doctors. Ahaziah went to doctors instead of God. He died.
"Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity and is polluted with blood. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness [in Hebrew -- enormity]." Hosea 6:8-9.
Lots of doctor/priests were in Gilead. They robbed the public then just as they do today. The New York Times, the paper of record, labeled what the medical establishment does to this country as economic robbery. Medical bills are the largest single cause of personal bankruptcy. Corporate America is hard-pressed to compete internationally because they are forced to foot much of the bill. The governments funds for Medicaid and Medicare are to run out in 2004. ENORMITY!
The first step that the true church made away from God was to Baalzebub, the medical god. In the New Testament his name in Greek is Beelzebul, Lord of Dung, one of Satan's names -- Matt. l2:24. God's healing name is Rapha. Satan's healing name is Beelzebul/Baalzebub.
He who goes to doctors instead of God for healing has the unleavened bread taken at passover baked with dung and laced with maggots.
Paul said that all things were as dung compared with the knowledge of Jesus Christ. People who go to doctors and take drugs put dung first. And those true christians who will not repent will be in the 2nd death and oblivion. ENORMITY!
It's especially enormous when you realize that the reward of love, obedience and action is the very Godhead itself. Yes, the destiny of man is to become God.
Did you know that God calls us Gods? Ps. 82:l: "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods." God and gods are the same Hebrew word Elohim. Now what does God tell these gods that die like men (v. 7) because they are men. Verse 6: "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Jesus quoted part of this verse and said that God called the people gods "unto whom the word of God came...." John l0:34-35.
Children grow up to be like their parents. And we are God's children. When Jesus Christ returns, the resurrected children of God will be like Him -- God -- I John 3:2. At the end of the Millennium everyone who has ever lived and not known the truth (and that's almost everybody) will be resurrected and be given l00 years to make it (Isa. 65:20). Most will. It's called The White Throne Judgment and it's in Revelation 20. God talks about this happening to Israel in Ezekiel 37.
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." Ps. 8:4-6. Who has glory and honor? Hebrews 2:6-l0 quotes this psalm and goes on to explain. "But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor...." He shall bring many sons into that same glory (v. l0). Glory and honor belong to God and mankind shall have it!
Gandhi wrote a book called The Health Guide. In it he quoted a doctor, John Mason Good, who said that medicine has killed more people than famine, pestilence and war combined. That was long before abortion was legalized. That's enormity. All those people who they've killed will be resurrected and given a chance by God. But there are millions who never got a chance and will never get a chance -- Satan's perfect crime.
Christians are begotten by God when His spirit fuses with their human spirit at repentance and baptism. They are spiritually born again at the resurrection when Jesus Christ returns. There are miscarriages along the way. Some don't make it. BUT GOD NEVER ABORTS! He gives everyone a chance. Doctors have denied 30 million Americans that chance. Russian doctors have denied millions more since l929. Then there are all the other doctors in the world.
Human beings are given the human spirit (mind power) at birth with the first breath of air. This spirit goes back to God at death. It's stored by him like a data tape. He uses it to recreate the dead at a resurrection. It is not immortal and does not think apart from the human brain. That's why God says several times that there are no thoughts in the grave. Death is like sleep without dreams. Jesus said Lazarus was sleeping.
Aborted children never receive the human spirit. God cannot recreate them. They are lost for eternity and most could have become Gods. They were God's children. ENORMITY!
It gives me great pleasure to provide a synopsis of the first healing booklet. The shepherds silenced it almost 30 years ago and it hasn't been heard from since.
Herbert Armstrong started at the beginning in Ex. l5:26 when healing was first mentioned to the church in the wilderness (Acts 7:38). "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." He said He was Rapha -- Healer. This was the second command that God gave Israel. The first one was to keep Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Healing is very important.
How often is faith mentioned in that verse? How often is obedience mentioned? 4 times. Mr. Armstrong said that you must have faith (Matt. 9:29) but that it was lack of obedience that caused people who understood a little about healing and believed, not to be healed.
Under "Scripture Labels Other Modes of Healing IDOLATRY" he said that God is the only real physician. That's one of His names, His prerogative. That means ALL other modes are idolatrous -- chiropractors, homeopaths, shamans, psychic healers, acupuncturists, and of course, the allopaths -- MDs.
Under "Medicine Condemned as Idolatry" he gives the example of King Asa going to physicians instead of God. Under "The Pagan Origin of Medicine" he said that gentile nations had many gods -- gods of medicine as well as gods of war. The medicine men were doctors. Doctors prescribed drugs and prayed to their gods to cause the medicine to heal.
"Now there, my friends, is where medical 'Science' (falsely so called) came from. From the heathens. And I want you to notice what God's Word says about it. This is pretty plain talk. I hope I'm not offending people, but I have to preach God's Truth. You know God says to 'Cry aloud and spare not, and tell my people their sins,' and proclaim the Word of God faithfully and truthfully, and, well, that's just what I have to do."
He followed that with the example of King Ahaziah who went to Baalzebub through the doctors of his day. Then he gave the good example of Hezekiah who went to God for healing and was healed. He said that people today don't understand the truth. They think they should go to doctors and pray to God. They think God raised up medical science. But all nations are deceived and are practicing pagan idolatry.
Some are not sure if it's God's will to heal. He gave the example of a sick lady he visited. He told her it was too bad that her sins couldn't be forgiven because of not knowing God's will. She said she knew His will in that case -- He did forgive sins. He asked her how she knew and she said it was in the Bible. He told her she must have meant Ps. l03:2-3, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities...." "There it is. He forgives every one of your iniquities. Is that right?" She agreed.
"Listen, why didn't you read the rest of that sentence?--'Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.'"
He asked the radio audience (the booklet was a transcription of a radio broadcast) if they believed the first half of the sentence and then thought God lied about the second half. He said the two went hand in hand. God forgave sins and healed the sick. Healing the sick is the forgiveness of sin -- physical sin.
He went on to explain that sin was the transgression of the law (I John 3:4). He said that spiritual sin was the transgression of God's spiritual law -- the law of love summed up in the l0 Commandments. The second death, eternal death in the lake of fire, was the result of spiritual sin.
He said there were also physical laws which regulate health. Break those laws and you exact a penalty -- sickness. He said it wasn't natural to be sick -- it was wrong. So when you're sick, you are paying the penalty of transgressing physical laws. You pay with pain, suffering, and sometimes, the first death. Healing is the forgiveness of physical sin and the removal of that penalty.
Only God can forgive sin. Only God can heal. He gave the example of the man let down through the roof to be healed by Jesus -- Luke 5:l8-26, Matt. 9:2-8, Mark 2:3-12. Jesus said, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee."
The scribes and Pharisees reasoned, "Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" "Yes, who? Certainly doctors can't. Drugs can't. Surgery can't. None but GOD ALONE can forgive sin. And healing is the forgiveness of sin!" He said that modern doctors think believing christians are equally blasphemous when they trust Jesus to heal.
"Now notice, please! The Pharisees knew NONE could forgive sins but GOD ALONE! And, in order to prove to them that healing is the forgiveness of sins -- and that He, Jesus, was actually using the very POWER OF GOD in healing, Jesus HEALED this man in front of their eyes!" "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house."
I'd like to interject at this point the gall of some worms in these united states. "Most states require that children be given all vaccines in order to attend school and, frequently, day care. The Supreme Court has ruled that compulsory vaccinations are constitutional. All states offer exemptions to this requirement based on medical reasons (requiring a doctor's signature), religious beliefs, or personal/philosophical judgment. However, these exemptions are not guaranteed. During the last four years, at least three states have removed their philosophical exemptions. A resolution opposing religious exemptions was passed by the American Medical Association in l995 since they violate standard medical practice." Lauri M. Aesoph ND, "Shoot 'Em Up," Los Angeles View, Apr. l2-l8, l996, p.46.
