In Matthew 16:18, Jesus Christ says " I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
He started one Church, one Body, NOT A MULTITUDE OF CHURCHES, arguing and bickering with each other.
No where in the Bible can you find Jesus Christ sanctioning MULTIPLE CHURCHES, MULTIPLE BODIES. There were multiple congregations, separated by land, united however by God's Holy Spirit and God's Truth.
Jesus prayed to the Father, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me."(John 17:6-8)
Here were men given to Jesus Christ from God the Father, and Jesus faithfully giving to them everything the Father had given to Him. They believed that God the Father did send Jesus Christ!
Now Jesus said they were doing God's Work!
Now when Jesus had performed the miracle of loaves and fish, he left.
"When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled."(John 24-26)
Notice what Jesus Christ says next! "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed."
So now we are talking about WORKING.
Notice their reply! "Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?"(verse 28) They had the belief that there were MANY WORKS of God, many ways to receive spiritual meat from God!
NOW GET THIS STRAIGHT! Jesus Christ defines the Work of God! This is no interpretation of mine. It's from Jesus Christ. " Jesus answered and said unto them, This is THE WORK of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."
When Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, He said the disciples BELIEVED THE ONE SENT BY GOD! They were doing the work of God. They received the spiritual meat from the father through the one sent.
"I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."(John 17:14-18)
They were the apostles of Jesus Christ, given unto Jesus Christ by the Father, then sent out into the world by Jesus Christ.
So when the apostles were sent out, those who believed them, and believed the gospel they preached, repented and was baptized into the body of Jesus Christ! That is how members were added to the Church Jesus started! They preached the exact same thing Jesus Christ preached!
John 6:65 "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
Romans 10:13-18 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."
"He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me."(Luke 10:16)
"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. THEY WENT OUT FROM US, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."(1 John 2:18-19)
So a heretic is someone who has the spirit of antichrist. They deny what the true apostle has taught, and will tell you that he was wrong! They can be seen with God's people, and ministry, creeping around and yet not being a true believer! Their ideas oppose the true apostle, and whenever they get the chance, they propagate their ideas. Eventually they will be found out and made manifest they were not a member or minister of the true Church after all.
"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. "(1 John 2:22)
And you deny the Son and Father by denying the apostle they sent! That has been made clear.
"And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."(! John 4:3)
Psalms 111:10 tells us "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever."
When they oppose what the apostle has said or taught with "he didn't understand", or "he had a bad understanding", or "he was wrong", they are coming as a FALSE WITNESS, and saying Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong didn't have God's Holy Spirit by way of commandment breaking, and therefore Jesus Christ didn't work in the flesh of Herbert W. Armstrong through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God! This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!
"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist."(2 John 1:7)
"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities."(Jude 1:1-8)
In Matthew 10, Luke 9 and Luke 10, we find Jesus Christ saying such deceivers are worse off than Sodom and Gomorrah for rejecting the apostle of the Lord and what he preached and taught.
"Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee."(verse 9)
This is why the WITNESS of what Christ's apostle taught and what the Worldwide Church of God believed, is being brought forth as a warning.
"But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves."(verse 10)
Jeremiah 27:6 says the beasts of the field, are given to SERVE civil Babylon which is by a great religious system. "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him."
Getting too close to this world, and serving this world over Jesus Christ is what led these men to start new churches with the state as a 501(c)(3) entity.
"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core."(verse 11)
The false prophet Balaam wanted to be PAID! He also sent women to tempt the children of Israel, much like how churches are being set up to tempt the membership of the Church today, and that is a heresy!
"These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever."(verse 12-13)
A cloud provides "shade" when persecution heats up, but if it has no rain it cannot water what the apostle of Christ has planted. So we have people offering shade like the evil fig tree Jesus rebuked, and once people come to find refuge under it's shade it withers and dies. They start their own churches, and they have their own "feasts", but the only thing good is coming to them, but they leave the people worse off than before, for they receive no spiritual meat which comes through the apostles of the Lord.
"These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage."(verse 16)
"But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit."(verses 17-19)
THAT IS OUR INSTRUCTIONS FROM CHRIST!
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."(verse 1)
"And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:"(Galatians 2:4)
"A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." (Proverbs 6:19)
"And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of."(verse 2)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary says "pernicious" implies irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting.
One modern example, is when men who were heretics were put out of the Church(Garner Ted Armstrong is one example), have their pernicious work rerouted back into the teaching of the Church. The idea behind putting them out of the body of Christ, was to stop them from corrupting the Body of Christ! Some have felt, that there is no problem putting GTA right back into circulation, saying what had been done through him WAS NOT INSIDIOUS CORRUPTION!
"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:" (verses 3-7)
We now go back to what Christ talks about in Matthew 10, Luke 9, Luke 10, and in Jude and what is said about those who REJECT the true apostle of Jesus Christ!
