The Test of Our Faith

God tests us.  He tests His servants.

He tested Abraham before He made His promises to him confirmed and unconditional (Genesis 22:1-18).  He even tested Jesus Christ by having Him face Satan in the temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-17, Luke 4:1-15, Mark 1:12-15).  Christ had to conquer Satan before He started His ministry of preaching the gospel.  Consider Christ's parable about binding the strong man before plundering his goods.  This can refer to Christ and Satan, with Satan the strong man.  When Christ defeated Satan and his temptations in the wilderness, He in effect conquered Satan.  Christ defeated Satan in what Mr. Armstrong called the greatest contest of all time.  When He did that, He in effect bound the strong man.  Christ was now free to plunder Satan's goods, that is this world, and that is when Christ began His ministry, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God to the world (Matthew 12:29, Mark 3:27, Luke 11:21-22, Mark 1:12-15).

Christ had to be tested and had to pass the test before He could begin His ministry.

God tested Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong before using them to do His work.  And that test was a test of faith in God's word, the Bible.  They had to pass that test for God to use them in a powerful way.

God tested Loma Armstrong first.  He used a neighbor lady to point out to Mrs. Armstrong where the seventh day Sabbath is commanded in the Bible.  The test for Loma Armstrong was, would she believe God and the Bible more than the religious traditions and the churches of traditional Christianity that kept Sunday.  Would she give up the things she had always believed in order to believe and obey what God said in the Bible?

She believed God.  She passed the test.

Then, God used her to bring the truth to her husband, Herbert W. Armstrong.

At first, he resisted.  But after extensive Bible research, he also passed the test.  He believed what God said in the Bible more than the religious beliefs he grew up with and assumed were true.

We all face that same test today.  Will we believe the Bible more than our traditions and our Churches of God and their ministers?

God now had two people who passed the test of faith, two people He could use to do His work.  He had Mr. Armstrong and his wife Loma.

Now Mr. Armstrong had contact with the Church of God Seventh Day, which was the true Church of God.  Just as Loma Armstrong passed the test and God used her to bring the truth to Mr. Armstrong, so now that Mr. Armstrong passed the test God used him to bring the truth, new knowledge, to the Church of God Seventh Day.  Would they pass the test of faith?  Would they be willing to believe the Bible more than their traditions and leaders and ministers?

They were not.  While Mr. Armstrong was still a lay member, he sent in two study papers for their review.  One was the truth about the identity of the lost ten tribes of Israel.  Mr. Armstrong said it was about 300 pages (would that be measured "by the pound"?).  The other was on a subject Mr. Armstrong did not identify in his autobiography, but it was probably about the need to keep the holy days.

Church of God Seventh Day rejected both truths.  They failed the test of faith.  They believed their traditions and their Church of God leaders more than the Bible.  They believed man more than God.

So God could not use them.  After about seven years of training in the Church of God Seventh day, Mr. Armstrong raised up a new group called, at first, the Radio Church of God, and later the Worldwide Church of God.  We know the truth today because of that work.

A few from Church of God Seventh Day followed Mr. Armstrong and believed the truths he had discovered in God's word, but most did not.  The new members of the growing Church came from radio and later television and the magazine.

On the subject of tests, there is another incident in Mr. Armstrong's autobiography that demonstrates the lesson that only those who believe God more than the Church can be used by God to do His work.

There was a Protestant minister who had the gift of healing and helped Mr. Armstrong learn about healing.  He was a Sunday keeper.

Mr. Armstrong showed him the truth from the Bible that the seventh day is the Christian Sabbath - Saturday, not Sunday.

The man rejected that truth.  He chose to believe his traditions and the churches more than God and the Bible.

From that point on, the gift of healing left him.  God could no longer use him to do God's work, not even healing.

We are being tested today. You and me and all of us. If we pass the test, I believe God will empower us and bless us to get the warning message and the true gospel out to all the nations of Israel before the great tribulation begins so they will know they had time to repent and escape. But if we fail to pass the test, if we choose to believe our Church of God leaders and traditions more than what we see in God's word, the Bible, how can He use us? How can He use us to tell the nations to believe God more than their traditions when we won't do that ourselves?

And if we fail to warn the wicked because our disbelief disqualifies us, the fault is ours for not getting the warning message out, and God will require of us the blood of those who die (Ezekiel 3:16-21, Ezekiel 33:1-9).  Blood guilt may be upon us, and God may count us as murderers because of our unbelief.

When you or I study the Bible, there may come times when we read something that seems different or contrary to what the Church of God teaches, whatever fellowship we attend.  It may seem to indicate that Church of God teaching is in error on some point, or it may seem to show new knowledge on some point that the Church does not have.

When this happens to us, it is a test of faith from God.  It can be a test of other Christian character traits, but it will also be a test of faith, no different than the test that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong had to pass before God could use them in His work.

When this happens, we need to make a choice of whether to believe God or the Church.  That is the test.

Now, we should be humble and have an open mind and be willing, especially if it is an important matter, to do research, and that can include talking to the ministry.  When we talk with the ministry, we should have an open mind and listen and speak respectfully.  And about ninety-nine percent of the time, the ministry can show us our error.  When that happens, we will be able to see that what the Church teaches and what the Bible teaches are the same - the Church is not wrong in that case.

But until that research is done, we may have to tentatively make a choice to believe God or man, until someone shows us from the Bible that we are wrong.  We should not just say to ourselves, "Well, I'll just talk to the minister and he can straighten me out and give me an explanation and I will believe his explanation".  To pass the test, we have to settle it in our minds that we will believe what we see in the Bible, even contrary to Church of God teaching, until someone, from the Bible, shows us we are wrong.
    
I don't say we have to bring to the ministry every small matter and question.  Some things are minor and we can just wait till Christ returns.  What seems important and worth the time for research can vary from person to person.  I, personally, do not care if the marriage supper is in heaven or in the atmosphere or on the surface of the earth.  Christ knows and He will take us there and we will follow Him wherever He goes (Revelation 14:4).  Nor do I care if the one named "the man of sin" is the beast or the false prophet - as far as I am concerned, they are both men of sin.  Nor do I care if the "falling away" refers to the Church of God or the world - see 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.  We know about the falling away in the Church and warnings about deception from other scriptures and from Church history, and we know about the deception of the world from other scriptures.  Whatever the "falling away" means in Thessalonians 2:3, it does not add to what I already know.  I give these as examples of things that are not important to me personally, and if I disagreed with the Church I would not take the time to bring it to the ministry.

But some things can be important to some of us, and we can take these to the ministry if we want to.  We should speak and listen respectfully and be humble and have an open mind, willing to see our errors and change.  The minister may be able to show us, from the Bible, our error, and that will resolve the matter.

But at the end of the day, if we still see something different in the Bible than what the Church and its leadership, traditions, and ministry teach, we have to pass the test by believing God rather than man if we want God to be able to use us to get the warning message out.

We have to believe God more than the Church as Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong did if we want to qualify to get a warning message out as they did.

And we should believe God quietly, not causing division, not discussing our "new knowledge" or disagreements with the Church with other members.  We need to live according to what we have learned and wait for Christ to reveal the truth to the Church in this age or when He returns.

And if we choose to believe the Church more than the Bible, saying, the ministers must know what they are talking about even though I do not see it in the Bible myself, then we are choosing to disbelieve God, and He will not be able to use us to get the warning out.  And then the warnings in Ezekiel 3:16-21 and Ezekiel 33:1-9 will apply to us - God will hold us accountable for the blood of those who die without a warning.

The fault would be ours if we don't get the warning out because we disqualify ourselves by disbelieving God, believing the Church more than what we see in our Bibles.  In that case, we could have gotten the warning out if we believed God, but we didn't.

Let's put our faith in God's word, the Bible, more than in the Church, our leaders, and our traditions, as Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong did.  Then God can use us to get a powerful warning message out while there is time.

Let's pass the test and do the work.
 

As many of you may know, we are approaching the 40-year anniversary of the death of Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong.  I believe I have posted in this blog some time ago about the possibility that God may regard this period of 40 years as a period of trial and testing for the Church of God.  In the Bible, the number 40 seems to represent a period of trial and testing.

Probably some of you have considered this possibility.

This is speculation - it may have no significance.

Anyway, I became curious as to when the 40 years ends according to the Hebrew calendar.  So I checked it out.

So this is for what it is worth, if anyone is interested.

Mr. Armstrong died January 16, 1986.  So according to our modern calendar, the 40 years will complete on January 16, 2026, a little more than two months from now.

I went to a website that converts between modern calendar dates and Hebrew calendar dates.  Using this website, I learned that January 16, 1986 was 6th of Sh'vat in the Hebrew calendar.  Then I learned that 6th of Sh'vat in 2026 will be January 24, 2026.  There may be several sites you can use to calculate this - I just typed in "Hebrew date calculator converter" in the Google search box and used the first site that came up, probably:

https://www.hebcal.com

You can try this yourself if you are interested.

So according to the modern calendar we use, it will be 40 years since the death of Mr. Armstrong January 16, 2026.  But according to the Hebrew calendar, it will be 40 years on January 24, 2026.

As I say, this may not have any significance, but I think there is a possibility that God has been testing and trying the Church of God for nearly 40 years.  I don't expect anything dramatic to happen on or shortly after the 40 years, but it has occurred to me that God has been testing us to see who will have an open door for getting the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning messages out to the nations of Israel between now and the beginning of the great tribulation, which may be several years from now.

Look at it this way.  For many decades, God had used Mr. Armstrong to do a powerful work and to discover and teach knowledge from the Bible.  Living in the Church was like living in a classroom with Mr. Armstrong as a teacher and the Bible as our textbook.  Mr. Armstrong taught us by direct teaching of doctrine as well as by his example, especially the example of his way of life as he shared with us in his autobiography.

Then God took him from us and gave the Church a test to see how well we learned, and that test - that final exam in a sense - has been taking place for the last 40 years as the Church of God has been severely scattered and made virtually powerless in regards to getting the work done.

The test is to determine to whom Christ will give the open door for doing the work.  The test can apply to every one of us.  He may be measuring us to see who really is Philadelphian in character.

If this speculation is true, we may see a more powerful work begin to appear in the near future.

I have estimated that we have many years yet, maybe about 10 or 15 or more, before the great tribulation begins.  There is a lot that has to happen.  Europe must become strong, the United States must become weak, and the Church of God needs to warn about 500 million people - that is a lot and is not likely to happen in just 2 or 3 years.

And no one in the Church of God is going to be able to get that job done without God's strong help.  

Maybe after the 40 year test is complete, God will know who He will use, who the group of Philadelphians will be, that He will begin to bless and use to do that work.

I am sure Philadelphians exist, and they may be scattered in different fellowships.  Maybe soon Christ will begin to gather them into one or a few fellowships to do a great work.

What happens if God commands and encourages us but we refuse to obey?

The Bible shows two kinds of examples.  God will put pressure on us and make us do it (Jonah), or He will reject us and choose someone else (king Saul).

I hope and pray that somebody does it.

Who Has Authority Over What You Believe?

It is obvious that God has ordained the ministry of the Church of God and has given them authority over the Church.  They need this authority to do their jobs.

What exactly is this authority?  And importantly, what are its limits?

When I speak of the ministry, I mean the whole ministry:  apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and local elders - all ordained ministers whether paid or unpaid, whether serving the Church of God full time or part time, including top leaders of fellowships, whether they be called pastor generals, presiding evangelists, or any other title.

Here is a list in the Bible of offices that the ministry may hold and roles that ministers and members may fulfill.

"And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues" (1 Corinthians 12:28).

"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:11-16).

It is obvious from the context that one of the jobs of the ministry is to establish and teach sound doctrine and prevent the Church of God and its members from falling into doctrinal error.

The ministry as a whole has a job to do, which consists of many detailed functions.  Those functions can be found in various places in the Bible.

They have the function to establish and teach doctrine, which is made clear by what I have just quoted and by the examples of Paul in his letters and by other examples in the Bible.  The ministry has the authority to teach (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 5:25-29, Acts 5:40-42).

God has not given the lay members the authority to teach other lay members things contrary to the teachings of the ministry.  Criticizing or contradicting the teachings of the ministry in conversation with other members undermines the God-given authority and role of the ministry and makes their job of teaching more difficult.  We may have different opinions about things, but trying to undermine the teaching work of God's ministry is a form of rebellion against God and His government, except in extreme cases in which the ministry is clearly teaching major heresy, in which case a member would not likely want to stay in that fellowship.

They have the authority to decide disputes between brethren.  In this, they have binding and loosening authority (Matthew 16:19, Matthew 18:15-18).

They have authority over the brethren in matters of the organized work of the Church.  In this we are commanded to obey them (Hebrews 13:7, 17).  However, we should never obey them if they command us to break God's law.  Obedience to God comes first (Acts 5:29).  Also, I believe that obedience to the ministry is always in the context of the organized work of the Church and relations between brethren.  I do not think that God's intent in telling us to obey the ministry is to give the ministry authority to micro-manage our lives.  I don't think the authority extends to telling us what color car to drive or whether to have chicken or beef for dinner.  In any case, a definite limitation to the authority of the ministry is that we must always obey God first.

The ministry has the authority to disfellowship and mark anyone who causes division (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10-11).  They have the authority to disfellowship someone for open and unrepentant sin as a disciplinary measure (1 Corinthians 5:1-13).

But do they have the authority to command what you believe?  I am not talking about authority to teach.  I am talking about belief, that is, faith.  Do they have authority over your faith?  They can teach you something, and they should show you the evidence from the Bible, but what if you disagree?  What if you think they are misunderstanding the scriptures, or leaving out some important scriptures that could change the conclusion, or incorrectly putting the scriptures together?  What if you disagree on their conclusion?  Are you sinning for just disagreeing in your mind even if you are quiet about it and do not cause division?  Can the ministry command you to believe them?

Do they have rule over your faith?

Here is the plain answer from the Bible:  "Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand" (2 Corinthians 1:24).

Paul says plainly that he and the other apostles did not have dominion over the faith of the members.

Dominion means authority or rule.  Faith is what you believe.  Paul says that he, and by extension the other apostles and ministers, did not have authority and rule over what the members believe.  So the ministry cannot command you to believe something.  They can command you not to cause division, which means openly discussing your disagreement with other members.  But not what you believe in your own mind.

This makes perfect sense when you compare it with other passages in the Bible.

Our faith must be towards God.  Faith is a form of worship, and only God should be worshipped.  It is wrong, and sin, to have faith in man.