TRUSTING GOD FOR PREVENTION OF DISEASE VIOLATES STANDARD MEDICAL PRACTICE! Trusting in God for healing, except when doctors can do no more for you, also violates standard medical practice but that resolution hasn't been made by the AMA yet. Or has it?
Back to the booklet. How does healing work? Christ paid the penalty of sin for us. His shed blood represented by the wine paid for our spiritual sins. For physical sin? "[Jesus] healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoked by Esaias the prophet, saying Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Matthew 8:l6-l7. "...by whose stripes ye were healed." I Peter 2:24.
He talked about I Corinthians ll:23-30. "Now complete Paul's instruction in this passage. Let him make this meaning absolutely plain and clear! 'Whosoever shall eat this bread...unworthily, eated and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body.' That is not UNDERSTANDING that Jesus' body was broken FOR OUR HEALING! Now continue: 'For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep' -- that is, are DEAD!"
"We take the broken bread UNWORTHILY if and when, we take it at communion service and then PUT OUR TRUST IN DOCTORS AND MEDICINES, instead of in Christ -- thus putting ANOTHER god before HIM! So, many are sick. Many die!"
At the time this was written true christians who took the passover did not go to doctors and take drugs. He was talking to the world. That's why he used communion. But now it applies to the true church. How much more unworthily is Passover taken by true christians who then go to doctors and take drugs!
The next section of the booklet is the one section that should have been revised -- "Is There No Need For Doctors?" He said he was quite sure there was a need.
He said the true function of doctors would not be to usurp God's prerogative as healer but to help us observe nature's laws by prescribing correct diet to prevent sickness. He went on to say that most doctors were woefully unprepared to properly advise patients about diet. And I know for a fact that very few medical schools have had schools of nutrition. So how can doctors help in prescribing correct diet? Do they know about God's dietary law of clean and unclean meat? Doctors aren't needed here.
Mr. Armstrong made the gigantic mistake of hiring a medical doctor to teach nutrition at Ambassador College one year before this booklet was published. That doctor went on to do great damage to the church.
Mr. Armstrong said that there were other needed functions for certain types of doctors -- child delivery, for instance. He said that childbearing was not a sickness that needed healing so it would seem but right that we have obstetrical specialists.
But doctors treat birth as a sickness. They treat medically not naturally. 1/4 of all births is done by caesarian section. Even doctors say that's way too many. Most births go off without a hitch. Why so many caesarians?
A friend gave my wife a book on childbirth written by a doctor and his nurse/wife. It told everything that possibly could go wrong, stressing that instead of stressing the fact that most births do not have complications. So right from the start you are conditioned to need a doctor.
I got another book on natural childbirth and we ended up with a midwife that was not a registered nurse. When she didn't make it in time, I delivered. We decided to deliver the next two by ourselves and with God's help should there be any serious complications. There weren't any. Usually God sees to that.
Doctors, on the other hand, are taught to intervene, oftentimes, heroically. Don't be fooled by that last word. It has two faces like Janus. The good face, ER, is only used 5% of the time. Trauma cases are only 5% of all medical problems. The bad face covers most of the rest and will be gone into detail in Part Three of this book.
When a baby doesn't fall into the parameters doctors set for childbirth, they induce labor. The bag of waters is broken prematurely and drugs are given. This results in much harder contractions that can put stress on a fetal-monitored baby. Just putting electrodes on the baby's head will stress the baby. Fetal monitoring has resulted in lots of caesarians. Doctors also have to cover themselves against malpractice suits, so if there's a problem, it is just easier to do a caesarian. They also get paid more. If it's a breech birth, a caesarian is done because doctors aren't taught how to turn the baby before he or she enters the birth canal. Some midwives are taught how to do it.
You would think that all this specialized help would give the US the lowest death rate at birth. Not so. We're a ways down the list. Near the top is Holland. In Holland midwives deliver the babies.
Mr. Armstrong mentioned setting bones as something a doctor could do. He didn't mention sewing up wounds but that could be included. But why would a doctor have to do it? Someone else could be taught.
What about trauma? In God's kingdom life will be simpler. If we have cars, we won't have drunks in them. There won't be any crime to speak of either. One of the jobs of Gods in the Millennium is policeman. We will be able to read thoughts and stop a would-be criminal before he commits a crime. Industry will be safer and simpler too. There will be no war. So long ER, hello God.
I wear glasses and have mercury fillings in my teeth. I have even sinned physically by having X-rays to get a job I desperately wanted. I won't do that again. I have not had one drug, not even an aspirin, in over 32 years. I have not gone to a doctor. They have not received one red cent from me. Of what I have done I gladly let God be the judge.
Mr. Armstrong next gave the New Testament example of the woman who went to doctors but had to be healed by Jesus Christ -- Mark 5:26-34. "Notice, none of these physicians was able to heal. Rather, this woman grew constantly worse. She actually SUFFERED many things of these many physicians! And yet they CHARGED HER A PRICE -- they took all she had -- all her living! In how many homes is that experience being repeated TODAY?"
Under "Part of Gospel Commission" he said that Jesus preached and healed. "God ALONE has power to HEAL. But Christ delegated this power to His Ministers whom He was sending out to preach! Show me where the Eternal GOD, who alone has the power to heal, ever delegated that power to the doctors, physicians, of medical science! HE NEVER DID! They do not HAVE the power to heal, but every true minister of Jesus Christ -- if he is one whom God has called to the ministry -- DOES HAVE THAT POWER!" NOT ANY MORE!
Then Mr. Armstrong gave Jesus' parting commission for all ministers of the Gospel, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature...And this sign shall follow them that believe; In my name...they shall lay hands on the sick, AND THEY SHALL RECOVER." Mark l6:l5-18. NOT ANY MORE!
He ended the booklet with God's instruction to the sick. "Is there any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them PRAY over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of FAITH shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." James 5:l4-45. NOT ANY MORE!
There are no elders to go to today. But we have a shepherd, Jesus Christ. We shall not want.
PART TWO -- 40-YEAR FAMINE
The last book that Herbert W. Armstrong wrote was Mystery of the Ages. He did not include the greatest mystery of all -- how the church left the truth.
"It has begun with me! I didn't realize it! I seemed to have a heart condition, so that I felt I had to slow down -- and even a two-or-three-block walk brought pains in my lungs associated with my heart. There was high blood pressure. Brethren, I have been frankly STARTLED to find that even I, whom God is using as your human leader, was bogging down -- just barely crawling along, so to speak, on this narrow, rutty, difficult ROAD that leads to God's Kingdom and everlasting life! I had greatly slowed down. I was coasting on past momentum. In this sore trial of faith [Mrs. Armstrong's illness], I had to humble myself before God. I had to FAST and pray in deadly earnest.
We have HUMBLED ourselves before HIM -- we have confessed our shortcomings and our sins -- we have REPENTED! I have changed my entire DAILY ROUTINE -- my entire life. The FASTING and PRAYER has resulted in almost completely REMOVING all signs of the heart conditions or high blood pressure. For four years I have had to live, knowing I could drop dead at any second! Now pounds have been taken off. Now I can take longer, more vigorous walks. Now I am taking them, three times a day -- REGARDLESS of circumstances which might try to prevent! Now, no matter how many conferences are scheduled, no matter how pressing some urgent executive responsibility, I am going THREE TIMES or more a day to my prayer room God has blessed me with, there to commune with Him and keep close to Him! My life from now on WILL BE FAR MORE ACTIVE -- and that new routine is already in effect and becoming well established. I am asking Him to put special HEALING GIFTS in His Church -- special and more than before!" Herbert W. Armstrong, Co-Worker Letter, 3-2-67.
Special healing gifts were not given to the church. There were less healings instead of more. Mrs. Armstrong died.
