THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE
Armstrong's Empire Exposed
by
John Tuit
(Published in 1981)
A YOKE OF BURDEN
THROUGHOUT THE MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES TAKING PLACE BETWEEN
the state and the Rader group, Osamu Gotoh could no longer be
found. Apparently, he was out of the country and would not
return. Although he handled large sums of money, running into the
hundreds of thousands of dollars, spending it all over the world,
it will take an extensive investigation to determine how he fits
into the overall picture. He was known as the mysterious Gotoh
and remains so to this day.
Ray Wright, who in December was so anxious to help our
attorneys, returned to the Rader camp. Many others, who in the
very early stages of the receivership indicated that they were
glad to see the wrongdoings brought to light, and who said that
they wished Rader would finally be removed, also returned to the
Rader camp. Many ministers throughout the country who said that
they would never follow Stanley Rader were standing before their
congregations every Sabbath supporting Rader and threatening the
members with the loss of their eternal life if they did not
sacrifice to support Armstrong and Rader. Most of the area
coordinators who during the first week of January were so solidly
with Wayne Cole, were now faithful to the umbilical cord of a pay
check.
Over the several months since the imposition of the
receivership, many ministers did finally leave the Worldwide
Church, or were asked to leave because of disloyalty. Disloyalty
was defined as an unwillingness to support the Rader regime each
week at Sabbath services. However, those who left were a small
proportion to the total number of ministers in the Church. Those
who remained knew better, and remained to willfully deceive the
flock over which they had been placed as shepherds. Through the
prophet Ezekiel, God spoke quite sternly regarding men such as
these. In Ezekiel 34:2 he says: "Son of man, prophesy against the
shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel
that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the
flocks?"
During that same period of time, the barrage of propaganda
through the Worldwide News continued. The members' minds, which
by this time had been beaten to a psychological pulp, were now
being totally submerged in a continuous outpouring of
unscriptural nonsense from Church headquarters.
In the April 23rd issue was an article entitled: "And
Now-Christ Sets Church on God's Organizational Track." Taking up
a half page was an organizational chart (see p.243). The entire
article by Herbert Armstrong went on to substantiate his claim as
human head of the Church directly under Christ. The whole tone
was government, authority, and power-all written in capital
letters. He said: "I have realized for 52 years that God's form
of government is ruled from the TOP DOWN." He claimed that his
dictatorial rule of the Church was God's form of government. And
reverting back to the harsh control over members lives
reminiscent of the 1950s, the May 21st issue carried bold
headlines: "HOW YOU DRESS FOR CHURCH-COULD IT KEEP YOU OUT OF THE
KINGDOM?" While no one would argue that one must dress
appropriately for various occasions, there is nowhere in the
Bible where one can find his eternal life threatened due to his
manner of dress. But that didn't matter to a Worldwide Church of
God member. By this time, anything coming out under the
authorship of Herbert Armstrong carried the weight of new and
divine revelation.
In the June 25th issue, an article appeared called "What God
Never Did-Never Will-Allow To Happen." After a lengthy rambling
dissertation comparing himself to Moses, Armstrong ended the
article by very nearly proclaiming himself a deity. He said, "Let
me close with one thought. It is now a little late in life for me
to turn to Satan's way, as so many others in high places have
done. ***God never yet has let one through whom He STARTED a
great project turn wrong-and he has never yet let such an
appointed leader of his die until his job was FINISHED!"***
One can only conclude from such a statement that Armstrong
feels that he is immune to turning to Satan's way, in other words
he can no longer sin, and that he does not expect to die until
Christ returns.
(Yes that was the vanity of the man, at the time he would say
just about anything to hold the "dumb sheep" from wandering away,
and to keep the money coming in, so he could continue his
"hollywood" like lifestyle - Keith Hunt)
In another article entitled "How Satan Injects False
Doctrines," Armstrong claimed that he was the one who restored
all truth to the Church of God after nineteen hundred years.
According to him, the satanic deceptions in the Christian church
remained until 1927, when God began working with him. He wrote:
"And beginning in the Fall of A.D. 1927, God began an absolutely
UNIQUE WORK on the one the living Christ had chosen to be His
apostle. He put me through the wringer that squeezed out all
former misconcepts and untrue beliefs, using me to put His Truth
into His Church, that is to rise and meet the glorified Christ in
the clouds as He returns to establish the Kingdom of God!"
To say that the Church was without truth until he came along
is an absolute lie, as we shall show in a future chapter, and
Armstrong knows it very well.
To keep the money coming, Armstrong apparently felt the need
to reinforce the tithing doctrine. In the July 9th issue, his
front page article was entitled "Non-Tithing is Stealing."
Armstrong made it quite clear that no matter what one's
circumstances, they must tithe a full tenth of their income to
the Church. He even threatened to again activate the computer
snooping program. He wrote: "Heretofore I have made NO EFFORT TO
CHECK OUR COMPUTER RECORDS TO FIND OUT WHO TITHES. I surely never
wanted to "snoop". But it is A LAW! Neglect or refusal is MAJOR
SIN! I am not pussyfooting! Commandment breakers won't get into
the Kingdom of God, and I am commissioned to blot out the spots
and iron out the wrinkles to make God's Church READY when He
comes."
Again, Armstrong was hitting them with the loss of eternal
life if the members did not tithe. And how skillfully he diverted
attention from the allegations of stealing that had been brought
against him and other high officials in the Church. If he truly
felt a commission to blot out the spots and iron out the
wrinkles, there was somewhere else that he could start other than
laying another yoke upon the necks of the Church members.
Ending the article, Armstrong said, "Failure to tithe is
STEALING - COMMANDMENT BREAKING. It is without excuse! Keep
current with God and HE will keep you current with your other
obligations! This matter of STEALING FROM GOD is one matter that
Christ is CLEANING UP IN GOD'S CHURCH NOW! No delay! And no
excuses!"