And any man or leader or minister who presumes to command you to believe something, not because he has proved it to you in the Bible and you understand and agree with the proof, but based on his authority as a minister, or based on his faithfulness and trustworthiness as a faithful man, perhaps saying you should have faith that Christ is the head of the Church, implying that the minister must be right because he is following Christ's lead, is making an idol of himself and teaching the members to commit idolatry by worshipping him by giving him the faith that belongs only to God.

He could be causing members to sin, and there are serious penalties for that.  "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

We have faith to believe God's word because we trust God that He is infinite and perfect in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and we trust Him to never lie to us (Titus 1:1-2, Hebrews 6:17-18).  That is why scripture cannot be broken (John 10:34).

But that is not true about men, even righteous men.  Every human is capable of both error and sin.  The Bible shows the faults of many of God's servants.  No human being is perfect as God is perfect.  That is why the whole emphasis throughout the Bible is that we should trust God, not men.

"It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in man.  It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in princes" (Psalm 118:8-9).

"The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe" (Proverbs 29:25).

"Thus says the LORD: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.  For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit" (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

"The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever" (Psalm 119:160).

"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

"The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple" (Psalm 19:7).

To be fair, there is one verse (I have not found any other) that tells us to believe men, but it is in the context of God's prophets who wrote the Old Testament and spoke to Israel in the name of God.  "So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, 'Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper' " (2 Chronicles 20:20).

Here we are told to believe God's prophets.  This is a statement by Jehoshaphat, not a "Thus says the LORD" from God.  Nevertheless, it is a good principle to follow provided we use it in the context in which it is used in this passage.  This is referring primarily to the prophets who spoke to Israel in the name of the LORD and who wrote the Old Testament.  Their word must be true because the Old Testament is part of the word of God, and scripture cannot be broken.  But this context does not apply to any man in the Church of God who calls himself a prophet or apostle.

The history of God's servants in the Bible and the history of the Church of God in our times shows that the Church leadership and ministry can make mistakes and can sin.

No one today is higher in rank than Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, and he made mistakes, which he admitted, and he corrected his mistakes.  He also said to the public, don't believe me, believe the Bible.  

So what leadership and ministry teach and say is not always true.

But what God says in the Bible is always true, one hundred percent of the time.

So we should never give the faith that is God's due to any man or group of men.  That faith, that one hundred percent belief and trust, belongs to God alone.

To disbelieve God, or to believe man more than God, is sin.  Faith is a matter of law, one of the three weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23).  That means that to disbelieve God, to fail to have faith in His word, is a violation of the law and therefore sin (1 John 3:4).

So no, the human leadership and ministry of the Church of God never have authority to command you or any member of the Church to believe what they teach.  They have authority over the organized work of the Church.  They have authority to teach, and they should back up what they teach with the Bible.  They have the authority to command that you not cause division by undermining and contradicting the teachings of the Church in conversation with other members, and they have the authority to put you out of the Church if you cause division by contradicting them.  And in general, they have authority to command you concerning the organized work of the Church provided they do not command you to disobey God - you must always obey God rather than man.

But your faith in God and His word the Bible, your absolute belief and trust that what God says is true, is a personal matter between you and God alone, and the ministry has no authority over that.

No man or minister has the authority to command you what to believe.  Only God has that authority, through the Bible.

A faithful ministry should always teach doctrine by the Bible, and they should teach the members to believe God and His word the Bible more than they believe the ministry, and to do so without causing division by contradicting the ministry in conversation with other church members.

It is obvious that God has ordained the ministry of the Church of God and has given them authority over the Church.  They need this authority to do their jobs.

What exactly is this authority?  And importantly, what are its limits?

When I speak of the ministry, I mean the whole ministry:  apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and local elders - all ordained ministers whether paid or unpaid, whether serving the Church of God full time or part time, including top leaders of fellowships, whether they be called pastor generals, presiding evangelists, or any other title.

Here is a list in the Bible of offices that the ministry may hold and roles that ministers and members may fulfill.

"And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues" (1 Corinthians 12:28).

"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:11-16).

It is obvious from the context that one of the jobs of the ministry is to establish and teach sound doctrine and prevent the Church of God and its members from falling into doctrinal error.

The ministry as a whole has a job to do, which consists of many detailed functions.  Those functions can be found in various places in the Bible.

They have the function to establish and teach doctrine, which is made clear by what I have just quoted and by the examples of Paul in his letters and by other examples in the Bible.  The ministry has the authority to teach (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 5:25-29, Acts 5:40-42).

God has not given the lay members the authority to teach other lay members things contrary to the teachings of the ministry.  Criticizing or contradicting the teachings of the ministry in conversation with other members undermines the God-given authority and role of the ministry and makes their job of teaching more difficult.  We may have different opinions about things, but trying to undermine the teaching work of God's ministry is a form of rebellion against God and His government, except in extreme cases in which the ministry is clearly teaching major heresy, in which case a member would not likely want to stay in that fellowship.

They have the authority to decide disputes between brethren.  In this, they have binding and loosening authority (Matthew 16:19, Matthew 18:15-18).

They have authority over the brethren in matters of the organized work of the Church.  In this we are commanded to obey them (Hebrews 13:7, 17).  However, we should never obey them if they command us to break God's law.  Obedience to God comes first (Acts 5:29).  Also, I believe that obedience to the ministry is always in the context of the organized work of the Church and relations between brethren.  I do not think that God's intent in telling us to obey the ministry is to give the ministry authority to micro-manage our lives.  I don't think the authority extends to telling us what color car to drive or whether to have chicken or beef for dinner.  In any case, a definite limitation to the authority of the ministry is that we must always obey God first.

The ministry has the authority to disfellowship and mark anyone who causes division (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10-11).  They have the authority to disfellowship someone for open and unrepentant sin as a disciplinary measure (1 Corinthians 5:1-13).

But do they have the authority to command what you believe?  I am not talking about authority to teach.  I am talking about belief, that is, faith.  Do they have authority over your faith?  They can teach you something, and they should show you the evidence from the Bible, but what if you disagree?  What if you think they are misunderstanding the scriptures, or leaving out some important scriptures that could change the conclusion, or incorrectly putting the scriptures together?  What if you disagree on their conclusion?  Are you sinning for just disagreeing in your mind even if you are quiet about it and do not cause division?  Can the ministry command you to believe them?

Do they have rule over your faith?

Here is the plain answer from the Bible:  "Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand" (2 Corinthians 1:24).

Paul says plainly that he and the other apostles did not have dominion over the faith of the members.

Dominion means authority or rule.  Faith is what you believe.  Paul says that he, and by extension the other apostles and ministers, did not have authority and rule over what the members believe.  So the ministry cannot command you to believe something.  They can command you not to cause division, which means openly discussing your disagreement with other members.  But not what you believe in your own mind.

This makes perfect sense when you compare it with other passages in the Bible.

Our faith must be towards God.  Faith is a form of worship, and only God should be worshipped.  It is wrong, and sin, to have faith in man.

And any man or leader or minister who presumes to command you to believe something, not because he has proved it to you in the Bible and you understand and agree with the proof, but based on his authority as a minister, or based on his faithfulness and trustworthiness as a faithful man, perhaps saying you should have faith that Christ is the head of the Church, implying that the minister must be right because he is following Christ's lead, is making an idol of himself and teaching the members to commit idolatry by worshipping him by giving him the faith that belongs only to God.

He could be causing members to sin, and there are serious penalties for that.  "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

We have faith to believe God's word because we trust God that He is infinite and perfect in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and we trust Him to never lie to us (Titus 1:1-2, Hebrews 6:17-18).  That is why scripture cannot be broken (John 10:34).

But that is not true about men, even righteous men.  Every human is capable of both error and sin.  The Bible shows the faults of many of God's servants.  No human being is perfect as God is perfect.  That is why the whole emphasis throughout the Bible is that we should trust God, not men.

"It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in man.  It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in princes" (Psalm 118:8-9).

"The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe" (Proverbs 29:25).

"Thus says the LORD: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.  For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit" (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

"The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever" (Psalm 119:160).

"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

"The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple" (Psalm 19:7).

To be fair, there is one verse (I have not found any other) that tells us to believe men, but it is in the context of God's prophets who wrote the Old Testament and spoke to Israel in the name of God.  "So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, 'Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper' " (2 Chronicles 20:20).

Here we are told to believe God's prophets.  This is a statement by Jehoshaphat, not a "Thus says the LORD" from God.  Nevertheless, it is a good principle to follow provided we use it in the context in which it is used in this passage.  This is referring primarily to the prophets who spoke to Israel in the name of the LORD and who wrote the Old Testament.  Their word must be true because the Old Testament is part of the word of God, and scripture cannot be broken.  But this context does not apply to any man in the Church of God who calls himself a prophet or apostle.

The history of God's servants in the Bible and the history of the Church of God in our times shows that the Church leadership and ministry can make mistakes and can sin.

No one today is higher in rank than Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, and he made mistakes, which he admitted, and he corrected his mistakes.  He also said to the public, don't believe me, believe the Bible.  

So what leadership and ministry teach and say is not always true.

But what God says in the Bible is always true, one hundred percent of the time.

So we should never give the faith that is God's due to any man or group of men.  That faith, that one hundred percent belief and trust, belongs to God alone.

To disbelieve God, or to believe man more than God, is sin.  Faith is a matter of law, one of the three weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23).  That means that to disbelieve God, to fail to have faith in His word, is a violation of the law and therefore sin (1 John 3:4).

So no, the human leadership and ministry of the Church of God never have authority to command you or any member of the Church to believe what they teach.  They have authority over the organized work of the Church.  They have authority to teach, and they should back up what they teach with the Bible.  They have the authority to command that you not cause division by undermining and contradicting the teachings of the Church in conversation with other members, and they have the authority to put you out of the Church if you cause division by contradicting them.  And in general, they have authority to command you concerning the organized work of the Church provided they do not command you to disobey God - you must always obey God rather than man.

But your faith in God and His word the Bible, your absolute belief and trust that what God says is true, is a personal matter between you and God alone, and the ministry has no authority over that.

No man or minister has the authority to command you what to believe.  Only God has that authority, through the Bible.

A faithful ministry should always teach doctrine by the Bible, and they should teach the members to believe God and His word the Bible more than they believe the ministry, and to do so without causing division by contradicting the ministry in conversation with other church members.

Will God Use Hypocrisy to Finish His Work of Warning the Nations?

Will God give hypocrites the power to finish the work of warning the nations? Will He use hypocrisy to finish that work?

The Church of God is the body of Christ (Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Ephesians 1:22-23, Ephesians 4:12, Colossians 1:18, Colossians 1:24).  God and Christ work through the Church.  We represent God to the world.  God speaks to the world through the Church.

Is it the role of the Church to represent the hypocrisy of God?  Is that our job, to show the world that God is a hypocrite and He uses hypocrites to do His work?  Is it our job to show that God uses hypocrisy to get His message to the world?

God is not a hypocrite, and it is not our job to show God to the world in that way.

When God finishes the work powerfully, He will do it honestly and sincerely with a Church that practices what it preaches.  He will not use hypocrisy to get the work done.  God never practices hypocrisy, and Christ is not going to lead the Church of God to preach the gospel by hypocrisy.

If we try to preach the gospel through and by hypocrisy, we are not following Christ's lead, and He will not bless us with an open door.

Mr. Armstrong was not a hypocrite.  He practiced what he preached.  And God used him powerfully to get the true gospel and the warning message out to the public.  But the Church of God today does not practice Mr. Armstrong's way of life.

We need God to use us powerfully to get the message out as He did with Mr. Armstrong.  That is the only way we will get the job done.  Will He use us powerfully if we are practicing hypocrisy in the way we try to do the work?  Absolutely not.

We are hypocrites when we tell the public to believe their Bibles more than their churches and traditions and we don't do the same.  We need God to give us the power to finish the work - that power will only come from God, not from ourselves.  And God will only give us that power if we practice what we preach.

We have to practice what we preach if we want God's help to get the Ezekiel warning message out to our nations before the tribulation begins.  And we are not practicing what we preach when we tell the public to believe their Bibles more than their traditions and church leaders while we tell our members to believe the ministry more than their Bibles, or let the ministry interpret the Bible for them (as the Catholics do), or believe Mr. Armstrong more than they believe their Bibles.

No wonder we can't do the work powerfully.  No wonder we can't get the true gospel and warning message out with the power and effectiveness needed to reach everyone before the great tribulation begins.

Are we all hypocrites?  Is there no one who has the guts and the zeal to stand up for the truth?

This is the Laodicean era all right, and no minister or fellowship has the right to claim the title of being Philadelphian.

No minister or speaker in the Church today has the right to tell members, "God tells us to hold fast to what we have", because God only says that to Philadelphia, and no fellowship has an open door for doing the work that identifies them as Philadelphia as Mr. Armstrong had.



Don't Read Your Neighbor's Mail and Think It Is Yours


Ever get a wrong letter in the mail?  Your address is 123 Main Street, and in your mailbox you find a letter addressed to a different person at 125 Main Street.  It is for your neighbor.  So you walk over to his house and give him his mail.

But what if you didn't notice the name and address?  You open it thinking it is for you.  You read the letter and think it applies to you.  But it doesn't.

That is what too many Church of God members do.  They read Christ's letter to Philadelphia, but they are not Philadelphian.  They don't look at the address.  The address points to those who have an open door for doing the work as Mr. Armstrong had.  But they don't notice that.  So they see the part where Christ tells Philadelphians to hold fast to what they have, and they say, that's us (our fellowship), we need to hold fast.  But they are reading the wrong letter.  They should be reading the letter to Laodicea, or Sardis, or whatever group they are part of.  Christ tells Laodiceans to repent, to change.  That is the exact opposite of hold fast!

Why do they not recognize that they are not Philadelphian?  Spiritual blindness, probably from pride and vanity (Revelation 3:17).  Their pride and vanity and conceit stop them from seeing their faults.   Many of them will wake up and have a chance to repent in the tribulation, if they live that long, when they will be greatly humbled the hard way.

So they read the wrong letter and think it is for them.  It is not.  They should not hold fast to their wrong ways.  They cannot hold fast to their right ways because they cannot hold fast to what they do not have in the first place.  They have Mr. Armstrong's doctrines, but they do not have his way of life that produced those doctrines, the way of believing the Bible above all else.  They cannot hold fast to that way of life because they do not have it.  They believe the Church more than the Bible.



The Sin of Hypocrisy


When Christ walked this earth as a human being, what made Him the most angry?  What do you think?  Might it have been the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees?  Is that what He reserved His harshest words for?  Consider these passages, and you be the judge.

"Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 'Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.'  He answered and said to them, 'Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, "Honor your father and your mother"; and, "He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death."  But you say, "Whoever says to his father or mother, 'Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God' " - then he need not honor his father or mother.  Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." ' " (Matthew 15:1-9).

"Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.  For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, "Rabbi, Rabbi."  But you, do not be called "Rabbi"; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.  But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
   'But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
   'Woe to you, blind guides, who say, "Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it." Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, "Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it." Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?  Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.
   'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.  Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
   'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
   'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
   'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets."  Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt.
   'Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.  Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
   'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!" ' " (Matthew 23:1-39).

See also Mark 7:5-13, Luke 11:37-54, Luke 12:54-56, and Luke 13:13-17.

As a side note, Jesus attended the synagogues all His life, "as His custom was" (Luke 4:16).  He must not have said these things with such force to the Pharisees before His ministry or He would have been kicked out.  He showed respect to their office and attended Sabbath services with them even though they must have taught much error.  That is an example for us, of respect and Sabbath attendance.  But imagine His frustration and anger that may have built up over the years, which now, during His ministry, He spoke up about.

Paul said, of Old Testament scriptures, that they were written to give examples for our learning.  "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Romans 15:4).  "Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Corinthians 10:11)

Is it possible that, just as the bad example of ancient Israel coming out of Egypt and the lessons we can learn from them can apply today, so the lessons of the bad examples of the scribes and Pharisees with their hypocrisy can apply to us in the Church of God today?

As the scribes and Pharisees were the religious leaders in Christ's day, so the Church of God evangelists, pastors, and elders are the religious leaders for us in our day.

If we tell the public to believe the Bible more than their churches and traditions, which we must say if we are to be effective with our message, and then tell our own members to believe the leadership and ministry about what the Bible means, letting the Church interpret the Bible for us (like Catholics), we are hypocrites.  We practice and teach our members to practice a different way of life than we tell the public in a most critical area: understanding the word of God and knowing His will in our lives.

Not only are we hypocrites for practicing a different way of life than we tell the public, but the leadership and ministers are being hypocrites for teaching a way of life to the members they do not practice among themselves.  For among themselves they hold doctrinal meetings in which everyone is encouraged to give their opinions about a proposed doctrinal change or understanding of a passage of the Bible, and the leader goes around the table and gets everyone's opinion.  But to the membership, he says, I don't want your opinions.  Get rid of your doctrinal idea-babies, don't send in study papers measured by the pound - WE, the leadership and ministry, will tell you what to believe.  We will tell you what the Bible means.  Don't have your own ideas.  Don't be creative.  Don't use your mind and the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible.  Be teachable when the ministry tells you what the Bible means.  Have faith that Christ is the head of the Church.  Believe the ministry and the Church.

Of course, they don't mention that Christ being the head of the Church does not mean everything the Church teaches and does is right.  Christ does not take away free moral agency, nor does He protect us from every mistake.  He leads through the Bible, but every COG leader, minister, and member has to make his own decision about whether or not he will follow where Christ leads on any particular doctrine, question, or policy.

What hypocrisy exists in the whole Church of God!

And of course, they don't mention that Mr. Armstrong, from whom they get most of their doctrines, while he was only a lay-member and not a minister or apostle, practiced the way of life they now mock, the way of life that produced the doctrines they mostly follow.  While a lay member he also had idea-babies and sent in suggestions by the pound, including the identity of the lost tribes of Israel and probably the "idea-baby" that we need to keep the holy days.  



The Lesson of Unequal Weights and Measures


It is important to God that we be honest and fair in our dealings with each other.  God loves honest weights and measures and hates unequal weights and measures, where a merchant will use a light weight or small measure for selling a quantity of something and a larger weight or measure when buying.  The dishonest merchant does this to take unfair advantage of his customers, to cheat them and steal from them.  Notice these scriptures.

"You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light. You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, that your days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

"You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume.  You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:35-36).

"Dishonest  scales are an abomination to the LORD, But a just weight is His delight" (Proverbs 11:1).

God also wants one law for the native Israelite and the stranger.

"One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you" (Exodus 12:49).

"One ordinance shall be for you of the assembly and for the stranger who dwells with you, an ordinance forever throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD.  One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger who dwells with you" (Numbers 15:15-16).

"You shall have one law for him who sins unintentionally, for him who is native-born among the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwells among them" (Numbers 15:29).

I repeat what I said before.  God inspired these words for our learning today.  This is not just for ancient Israel.  It is for us today, the Church of God, too (Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 10:11).

The application today is that we must have one standard for everyone.  We should not teach one way of life for the general public, then teach a different way of life for our members, and then the leadership and ministry practice a third way of life for themselves.  Nor should the leadership and ministry exalt themselves above the members, thinking they have the right to believe the Bible directly, even advising the leadership on doctrine, but telling the members that they do not have that right.

"And He said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called "benefactors."  But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves' " (Luke 22:25-26).

The way of life that Mr. Armstrong practiced was to believe the Bible - believe God's word - more than any man, leader, church, or tradition.  He practiced that way of life as a prospective member before he was baptized and as a lay member before he was ordained to the ministry, years before he was an apostle, and he stayed with that way all his life.  Everything else - every doctrine, every policy, every decision, every work - came from the practice of that way of life.  That was the foundation for everything he did.  And it was also the way of life that Loma Armstrong practiced, and she was instrumental in bringing Mr. Armstrong to repentance and conversion.  It was her way of life, of believing the Bible more than the churches and tradition, that brought her husband to conversion.  The fruits of that way of live were obviously good (Matthew 7:15-20).

Mr. Armstrong taught that way of life to the public - exactly that way.  He told them to believe God, believe the Bible, not any man, church, or tradition, not even himself.  He said, don't believe me, don't believe any man - believe God, believe your Bible.

But in many Church of God fellowships, the leadership and ministry teach the members a different way of life, like having a different law for the native and the stranger, which God forbids, or having unequal weights and measures, which He hates.  They teach the members to believe the ministry even more than the Bible.

They want the members to let the ministry interpret the Bible for them.  They have abandoned Mr. Armstrong's teaching that the Bible interprets the Bible.  They have replaced that with the Catholic doctrine of letting the Church and leadership and ministry interpret the Bible for members.

They don't put it into those terms.  They like to use code language.  They say the members should be "teachable".  But they do not mean the members should be teachable with the Bible.  They mean members should be teachable with the ministry.  They mean the members should let the ministry teach the members what that Bible means, and they should believe the ministry more than what they see in their own Bibles with their own eyes.  That is not what Mr. Armstrong taught the public in his radio broadcasts.

They also will say that members should have faith that Christ is head of the Church.  That also is code language.  Of course we know that Christ is the head of the Church because the Bible plainly says that.  "For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Ephesians 5:23-24).  "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).  That is not the issue.

The issue is that not every decision, policy, and teaching from the ministry is from Christ.  Christ will do His part to lead the ministry and the Church.  He does this through the Bible and the Holy Spirit to help us understand the Bible.  But ministers, being human, can still make mistakes and can still sin.  They are not perfect and never were.  Even Mr. Armstrong made mistakes, and he corrected many of them when he found them.

Christ does not take away or override the free moral agency of the ministry.

And that means that the ministry does not always follow Christ's lead.

The husband is the head of the wife, but does that mean every wife perfectly obeys and submits to her husband?

To say that Christ is the head of the Church in the context of believing the ministry is intended to say that the decisions, policies, and teachings of the ministry are correct because Christ leads them, and that those decisions always come from Christ - to disagree with the ministry is to disagree with Christ.  But that is not true.  No matter how much Christ leads through the Bible and God's Holy Spirit, ministers can and sometimes do disobey Christ's directions.  So no, Christ being the head of the Church does not mean that the ministry is always right.  We have Church of God history to prove this.  Why else is the Church scattered into competing fellowships?  Is Christ divided (1 Corinthians 1:13)?

And what will a new prospective member think when he visits or comes into our congregations and hears the ministry teach a different standard to the members than he heard or read in our literature and broadcasts?

He hears us say to the public, don't believe us, believe your Bible.  He says to himself, great, this is the kind of church I have been looking for.  They are different.

Then he visits and hears the ministry say, trust us that Christ leads us and believe what we say about Bible doctrine.  And he says, this group is no different than all the other groups that teach their own thing.  Will he not walk right out again?



Are We Laodiceans or Philadelphians?


We are in the Laodicean era.  I won't try to convince you of this - you probably already know it.  Not that you necessarily know if you are Laodicean.  If you are, you might be the last to know and admit it.  Laodiceans are blind to their spiritual condition and do not want to admit, even to themselves, that they are Laodicean.  "Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17).  Also see Jeremiah 17:9.

So how do Laodiceans admit that this is the Laodicean era without admitting they are Laodicean?   Easy.  The Church of God is scattered.  So it is everyone else who is Laodicean, but each Laodicean says, "I am Philadelphian".  This happens at the level of a fellowship as well as an individual.  Many fellowships may say, "Our Church of God fellowship is Philadelphian, but the others are Laodicean".  But individual members may say the same of themselves and other members.  

So you have the irony of a Laodicean saying, "God tells me to hold fast to what I have", quoting part of the message to Philadelphia (Revelation 3:11), when Christ does not tell Laodiceans to hold fast to anything, probably because they have little or nothing worth holding fast to.  Rather, Christ tells them to repent, to change, NOT to hold fast to their wrong ways (Revelation 3:19).  But Laodiceans don't see that because they are blind.  So they think "hold fast" applies to them, when Christ is telling them just the opposite: don't hold fast to your wrong way of thinking but repent, change.

We are to hold fast to Mr. Armstrong's way of life, not to a list of doctrines he taught that was changing throughout his life as God revealed more to him and as he corrected his errors.  Philadelphians have and practice that way of life.  Laodiceans do not.  So what are Laodiceans to hold fast to?

Actually, what some Loadiceans have and try to hold fast to is the Catholic way of life - the way of life of believing church tradition more than the Bible - the way of life of thinking the pope is infallible and his teachings should not be changed or corrected from the Bible.  Some Laodiceans make a pope, and an idol, out of Mr. Armstrong that way.

Many others make idols out of the leadership and ministry of their fellowship.  They may be willing to correct Mr. Armstrong's errors or add to his doctrines, but they let their own leadership and ministry interpret the Bible for them.  They do not teach the members to let the Bible, not the ministry, interpret the Bible.  Maybe they do not even know what it means to let the Bible interpret the Bible - maybe they forgot it if they ever knew it in the first place.



Don't Try This
 

Here is a suggestion (not really, but think about it) for how to structure our message to the public.  Don't say, "Believe God, believe your Bible".  Instead say, "Believe us, believe the Church of God, believe our ministers, teachers, and speakers.  We have the truth.  Don't believe your own traditions.  Don't believe your own ministers and churches.  Don't believe God either.  Don't believe what you think you see in your Bible.  Only we Church of God ministers have the truth.  We will interpret the Bible for you.  Believe our interpretation of the Bible.  You need us to interpret it for you.  Don't interpret it yourself, and don't think you can let the Bible interpret the Bible.  Believe what we say, believe what we teach you.  We will tell you what the Bible says."

How would that fly?  Would it be effective?  Not a chance.

It might at least have the advantage that we would not be hypocrites as much as we are now.  Because we would be practicing what we preach.  This is how we teach our members.  We say, "Believe Mr. Armstrong", or, "Believe us ministers.  Let us interpret the Bible for you" (code words, "be teachable" and "have faith that Christ is the head of the Church").

Of course, that message would not be very effective.  Why would it?  Why should the people believe us more than their own ministers?  Why our traditions?  They already have their own traditions.  They can only believe our message by putting the Bible first.  They have to believe God to escape Satan's lies.  And they know that we are not God.

The commands in the Bible to preach the gospel and warn the wicked in Proverbs 24:11, Isaiah 58:1, Ezekiel 3:16-21, Ezekiel 33:1-9, Matthew 28:19-20, and many other places are, in effect, commands for the leaders and ministers to practice and teach the members the way of life that Mr. Armstrong practiced, the way of believing and obeying the Bible more than any man, any church (including the true Church of God), and any tradition, because that is the only way we can effectively preach the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning.



We Need God to Give Us Success


Why won't our current way of doing things work?

Very simply, we need God's help.  We can't do it by our own human power alone.  Our preaching of the gospel and the Ezekiel warning, no matter how zealous we are, will not work without God's blessing and help.  He has to empower us and empower the message to be effective.  He needs to do for us what He did for Mr. Armstrong.

You could be very zealous for the work of God, totally passionate for preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to our nations.  You might be a long-time evangelist with years of experience working in the Church of God.  Maybe you knew Mr. Armstrong well.  You might be red-hot on fire for the gospel, overflowing with zeal.  You may have talent, good looks, a great speaking voice, a knack for teaching, the wisdom of Solomon and Daniel combined, great charisma, the wealth of Elon Musk, perfect health and vitality, and an abundance of personal energy.  You can have all human power and ability for accomplishing great things.  And you may focus all that on getting the gospel and Ezekiel warning message out to the nations.

And all that power would help enormously.  But if it is human power alone, it won't work.  It won't be enough to get results.  You could make a big noise to some degree, but it won't get results and it won't last.  No one will pay any attention.  Your work will fade away.

To be successful, human power is not enough no matter how great that human power.  You need God's help.  God's miraculous help, added to your human power whether your human power be large or small, will do the job.

Why?  Because this is Satan's world (Luke 4:5-8, John 14:30, Revelation 12:9).

Satan is the deceiver of this world (Revelation 12:9).  And no matter how powerful you are compared to other human beings, Satan is more powerful than you with your human power.  And Satan has tens of millions of demons to help him.

But Christ has already conquered Satan.  "Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.'  Then Jesus said to him, 'Away with you, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve." ' Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him" (Matthew 4:8-11).  "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).  Also see Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13, and Matthew 12:28-30.

Christ, having already conquered Satan, has the power and authority to give us an open door and make our efforts successful (Matthew 28:18-20, Revelation 3:7-8).  He can give us miraculous help to overcome Satan's opposition to our message.

Suppose you do a TV or radio or Internet broadcast preaching the gospel.  You advertise it so the advertisement, and maybe the message itself, reaches millions.  No matter how persuasive you are, without God's help, Satan will simply block people from understanding and believing the message.  Someone will watch it, or part of it, and it just won't register.  They won't get it no matter how logical and clear you are.  They will watch only the beginning and lose interest, or they may watch the whole thing and not remember it five minutes later.  Also, Satan can influence stations and media platforms to block and reject your message no matter how much money you have.

Satan deceives them.  He has that power.  Your message won't go anywhere.

What you need is the open door from Christ promised only to Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-8).

If Christ sets before you that open door, He will help you and help get the message across with power through the Holy Spirit.  He will overcome Satan's influence as much as needed to get the message out with power.  I don't say He will grant repentance to everyone or even cause everyone to completely understand and believe everything you teach.  But He will supernaturally help the message enough for it to be effective in warning the people and enabling them to hear and remember the message.  And He will give more complete understanding to the few God calls.