IN ANCIENT JUDAH THE HIGH PLACES WERE SELDOM DESTROYED, EVEN BY GOOD KINGS. MEDICAL SCIENCE WAS AND IS ONE OF THOSE HIGH PLACES.
In l978 Garner Ted Armstrong railroaded through a liberalized healing doctrine called the Systematic Theology Project. He was disfellowshipped for that and other reasons. In the strongest sermon I have ever heard, Herbert W. Armstrong said that Satan was deceiving half of the people in the audience and that the church was in "fatal danger." But this time he didn't fast. He was taking digitalis and other drugs for his heart condition and fasting and drugs do not mix. And his repentance? This is what he said about that. "Now maybe I was slumbering a little bit. Alright, I've repented if I did."
This is the story of a great fall. Satan had planted a seed before the first healing booklet was published. In l950 Mr. Armstrong hired Dr. Ralph E. Merrill, a prominent Glendale surgeon and "staunch friend" of the college, to deliver a series of lectures on natural foods and diets and their relation to sickness and disease. By January of l956 Dr. Merrill was doing more than lecturing. He intervened and treated a member's young son who had been anointed and put on a fast by Mr. Armstrong. This was done without Mr. Armstrong's approval. The boy immediately got better. It was a plus for doctors and a minus for anointing and fasting. The good doctor's name will come up again when a crucial decision had to be made for the church.
In April l956 the young son of an influential member of the church in Texas had diabetes and was about to die according to the doctors. Mr. Armstrong was there and approved giving him insulin as a crutch. He said the decision was made for the good of the church. If it had reached the Gladewater area that the church could have done a simple thing and didn't, it could have been a blow to the church.
The healing booklet published only 4 years earlier said that taking drugs was idolatry. But the church got around it by saying that insulin wasn't a drug -- just an imitation of a substance your body made. God created insulin and the pancreas that makes it. They are good. Insulin that man makes causes the pancreas to atrophy so that it can no longer make its own insulin. The diabetic is now between a rock and hard place. He has to take insulin all his life with the resultant complications of cataracts, kidney trouble and gangrene of the extremities. What Mr. Armstrong did was to approve idolatry! Priest/doctors gave drugs and prayed for their god to use those drugs to heal. Now the true church approved of taking a drug and prayed to God that the person taking it would eventually get off of it.
At the ministerial conference of January l957 it was decided that the ministry would no longer command people to go off drugs but just advise them in a pastoral sense. The sheep would have to make their own decision according to their faith. The church would now be protected from the AMA because it would not be countermanding the order of the doctor. But it was countermanding the order of God! Mr. Armstrong thought that only 1 in 10 had the faith to go off insulin and live. That would have meant a lot of deaths, lawsuits and jail terms.
In a letter to the church dated 3-3-57 a sheep needing a shepherd asked if it was a sin to take medicine and go to doctors. Richard Armstrong answered: "I cannot and do not, nor will my father or any other minister in the church forbid you to go to a doctor." He would not tell her it was a sin!
At the ministerial conference of January l958 Mr. Armstrong told the ministers that he took alka-selzer at the onset of a cold to balance the ph in his system. Alka-selzer is a drug! It has acetate of salicylic acid like aspirin.
It was time for Mr. Armstrong to wake up. God shook him on July 23, l958. His son Richard was crushed in an automobile accident and was in very serious condition in a hospital in the San Luis Obispo area. He had refused a blood transfusion in one hospital and was sent to another hospital where he had become too weak to resist and was given one. Later Richard told his father that he wanted to trust totally in God and get out of that hospital but his father overruled him on the advice of DR. RALPH E. MERRILL who was there with him. The doctors told Mr. Armstrong that Richard would die if he was moved. It's ironic that they had to move him after one week when his kidneys failed. After a slow, all-night drive to Los Angeles, he died just before reaching the hospital.
In a co-worker letter of 7-27-58 Mr. Armstrong said that God allowed the accident to happen for a "great purpose." "That purpose was to WAKE UP many of you careless and negligent and half-hearted co-workers, who have your minds and hearts as much or MORE in the interests of THIS WORLD -- in MATERIAL interests -- than in this precious and All-important WORK OF GOD!"
At the ministerial conference of January l959 Mr. Armstrong said that God had a reason for letting Dick die "and we must find it." So now he didn't know what that reason was.
At the conference he said that he was afraid to oppose the doctors because of bad publicity in the papers. He also felt that he could have been held criminally liable if he had taken Richard out of the hospital. Mrs. Luttrell, the college nurse, said that Mr. Armstrong could have signed a waiver releasing the doctors from any liability and taken him out. She said that DR. RALPH E. MERRILL had neglected to tell Mr. Armstrong.
Once again God tried to wake up Mr. Armstrong. This time his wife had a bowel blockage for 7 weeks that ended in her death in April l967. There were other ministers' wives who were sick and dying and the head of the field ministry, Mr. Meredith, wrote to the ministers that this represented a "GIANT need in God's work."
Mr. Armstrong said that the church needed a spiritual awakening and that this awakening had begun with him and the top ministers. On 4-l-67 he gave a sermon that he suggested should be preached in all the churches. He said God put emphasis on two commandments with ancient Israel, the 1st (idolatry) and the 4th (sabbath). He felt that the church had now awakened and was putting God first so idolatry was no longer a problem. The problem that yet remained was that the church was not really keeping the Sabbath as it should.
Two years later the church canceled the healing booklet and with it, idolatry. THE PROBLEM WAS IDOLATRY! THE PROBLEM WAS IN HEALING. THAT'S WHY THE WAKE-UP CALLS DEALT WITH LACK OF HEALINGS AND DEATH.
"This, truly, is one of the most incredible success stories of our time. There is a very significant reason! For it is the story of what the living God can do -- and has done through a very average human instrument, called and chosen by Him -- one whose eyes He opened to astonishing truth about the real cause of the troubles and evils heads of governments face, and the way to World Peace -- one He reduced to humble obedience, yielded in faith and dedicated to God's way! God promises to prosper His own Work. And HOW GREATLY He has blessed and prospered it! Like the grain of mustard seed it GREW! and GREW!"
"Ask yourself: What company, business, enterprise or institution in this world's ways, ever experienced a steady GROWTH averaging nearly 30% every year for decades?"
"This activity did!" Herbert W. Armstrong's Autobiography. That phenomenal growth stopped in January l969! The increase in growth was cut to less than half -- ll%.
The theme of the high-level ministerial conference of January l969 was avoiding persecution which could stop the work. From the notes : "We are not backing down from the healing doctrine. If we do, God will walk off from us."
The official report to the ministry by Roderick Meredith in the Ministerial Bulletin of l-28-69 did not even mention healing or the cancellation of the booklet. "Greetings again from Headquarters! All of us attending this year's Ministerial Conference, which ended last Thursday, felt it was one of the most profitable and inspiring Conferences we have ever had in this era of God's Work!"
But things began to go wrong! The Ministerial Bulletin of 2-3-69 reported an automobile accident in which the son of a top evangelist was seriously injured. It also reported that the income for January was half what was needed. By March there was a financial crisis.
On 4-24-69 a special letter was sent to all the ministers by Garner Ted Armstrong about errors in two lessons of the Visiting Program Training Class for top men in the church.
"I happen to KNOW that MANY of the ministers felt strange about teaching from these two specific lessons to which I refer. Yet not a single SQUAWK was ever heard! Why? What are you AFRAID of? You certainly know Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong DOES NOT want to be surrounded by 'yes men' anymore than you do. Yet -- several of you felt odd about some of these lessons -- at least three leading ministers have told me they had to 'teach around' some of the things they contain....
But WHY DID YOU NOT ASK ABOUT THE LESSONS? May our God forbid that any of the true ministers of God begin teaching, like AUTOMATONS, whatever they receive from whatever source without THINKING -- without CHECKING to make sure it really has GOD'S OWN BACKING -- without using the same initiative some of the early ministers used. I remind you that Paul had to prevent Peter from literally causing DIVISION in the church."
