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.