He will also help get approval for our message with the various media outlets.

Mr. Armstrong gives an example in his autobiography.  One day he was scheduled to meet with some radio station people to try to schedule a broadcast.  But unlike other times, he neglected to pray about the meeting before he went to it.  So he went to the meeting and it went nowhere.  He was rejected.  Then he realized he neglected to pray about it, so he prayed that God would bless the meeting and give him success.  Then he tried again.  This time he was successful.

"So he answered and said to me: 'This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," Says the LORD of hosts' " (Zechariah 4:6).

We need that power from Christ and God.

And that is my whole point of this section.  We need God's supernatural help to effectively obey His commands to preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning as a witness before the tribulation begins so the people know that God was fair to warn them and to help their repentance during the tribulation.  Without God's help, Satan will block us no matter how hard we try.

We need the open door Christ promises to Philadelphia, and He won't give us an open door to preach the gospel and Ezekiel warning BY HYPOCRISY!

Without that miraculous open door, we won't be able to do it, as the whole Church of God is learning by experience.

And so far, since the death of Herbert W. Armstrong almost forty years ago, Christ has not given that open door to any fellowship.  We have to face that.

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2).

We must not sin the sin of idolatry, breaking the second commandment by making idols of our ministry, leadership, and Church of God traditions, believing those things more than we believe God's word the Bible, believing the Church more than what we see with our own eyes in the Bible, refusing to learn new knowledge God has in the Bible to teach us.  We must also not try to do God's work by the methods of hypocrisy and think He will give us the help we need if we try to do God's work that way.

We must get rid of our hypocrisy.  We must teach our own members to believe the Bible more than the Church of God.  Then we can tell the public, with sincerity and integrity, don't believe us, believe your Bible, which is a necessary part of the message.

Then Christ can give us the open door.



Our Sin Is Worse than Just Hypocrisy


If we believe the Church more than the Bible, we are not just committing the sin of hypocrisy when we tell the public to believe their Bibles.  We are committing the sin of idolatry.  Even if we have no work of proclaiming the gospel to the public, even if no hypocrisy is involved because we have no message for the public, we are still sinning if we believe the Church and ministry more than the Bible.  We are committing idolatry.

Why?

Believing God and His word is called faith.  And faith is towards God and not man.  To have greater faith and trust in the Church, its leadership, and its ministry than we have in God and His word the Bible is idolatry.  We are giving men the trust and faith that rightfully belongs only to God.

Having a lesser faith in God and His word is a violation of the law.  That is because faith is a weightier matter of the law (Matthew 23:23).  And since faith is a matter of the law, the transgression of that law is sin (1 John 3:4).  The Bible is obvious that faith is towards God, not man.

Our faith and trust in God must be absolute, never second to our faith and trust in anyone or anything else.  This is what the first great commandment requires.  " 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus said to him, ' "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the first and great commandment' " (Matthew 22:36-38).

The whole emphasis and teaching of the Bible is to trust God more than man.  We violate that principle when we let the ministry interpret the Bible for us and we believe the ministry more than what we see for ourselves in the Bible.

The office of minister is a God-ordained office, and we are commanded to show due respect.  We should listen with an open mind to the ministry and be respectful.  We should not undermine the authority of the ministry in conversation with other members by contradicting them.  And if we see something different in the Bible than what the ministry teaches, we can discuss it with them, and maybe they will show us, from the Bible, where we are wrong.  Then we can agree with them when they prove their case from the Bible.

But if they cannot prove their case, we must believe the Bible more than the ministry.

When ministers tell the members to believe their interpretation of the Bible and not to have their own ideas, they are in effect teaching the members to believe them more than God.  And in doing this, they are teaching the members to sin.  "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" (Matthew 18:6-7).

I wrote earlier about a new person visiting the Church and then walking out again when he sees the hypocrisy.  But I should also mention that Christ Himself may keep new members out of the Church right now because the Church of God has become a toxic environment that leads some members to sin, and many new prospective members cannot handle being called into that environment right now.  So for their own spiritual protection, God delays their calling until a faithful Church of God fellowship appears.  That is possible, and may be one of the reasons the Church is growing so slowly, if at all.



Multiple Witnesses to State of the Church


God says that in trying someone accused of a crime which brings the death penalty, he should not be put to death on the testimony of only one witness, but two or three witnesses are needed (Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:15).

This illustrates a larger principle, that, when possible, we should verify what we are checking up on with more than one piece of evidence.

God can speak to us in more than one way.  He speaks to us most directly through His word, the Bible.  God inspired the Bible (2 Peter 1:21), and He cannot lie (Titus 1:1-2, Hebrews 6:17-18) and therefore scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35-36).

God also speaks to us through creation, that is, the natural world of the earth and skies and plant and animal life.  These things help to show us God's wisdom and creative power (Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 97:6, Romans 1:18-20).

God can also teach us lessons through history and through the circumstances of our lives.

In the matter of multiple witnesses, we do not need multiple places in the Bible for God to tell us something before we believe it.  One clear scripture is sufficient to establish truth.  Nevertheless, God often provides multiple passages to teach the same point, for emphasis and reminders.  Repetition helps us understand and remember.

I have said some tough things in this post and recent posts.  Some may think I am crazy, completely wrong and off the track.

And I admit that I can be wrong.  I try not to be but I can be.

The Bible certainly interprets itself.  But sometimes we must put multiples scriptures together in a logical way to understand a particular teaching or doctrine.  And sometimes we have to exercise a certain judgment in how we do this using the minds God has given us.  And we can make mistakes in how we do this.  So any of us, no matter how much we sincerely try to let the Bible interpret itself, can make a mistake in judgment in how we put the scriptures together.  We are not trying to put our meaning into it.  We are trying to let the Bible speak to us and believe what it says.  But we can still make mistakes.  That is why I say, I could be wrong.  I don't know how I could be wrong and I don't think I am, but knowing that I am human I know I could be wrong in ways I just can't see.  That is true for all of us.

So here I am, anonymous, alone, a lay member, having no ordination or special authority, telling the Church of God what to do and where it is wrong, based only on the Bible and what I know about the Church of God and its history.

I am saying to the Church of God that we must deliver God's warning message and true gospel to all Israel before the tribulation begins, and I am saying that to do this we need to teach the members to believe what they see in the Bible more than they believe the Church and its ministry.

Do you think I am crazy?  Do you say, right, Author, you say you could be wrong and you are wrong?

But I have one or two additional witnesses, besides the Bible, to back me up and confirm that, at least something is wrong in the Church of God, and this may be it.  No one has shown me anything else or any other cause of our problems.  And we do have problems.

What are those problems?  What are those witnesses that seem to verify that I am right and on track besides the Bible passages I quote?

One, we are not getting the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning message to all Israel at a pace that will be complete before the great tribulation begins.  Mr. Armstrong built a vast work growing, at one point, at 30% a year, I have heard.

Since then we have never come close to that.

That is a problem, and that problem is a witness that I am not wrong.

The Church is not getting the message out with power.  I say, based on the Bible, that it is because of our hypocrisy in telling our members to believe the ministry first while we tell the public to believe the Bible first.  You might think I am wrong about the Bible.  But if I am wrong, why are we so powerless to get the message out with the massive scale that is needed to get the job done?  Why are we not growing at 30% a year?  

No one has refuted the scriptures I have quoted, and no one has suggested any other reason why we are not getting the job done.

The fact that the work has stagnated seems to confirm what I am saying.  In that sense, it is like a witness that what I am saying is right.

And if that is not enough, consider something that is so obvious no one can deny it.  The Church of God is divided, scattered, into competing groups, and sometimes these groups are hostile to each other.  This is another powerful witness that there is a deep problem in the Church of God.  Why?  Is there a connection between the problem I identify, the hypocrisy of the ministry, and the divided state of the Church today?

The same ministers who tell you to believe their interpretation of the Bible, who mock the faith of members who they say have "idea-babies" and send in suggestions "by the pound", are also severely divided amongst themselves, which is not God's way.  Where is their credibility?

The Church needs to turn the members back to total faith in the Bible and not faith in the ministers as official interpreters of the Bible.  Then see if God blesses the work.

God's Name, Israel, the Kingdom, and Us - EVERYTHING Is at Stake! - Why It Is Vital We Preach the Gospel and the Ezekiel Warning to All Israel BEFORE the Two Witnesses Begin Their Work

God's name and reputation for righteousness for all eternity is at stake!

Your personal salvation, and mine, are at stake.

The salvation of millions of people may be at stake.

Our opportunity to be protected in a place of safety is at stake.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

The two witnesses will not be able to do it.  The Church must do it before the two witnesses are given power and begin their special work.  After the two witnesses are given power and start their special work, it is too late.  The Church must do it now.

It is up to us, you and me and the whole Church of God, today and in the next several years.  It is especially up to the ordained ministry including local elders, of which I am not one and most of you are not.

If we love God, we will do it.  If we love our neighbors, we will do it.  And God commands that we do it.

But the Church of God is not doing it right now.  None of the fellowships is doing it.  None of the ministers and local elders is doing it, as far as I know.

We need to change.



Two Types of Audience for Our Message


Our message to our nations, including the nations that make up the lost tribes of Israel, is a warning and a message of repentance.  It is also the good news of the coming kingdom of God to bring peace and happiness to the earth.

We are telling people to repent and stop sinning.  We are warning them that if they continue to sin, God will bring severe punishment upon them.  We are telling people what sin is and that they need to believe what God says sin is.  We are telling them to believe God - believe the Bible - more than their churches, their leaders and ministers, and their traditions.  We are telling them to believe the Bible and to start obeying God.

There are two types of people who potentially can hear our message, and there are those in-between.

Many people are atheists and agnostics, people who are secular in their thinking and behavior.  They are not interested in God.  They work seven days a week - no day is different than any other day.  They have no interest in or knowledge of the Bible.  They live as if God does not exist.  They break the commandments, all of them, routinely without giving them any thought at all.  They break the Sabbath and they do not observe Sunday either.  They do not believe in the trinity doctrine or the immortal soul doctrine, because they think everything is material - no spirit world, no afterlife - this physical life is all there is for them.  They take God's name in vain routinely.  They murder in their hearts and sometimes literally.  They lie routinely.  They steal when they can get away with it.  They commit adultery and fornication and think nothing of it.

Then there are religious people - religious Catholics, Protestants, and Jews.  They think they believe in God.  They worship that God according to their traditions.  Catholics and Protestants believe in the trinity and the immortal soul.  They keep Sunday, Christmas, and Easter.  They are sinning against the God of the Bible, but they don't necessarily know it.

And there are some, as I say, in-between, who have some religious attitudes, but not strong.  They are sort of sitting on the fence when it comes to religion.

There are large numbers in both religious and materialistic groups.

Both need a warning, but the religious group needs it most.

Why?

Because they don't know they are doing wrong.  They think they are serving God.

And when the punishment comes, how will these groups react?  Will the punishment have its intended effect of softening them up and preparing them for repentance and conversion?

We in the Church of God know the general plan.  We know it from the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, and we have confirmed it with the Bible.

The Church of God is to preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the tribes of Israel, including the lost ten tribes.  We are to get God's message out to the people of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, etc. the best that we can.  Then when God's time comes, He will punish the nations by allowing them to go through the great tribulation - the greatest time of trouble in history.  Many will die and the rest will suffer greatly and go into captivity.  This suffering is designed to wake them up and bring them to repentance.

Then Christ will return and save them from their captivity and bring them back to their land.  He will banish Satan and rule the world with the saints.  All peoples will be taught the truth without Satan around to deceive them.  God will call them to salvation and open their minds.  Most will repent and be converted.  Those who remain faithful will be saved.

But will the tribulation really prepare the people for repentance and conversion?  Or will they resent God and harden their hearts even more?  Will the tribulation make people sorrowful for their sins or just bitter and angry at God?

People will react different ways, but our warning will have an effect.  By warning the people before it comes, it will help them understand that God was fair to give them a warning.  They can feel that God gave them a chance but they blew it.  That is better than thinking that God never gave them a chance because He never warned them.

But consider the two groups, the atheists and the traditional Christians of the Catholic and Protestant churches.  If we don't give a warning, how will they react in the tribulation?

I am not worried about the atheists.  They know they don't follow God.  They will know they are sinners according to a biblical standard.  When God makes His presence known and they are being punished in the tribulation, they will know they have ignored and disobeyed God.  It will be easy for them to repent once they acknowledge God's existence.

But what about the religious people?  They think they are righteous.  They do things that are wrong, that are against God, but they do not know it.  They keep Sunday, Christmas, and Easter, and some of them use images in worship.  They pray to a trinity that does not exist.  Why do they do these things?

They think they are right, but they are wrong.  But why do they think they are right?

They have been taught these things from childhood, and no one has warned them they are wrong!   So in their own eyes, they will say, it's not my fault, I didn't know.  No one told me.  How could I know?

The atheists won't say that.  They know that it is their choice not to believe in God.  And the agnostics know they didn't prove God's existence and they lived a sinful life of lying, stealing, committing adultery and fornication, hating others, etc.  And they can't say, no one told me there is a God.  Both proofs and teachings that God exists are all over the place.

But a lack of warning would be a serious stumbling block for the religious people when they are punished for trying the best they know how to do what is right, to serve God!

Is it their fault that Christmas and Easter are wrong and they don't know?  They think they are honoring God when they practice these things.  Should they be punished for trying to worship God?

With a warning that they can check up on, but don't, yes.  But with no warning, no chance to believe the truth and change?  Should they be punished for that?

How you would answer that is not the issue.  The question is, how will they answer that?  How will they understand God's love and fairness when they are eating their children in the tribulation for their traditions when God never warned them that their traditions are wrong?

Can this be a stumbling block?  Yes, you better believe it.  If we don't get a warning message out, these people, many of them, potentially tens of millions, will doubt God's love and fairness right into the millennium.  Their repentance will be hindered.  Their trust and faith in God's goodness will be damaged, perhaps permanently.  They may not be able to repent and trust God and be converted.  They may lose their salvation forever.

How can they trust God if they think He has treated them unfairly?

And if they say to God, "Why didn't You warn me?", what would God say?  Will He say, "Well, I told the Church of God to warn you, but they refused.  Blame them, not Me".  How would that fly?  For they would surely say, "Why didn't You make them do it?"

And do you think that these people who think God is unfair not to warn them will think, "I would not have heeded the warning anyway"?  No way.  They will think, human nature being what it is, "Yes, I would have heeded the warning".  Most of them would not, but they won't see it that way.  You have to go through a test to know you would pass it.  Saying, "I would pass that test", without actually facing the test is not reliable thinking.