"(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and DESPISE GOVERNMENT. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities." (verses 8-10)
Now we see an opposing attitude to God, Jesus Christ, His apostles and the Church! They are those who actually try to "transform" the Church into a NEW CHURCH!
"Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: WHICH HAVE FORSAKEN THE RIGHT WAY, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;" (verses 11-15)
To forsake the right way you first have to KNOW IT. It is a deliberate turning away from the truth.
"But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" (verses 16-19)
NEW CHURCHES offer liberty brethren, they offer fellowship, they offer a paycheck(i speak to the ministers), they offer activities, and they offer shelter, but these new churches being a thing of HERESY is a servant of Babylon. You can know this by the 501(c)(3) certification they have. They actually had to go through a 1023 certification process, in order to gain "Church" status by the state! So they had to go through a five year period to prove to the state they were acting as a church! They say Herbert W. Armstrong did the same thing, this is a false witness and a lie.
"For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." (verses 20-22)
GOD CALLS A HERETIC someone who opposes Him, and if you oppose the man He sends, you oppose Him! So if you bring some different doctrine, it only serves to undermine and subvert and corrupt what Christ has taught through His apostle Herbert W. Armstrong. This is how we know what heresy is. Heresy is anything that is contrary to the Word of God, and anything that opposes the true apostles of Jesus Christ!
"This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (verses 1-9)
Here is an article written by Herbert W. Armstrong, in the December 04, 1978 issue of the Good News Magazine:
HOW MANY CHURCHES does God have at one and the same time?
The dissidents following A MAN, Garner Ted Armstrong, are now speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They KNOW that God condemns leaving God's Church and following a MAN. So, in an effort to take members away from God's Church, actually THREE false claims are being spread.
1) They are spreading the LIE that Garner Ted Armstrong is only doing the same thing his father did — FALSELY claiming I left the "Sardis" church to pull away their members and so start a church of my own. The long article recently appearing, on "How the Worldwide Church of God Came into Being" [GN, Nov. 6], ought to NAIL THAT LIE!
a) I did not leave them, for I have never been a member of them; b) I continued working alternately with their two main divisions — Stanberry, Mo., and Salem, W.Va. I was still working with them in 1945, 12 years after the present "Philadelphia" era came into being, 1933. Note that in this he concedes the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 were consecutive eras, as well as seven continuous conditions in the one Church.
2) Again they admit the successive eras depicted in Revelation 2 and 3, claiming that my son is now starting the "Laodicean" era of the Church. But God does not start His Church or any era of it by one disfellowshipped for causing division, sowing the seeds of discord among brethren, and then attacking God's Church and trying to draw away its members after him, on pretext of being a CHURCH — when those few are only following A MAN. It is NOT a Church! It has no apostle, evangelist-pastor-elder organization. It is NOT proclaiming Christ's Gospel into all the world for a witness unto all nations! It is a MAN, with one or two working with him, merely seeking to take away members of God's true Church.
3) Then they speak out of the other side of their mouths, I am grieved to say. This time, they say Revelation 2 and 3 do NOT portray seven SUCCESSIVE stages or eras of the one true Church. Apparently they try to explain, or twist its true meaning, by saying seven is God's number of completeness — therefore there are now MANY churches, as Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, etc. — all of which COMBINED constitute the BODY OF CHRIST. Anyone who believes that had, perhaps, better get into one of them, or follow a man who has incorporated himself to be a church. But a legal corporation does not make it GOD'S CHURCH!
It might be interesting, at this point, to explain the TOTAL DIFFERENCE between what Garner Ted is now doing and what his father did in 1930.
He has incorporated under civil law, under a church name as a starter. This was done to try to draw away members from the true Church to follow him.
The Oregon Conference
But what his father did was totally different. In Oregon a number of members of the Church of God, Seventh-Day, headquartered at Stanberry, Mo., pulled out and incorporated themselves separately as the Oregon Conference of the Church of God. They became a SEPARATE CHURCH, operating with their own tithes, directing and paying salary to their own ministers. They were ORGANIZED. They did not understand God's form of organization — they had no apostle, but they did employ evangelists — as Robert L. Taylor, Roy Daily and myself — and later, Sven Oberg and A. J. Ray. Their form of organization was a board of trustees, with a president, vice president and secretary-treasurer. The board was in authority — not the ministers.
Shortly after the Oregon Conference separately incorporated, a division occurred in the Stanberry church, and approximately half of their members followed Andrew N. Dugger into a new church based at Salem, W.Va., and named, simply, "Church of God."
In August of 1933, I renounced the salary from the Oregon Conference, but did not leave their fellowship. In fact, later that August a new church was established at Jeans schoolhouse, 12 miles west of Eugene — all but one family my own new converts, and that family not attached to either Sardis group.