I didn't hear about one squawk made over the cancellation of the first healing booklet, over the 2nd healing booklet by Mr. Armstrong or over the "new understanding" by Mr. Tkach. Was there a squawk made about Lesson l6 of that same program that came out right after the above letter?
"Do not mention faith healing under any circumstances. It cannot be introduced during the trial as a defense. It will only serve to raise antagonisms at the time of the inquiry and make the whole case newspaper-worthy.
Deny any knowledge that the ailment was serious. Or if this cannot be done, then: (a) Place the time when the seriousness first became apparent as close to the time of death as possible. (b) Take the shortest period of time possible for the length of illness. (c) If the question of a doctor should arise, it might be met with, 'If I had any idea that she was that sick and the doctor could have healed her, I certainly would have called him immediately.'
Beware of advising people and involving the Church. People are free moral agents and must make their own decisions. They must learn to stand on their own feet.
The church must come before individuals. Don't make the church responsible for lawsuits....Don't obligate the church.
Don't be hostile toward doctors and hospitals. When brought into contact with medical men, be friendly, but firm. Be careful not to mention the Bible, religion or the Church of God."
The shepherds were told to get behind the sheep -- way behind! They were told to do more than shade the truth. There was no witness here that God heals and that doctors don't. THIS WAS NO ELIJAH WORK!
The co-worker letter from Herbert W. Armstrong dated 6-29-69 gives an answer to the financial crisis.
"What then, is the MOST COLOSSAL SIN of all?
...In other words, the SUPREME sin of all is to have ANOTHER god before the true God. We don't bow down to worship carved idols made of wood, stone, gold or other substances today. We have IDOLATRY, just the same....
Brethren and Co-workers, let's not commit the GREATEST SIN of all by failing to do our FULL SHARE, GENEROUSLY for God's Work, even as God's people of David's day gave for the temple! WE ARE NOT RECEIVING THE USUAL AND DIRELY NEEDED INCREASE IN INCOME THIS YEAR, as in past years."
THE SHEEP WERE NOT GUILTY OF IDOLATRY!
The Ministerial Bulletin of 8-21-69 gives the general answer: "...as God himself shows over and over and over again in his word, whenever His people begin to depart from Him in any way, things begin to go wrong, and outside troubles begin to arise." Only it wasn't the people. It was the shepherds.
The Ministerial Bulletin dated l0-27-69 told of the shocking and untimely deaths of two ministers' wives, one during the Feast of Tabernacles and one right after. "God has permitted these things to happen for a purpose...." Several years later two wives of top evangelists died. No one saw the purpose even though God was shaking the church with lack of healing again and again and again.
The following was in the last co-worker letter of l969.
"SO HERE ARE THE FACTS! Right on the heels of this superb ten year growth, I have had to CANCEL several radio stations. I have had to cancel MOST of Reader's Digest two-page ads around the world! I have had to cancel MILLIONS of copies of circulation reaching people in India, the Philippines, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Holland, Mexico and other countries. THAT MEANS THAT SEVERAL MILLION PEOPLE WILL NOT BE HEARING GOD'S MESSAGE -- until our Co-workers make it possible.
Co-workers, THIS IS A GREAT TRAGEDY!
I have had to make DEEP CUTS in the l970 budget for this work!
Where is our HUMANITY? True Christians surely remember Jesus Christ crying over Jerusalem -- weeping over the tragedies in HUMAN LIVES, and the wretchedness they were bringing on themselves -- not knowing THE WAY OUT OF ALL THEIR TROUBLES BECAUSE THOSE POSING AS RELIGIOUS LEADERS HELD BACK GOD'S TRUTH, AND PERSECUTED JESUS! Are some of us, who have accepted His draft to become His Co-worker doing the same today?"
YES. HE WAS.
This was an answer Mr. Armstrong gave for the cause of the crisis of '69, The Worldwide News, 6-5-78: "As long as GOD'S APOSTLE was acknowledged by all as supreme in authority UNDER THE LIVING CHRIST, GOD BLESSED HIS WORK, AND IT GREW 30 percent a year for 35 years. After an office was allowed to be interjected BETWEEN me and the Church, GOD WITHDREW HIS BLESSING, and the GROWTH STOPPED!
He got closer to the truth in his sermon of 6-24-78, printed in the Pastor's Report, 6-26-78: "...God was doing really a great work through me and through this church up to about l969...." "...that's another thing that happened in the last nine years -- the truth of God is being watered down with even false doctrines creeping in and ministers are teaching them around the world."
IT BEGAN WITH HEALING IN JANUARY l969!
Under "l00 Time-Cycles" in Herbert W. Armstrong's Autobiography, p. 428:
"It is important that we realize the significance of l00 time cycles!
God set the earth, sun, and moon in their orbits to mark off divisions of time on the earth. One revolution of the earth is a day. One revolution of the moon around the earth is a lunar month (according to God's sacred calendar). One revolution of the earth around the sun is a solar year. But the earth, the sun, and the moon come into almost exact conjunction only once in l9 years. Thus l9 years mark off one complete time-cycle!
Now consider further facts -- whether strange coincidence, or providential design.
The actual ordination, or completing of the ordination and enduement of power for sending out the original disciples into the ministry occurred after 3 1/2 years of intensive instruction and experience. It was on the Day of Pentecost. And the year was AD 31.
Exactly l00 time-cycles later, after 3 1/2 years of intensive study and training, Christ ordained me to preach this same Gospel of the Kingdom in all the world as a witness to all nations (Matt. 24:14). This ordination took place at, or very near, the Day of Pentecost, l931."
On page 429: "...After precisely one l9-year time cycle, AD 50, Christ opened a door for the Apostle Paul to carry the same Gospel to EUROPE! This was AD 50. Before AD 70, Roman armies besieged Jerusalem. From that time the Roman government stamped out the organized mass spreading of the Gospel of Christ...."
In an article about these same cycles and church history, The Good News, July l953, Dr. Hoeh said it was now (after 69 AD) a struggle to strive for the faith once delivered. The church was scattered throughout the Roman Empire -- Christ had removed the candlestick (Rev. 2:5). The candlestick represented an era of the church. A new era started in 69 AD. l00 time-cycles later a new era also started -- the Laodicean Era. It now became a struggle to strive for the faith once delivered. The church had moved!
"Theologians and sociologists say that the upheaval [in the Worldwide Church of God] offers a fascinating case study of what happens to institutions and people when the theological rug is pulled out from under them." LA Times, ll-26-95, A3.
That rug was pulled out in January l969 and there were l0 years of the "famine of hearing the words of the Lord" on healing. Shepherds led the way and the sheep followed them to the doctor. The result was the liberal years of the 70's and a lack of knowledge and faith to heal that weakened the sheep for the l-2-3 punch of the three changes in the healing doctrine that were to come.
After the first year of famine this is what was said at the ministerial conference of January l970:
"We need more sermons on faith, prayer, healing, getting closer to God, walking with and cleaving to Him. Don't speak against doctors and medicine!
At first, the people feared to go to doctors or take medicine because of the church and getting in bad with the church. Now it has, in some cases, gone to the other extreme."
It was during this ministerial conference that Roderick Meredith, head of the field ministry, was having trouble with his left eye due to a mishap on the handball courts. He prayed about it and built up his general health but that didn't help. He went to a specialist in Pasadena and then to one at UCLA. They told him he had a displaced retina that needed to be reattached or there would be partial or total blindness.
Mr. Meredith didn't want an operation and was anointed by Mr. Portune and others (Mr. Armstrong was out of town). He waited several days and the situation deteriorated. Then he took Dr. Riley, an Ambassador College student and MD, with him to see Mr. Armstrong.