Suppose a man hears the warning.  To respond and heed the warning, he has to give up Sunday, his church, his traditions, Christmas, Easter, unclean foods, etc.  But his wife refuses.  She has no intention of giving up those things.  In fact, if her husband tries to live God's way of life and heeds the gospel and warning message, she will leave him and take the kids with her, and he knows it.

He is deeply in love with his wife and can't live without her.  If that is the price of heeding the message and turning to God, will he pay that price?

Now, if he never hears the warning, he will not face that choice - he will end up in the tribulation.  And while he is suffering in the tribulation, he might say to himself (and to God in prayer), "If I had a warning, I would have heeded it.  I would have given up my wife and kids if I had to."

But would he?  He doesn't know his own mind (Jeremiah 17:9).  Sure, in the pain of the tribulation he might think that way, but if he heard the warning in a time of peace, would he have given up his family, the wife he loves so much he can't live without her, to obey God?  Possibly, but probably not.  But he doesn't face that.

So he resents God for not warning him, thinking he would have heeded the warning.  It is easy for him to think that because he has never been tested.  His resentment becomes a roadblock to trusting God, a roadblock to repentance leading to salvation.

But if he hears a warning while there is time for him to respond, and does not heed it, thinking, I can't give up my family, then when he finds himself in the tribulation he has no excuse.  He has come face-to-face with his own carnality.  This is actually good for him, and it will be easier for him to repent.

Having a warning or not having it while there is time to repent and escape may make the difference between being saved and entering the kingdom or losing salvation and ending up in the lake of fire.

Someone who can't trust God because he thinks God was unfair not to warn him may never repent.

And in this example, that is only one person.  Multiply that times millions that could lose their salvation if the Church of God does not get a warning message out before the tribulation begins while there is time to repent and escape.

And what if God knows, and you and I know, that the vast majority won't repent anyway even when they hear the warning?  We know that, but they don't!  They need to learn that about themselves from experience.  They need that warning for their eventual repentance whether they heed the warning or not.

No wonder God says He will require the blood of the people at our hand if we have the opportunity to get the warning out, but don't.  The ultimate fate of millions - the kingdom of God or the lake of fire - may be at stake (Proverbs 24:11-12, Isaiah 58:1, Ezekiel 3:17-21, Ezekiel 33:2-11).



Who Has the Opportunity to Get the Warning Message Out?


Who has that opportunity?  Every ordained minister, including local elders, has the authority from God to teach, to preach, to baptize, and to lay on hands for the receiving of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, if there is no faithful fellowship in the Church of God right now that is getting the warning message out with power, any evangelist, pastor, or local elder has the opportunity to raise up a new group that will try to get that warning message out.

Does every such man have the power and ability to succeed?  No, of course not.  Most will be reluctant, saying, I can't do that.

But God, by His Holy Spirit, can give a man that ability.

God can also draw qualified people to a leader that starts the ball rolling, people who do have the ability or to whom God will give the ability to do their jobs to help.

There are examples in the Bible of servants of God who protested at being given a job from God.

Jonah did not want to warn Nineveh, but God made him do it, through severe trial (Jonah 1:1-3:3).

Moses did not want to do the job God was giving him.  He thought he could not do it.  But God gave the answer.  

"So He said, 'I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain' " (Exodus 3:13).  "Then Moses said to the LORD, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.'  So the LORD said to him, 'Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?  Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.'  But he said, 'O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.'  So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and He said: 'Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.  Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.  So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God' " (Exodus 4:10-16).  

God's answer?  God would give Moses the ability and power.  He would inspire him in what to say and he also provided Aaron as a helper.

Those are two ways God can help a man do a job today.  He can miraculously give that man the mental ability to plan, to make decisions, to speak, and to write.  He can also draw to that man others with abilities who can help, with websites, with advice, with knowledge, with experience, with writing, with money, etc.

But as it started with Moses, it has to start with a person who is willing, or is made willing, maybe through trials, to do the job.

Jeremiah apparently thought he was too young, but God overruled him (Jeremiah 1:6-9).

Peter said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man" (Luke 5:8), but Christ overruled him.

If God gives us a job, He will give us the power and ability to do that job.

Notice the example of Bezalel and Aholiab and other gifted artisans in the wilderness who built and prepared the tabernacle and its furnishings.  They were experts in artistry and in working with materials to make artistic works, but they had that ability because God gave it to them (Exodus 31:1-6).

When God had tested Abraham, Abraham named the place, "The-Lord-Will-Provide". And God did provide (Genesis 22:14).

And once a minister of courage stands up and starts an effective work, it is the responsibility of lay members to join with and support that work.  Then the burden is on them to help.  But a minister has to start.

Right now, no one in the Church of God is getting the Ezekiel warning out with the power that is needed to get the job done.  If there is a leader or fellowship doing it, I don't know about it.

Certain things are required.  The group must be governed from the top down, not by the voting or balloting of men.  The leader must have zeal for getting the gospel and Ezekiel warning out to millions before the tribulation begins.  And the leader and group must have a policy of teaching the brethren to believe the Bible more than the Church or their traditions while not openly contradicting the ministry in conversation with other members.  And with that comes the willingness to change doctrine, to correct doctrinal errors, and to learn new knowledge from the Bible.  This is what that leader and group must do because that is what they must ask the public to do when they preach the message to get the gospel and the warning out.  They must practice what they preach and not be hypocrites if they want God's blessing and help.

I do not need to mention that such a leader and group must be faithful to the truth.  God is not going to use someone that teaches things contrary to the Bible.  And the Bible interprets itself.

Someone has to step up and start doing an effective work.  And if several people do it, at some time they may voluntarily gather under one or two of them, and in the meantime they can cooperate with and help each other.



Is the Ezekiel Warning Part of the True Gospel?


Both the Ezekiel warning and the true gospel brought by Jesus Christ are part of the overall message the Church is to deliver to the people who make up the nations of all the tribes of Israel.  The people need both.

The people need the good news of the kingdom of God to sustain them through the tribulation.  They need the hope that the gospel will give them.  They need to know that their suffering will not go on indefinitely, that Christ will come to rescue them and rule the earth in happiness and joy, that there is a glorious future ahead.  The human mind is not designed to function properly without hope.  The gospel message will give them that needed hope during their darkest time.

And, as I have said before, they need the warning message so they know that God was fair to warn them.  That message will enable them to take responsibility for not heeding the message, realizing that God gave them every chance.

But is the Ezekiel warning, the warning of punishment to come if Israel does not repent, part of the good news of the kingdom of God?  Yes, it is.

That may seem strange at first.  How can a warning about the coming tribulation be good news?

What is the gospel?

At its core, the gospel is the good news of the coming kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God has two aspects.  It is the government of God ruling over the nations of the earth.  The best description of this is Nebuchadnezzar's dream and its interpretation given in Daniel 2:1-49.  This is good news for people living on earth because the government of God will bring peace and happiness to this earth.

The second aspect is that the kingdom of God is the family of God into which humans can enter, that is, be born into.  We can be born into the family of God.  God is reproducing Himself through mankind, and we can enter the kingdom of God by becoming a member of God's family, becoming like Christ and ruling the universe with God the Father and Jesus Christ for eternity.  That family is the kingdom of God.

Mr. Armstrong taught both aspects of that kingdom.

But the full gospel is more than that.  In its fullest sense, the gospel includes everything about that kingdom - all the rich details.

Is salvation through Jesus Christ part of that gospel?  Absolutely, yes.  The process of salvation and everything that subject includes - repentance, faith in Christ, the sacrifice of Christ to pay the penalties for our sins so we can be forgiven and saved - is part of the good news of the kingdom of God because it shows us how we can enter that kingdom.  If we did not have the sacrifice of Christ, the kingdom of God would not be good news for us because we could not be forgiven and saved and enter that kingdom and be part of it.  

Are the life and history and record of the saving work of Jesus Christ part of that gospel?  Yes, because Christ will be the King of that kingdom, so everything about Christ is part of the true gospel.

What about the law of God including the ten commandments?  Yes, that is part of the gospel because it teaches us the way of life that will be lived in and under the rule of the kingdom of God.  The law of God will result in happiness in the kingdom and that makes it good news.  

Everything about the kingdom of God, past, present, and future, is part of the good news of that kingdom.

What about prophecy?  Prophecy is part of the good news of the kingdom of God because it shows what the kingdom of God and life under the rule of that kingdom will be like.  It also shows the steps God will take to prepare for that kingdom.

What about Old Testament history?  That is part of the gospel because it describes what God has done in the past to prepare for and bring about the establishment of that kingdom.

In other words, everything about the kingdom of God - what God does past, present, and future to bring about that kingdom, the way of life of that kingdom, the law of God, the King of that kingdom Jesus Christ, salvation through Christ which is how we can enter that kingdom - is all part of the true gospel, provided the core truths, the family of God and the government of God ruling the earth, are included and are the center of the message.  

If someone teaches only about the life of Christ and salvation through Christ, but omits the family of God we can enter and omits the government of God ruling the earth, that becomes a false gospel.

In short, in the broadest sense, the whole Bible is the gospel, centered on the unifying theme of the family of God into which we can be born ruling over the earth as the government of God.

Is the Ezekiel warning part of the gospel?  Yes, because it shows how God will prepare for the kingdom of God ruling the earth by bringing people to repentance and teaching them and preparing them to obey God's law and live the right way of life when God establishes the kingdom of God on the earth.



I Cannot Judge Anyone's Character - I Am Not Accusing


I know that in these posts I have said some pretty strong things, and it is not my intention to be harsh and judgmental against others.  I do not want to be an accuser of the brethren like Satan (Revelation 12:10).  I want to use words to edify and build up, not tear down (Ephesians 4:29).  But I have to balance that with the need to warn those who are heading for trouble and may need a warning.  I want to encourage others to do the right thing.  And I have to do my part, whatever I can do, to deliver God's warning.  So I try to focus on behavior and teaching and avoid accusing individuals.  Each person can apply any lessons learned to themselves, judging themselves as to whether or not the things I write apply to them personally (1 Corinthians 11:31).

I cannot judge anyone's character.  Only Christ can do that.  He has the ability, the wisdom, and most of all, the authority.  I can know that no human on earth is perfect and especially I am not perfect.

I cannot judge a man's character for several reasons.

I cannot read minds.  I cannot know if someone is sincere or not.  Maybe some people have that gift of discernment (1 Corinthians 12:7-11), but I do not think I have it, and if I have human opinions about that, I keep them to myself.  I try to recognize that I could be wrong.  

If I see someone do or say something wrong, I do not usually know if they are deliberately doing wrong or making an honest mistake.  If they say something that is untrue, I do not know if they are lying or making an honest mistake in judgment, and we all make mistakes.

But I can and must judge words and statements that are false and contrary to the Bible in order to obey God's commands to warn in Ezekiel 3:16-21, Ezekiel 33:1-11, Proverbs 24:11, and Isaiah 58:1.

The command, "Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11), requires that judgments be made about the results of choices of those heading for disaster.  The command to deliver God's warnings in Ezekiel requires that we make certain judgments about wrong actions, wrong choices, and wrong teachings.  We have to judge those actions and warn of the consequences according to the Bible.

If someone says, "We don't have to preach the gospel and deliver the warning, the two witnesses will do it", or, "We should never change, correct, or add to Mr. Armstrong's teachings and we should not let God teach us new things from the Bible", I don't have to judge the character of the one who says that, I only need to warn that such teachings are wrong and lead to a bad result.  I can leave character judgment to God.



The People Need to Know that God Was Fair to Give them a Warning


The people in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the state of Israel, and a number of European nations - all the nations that are the tribes of Israel - maybe 500 million or more people - need a warning about the coming great tribulation and God's punishments for their sins.  They need to be told that what they are doing is wrong and what their sins are.  "Cry aloud, spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet; tell My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isaiah 58:1).  They need to be told about the great tribulation and how bad it will be.  They need to be told that they need to repent.  They need to be taught the truth and how to repent.  They need to hear the true gospel, the good news of the coming kingdom of God (Daniel 2:44).

They need the warning before the great tribulation begins so they have time to escape and so they know that God was fair to warn them and let them know what they are doing that is wrong, things they don't now know are wrong, like Christmas and Easter and religious images of Christ.

By knowing God was fair to warn them before punishing, they will find it easier to trust God and believe in His righteousness, and that will make it easier for them to eventually repent and be saved.  This can result in more people being saved and fewer lost for all eternity in the lake of fire.

How serious is that?

For someone to properly repent of their sins they need to realize not only that they have done wrong but that they are wrong.  They need to repent of their evil, carnal nature.  And that means they have to accept personal responsibility for their sins.  They can't say to themselves, "It wasn't my fault because I didn't know it was wrong - I am innocent".

Imagine a prospective member wanting to be baptized telling a minister in or before baptismal counseling, "None of my sins are my fault because I didn't know those things were wrong, I am not responsible."  The minister may very likely tell that person he or she is not ready for baptism.

The people need to hear a warning so they know they were warned and can accept responsibility for ignoring the warning, so they have no excuse to impede their repentance.  They also need to trust God and trust in His righteousness because they know He was fair to warn them and give them time to repent before punishing, and such trust in God is also necessary for the faith and repentance necessary for salvation.

Without that faith and repentance, they cannot be saved.



The Bible Shows It Is God's Way to Warn


God is merciful.  He warns before He punishes.  Often, not only does He give a command, but with the command He warns of the consequences if the command is not obeyed.  The Bible is full of example after example of this.  It is God's way.

God not only commanded Adam and Eve to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but He warned them of the consequences if they disobeyed - they would die (Genesis 2:16-17).

When Cain was angry and on a path to sin, God warned Cain before he killed Abel (Genesis 4:3-7).

Noah was a preacher of righteousness, so it is likely God used him to warn the world at that time (2 Peter 2:5).

Did God warn Sodom and Gomorrah?  Probably He did.  Lot was a righteous man (2 Peter 2:6-8), and the people accused him of acting as a judge over them "Then they said, 'This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge...' " (Genesis 19:9), so it is likely God had used Lot to warn them of the wrongness of their way of life.

God planned punishment against Nineveh and sent Jonah to warn them.  At first he refused to deliver the warning, but God, out of love for the people of Nineveh, was determined to get a warning to them, so He made Jonah do it, and when the people repented at the message, God spared them (Jonah 3:1-10).

In the plagues against Egypt, God often warned Pharaoh of the consequences God would bring on Egypt for Pharaoh's disobedience (Exodus chapters 8 through 10).