BUT, more — most of the Oregon Conference members began coming to Eugene to fellowship with the new Radio Church of God (now the Worldwide Church of God), and I continued, as a voluntary service, to preach Sabbath afternoons at the schoolhouse near Jefferson where they met. I never sought to pull away any of their members. They were enamored with the new Salem-based church, and a little later — (not now sure of the date) probably 1934, while the Radio Church of God was on the air and The Plain Truth being published — they abandoned their Oregon Conference and went in with Salem.
Parent Church grows
At, and just west of Eugene, the parent church of the Worldwide Church of God was very much alive and growing. I was leading elder, and I had appointed and ordained an assistant pastor and a deacon. We counseled seriously on the matter and decided, in early or mid-1934, not to go in with the Salem people — and we had never gone in with Stanberry. However, a little later I agreed to cooperate and work with the Salem ministers. And under this arrangement I continued as pastor of the members who formerly were the Oregon, Conference, but now were joined with Salem. BUT NEITHER I NOR ANY OF THE EUGENE MEMBERS ever joined the Salem Church — or Stanberry. I received no salary or compensation of any kind from them. On my part it was a VOLUNTARY GIVING of time and effort and cooperation, with no remuneration of any kind.
Later — it was either 1945 or 1947 — probably the latter — the former Oregon Conference members had a division. I had ordained two elders and two deacons in their local church near Jefferson, which I pastored. Half of them, including one elder, a Mr. Davidson, and Mr. Henion, refused to meet with them further, though I urged them to remain with the Salem people.
Meanwhile, about half of all the brethren in the Willamette Valley had remained with Stanberry. They asked me urgently to unite then with the half of the Salem people who had refused to remain with the Dugger group. For a while I refused. But it left only a small membership still with the Dugger division, and I finally agreed to organize them and serve as their pastor — although the Stanberry brethren kept their membership and sent tithes to Stanberry, while the Henion family and others, including the Coles, counted their membership with the parent church of the Worldwide Church of God — and Mr. C. Wayne Cole is still with us in the very important capacity of director of ministerial services.
I continued to pastor the Stanberry-based group in the Willamette Valley until probably in 1942, when I spent some months in Hollywood starting the DAILY radio broadcasting and speaking Sunday afternoons to a packed house at the Biltmore theater. I had GIVEN them my time and services freely, at my own and Eugene church expense. I sought none of their members and none came with us — though as brethren we still had love one for the other.
Incorporation becomes necessary
And I did not start out by incorporating myself pretending to be a church. We, in the growing Church of God — then Eugene-based — finally had grown to a size where incorporation became a necessity. IN NO WAY is Garner Ted doing as his father did, and any claim that he is, is a point-blank lie resorted to, to DECEIVE God's people and present the REPREHENSIBLE things Garner Ted is now doing in a good light. It is Satan who tries to make us believe that wrong is right.
But now what about the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3?
I have always said, and still affirm, that these seven messages to the seven churches are picturing in advance the seven CONDITIONS to be found in the ONE CONTINUING TRUE CHURCH — but with the Ephesian condition dominant during the first era or years of time, the Smyrna condition becoming dominant in the next period of time, and so on with the Laodicean condition outstanding in the same true Church at about the time of the great tribulation and climaxing with Christ's second coming.
To expound that fully requires more space than I have here. It will be covered later.
But the crux of the whole matter is simply THIS: Where, in all this effort at persuading God's people to follow Garner Ted Armstrong, a man DISFELLOWSHIPPED, who did, and is continuing now from without, to sow the seeds of discord among brethren — in all their arguments, WHERE IS GOD? WHERE IS JESUS CHRIST, living HEAD of the Church?
One thing I can say definitely and with authority, God and our Head, JESUS CHRIST, have NOT left God's one and only TRUE CHURCH.
These dissidents are LOOKING AT MEN! They are leaving GOD out of their thinking. For 44 YEARS the living JESUS CHRIST HAS BEEN HEADING, LEADING, GUIDING AND BLESSING GOD'S ONE AND ONLY TRUE CHURCH!
HE has not forsaken it. HE is not in ANY effort to pull members out from GOD'S Church, where CHRIST is working. HE is NOT following Garner Ted Armstrong, who resorted to a conspiracy to water down God's TRUTH — to SECULARIZE God's Church and college — to literally PUT GOD AND CHRIST OUT OF THE COLLEGE AND CHURCH! HE is not! Will You?
Some were leaving Jesus when here in the human flesh (John 6:66), "... many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." Would you have been one of them?
The Archived writings, audio, video of Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God serve as a witness, and it witnesses the TRUTH. Now you can either accept it or not. The Word of God determines what HERESY is, and we cannot support heresy brethren. We cannot join different churches. We cannot support those who teach contrary to what was taught!
We are the Worldwide Church of God, a Church raised up by Jesus Christ NOT MEN, called and sanctified by God. Let us sanctify ourselves, and remove ourselves from different churches which is mere daughters of the Great Religious system of Babylon.
Let us "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." (Revelation 18:4-5) and be the Worldwide Church of God. The prophecies of Jesus Christ have not failed! Let's be sure to stick with Jesus Christ!
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