Roderick Meredith, Ministerial Letter, 3-9-70: "As you can imagine, I have prayed, worried, wondered and meditated about this a great deal-- and my thoughts have jumped back and forth on both sides of the fence ["How long halt ye between two opinions?"]. But after going to the one whom God is using as He did Samuel in the days of David, and Elijah in the days of Ahab, etc., and getting his advice, I decided to follow that advice! With that, I am sure that you will understand that this will not set off a 'wave' of ministers, Elders and brethren rushing off to the doctors and hospitals and forgetting that God is our healer...."
How can you not forget God your healer when you go to another healer? How can you stop others from going when a leader goes?
Mr. Meredith went to the man who once knew the truth about healing and doctors. He went to the man who permitted the first use of a drug -- insulin. He went to the man who did not see the purpose of his own son's and wife's deaths. He went to the man who canceled idolatry.
In the ministerial letter of 4-8-70 Mr. Meredith said that Mr. Armstrong asked him to tell all ministers to "really explain and expound in a POSITIVE way the principles behind repair surgery." The operation of the delicate organ of the eye was compared to making incisions to pin a broken bone. He mentioned that we should never be cut into in order to cut out part of the temple of God's Holy Spirit.
His operation, cauterizing the retina in place, was a simple thing like the taking of insulin in '56 was simple. It was a gray area of repair surgery like insulin was a gray area of drugs. Do you think Satan is going to be blatant with such an important doctrine? He was very devious and patient. He slowly managed change over a period of 40 years.
In one of my last years at the Worldwide Church of God I asked this question in Speech Club: "If your appendix is about to burst, would you have it cut out?" A recent graduate of Ambassador College used the principle in Matthew l8:9 that if your eye offends you , pluck it out. So out with the appendix. The evilution of repair surgery has resulted in everything being operated on and taken out of the temple of God's Holy Spirit.
Actually, humans are the culprits. We disobey physical laws and put the appendix (that helps the lymphatic system get rid of poisons) in jeopardy. It's not the appendix that has offended, but man himself. So it should be, "Off with your heads."
Ministerial Letter dated 5-l2-70: "...However, I will say frankly and heartfeltly to you ministers -- and I do NOT wish you to repeat this to the congregations as it simply brings more questions and wonderings to their minds -- that other complications and side effects have set in which are giving me a certain amount of trouble and pain. These are potentially dangerous, and I will appreciate your heartfelt prayers on my behalf very much.
When God heals there are no side effects. Satan's way backfires. His way may save your physical neck (with or without complications) but it won't save your eternal neck. Even if Satan's doctors did perfect work, they should not be our health-care providers. God is healer.
The introduction of the ministerial conference of l973 gave this principle and applied it to healing: "God does for us what we can't do for ourselves." That was also the overall principle of Mr. Armstrong's second healing booklet. It means whatever medical technology can do, should be done. The flood-gates were opened.
Four comments at the conference summed up what the absence of the healing booklet had done to faith in the church. Tony Hammer said there was a time when we couldn't mow lawns at a hospital but now there was erosion in the field to where ministers were having operations. Guy Engelbart said that repair surgery was a big question. Hal Baird said that no booklet eroded confidence and faith. Ron Dart said that the trouble was that people were not sure what was right or wrong and that they didn't know the reasons for Mr. Armstrong's canceling of the healing booklet.
That year some ministers asked for health benefits. They all received them in l975.
Doctrinal forums were held in May of l974. Headquarters solicited questions from the ministers attending. There were 80 pages of questions on healing and only one is worth mentioning: "Are we missing something really big here?"
Two interesting summaries were made. Dibar Apartian: "It seems very apparent there's been a great lack of preaching concerning faith and healing in the local congregations. I would say this is primarily because the men have been unsure of their ground and therefore have stopped preaching on the subject."
David Antion headed another group: "The question of what is right or wrong regarding the use of health care services and medical science came up repeatedly." Under the sub-title "Church Changed?": "Closely in this connection was the repeated question of whether the church 'had changed its stand' on the use of doctors, drugs, surgery -- especially 'repair surgery,' etc. Clearly different church areas and geographic regions of God's Church do not all 'speak the same thing' in this matter. Ministers (and members) hear of 'approved' operations or use of doctors or read of donating blood in a Portfolio article and wonder if this isn't different from what they have been or are still being taught."
"Some expressed they don't feel sure what is the church's teaching anymore in view of what seems to be exceptions in the ranks of the ministry or at Headquarters. They are not opposed, for the most part, to such changes, but do strongly feel that they must be made aware of any changes so they can inform the brethren of them and answer their questions. Many express the desire or need to have 'guidelines' stating these definitions would help the people's faith. Some feel it is hard to have faith when you don't know what is right or wrong."
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE REAL FAITH WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG!
Yet, by early fall, healing was "resolved." Ministerial Bulletin, 9-23-74, Garner Ted Armstrong: "It is especially gratifying to resolve our approach to healing by a totally fresh approach to its teaching and administration. As you remember, some of the very earliest of our doctrinal discussions involved the subjects of healing. As all of the veterans in the ministry will well remember, I sincerely doubt whether we ever held a ministerial conference without involved discussions on some aspects of healing." And later: "As Dr. Hoeh explains, the incredible knowledge and information explosion, the rapid growth in all medical fields, which render even a highly-skilled physician incapable of keeping abreast of developments within his own field, make it utterly ridiculous to assume the average graduate of Ambassador College after four or five years in the ministry can answer a never-ending stream of questions concerning 'is it right in God's sight?' with regard to the uncounted thousands of compounds and procedures available in the realm of medical science." Remember what Dr. Mendelsohn said about change in medical science?
GTA: "I have said, and intend to repeat when and where necessary, that 'anyone who through "fear religion," coercion, threat of disfellowship, or of obvious or even subtle spiritual inferiority in the congregation, would urge a person to make a decision regarding his own or his loved one's personal health or very lives which would cost them such health or lives ought to go to jail.' Actually, this is perhaps my own awkward way of summarizing what is, in fact, the law of the land." But it's not God's law!
Then in the same bulletin Dr. Hoeh (not an MD) gave a preview of the booklet that was to come out shortly after the feast: "The time when only aspirin was considered 'right' to use has long since passed. The vast array of painkillers, non-prescription and prescription medicines is so great that no minister can -- or should -- assume responsibility in giving advice to brethren in these areas. Attempting to resolve the myriad questions by asking: 'Is it right in God's sight?' is neither possible nor is it in fact the right approach. The reason this has, in the past, seemed the right question to ask is that our understanding of divine healing developed in the late l920's when modern medical science was in its infancy. So many operations doctors performed then appeared to be miscarriages of medical knowledge. But sewing up wounds, setting bones, care at parturition seemed simple enough to assign to man's responsibility. Major surgical techniques for the internal organs of the body -- eye, heart, etc. -- were not yet developed. Chemistry had not, in the late l920's, made possible the present array of compounds, many of which are as free or freer from side effects as aspirin."
Maybe if Dr. Hoeh had been a doctor he would have known better than to say that many drugs are free of side effects. No drug is free of side effects! Aspirin is a powerful drug that can cause hemorrhaging of tissues. Maybe that wasn't known in the 70's. Some doctors like Andrew Weil now know that aspirin should normally not be given to reduce a fever because a fever is the body's natural defense mechanism to get rid of disease. So aspirin prevents the body from getting rid of the disease.
Medical technology is mixed progress. It makes it possible for doctors to do that much more harm at a much greater expense to humanity in terms of dollars and suffering. And the church's understanding of divine healing did not "develop" in the 20's. That's when God opened Herbert W. Armstrong's mind to the truth.