God warned Israel time after time of the consequences of their disobedience in Deuteronomy and many of the books of the Old Testament.  There are warnings in the New Testament including the sermon on the mount and Paul's writings.  Even near the end of the last book of the Bible, God gives a warning (Revelation 22:18-19).

God gives us, the Church, the information we need and a command to warn our people, and He even warns us of guilt and punishment upon us if we don't deliver that warning (Ezekiel 3:16-21, Ezekiel 33:1-9).

Why does God warn?  Why is warning a way of life with God?

Because He loves (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16).



The Two Witnesses Can't Do It!


I have heard it said in the Church that whatever part of preaching the warning and the gospel we do not do can be done and finished by the two witnesses.

But that is absolutely false.  What we know about the work of the two witnesses is from the book of Revelation, and the sequence of events in Revelation indicates that the two witnesses receive power to do their special work just at the start of the great tribulation, not before.

"And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth" (Revelation 11:3).  "When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified" (Revelation 11:7-8).  "Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up here.' And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!' " (Revelation 11:11-15).

Notice the timing and the sequence of events.  After the two witnesses are given power, they prophesy for 1,260 days, or three and a half years (Revelation 11:3).  This is the same amount of time as the great tribulation, two and a half years, plus the day of the Lord, one year.  Christ returns three and a half years after the beginning of the great tribulation.

Then, after they finish their testimony, they are killed (Revelation 11:7-8).

Three and a half days after they are killed they are resurrected. and immediately or shortly after, Christ returns (Revelation 11:11-15).  This shows that the three and a half years of the work of the two witnesses occurs during the same three and a half years of the great tribulation and the day of the Lord that precedes the return of Christ.

So the two witnesses are given power to do their work of testimony just at the beginning of the great tribulation.

In other words, the two witnesses can give a warning only after the tribulation has started and it is too late for anyone to escape.  

What a cruel joke to give a warning when it is too late!

No doubt the two witnesses will tell the people, you are being punished and will be punished for your sins and you need to repent.  But that is not a warning about the tribulation they are already in.  It is too late for that.  It is a warning to repent if they want to be in God's kingdom.

As far as warning about the punishment of the great tribulation is concerned, it is like the analogy of putting up flares at night for a stalled car in the road, but putting the flares one thousand feet beyond the stalled car - a driver would not see the flares before plowing into the stalled car.

It is up to the Church of God to give the people a warning while there is time to repent and escape the great tribulation and not go into it.



Our Time Is Unique


Compared with the first century, our time is unique for several reasons.

Today, money fuels the work of preaching the gospel and Ezekiel warning as never before.  Because of modern technology, we can reach millions through books, booklets, magazines, radio, TV, and the Internet, all over the world.  But all that costs money.  This was not true the same way in Paul's day, when the gospel was preached personally by apostles and evangelists who traveled to cities and spoke personally to crowds wherever they found them.

But also, for the first time, much of the first generation in the millennium is alive.  This was not true even during most of Mr. Armstrong's life, but it is true today.

Do you realize the significance of that?

We have the opportunity right now, which Paul never had and even Mr. Armstrong did not have, to teach, through our message, the first generation in the millennium!  That generation, most of it, is alive today.

The people in the millennium won't remember hearing Peter, or Paul, or Christ in person preaching, because they never heard them in person in their lifetimes.  Most won't remember the things Mr. Armstrong said up to 1986 because he died before they were born or while they were just children.

But they will remember us!

Think of it.  The people in the millennium will need to be re-educated and we have the opportunity to participate now in that re-education.  We can start teaching that first generation now.  Even the first century apostles did not have that opportunity except through the books of the Bible they wrote.  

Not only that, but it is this generation that will go through the great tribulation and thus most need a warning.  It is our job to give that warning.



We Need to Hallow and Glorify God's Name for Eternity by Showing His Fairness


The model prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) teaches us to pray that God's name be hallowed.  Many of this may pray this, but do we mean it?

God's name is His authority and His reputation.  To hallow God's name is to enhance, uphold, honor, and glorify God's reputation for righteousness.

Part of God's righteousness is His mercy and fairness (Jeremiah 3:12, Ezekiel 18:25).

We need to make the hard choices to get the message out, such as where to attend and who to support with our tithes and offerings.  And those who are ordained to the ministry, especially those employed by the Church, must make the hard decisions about who to work for and whether or not to raise up a new fellowship.  When we do that to get the the Ezekiel warning message and the true gospel out to the people who need to be warned before the tribulation starts, we glorify God's name and reputation for fairness, justice, and mercy, for all eternity.  

Think of this.  If we do this, if we make the sacrifices needed and leave our comfort zone to get that message out to hundreds of millions of people, those people will see that God was fair to warn them, through us, so they had time to listen and heed the warning and escape.  This will make it easier for them to trust God and accept responsibility for their own decisions.  That will make their own repentance easier, during the tribulation or after, and more of them may be saved because of that.

And this will enhance God's kingdom for eternity!  More Israelites may be saved, maybe millions more.  All of God's family, His whole kingdom, will praise and thank God for this forever!

That is why I said at the beginning that everything is at stake.

And God is sure to judge us on this, and if we fail to get the job done because of our lack of love, for God, for Christ, and for all Israel, or because of our cowardice, we may be in big trouble when God brings our own ways on our heads.



People Need Time to Study, Make a Decision, and Repent


People who hear our message will need time before the tribulation begins to consider our message, to study and prove the truth from the Bible, to make a decision, and to repent, then find and contact a true minister of God, be baptized, and be ready to go to a place of safety and escape punishment.  This won't happen overnight.  With some it will take longer than with others.

It is an act of love and mercy for us to get the message out in time for our readers and listeners to prove the truth, make a decision, be converted, and have a chance to escape the tribulation with the Church and go to a place of safety with us.



The "No-Atheist-in-a-Foxhole" Myth


There is a popular saying that, "there is no atheist in a foxhole".  The meaning is that when someone is in trouble and danger and fears for his life, it inevitably drives him to seek God.

Believe it or not, that is a myth, and history proves it.

Yes, sometimes trouble and danger can drive a person who is normally non-religious to seek God.

But the opposite can occur and has occurred.  During the Holocaust, when millions of Jews suffered and were killed at the hands of the Nazis, many religious Jews lost their faith in God because He didn't protect them.  They became atheists.  Not all.  Some were drawn closer to God, but some Jews who used to believe in God and felt close to God became atheists and lost their faith in God because of their experience in the concentration camps.

This is documented in the book, The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors, by Reeve Robert Brenner.  This is also confirmed in other books on the Holocaust.  If you want a more detailed discussion, see chapter 3 "The Ezekiel Warning" and chapter 4 "Why Preach the Gospel" in my online book, Preaching the Gospel, link in the blue box, upper right in this blog.

The suffering our peoples go through in the great tribulation will not automatically and necessarily drive people to repent or seek God.  If they trusted God to protect them, then in the tribulation they may feel that their trust in God was misplaced or betrayed.  They can lose what small faith they had and turn away from God altogether.  What they need is a warning message now to let them know they are not following the God of the Bible as they think they are.  The Jews never had such a warning message.

Those punished must know why.  

Suffering alone, without an explanation or reason given for the suffering, does not produce repentance.  It is the combination of a message of repentance with corrective punishment that gets results.  God will provide the great tribulation and the day of the Lord.  It is up to the Church of God to deliver God's warning message of repentance before those events happen.



God Will Test the People to See Who Lives into the Millennium


God can use our message to test the people to determine who will live into the millennium and who will die in the tribulation.

When God punishes the nations of Israel, most will die.  But not everyone.  Some will survive to live into the joyous millennium and be able to be part of the first generation of Israel living in the peace and happiness of the millennium when Christ and the saints rule and Satan is put away.  But who will that be?

God will determine who lives and who dies.  How?  He will purge out those who are rebellious.  See Ezekiel 20:33-38.  But notice especially these verses:  "I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD" (Ezekiel 20:37-38).

Israelites will no doubt be tested by God to see who the "rebels" are.  This will be done by our message and how people react when they hear it before the tribulation and their attitude and reactions even during the tribulation.

How will the people react when they hear our message?  It can vary from person to person.

Some will scorn the message and laugh at us.  Some will become angry and will hate us and want to kill us.

But some, even though not called to conversion in this age, may try to respond positively.  They may be afraid.  They may try to repent the best they can.  It would not be the true depth of repentance required for baptism, since they are not called yet (John 6:44, John 6:65).  Maybe it would be just a surface repentance motivated by fear and a desire to escape punishment.  But they can try.  They make some changes.  They stop working on the Sabbath, for example.  They make other changes.  It is hard for them, and they don't make all the changes that they need to make.  God is not calling them.  But they try.  They are not hostile to the message.

Some may say that it is not possible for someone not called to salvation in this age to react that way.

But consider the example of Nineveh in the book of Jonah.  Jonah did not want to deliver the warning but God so loved the people of Nineveh that He made Jonah deliver the warning (Jonah chapters 1 through 3.

And guess what?  The Ninevites heeded the warning!  They fasted and repented and turned from their sins.  And because they repented, God spared them.  They, by Jonah's warning and their repentance, escaped the punishment!   

Did God call them to salvation at that time?  No.  Their repentance was probably not deep enough for conversion.  But, it was sufficient to escape the punishment.  They repented perhaps as much as uncalled people could, and God honored their attitude by sparing them.

Likewise, some people in our times may try to repent when they hear our message, even though God is not calling them, and God may spare them from death and the worst of suffering and allow them to live into the millennium, not counting them as "rebels" (Ezekiel 20:37-38).

Incidentally, God mentions the population of Nineveh at over 120,000 (Jonah 4:11).  Ten tribes times 12,000 per tribe (see Revelation 7:3-8) is also 120,000.  Coincidence?  Maybe God is trying to tell us something.

For more on this point, see post in this blog, "Which Americans Will Survive the Tribulation?", dated July 24, 2012.



God Has Made the Church the Ezekiel Watchman for Our Time


Has God made the Church of God the Ezekiel watchman for Israel at this time?

Definitely, yes, and this can be proved from scripture.  There are a number of commands and instructions that make us the watchman and give us the responsibility for warning.

First, there is the general command to love God with all our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

" 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?'  Jesus said to him, ' "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind".  This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself". On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets' " (Matthew 22:36-40).

Warning the people gives them a better chance for salvation and is a great act of love for our neighbors.  It also glorifies God's name and reputation and shows His fairness in warning before punishing, and thus is an act of love towards God.

Christ in the sermon on the mount tells us to do to others as we would want them to do to us.  "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).  Would we want to be warned?  If so, we should warn others.  In fact, we have been warned.  Are we glad God let us hear the message of Mr. Armstrong and others so we could heed the message?  Are we glad to know the truth?  Then we should share it with others.

God gets more specific in Proverbs.  He directly commands us to hold back those headed for disaster.  "Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11).  The only way to "hold back" nations headed for disaster is to warn them.  God also directly commands us to tell the nations of Israel their sins.  "Cry aloud, spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet; tell My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isaiah 58:1),

God then wraps this up with these passages in Ezekiel.

"Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, "You shall surely die," and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.  Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.  Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul' " (Ezekiel 3:16-21).

"Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 'Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: "When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand." So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me.  When I say to the wicked, "O wicked man, you shall surely die!" and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.  Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: "Thus you say, 'If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?' ".  Say to them: "As I live," says the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?" ' " (Ezekiel 33:1-11).

It is the combination of the knowledge of the need, which we in the Church have, and the opportunity to fill that need, which we also have, and the knowledge that the law of God requires love towards God and neighbor, which we know, that makes us the watchman and puts on us the responsibility to do everything we can to get the warning message out to all Israel before the great tribulation begins.



Building the Church


Not only are the Ezekiel warning and the true gospel needed to warn the people while there is time for them to escape and prepare them for the great tribulation if they go through it, but the gospel message is a primary means for bringing in new people God is calling to build the Church of God with new members.

As I recall, Mr. Armstrong has said that he thought the Bible is primarily for the Philadelphia era, by which I think he meant our modern times.  The lessons of the Bible, even from the Old Testament, are written for us.  "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Romans 15:4).

There is a passage in Haggai that applies to our time.

In this passage, God rebukes the Jews that had returned after the captivity for being more concerned about building their own houses than about the house of God.  Notice:

"Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying:  'This people says, "The time has not come, the time that the LORD's house should be built." '  Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 'Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?'  Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.'  Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,' says the LORD. 'You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?' says the LORD of hosts. 'Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands' " (Haggai 1:2-11).

Notice that God tells the people to go up into the mountains to get wood to build His temple.  Today, the Church of God is the spiritual temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Ephesians 2:19-22).  We are God's temple.  His Holy Spirit dwells in the Church of God (Romans 8:9-11).  We are to build that temple.  Those in the Church who say this is not the time to preach the gospel like to focus on our need to build character in ourselves and make ourselves ready.  Of course we should do that, and that is one of the ways we build God's temple - by each of us drawing closer to God in prayer, Bible study, fasting, and meditation, and by obeying God's law, especially the two great commandments to love God with all our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

But this does not mean we should neglect preaching the gospel to bring in new members.

"And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Amen" (Matthew 28:18-20).

In Haggai, the temple can represent the Church today.  The Church has long taught that in Bible prophecy mountains represent nations.  Going to the mountains to get wood to build the temple can represent preaching the gospel to the nations to bring in new members God will call into the Church to build the Church of God, which is the spiritual temple of God today.

When God says in Haggai that His temple lies in ruins, this can represent the spiritual condition of the Church of God today in the Laodicean era.  The Church of God, in a sense, lies in spiritual ruins.  We are divided with division more stern and bitter than any division in Protestant denominations.  They show more love for each other than we do.  We are divided into hostile, competing fellowships that will have little to do with each other.  We are also almost totally powerless in preaching the gospel and Ezekiel warning - no group reaches more than a tiny fraction of the population that needs our message.

We need to build our personal character and preach the gospel to the world at the same time.



Connection between Getting Our Message Out and Pentecost


I have said this before, but Pentecost is not only a memorial of the giving of the Holy Spirit and the start of the New Testament Church, it is also a memorial of the preaching of the gospel by the Church.  For immediately after the giving of the Holy Spirit, Peter spoke to the crowds and preached the gospel.

"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:1-4).  "But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words' " (Acts 2:14).  "Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.' And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, 'Be saved from this perverse generation.' Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them" (Acts 2:38-41).

As a result, three thousand were converted and added to the Church that very day.

This is a connection between the existence of the Church, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of the gospel.  

It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes one a member of God's Church, the Church of God.  And one of the reasons for the gift of God's Holy Spirit is to give power to the Church for the preaching of the gospel.  God gives us His Holy Spirit to empower us to do His work.