At least Armstrong was speaking some truth here. The matter
of stealing from God was being cleaned up in God's Church. But he
just refused to face up to the fact as to how it was being done.
In this case God's "ministers for good," the officials of
California, were the ones who were doing the cleaning up. The
article just quoted from was actually excerpted from what was
written in the "Pastor's Report" of June 25th. In that
publication, Armstrong was laying it on the ministers quite
heavily also. They, too, are expected to tithe from their salary.
He said to the ministers, "If you are on the payroll, unless
tithing begins with the very next paycheck, YOUR PAYCHECKS WILL
BE CUT OFF WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE."
It certainly is interesting to see how Herbert Armstrong
practices his philosophy of love, and that of give instead of get
in his relationship with his employees and followers. Not only
were the Church members subjected to a continuing barrage of
propaganda, but so were members of the press.
A front organization called the "Emergency Committee for the
Defense of Religious Freedom, a Voluntary Association of Lay
Members of the Worldwide Church of God in Good Standing," was
formed in March 1979. They prepared a several-hundred-page
aide-memoire with supporting data for distribution to the media.
This aide-memoire consisted of selected documents taken out of
context in order to support the Armstrong/Rader position.
An interesting aspect of the publication was the constant
reference to the Pope. It must be remembered that the Worldwide
Church, as do many other churches, considers the Roman Catholic
Church to be modern Babylon, the great whore referred to in the
seventeenth chapter of Revelation. In the reference to the Pope,
Stanley Rader, in a signed statement, said that, "The Church is
hierarchically structured, with Mr.Armstrong as its pastor
general (analagous to the Pope). As with the Pope, Mr.
Armstrong's authority is virtually absolute." He went on to say
that the executive committee of the Church board was "a group
perhaps most closely comparable to the Papal Curia".
In the aide-memoire section outlining the Church
organization according to Armstrong, it said: "His position and
authority are comparable to those of His Holiness, the Pope. The
Board of Directors is equivalent of the Papal Curia." Never, in
all the history of the Worldwide Church, had Armstrong ever been
compared to the Pope nor had the Church organization been
compared to the Papal Curia as a means of justification. And
certainly the title of His Holiness was never acknowledged as a
title or name of any individual. And for very good reason: Our
Savior is the only one who may be called His Holiness. To take on
such a title to one's self, or call someone by that name is
blasphemy. In Psalm 111:9 we read: "He sent redemption unto His
people: He that commanded His covenant forever: Holy and reverend
is His name."
This is the same verse, by the way, that has always been
used to support the reasoning for not calling ministers reverend.
One can expect that it may not be long before Herbert Armstrong
will have the title, the "Most Right Reverend Holy Apostle." It
is not difficult to see that a Church which had come so far from
false beliefs, which had come into the knowledge of so much
truth, which had done as God commanded, had come out of Babylon,
was now, through its internal corruption, going right back into
Babylon. And the signs of this are quite clear, justification of
itself by comparison to "BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF
HARLOTS" (Revelation 17:5).
The situation was fast deteriorating to the point where
Armstrong and Rader were just fighting to hang on to the members
through continued fear and intimidation. Before all this
happened, the Church was already in trouble, and the leaders knew
it. They knew it in spite of the fact that they were lying to the
members, saying that things were better than ever, on the right
track, God's government was being restored, etc. etc.
........................
To be continued with "1979 vs 1939"
I was driving home after work one evening and just happened
(maybe God had something to do with it) to turn on the radio to
hear within a few seconds, the announcer on the "World Tomorrow"
broadcast stating Herber Armstrong was the "Elijah to come"
promised in Bible prophecy. I was to say the least stunned by
such a statement going out to North America, if not to the world.
Then not long after this event, one Sunday I turned on the TV and
was flipping channels (I had no idea at the time, which channel
carried the "World Tomorrow" broadcast, I just about never turn
the TV on during the day on a Sunday) when I hit, at the very
second, the World Tomorrow telicast throwing up this "chart" and
the announcer saying that the "government of God" was "God the
Father, with Jesus Christ under Him, and Herbert Armstrong under
Jesus Christ." I think God had something to do with me seeing
this with my own eyes, when I usually never turn on the TV during
the day on Sundays. To this day I never watch TV on a Sunday
during the day, only in the evening.
If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed
any church organization would do such a blasphemous act. Maybe
some churches do it kinda privately, I'm sure Jim Jones followers
and David Koresh followers, thought their "apostle" was also
directly under Christ. The Roman Catholic church we know believes
the Pope to be head of the church under Christ, so I guess the
Worldwide Church of God thought, well if the Roman Catholic
church can teach this doctrine of the Pope being under Christ, we
can also, in fact we will throw a chart up on TV to nail it down
that we'll go one better than the RC church, and so prove it's
not them but US that has the apostle that is under Christ.
Again, I was dumb-struck to see an organization that had the
vanity to put their apostle up on a chart, showing him directly
under Christ in this end time. But such had become the vanity not
only of an organization, but the vanity of the man himself -
Herbert Armstrong.
He and the organization probably did believe Armstrong would live
until Jesus returned. How wrong I knew they both were. As I said
to the guy [who told me Armstrong would live to take them to a
place of safety and see Jesus return] from the WCG who came to
bid on some contract work for my Apartment building in 1985,
"Herbert Armstrong will die LONG before Jesus returns to this
earth." It's now been 24 years since his death, and Jesus has
still not returned! So much for the VANITY of the WCG and
Armstrong back in 1979/80. It's certainly all been DEFLATED and
DISMANTLED since that time, and is becoming ancient history, that
will hardly get a foot-note in the "church history" books.
Keith Hunt
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