The new healing booklet was to come out after the Feast of Tabernacles in l974. It didn't. There must have been some ministers against it. Men like Raymond Cole and Paul Royer (who baptized me), who were more conservative, left the church after a year or two. Then the new booklet finally began to be serialized in The Plain Truth but only for two issues. In the second one, Aug-Sep 77, Mr. Armstrong was telling about Mrs. Armstrong's healing. He wanted to give the man who anointed her some truth about the resurrection not being on Sunday but the man wouldn't accept it. After he got home, Mr. Armstrong happened to turn to Hosea 4:6 "where God says that because people have rejected God's knowledge, He will reject them!" This appeared under the subtitle, "Truth or Consequences." He later found that the man who rejected the truth no longer had the gift of healing. He went on to write: "It was now revealed to me how in the ministry of Jesus and His first-century apostles, miraculous HEALING of the sick and diseased went hand in hand with the preaching of the gospel. What happened through Simon the sorcerer to stop the worldwide proclaiming of the true gospel and stop the miraculous healings was not revealed to me until years later. But it was at that time revealed to me how healing is for God's Church today (James 5:l4-l5), and also the prophecy revealing HOW the great commission was to be carried out in this present END TIME of the twentieth century." He went on to show that Matthew 24:l4 says that just the gospel would be preached: "But notice, this prophecy says the great commission will be going out again to the world, yet it says nothing about healing accompanying it. Elsewhere biblical teaching shows healing is for the Church. But it is NOT, today, an integral part of the proclaiming of Christ's gospel to the world!" He then asked, "Why?" That was the last word printed from the new booklet before Mr. Armstrong's heart failure. The serialization was stopped and in January l978 the Systematic Theology Program came out.
Something funny was going on here. He said he knew early on (l929) that healing would not be part of the gospel today yet in the first healing booklet (l952) he quotes a lot more about the commission without saying that healing was no longer a part of it. Why isn't healing part of the gospel commission? Why didn't God give Herbert Armstrong special healing gifts when he asked for them in l967?
Mr. Armstrong answered that question in his second healing booklet on page 64. "Perhaps it is because we of Christ's ministry do not have the faith of Peter, Paul, James and the early first-century apostles. And of our time Jesus said, '...when the son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?' Or could it be because man's world has developed a medical profession, which Jesus foreknew, so that the people uncalled of God would be far better cared for than those of the first century?" In other words, he didn't have an answer.
The answer was that the ministry lacked faith alright, but they were also committing idolatry and teaching the sheep to do it too.
Mr. Armstrong also did not give a true rendering of Hosea 4:6. The people didn't reject God's knowledge and God was not saying that He was rejecting them. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."
God is talking to one person here -- the high priest, the apostle. He rejected knowledge and forgot God's law. And the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because they weren't fed!
"You take one such false step, accept one false 'truth' and refuse to REPENT of it at once and turn from it, you will then go on into more and more error." Herbert W. Armstrong, Pastor General's Report, l2-5-80, under "SATAN DECEIVE AND USE ME? NEVER!!"
The Systematic Theology Project, the First Opinion, came out in January l978 under the auspices of Garner Ted Armstrong while his father was still recuperating from congestive heart failure. Herbert Armstrong used Psalm l03:2,3 to show that it was God's will to heal. The STP used it to say that healing was only a benefit which was "not an absolute and unconditional promise to which God has irrevocably bound Himself." It said Elisha and Paul weren't healed. It was casting doubt about God's willingness to heal. Mr. Tkach did the same in his Third Opinion which was a plagiarized version of the first opinion.
The STP then went after faith. It said that neglect was not faith and that neither was fear of doctors and hospitals. "It is natural -- although surely not wise -- for humans to delay undergoing even a medical diagnosis to determine the cause or extent of an illness because of fear of what they might learn. Some even confuse this fear of diagnosis with faith. Fear and faith are not equal. They are in fact opposites. For some it is a fear of the unknown. For others it is a fear that if they find out something frightening they will not have the faith to face it. But to act based on fear, and convince oneself that it is based on faith, is brutal self-deception which can yield no good result either physically or spiritually." Mr. Tkach said the same thing.
Does God tell us to get a diagnosis? That's what King Ahaziah did. The STP said that Ahaziah went to an oracle and wanted to know the future. Mr. Tkach said the same thing. The STP said that if Ahaziah wanted to be healed, he would have gone himself instead of sending messengers. No, the Bible said that he was too sick to get out of his bed -- it was a matter of life and death. Now if you don't know if you're going to live or die, would you go to a doctor or a fortune-teller?
Now what do people at death's door ask the doctor? "Am I going to make it, doc?" That's exactly what Ahaziah asked. Now you may be told that there isn't anything that the doctor can do, "Only God can help you now." That's a death sentence in doctor language. But more often than not you will be told that you have a chance to live if you get the doctor's help. When you ask if you're going to make it, you're asking for help -- you're asking for healing.
Go to a doctor and he will give you a death sentence if you do not rely on his help! And if you do rely on him, he could very well kill you softly while you're believing you're being helped. Let's say you gamble and win and the doctor pulls you through and postpones death. You still lose because you've gone to another god. If you were a true christian but turned your back on God, will you repent if death is postponed by the doctor? What if you turned your back on God and died on the operating table?
Diagnosis is the first step in the direction away from God the healer. Mrs. Meredith knew that. Mr. Meredith, in a powerful Bible Study on faith (after Mr. Armstrong's death and before Passover), told of his wife crying and telling a friend that her husband was putting pressure on her to get a diagnosis but that a diagnosis would not be good for her faith. When he heard about it he immediately told her that he wasn't doing that. She died in the faith and will be resurrected when Jesus Christ returns.
Mr. Meredith was only following what Mr. Armstrong had said at a ministerial conference in l963. He said that, ideally, the sick should go to the doctor first, before they are anointed, so they would know what to repent of.
In l982 I was bleeding internally. I decided to fast. I didn't go to the ministry because I knew that they were having problems of their own with healing. A minister came to visit during the fast and suggested I see a doctor to get a diagnosis. I told him that I didn't want the doctor to take me for a fool. I wasn't going to pay him for advice I wasn't going to take. Doctors do two things -- give drugs and operate. But drugs and operations don't heal -- they palliate -- they postpone. They treat effects and not causes. I was very surprised when I read that Mr. Armstrong felt doctors could tell us what to repent of when they don't have a handle on the etiology of disease.
I didn't tell the minister the main reason for not going to a doctor for a diagnosis. I did not want to commit idolatry!
The next thing that the STP went after was physical sin. Doctors can't forgive sin so if you do away with sin, the doctors can step in. The STP said that physical sin was not in the Bible and that sin is spiritual only. Mr. Armstrong had his strongest words for those who said there was no physical sin and had them put in the second healing booklet. "To say there is no such thing as physical sin, as has been said by self-professing intellectuals, is RANK STUPIDITY, IGNORANCE or WILLFUL PERVERSION OF PLAIN, SIMPLE TRUTH!" He was saying that to his successor in advance because Mr. Tkach also said that physical sin was not in the Bible.
Natural hygienists and others concerned with health know that sickness is a crime. Disease is the result of broken physical laws. Even many mental illnesses have a physical basis. I know of psychiatrists who have treated schizophrenics by fasting and bringing them back to good mental health. When James 5 tells us to go to the elders of the church when sick and if we have sinned our sins would be forgiven, it's talking about physical sins.
The STP tried to spiritualize healing away -- it became a type of spiritual salvation, the physical representation of a spiritual cleansing of spiritual sins. It now foreshadowed the resurrection. As God changed sick bodies into healthy bodies, He will also change physical bodies into spiritual bodies. "But what we can know for sure is the awesome spiritual meaning that Jesus' healings have for us today -- the confidence that they generate, the faith that they give us. We can know for sure that the same personality who healed the sick, cleansed the lepers and raised the dead, has promised, and has the power to forgive our sins, cleanse our bodies and spirits, and eventually resurrect us from the dead. This, in reality, is the ultimate miracle and this, indeed, is the ultimate faith."