"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

We stir up God's Spirit by using it, and the more we use it, the more of God's Spirit He will give us.

"Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

One of the ways we can stir up and use God's Spirit is to do God's work of preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the nations of Israel.  Our motivation should be love for God, His name, and His reputation and love for our neighbors to give them the warning they need and the encouragement of the gospel.  Our actions can include praying for the work of the Church, contributing our tithes and offerings, contributing our work, our service, and our time when possible, and by making the decision to support and attend, when possible, a Church of God fellowship that is doing everything it can to get the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning to our nations.  A fellowship does that by having zeal to preach the message, often devoting about half of its budget to that purpose.  It does it by practicing the biblical principle of top-down governance so they are following Christ instead of following the voting of men.  A fellowship also does this by letting God teach them new knowledge from the Bible and by teaching the brethren to believe the Bible more than the Church while not criticizing the ministry.

Pentecost teaches us that God gave the Church His Holy Spirit not only for our own conversion but for doing God's work.

Let's do God's work.



Is Matthew 24:14 a Command to Preach the Gospel?


The Church has long quoted Matthew 24:14 to indicate that the gospel should be preached and will be preached in these last times at the end of the age.

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).

But is this a command to preach the gospel?  One minister said, no.  He said that it is not a command but only a prophecy.  His implication seemed to be, since it is not phrased as a direct command, we don't have to do it.

In form, it is a prophecy, a prediction, not a command.  But in effect and intent it is equal to a command from God to preach the gospel.  Why?

Christ set the example.  He did His Father's will.  He knew it was the Father's will that prophecy be fulfilled and that scripture not be broken.  When He saw that something was prophesied to happen, something He could affect directly in His human life at that time, He did not sit on His hands and wait for God to, "work it out".  He did His part.  He not only knew, in faith, that prophecy would be fulfilled.  He took action.  He did what He could to make prophecy come true.  Notice these examples.

"All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: 'I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world' " (Matthew 13:34-35).

Notice, Jesus took active steps to make scripture be fulfilled.  He did not just passively wait for the Father to work it out somehow and watch and see how His Father did it.  When prophecy showed what the Father willed, Jesus did whatever He could to help make it happen,

"But Jesus said to him, 'Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?' " (Matthew 26:52-54).

What was the reason Christ gave for not resisting those arresting Him?  He wanted to help make scripture be fulfilled.

You can find other examples if you search the gospel accounts for the word, "fulfilled", of Jesus taking certain actions to help fulfill prophecy.

Likewise, Matthew 24:14 is showing us that it is God's will that the gospel be preached to all nations as a witness, and knowing that it is God's will, and knowing that it is God's will that scripture not be broken (John 10:35), we should do what we can to help bring it about.  We should do our part.  We should preach the gospel as the passage indicates.

This passage, of course is not the only or even the primary command for preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning, but it reinforces all other commands to preach the gospel.



The Example of Jesus Christ


Jesus Christ set an example for us to follow in how He lived His life.  He not only taught us God's way of life in words, He lived it, and we can see what that looks like and learn from His example.

"You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him" (John 13:13-16).

"A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40).

What example did Christ set about doing God's work and preaching the gospel?

Christ was intensely zealous for the work of God and the gospel, to the extent that doing God's work was like food to Him.  "Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, "There are still four months and then comes the harvest"? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors' " (John 4:34-38).

Christ had love and compassion for the people, and He expressed that compassion by teaching them.  "And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34).



There Are Spiritual Rewards for Turning Others from Sin by Preaching the Gospel


God promises spiritual rewards for those who preach the gospel and turn others from sin to righteousness.

"Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins" (James 5:19-20).  The context of this quote seems to be about those in the Church who wander into sin, but the basic principles can apply to the world also - God is pleased with someone who turns someone away from sin whether the sinner is in the Church or not.

"In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; and by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil" (Proverbs 16:6).

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!' " (Isaiah 52:7).

"All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear!  Who among them has declared these things?  The LORD loves him; he shall do His pleasure on Babylon, and His arm shall be against the Chaldeans" (Isaiah 48:14).

"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:3).



We Overcome Satan by Preaching the Gospel


One of the ways we overcome Satan is by preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning.

Notice this passage in Revelation, which applies to our time today and shortly ahead.

"So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.  Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death" (Revelation 12:9-11).

The part the "blood of the Lamb" plays in overcoming Satan is well known in the Church.  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sins enables us to be forgiven and saved.  Jesus Christ paid the death penalty for our sins in our place so we can be forgiven and reconciled to God the Father by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Christ Himself overcame Satan in His human life on earth, and because He overcame Satan, He empowers us to do the same.

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in [or of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

But the second part of the quote from Revelation refers to the "word of their testimony".  The context indicates testifying of the truth when threatened with martyrdom, "they did not love their lives to the death" (Revelation 12:11).  

But, "the word of their testimony" can include preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning right now and as long as we can.  We sacrifice right now, not by being martyred, but by giving up our time, our money, and our comfort zone to get God's message to those who need it.

That is a way we can overcome Satan by the word of our testimony.

Just a thought, but what if God requires all of us to overcome Satan by the word of our testimony, one way or another, by preaching the gospel now and then going to a place of safety or by going through the tribulation and giving verbal testimony of the truth to persecuting authories who then martyr us for standing for the truth?



Only those with an Open Door for Preaching the Gospel Will Go to a Place of Safety


An open door for getting the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning out to all Israel before the great tribulation starts, so everyone has time to repent, is an open door to the place of safety.  With one you have the other.  But without one you have no reason to expect the other.  And if you don't walk through the open door to preach the gospel, you will not likely be able to walk through a door to go to a place of safety.  They go together.  Miss one and you miss the other.

That is because the promise of protection and the promise of an open door for doing the work are given to the same group in the same message, Christ's message to Philadelphia.

Here is the full message from Christ to Philadelphia.

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, 'These things says He who is holy, He who is true, "He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens": 'I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie - indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you. Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.  Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches' " (Revelation 3:7-13).



If We Withhold Mercy from those We Should Warn, God May Withhold Mercy from Us


One of the foundational principles of God's justice and how He deals with us is the principle of giving to us as we give to others, or in other words, what we sow we shall reap.  God will bring our ways on our own heads, for good or for bad.  

If we mistreat others, God will punish us.  If we turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to the needs of others, God will not hear our prayers when we are in trouble.  God will see what we do, and remember.

But if we show mercy to others, God will show mercy to us.

This is illustrated by many passages in the Bible.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

"Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; For You render to each one according to his work" (Psalm 62:12).

"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works" (Matthew 16:27).

"The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works" (Revelation 20:13).

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work" (Revelation 22:12).

"Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'  Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?  Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'  And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'  Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'  Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?'  Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'  And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:34-46).

"For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).

"In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; And by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil" (Proverbs 16:6).

We also have the direct command, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39).

Getting the true gospel and God's warning message about the coming punishment of the great tribulation to the people who need to hear that message is a work of mercy and love.  It will demonstrate God's love and fairness to warn them while there is time to repent and escape.  It will help them to trust in God's righteousness, a necessary condition for the faith that is required for conversion.  It will help them accept responsibility for their own sins, which helps them to repent, another condition for conversion.  Thus, it will increase their chances for salvation and escape from the ultimate punishment, the lake of fire.

Christ had compassion on the crowds.  How did He express that compassion?   He taught them.  "And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34).  God showed mercy to Nineveh by giving them a warning.

It won't be easy.  To get that message out will require sacrifice - sacrifice of time, money, obedience, and leaving our comfort zones.  It will be one of the greatest acts of love we can do.  Look at the example of Paul and the suffering he endured to preach the gospel.  But he had to do it (1 Corinthians 9:17), and we also have to do it.

We have to go all out!

Besides the principle of reaping what we sow, we have direct commands from God to take action.  Some of the following I have quoted, but I quote again for emphasis.

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39).

"Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11).

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.  Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.  Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul" (Ezekiel 3:17-21).

"Cry aloud, spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet; tell My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isaiah 58:1).

There are also promised rewards for showing mercy to people by preaching the truth.

"Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins" (James 5:19-20).

"With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless" (2 Samuel 22:26).  This is repeated in Psalm 18:25.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!' " (Isaiah 52:7).

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, 'These things says He who is holy, He who is true, "He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens": I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name....Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth' " (Revelation 3:7-10).

But if we fail to be merciful by making every possible effort to get the warning message out, then what happens?

The principle of reaping what we sow goes into effect.

We can lose God's mercy.  We can lose our opportunity to go to a place of safety.  Ultimately, we can lose our salvation.

Especially, we can lose the knowledge God has given us.

We only know what we know because God has called us, each of us maybe only one out of about 100,000 people on earth, and opened our minds to know the truth.  But God has done this for a purpose.  He wants us to share the knowledge He has given us with the world, giving the world a warning.  He didn't give us this knowledge for nothing.  We have a job to do, and the knowledge is given to us so we can give it to others and not so we can use what we know for ourselves and just sit on it and do nothing for others.

We know what we know not only because God has revealed it to us but because God has done it through the sacrifices of others.  Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, Loma Armstrong, and many early members and radio listeners in the Worldwide Church of God sacrificed to bring this knowledge to us, and we have it now because of the sacrifice they made then.  In so doing, they set an example for us to follow.  We should sacrifice for others as they sacrificed for us.

If we refuse to use the knowledge God has given us He intends, He can take it from us, temporarily or permanently.  Instead of a reward we will receive punishment.



A Great Sin in the Churches of God


The Church of God is scattered.  We have little power.  We are in the Laodicean era.  Christ says He spits us out of His mouth.

"And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, 'These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.  So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked - I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" ' " (Revelation 3:14-22).

We need to repent, but to do that we have to know what our sins are and what we need to repent of.

It should not be surprising if one of our greatest sins is a lack of love, love for God and love for the people of our nations.  This is evidenced by our failure or refusal to get the message of the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the hundreds of millions of people who need it.  This also shows a lack of love towards God and His name because we don't uphold and support His name and reputation for love, fairness, and righteousness by getting His warning message out.

Sin is the transgression of the law, as it is worded in the King James Version of the Bible, or lawlessness as it is worded in the New King James Version (1 John 3:4).  God's law is a law of love.  "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10).  We are specifically commanded to love God and love our neighbors (Matthew 22:36-40).  

One of the greatest violations of the law of love we can commit is to be complacent about the massive death and intense suffering our people will go through and let them go into that without a warning.

For more on the subject of this being a great sin, see post in this blog, "What Is the Church of God's Greatest Sin?", published February 27, 2014.



Your Salvation and Mine May Be at Stake


Our very salvation can be at stake.  We have to do our part to save others, to show mercy, to get the warning message out to as many people as possible.

God warns us that if we do not warn the nations, God will require their blood at our hands (Ezekiel 3:16-21, Ezekiel 33:1-11).

That means God may count us as murderers.  Blood guilt will be upon us.  Unrepentant murderers will not be in the kingdom (1 John 3:14-15).

God can forgive us if we repent, but that repentance may not be available until we are in the tribulation - and then greater sacrifices may be required, including martyrdom.  

If we endanger the salvation of millions of people by not warning them, God would be just to deny us entrance into His kingdom.  If we are not merciful to others, God may not be merciful to us.  

See also Christ's teaching about the sheep and the goats.  When we are unmerciful to others we are being unmerciful to Christ, and we cannot expect Christ to show us mercy in judgment.



Is It Enough to Just Preach the Gospel by Our Example?


Some leaders, ministers, and fellowships seem to teach that we only need to preach the gospel by our example.  They focus on setting a good example with such emphasis that they minimize the role of public proclamation in preaching the gospel.  In effect, they say that we don't need to preach the gospel by publishing and broadcasting - it is our example that counts.

Is that true?  

Setting a good example is something we should all do.  "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).  But common sense indicates it will not be sufficient.

If someone says we should preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning just by our example, try asking them, "How are you going to reach 500 million people with your example?"

There are two ways our example is important.  One, it is a major way new people are brought into the Church, in addition to public proclamation.  Two, by setting a good example, by living what we preach, we are pleasing God so He can bless our publishing and broadcasting efforts to preach the gospel.  In other words, God will give us success if we practice what we preach.

And it is worth noting that preaching the gospel to the world is part of the good example we should be setting.  For if, as a Church, we refuse to make the sacrifices to preach the gospel and warn the world, what kind of example does that set for the world?  If they see us working hard and making sacrifices to get a message to them, that may be evidence of our sincerity and our zeal for them, and that may add to the credibility of our message.  But if we only preach the truth to ourselves and ignore outsiders, does that not make us look selfish and self-centered?  And later, when everyone knows the truth, what will our example look like when people know that we knew the truth and tried to benefit from it for ourselves but did not share it with others?

Making the sacrifices to publish and broadcast a message the world needs sets an example for the world of the love and outgoing concern we should all have for each other.



Should We Refrain from Preaching the Gospel Because We Have a Beam in Our Eye?


Some may say we should not preach the gospel and Ezekiel warning, telling people their sins as God commands (Isaiah 58:1), trying to remove the speck from someone else's eye when we have a beam in our own eye.  We should first, as a Church, get rid of the beam in our own eye so we can see clearly to remove the speck from someone else's eye.  So, since we have faults as a Church, we should concentrate on repenting for a time before correcting those outside the Church by preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning.  So the gospel is not preached.

Here is the passage they may use to support their argument.

"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matthew 7:3-5).

Of course, the time never comes when these people think the Church has removed the beam from its eye and can preach the gospel again.  One of the faults these people find in the Church is that we are divided into competing fellowships, and some of them say we should unify before we preach to the world.  Never mind the truth that there will never be unity between Laodicea and Philadelphia before Christ returns.

So they never preach the gospel.

So what about their argument?  Should we not preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the public and tell our people their sins because we ourselves have sins and are not perfect?  

That is not our decision.  God has already made that decision for us.  We only need to obey Him.

God commands us to preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the nations.  He specifically commands us to tell the people their sins.

"Cry aloud, spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet; tell My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isaiah 58:1).

A message telling the nations their faults from the Bible is not our message - it is God's message.  We are telling the people what God says.  It is God who is helping the people get the sins out of their lives, and God sees clearly to be able to do this because He has no beam in His eye.

We are only the messenger, the delivery person, who delivers a message from God.  And God commands us to deliver His message!  And like the mailman delivering a letter, it is our job to deliver that message.

It has nothing to do with our faults individually or as a Church.  

In fact, if we fail to deliver God's message as He commands, we only add to our sins by disobeying God.

Paul had faults.  He confessed to having carnal human nature.  "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:14-25).  But he also said, "woe is me if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16).