Mr. Tkach: "What a magnificent reminder of our glorious calling the Passover service is! The tiny drink of wine symbolizes Jesus' own blood shed for us for the remission of sins and reconciliation with God. The small piece of unleavened bread we eat symbolizes Jesus' body broken for our sins [spiritual], and our part or calling to let Him live His life in us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, making us part of the ONE BODY OF CHRIST -- HIS CHURCH, THE BEGOTTEN FAMILY OF GOD!...Do we see the tremendous spiritual significance of both symbols brethren?"
DO YOU SEE THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES?
Mr. Tkach again: "Brethren, God has led me to see that the Church has misunderstood the concept of what we have called 'physical sin.'" Yes, he saw it in the STP that was written 9 years before his new understanding. Mr. Armstrong said that Satan inspired the STP.
Even with all the spiritualizing away, the STP admitted that "the primary intent of Isaiah's prophecy and Peter's reference to it does in fact refer to the healing of our physical bodies...This is clearly shown by the context in which this same passage is once again quoted in Matt. 8:l4-l7...." The STP also said that the Greek word for healing in I Pet. 2:24 was used almost exclusively in reference to physical healing. Mr. Tkach's new understanding conveniently did not plagiarize these admissions.
The rest of the STP went about perverting scripture. It took "faith without works" and said that works included regular checkups by a doctor "and healing and/or medical procedures in times of illness or injury." What the STP described was faith in doctors.
Revelation 21:8 says that sorcerers shall have their part in the lake of fire. The Greek word for "sorcerers" is pharmakeia. This word was the only word that they had for drugs. It also was used for "poison." The STP: "The clear evidence indicates that the word pharmakia referred to cult worship and the use of drugs to induce spells, rather that modern medicines and pharmacological drugs since these were not then in existence."
Of course the modern drugs developed in the last half of this century weren't around during the time of Christ. But that doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of drugs at that time. Drugs have always been around. You'd be surprised how many of the basic drugs like digitalis have been around for a long time. Remember, the ancient Ebers Papyrus lists l000 drugs. The Greeks of Hippocrates' time were not great drug users but they still had 265 of them. Doctors in Hellenistic and Roman times used a lot more.
Revelation 9:21 shows that the people of this end time will not give up their drugs (sorceries) even though God plagues them. How many sorcerers are around in these end times other than in the movies? Galatians 5:20 says pharmakeia (this time translated "witchcraft") is a work of the flesh. It follows idolatry in that verse. In Rev. 21:8 is precedes idolatry.
The woman with a l2-year issue of blood who suffered many things of many physicians, lost all her money and got worse instead of better, was treated with drugs. She would have been a prime candidate for the Dr. Kevorkian of that time if Christ hadn't healed her.
As an aside, Barbara Walters in a special of the l2 most fascinating people of l993 asked Dr. Kevorkian if he wasn't playing God by helping people commit suicide. He said that doctors do play God and gave the examples of heart transplants and giving people drugs that interfere with the natural processes.
This is what the STP said: "Note that Jesus in no way upbraided the woman for having gone to the physicians. Furthermore, and even more relevantly, He did not withhold healing from her because of it -- even though, as it appears, she came to Him as a last resort. Indeed, Jesus said she did have the faith to be healed (v. 48). Thus, this verse serves as an example of one who had gone constantly to physicians and yet did have faith to be healed. Certainly we could not immediately conclude she was weak in faith because she had used the medical services of her time." Mr. Tkach said the same thing.
Does this make sense to you? I guess it does to a Laodicean who believes he can go to doctors and God at the same time -- to have his cake and eat it too. This woman didn't do that. She went to doctors, period. She had faith in them and only in them until she had 7 or 8 opinions, until her money was gone and they would not treat her anymore and until she kept getting worse and worse. By the time she touched Christ's garment she had no faith in doctors but she had faith in a man who she heard actually healed.
Three scriptures in Jeremiah are next to get the l80 degree treatment. Jer. 51:8: "Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed." God is making fun of the nations of this earth who have fornicated with the end-time Babylon, Catholic Europe, and are drunk with her wine. They are lamenting for her, Rev. l8. God says the apostles and prophets should rejoice over her demise (v. 20). God is taunting the world like Elijah taunted the priests of Baal. Babylon is destroyed and God is telling them to try to revive her by giving her drugs. But the STP said that balm was suggested as a possible way for Babylon to be healed. Fat chance. She was already dead! Wouldn't have happened even if she was alive.
Jeremiah 30:l3: "...Thou hast no healing medicines." The STP said that "the lack of medicine is equated with the consequent lack of healing." There was no lack of medicine! Remember Gilead? The STP did not quote Jer. 46:ll: "Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines: for thou shalt not be cured." "No healing medicines" means medicines do not heal! God heals -- Jer. 30:l7.
Jeremiah 8:22: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?" The STP said that it certainly gives no sense of condemnation; you "may, in fact, read it positively regarding its allusion to the role of a physician." Yes, you could, like the STP had been doing all along, but you'd be dead wrong. Of course there were drugs and doctors there.
The STP then gives Isa. 38:21, Prov. l7:22 and I Tim. 5:23 as examples alluding to the use of medicines or similar preparations for healing purposes. Isaiah tells of King Hezekiah's illness. The story is in II Kings 20. Hezekiah was told he was going to die and to get his house in order. But Hezekiah prayed earnestly to God and God healed him and added l5 years to his life. He told Hezekiah to put figs on his boil. Will figs keep you from dying? No. Are figs medicine? No. Did the water of the Jordan heal Naaman the Syrian? No. God healed both of them. The figs and the water were symbols of obedience.
Proverbs l7:22: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." The translators of the King James Version did not do a good job with "drugs." I believe they all went to doctors. There is no verse in the Bible that tells you to take medicine or go to doctors. "Medicine" is wrongly translated from "gehah" -- a cure. It's root means "to remove." Medicines do not cure because they do not remove disease. A merry heart does good for a cure. It helps in the natural, curing process. You might remember how Norman Cousins, the author, helped heal himself watching funny movies. He also had his wife bring him food because hospital food was terrible.
In I Tim. 5:23 Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach's sake and his often infirmities. Once again, wine is not a drug. The Bible also tells us to put wine and oil on a wound. But this is God's recommendation and not the doctor's.
Then the STP gives the example of Ezek. 47:12 where the trees on the banks of the healing waters coming forth out of the temple during the Millennium will have its leaves used for "medicine." The margin has it, "for bruises and sores." Rev. 22:2 says that this is the tree of life used in the healing of the nations. It is symbolic of God's holy spirit. In any case, these trees do not exist today! God will be on the earth in the Millennium and if He plans to use leaves to be used in healing then that's fine. But in the last 6000 years leaves should not have been used to heal. The first drugs were herbs. Many drugs still are derived from them. You can flavor foods with herbs but to use them as drugs is idolatry.
The STP said that Joseph had physicians. He had priests of On too, even married one of their daughters, but he had no use for their religion. He had many things -- he was ruler of the whole country under Pharaoh. God was his healer.
The STP said that Luke was called the "beloved physician" by Paul in Galatians 4:l4. Do you know why he was beloved? He knew that God was the only healer, went to Him and sent others there. He stopped his pagan idolatrous ways of healing. He knew about obeying God's physical laws and taught them.
Matt. 9:l2 was used: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." The STP said that it gave no feeling of condemnation of physicians. You want to bet your life? Jesus Christ wasn't talking about doctors. He was talking about Himself, the one and only physician (singular).
The STP used Luke 4:23 and that was a surprise to me. "Physician, heal thyself." This was an ancient saying expressing lack of faith in doctors. "If you can't heal yourself, how can you expect to heal others." The STP said that Jesus applied this to Himself without a hint of denigration of physicians in the process. Actually, the people applied it to Christ. The STP had one thing right -- it wasn't a hint. It was plain denigration.
Herbert W. Armstrong clobbered the STP but people believe it today.
"The above [STP] was sent out to ministers, UNAUTHORIZED, in an attempt, craftily influenced and inspired by Satan, to DO AWAY WITH THE BASIC TRUTHS JESUS CHRIST HAD PLACED IN GOD'S CHURCH! It was sent out with the UNauthorized statement that this erroneous teaching MUST BE PREACHED -- and that it superceded...past teachings and earlier understandings -- which Jesus Christ, the LIVING HEAD of God's Church, had, through His apostle, made the very FOUNDATIONAL TEACINGS of Christ in God's CHURCH!" "With all my being, I CONDEMN that kind of teaching -- and the one responsible for handing it out to God's ministers (though undoubtedly he himself did not write it) has been disfellowshipped -- and is NO LONGER A MEMBER of God's Church. And that Satanic-inspired teaching is going out of God's Church as well." Herbert W. Armstrong, The Good News, 9-ll-78.
Well, it didn't go out of God's Church. It is the law as heavily laid down by Mr. Tkach. Many have left that church but not that law.
"If a church member simply lacks the faith to be healed by the living Christ -- if he has more faith in medical 'expertise' than in God and God's promises -- God's Church will not judge or condemn him if he puts himself or his child under medical treatment. If that is the best he has faith in, better let him have what help MAN can give, RATHER THAN NO HELP AT ALL." Herbert W. Armstrong, The Plain Truth About Healing, the 2nd healing booklet, THE SECOND OPINION.
But elsewhere in the booklet he makes it sound like it's idolatry, so much so that a minister sent him a letter asking whether he was telling people not to go to doctors. On page 22: "Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, was the patron deity of medicine -- the medicine God of Ekron. The manner in which people inquired of this god was through the medical doctors. Next paragraph: "Is it because some of us do not know and rely on the true God that we rely instead on medical doctors? God has said, 'I am the God who heals you.'"
He was writing about idolatry but didn't say the word. Instead he said this: "I have made it plain that God's Church does not condemn medical or other doctors -- nor sit in judgment of those who are weak in faith and rely on MAN. There is much doctors can do for us today." Now that's ambivalence -- typical of the entire booklet that was wishy-washy towards the medical profession. This from a man who pleaded with his son not to let his lawyer and wife put him in the hospital right after his heart failure. But he had a full-time nurse at his home and had the doctor visit him there. And he was hooked on drugs.
This will shock you as it must have shocked the ministers at the l955 Ministerial Conference. Mr. Armstrong told the ministers then that he had never felt that he was good enough for God to heal him. He said that he was out of practice having faith for his own healing but that he still had much faith that God healed others.
"Is it because there is no God in the homes of our families, that we rely on 'the god of Ekron?'" This sub-heading appeared under "Are We Back on the Track? -- When We Lack Faith?'" The Good News, Oct-Nov, l981. In l979 he had been busy trying to put the church back on the track in healing by serializing the new booklet in The Worldwide News. It didn't work.
"I am shocked -- saddened -- discouraged -- hurt!
I am writing this in flight. We just took off from Orr, Minn., flying back to Pasadena. At the SEP camp I spoke to 728, including 280 brethren from surrounding churches. I was informed that the youths in camp habitually demand a doctor for every little thing. It seems they have been taught at home to rely on doctors rather than God.
When it is suggested that they may be anointed by a minister of God, in prayer for God to heal, as God PROMISES in James 5:l4-l5, they will consent, but seem to regard it as a perfunctory ritual of no effectuality, and still demand a doctor who can make them well. Their faith is wholly in the human doctor, not in God. Apparently their parents have no faith that God can keep His promises, and have not relied on God for healing their children.
Brethren, I was shocked. It was like being stabbed in the heart. We are the generation looking for the coming of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. We are the Bride of Christ. We have to be ready for His coming, or the door to eternal life and salvation will be SLAMMED IN OUR FACES (Matt: 25:l0-l2)! Jesus said, 'He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches!'"
Just three more quotes from the booklet. "And so THIS WORLD'S CIVILIZATION was developed by MAN, cut off from God and the revelation of God's KNOWLEDGE, yet craftily and invisibly swayed by Satan in Satan's Way." There it is. Satan's world. Satan's doctors. Actually, this world's civilization was developed by Satan!
"Medical practice may be the best thing that carnal MAN, cut off from God and His revealed truth, has in 6000 years come up with." Medical practice is the worst thing that SATAN has come up with in 6000 years! It's the religion Satan used to deceive the true church!
"Frankly, it makes me a little indignant, as I fully believe it does the living Christ, to find people exalting the advances and expertise of medical doctors, while at the same time denying God's PROMISES are promises -- discrediting faith in God, excusing their lack of trusting God while they argue for trusting MAN!" Didn't he just say that medical practice may be the best thing that man has come up with? Mr. Armstrong was exalting medical science and God in that 2nd Opinion.
The Third Opinion, the new understanding of Mr. Tkach, was old First Opinion plus a perversion of John 6. Here's the true story. A great multitude followed Christ because of His healing. It was just before Passover. He performed a miracle to feed those 5000 men. They perceived that He was the prophet they were waiting for and wanted to take Him by force to make Him their king so He went off by Himself to another mountain. The disciples left by ship for Capernaum at dusk. Jesus met them later after walking on water and joined them in the boat. The people caught up with them the next day.
They asked Him why He left and He told them that they didn't seek Him because of the miracles but because their stomachs were filled. He said that they shouldn't labor after meat that perishes but for meat that endures to everlasting life. They asked what they must do to do the works of God. He said they should believe Him. They asked for a sign and said their fathers received the sign of manna in the wilderness. He said He was the true bread of life that came from heaven.
The Jews murmured. How could He have come down from heaven? Wasn't he the son of Joseph and Mary who they knew? In verse 51 He said that the bread He gave was His flesh given for the life of the world. In verse 53 He said that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood they wouldn't have that life. He was being intentionally difficult with them to test His true disciples.
Mr. Tkach perverted the above scriptures to mean that Christ's body was beaten for eternal life, a spiritual sacrifice, and not for our physical sins. But wait a minute. Is unleavened bread mentioned here? Is Passover mentioned here? Jesus had not changed the passover service yet. What He said here were not the last words on Passover, just the opening shots. Mr. Tkach made them the last words.
Many of Christ's disciples left Him after these words. They didn't have the faith in Him to wait for clarification of such hard sayings. He got a different answer when He asked the12 if they would leave too. Peter spoke: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." The bread of life is all the words of God. Jesus was the WORD who became flesh. Part of those words deals with Passover. He explained further that last passover night. The unleavened bread was symbolic of His beaten body, beaten for our sicknesses --Isa. 53.4, Matt. 8:l7 and I Pet. 2:24. We have to live by all the words of God, not just some in one chapter that are twisted by men swayed by Satan.
To the Jews, eating Jesus' flesh and drinking His blood was heresy. To true christians today, not going to doctors sounds like heresy. But "there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." I Cor. ll:l9. Many have left the truth over words on healing by Herbert W. Armstrong and Joseph Tkach. Those who are approved are being made manifest among you.
"Oh priests that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar: and ye say: Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible." Malachi l:6-7.
The only bread that is offered as a sacrifice is the unleavened bread at Passover. "But ye have profaned it in that ye say, the table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it...." Malachi l:l2-13.
In Ezekiel 34 God is mainly talking to the shepherds of the true church because only the true church has "eaten up the good pasture" and "drunk of the deep waters" of God's truth (v. l8). They have not fed the flock and what does God mention first? "The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken...." Three times for emphasis. One time for each opinion.