When we preach a message of repentance, we are not judging people individually.  We are telling them what God says, teaching them His law and way of life, and letting people know what God says He is going to do.  It is up to each person who hears our message to judge himself or herself to see how it applies and what changes to make.

I said before that preaching the gospel to the nations has nothing to do with our faults individually or as a Church.  But I meant that in reference to our obligation to do what God says and preach the message.  But as far as our effectiveness and success in doing it is concerned, there is a big connection.  The more we put sins out of our lives and the more we live according to God's law as we teach others to do and the more our ways please God, the more God can bless us with success because we are practicing what we preach.



What Good Does It Do to Preach the Gospel If We Do Not Live It?


What good does it do for you to preach the gospel if you do not live it?

If you do not live the gospel, if you do not obey God and practice what you preach to others, you may not be able to preach it effectively if God closes the door because you are not living it.  But we should try.  My question presupposes that God, in making the judgment, allows you to do it, to some extent anyway.  But the answer to the question depends on the question, good for you or good for the people you preach to?

If you don't live the gospel, if you don't live up to the standards you preach about, it may do you no good to preach it, but it still helps others.  Can that happen?  Yes.

Jonah, who had a serious attitude problem towards God and other people, didn't want to warn Nineveh, but God loved Nineveh and made Jonah do it.  Judas, who betrayed Jesus and was a thief, preached to the crowds, healed, cast out demons, probably baptized, and did the work of an apostle, but was rejected.  How do we know Judas did these things?  He was sent out with the other apostles two by two (Mark 6:7).  It would have been noticed if he did not do the same work of an apostle with the same effectiveness as the other apostles.  Yet, they did not know who Christ was talking about when He said He would be betrayed (Matthew 26:21-25).  

Paul said, if he had faith and did good deeds but had not love it profited him nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).  But notice, he said it profited him nothing.  He did not say it profited those he served nothing.  For example, he said if he gave all his goods to feed the poor but had not love, it would profit him nothing.  But it would profit those he fed, wouldn't it?  

In fact, in another passage, Paul rejoiced when those who did not have their hearts right preached Christ because, whether the preachers were sincere or not, Christ was preached (Philippians 1:15-18).

Jesus said that in the judgment some will say, have we not done good works in Your name, and he will say, depart from Me you who practice sin.  So those sinners did some kind of work, and it may well have done a little good (Matthew 7:21-23).

Paul said, though he preached to others, he could become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning can be good for those who hear us, even though we ourselves have spiritual problems and aren't fully living up to the standards we set for others.  God can still use our message to some degree.  So if we love our neighbors, we will be glad to help them as much as we can.  But we should try to practice what we preach.  The more we live the gospel, the more God can bless our efforts and make them effective.

But if we are not living up to God's standard, if we are not practicing what we preach, preaching to the world may not do any good for us personally, though it does help others to some degree.

Each one of us will reap what we sow in God's judgment (Galatians 6:7).



It Matters What We Do


One of the principles of God's way of life is that we trust God's infinite power and love and have faith that God will work things out.

We know that God can do anything.

"But He said, 'The things which are impossible with men are possible with God' " (Luke 18:27).

"But Jesus looked at them and said, 'With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible' " (Mark 10:27).

"For with God nothing will be impossible" (Luke 1:37).

"Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son" (Genesis 18:14).

"Then Job answered the LORD and said: 'I know that You can do everything and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You" (Job 42:1-2).

We also know that God is wise, loving, and merciful.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

But some members of the Church in their thinking take these points beyond their intent to think that it doesn't matter what we do because God will work things out.  No matter what mistakes we make, no matter what sin we commit, God will work everything out.

In reference to preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning, such thinking can develop into thinking that we don't have to make the hard decisions or do the hard things because God, in His infinite wisdom and power, will work it out somehow.  Somehow, in ways we do not yet understand, God will get the gospel message out in a time of His choosing, and we only need to wait on God and trust that He will do it His way and in His time.

Such thinking may seem like godly faith, but it is not how God wants us to think.  Yes, all things are possible for God and He can work things out, but God also wants us to do our part to obey Him, including making hard choices and decisions and following through and doing what we are able to do to fulfill His will.

One minister, as I recall, said something like, we have to wait for God to deliver us from our trials and not try to deliver ourselves, being creative.

What?  We are not supposed to do our part to solve our problems and do God's will?  Loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength does not include using our minds, creative talents, resourcefulness, imagination, and physical energy and opportunities He gave us?  That's crazy.

God expects us to use all the abilities and opportunities He gives us to solve our problems, to obey His commands, and to do His will, to love Him, to glorify His name, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We should not use our creative powers and imagination and inventiveness to disobey God, but we should use them and every mental and physical ability God has given us to obey Him and do His will.  He gave us our minds so we can use them in His service.  He made us to be active and not just always passive.

Mr. Armstrong wrote a chapter in his book, The Seven Laws of Success, on resourcefulness.  When we are blocked in what we are tying to do, we need to use resourcefulness to find a way.  And if you read Mr. Armstrong's autobiography, you will find many examples of Mr. Armstrong using creativity, imagination, and resourcefulness to solve a problem or get a job done.

Our actions and our choices have consequences.  It is not all up to God.  We have our part.  God doesn't always make it easy.  He does what we cannot do, but He doesn't always do our part to make it easy for us.

It is not right to think, we don't have to make hard choices and do hard things to preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning because God will work it out His way.  Giving us the job, the work, the role, and the test of doing the hard work and making the hard choices to get the gospel out IS God's way.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Samson had the idea to push on the pillars of the Philistine temple and bring it down.  God didn't tell him to do it.  God may have planted the idea in his mind, but from Samson's point of view, it was apparently his initiative.  It was his idea.  He was practicing one of the seven laws of success, resourcefulness.  And he did it knowing he needed God's help and hoping in God and trusting in God to give him the strength.  And then, when he pushed, he pushed with all his might.  The word "all" may be in italics in the KJV or NKJV, indicating it was added by the translators, but it fits (Judges 16:25-30).  He used all the strength he had.  He didn't just say, well God has to do it anyway, I will just push a little bit, no need to strain myself - God will work it out.  He did his part.

Jesus Christ, in the agony in the garden, did not say, all things are possible for God, He can work this out some other way, I don't have to go through with this.  He acknowledged that all things are possible for God, but also it was God's will that Jesus do His part, the hard thing (Mark 14:36).

God even gives us a principle that we should plan ahead to anticipate consequences and take action to bring a desired result.

"A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished" (Proverbs 22:3, also see Proverbs 27:12).

Think about other aspects of our lives.  What about child rearing?  Do we say, it doesn't matter how I raise my children, God will work it out?  Don't we do everything we can to raise our children the right way and teach them God's way of life?

What about finding a job?  If you are unemployed, do you say, I don't need to look for work, all things work for good so God will work it out and bring a job to me, I'll just sit at home and read my Bible?  No.  We actively look for work, even being resourceful and creative, sometimes by changing occupations, moving to a different area, networking with people we have not talked to for a long time, or starting a business.

So if we don't say, God will work it out, and then sit on our hands and do nothing regarding child rearing or supporting a family, why think that way regarding preaching the gospel?  If a certain approach just isn't working, we should try something else, and if we have to repent of something before God will bless us, we need to repent promptly and then move forward.

If a sin or wrong way of thinking is blocking us from God's blessings upon our efforts to preach the gospel, we need to get rid of the sin - cast it far from us - and get busy preaching the gospel with power.  This includes the sin of idolatry in believing the Church more than God's word, the Bible.

God even tells us to sometimes try different opportunities, not knowing which will work out.  "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good" (Ecclesiastes 11:6).

God wants us to use initiative.

What we do matters.  The choices we make have consequences, good or bad, for ourselves and those around us.  That is a lesson and truth God wants us to learn.

We cannot say, don't worry about the gospel, God will work it out.  God has already commanded us, in the Bible, to do the job.  We should just do it.

In regards to the gospel, it matters where we attend and who we support financially.  We should seek a fellowship to tithe to that has zeal for preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning, has top-down governance as the Bible instructs (being led by Christ from the top down rather than being led by the voting or balloting of men), and teaches the brethren to believe the Bible more than the Church and is willing to learn new knowledge and correct past errors in doctrine, according to the Bible.  All these are no doubt necessary for God to bless that fellowship with a wide-open door for preaching the gospel.

Some stay in a passive, weak fellowship that is not doing God's work because they say, "God put me here so I will stay here".

God may indeed have put you where you are, but that does not mean He now wants you to stay there.  God can move you to a different fellowship through His commands and instruction in the Bible, if you are willing to obey.

Many people in the Church of God have had to move from one fellowship to another to be faithful to God.  Many of us have been raised in false churches, and when God called us and opened our minds to the truth, He brought us out of our traditional church and into the Church of God.  Then, if the fellowship we attended proved unfaithful, either because it went through changes or because our understanding grew and we realized it was not faithful, we may have had to move to a different fellowship.

In my example, I was raised Catholic.  After God called me, I left the Catholic Church and came into the Worldwide Church of God.  After Mr. Armstrong died, Worldwide turned away from the truth of the Bible and I had to find a new fellowship.  I did not say, regarding Worldwide, God put me here so I will stay here.  I attended United Church of God for a while, then when I understood God's truth and my opportunities better, I went to Global Church of God.    

God can lead us to go where He wants us to go, but we have our part to play in making right choices to follow where God leads.  And God can move us from place to place as time and circumstances require.

For further reading on this subject, see post, "Do Our Choices Really Affect the Preaching of the Gospel?", this blog, dated May 16, 2014.  Also see post, "Does It Matter Which Fellowship We Attend and Support?", dated March 31, 2013.



"You Will Not Have Gone through the Cities of Israel before the Son of Man Comes" (Matthew 10:23)


Some people read the statement of Christ, "You will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes" (Matthew 10:23) and think this is referring to the gospel not being preached to all the cities.  But that is not the context, and Christ is not talking about preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning.  The context is fleeing persecution.  Notice, here is the whole verse.  "When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes" (Matthew 10:23).  In other words, we do not have to worry about places to flee to because, as we move from city to city to escape persecution, we will not run out of cities to flee to before the Son of Man comes.  This no doubt refers to a period before we go to a place of safety.

This does not say we will not preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to all the cities of Israel before the great tribulation begins.



Is this the Time to Preach the Gospel, or Should the Church Just Make Herself Ready?


One of Satan's lies to the Church of God is that this is not the time to preach the gospel and that the Church should concentrate only on making herself ready.  In other words, build godly character without doing the work.  And some in the Church of God, sometimes even whole fellowships, seem to believe this lie.

We are commanded to preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to Israel, and we are not going to build character and make ourselves ready by disobeying God.

God's way of life is the way of love, and love towards our neighbors is an outgoing concern for their happiness and welfare.  It is outgoing, towards others and away from self.

Getting ourselves ready, but without helping others, is inward.

Preaching the gospel, from a motive of love, is outgoing.

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it" (Mark 8:35).

To think we can make ourselves ready by focusing inwardly is a contradiction.  We become ready as we practice an outward, love-based way of life.  Doing the work of God and obeying His commands to preach the gospel and warn the wicked is how we become ready.

We must show mercy to the people by warning them, and learning the way of mercy is how we make ourselves ready.

"In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; and by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil" (Proverbs 16:6).

"For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).



How Preaching the Gospel Shows the Fruits of the Spirit


When we examine ourselves, in preparation for Passover or at other times, we may compare ourselves and our spiritual condition with the fruits of the Spirit and the works of the flesh described by Paul in Galatians 5:19-25.  It may be useful to see how those attributes line up with preaching the gospel and the Ezekiel warning to the nations.

Here is the passage.

"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:19-25).

The works of the flesh are things we need to overcome and put out of our lives.  They can affect our efforts to preach the gospel because if we are not obeying God, He may not hear our prayers for the gospel, and if we are not practicing what we preach to the public, God cannot bless us with the strong help He wants to give us.  Preaching the gospel can be a powerful motive for us to make the effort to overcome these things.

One work of the flesh, idolatry, can be particularly destructive to preaching the gospel.  Idolatry is putting anything before God, giving the idol more importance to us than God.  If a whole fellowship makes an idol out of Mr. Armstrong, saying we will believe what he wrote more than we believe God in the Bible, we are setting a terrible example for the world and we are not practicing what we preach.  When we preach the gospel we must tell the people to believe the Bible more than their religious leaders and traditions, but if we do not do that ourselves yet tell others to do so, how can God bless such hypocrisy?  The same thing applies to a fellowship that puts the teachings and interpretations of their ministers above the Bible, teaching members to believe the ministry and their interpretation of the Bible more than what they see in the Bible themselves.  That is idolatry, one of the works of the flesh.  It can disqualify us from God's blessing and help in preaching the gospel.

There is another work of the flesh that is involved if we do not preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning.  That message tells people that they have to repent.  If we fail to deliver it, God will requore the blood of the people at our hands (Ezekiel 3:16-21).  In other words, God may count us as murderers.  Murder is one of the works ot the flesh.  We can become guilty of that by failing to give warning to the people as God commands.

There are others works of the flesh that sometimes can hinder the preaching of the gospel in a particular way.  Hatred, contentions, jealousies, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, and envy can be sources of division that separate whole groups of people from a fellowship that is effectively preaching the gospel, diminishing that fellowship's ability to get the warning message out by diminishing their income and taking away the tithes and offerings contributed by members to leave because of division.

Now let's look at the fruits of the Spirit.

The first one mentioned is love, and love is the primary motivator for preaching the true gospel and the Ezekiel warning to our people.  Both love for God and love for our neighbors should motivate us to glorify God's name and get His warning message out to those who need it.  And along with love, we are practicing kindness when we try to get a warning message out to those who need it.

Faithfulness is important because when we preach the gospel and the Ezekiel warning we are being faithful to God's word which commands us to do so.

Goodness, faithfulness, and self-control all are fruits of the Spirit that help us live according to the way of life that we preach to the world so that we are practicing what we preach and God can bless us.



"Where Were You?"


In the millennium, when people are faced with why they had to go through the tribulation without being warned that Sunday and Christmas and Easter and many of their traditions and doctrines were wrong, they may look you in the eye and say, "Where were you?  Where were you when I needed a warning?"  What will you say?  "I was at summer camp and I was on an adventure hike"?

Considering the severity and the magnitude of the disaster that is coming on millions unless they repent - 90% or more dying, the rest suffering in captivity, hunger so bad parents will eat their own children - how can you justify yourself, to God and to the people of Israel, if you fail to do all that you can do to get the warning message out to everyone before the great tribulation starts and it is too late for the people to escape?

Maybe God has the answer.  You won't have to answer the people's question because you won't be there.