Which Groups Teach That There Will Be
A Millennium on Earth?

by Pam Dewey and Norman Edwards

 

Many members of the various "Church of God" groups believe that they have a unique understanding of the Millennial Reign of Christ on Earth. Many believe that Herbert Armstrong was divinely inspired to understand and preach the prophetic events leading to the Great Tribulation, the return of Christ and his thousand-year reign as king on Earth. This belief is partly caused by brethren who never read any religious teaching other than that of their own group. It was also caused by the Worldwide Church of God teaching that they were the only group with such understanding.

During the WCG "heyday" (the 1960’s and 1970’s) Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong would frequently mock what they implied was the standard view of all other Protestant teachers—that the "reward of the saved" was to get a harp and a halo and float around on a cloud in heaven for all eternity. Or they would single out the Seventh Day Adventist teaching regarding the Millennium, mocking Ellen White (Adventist "prophetess" of the 1800’s) for declaring the Earth would be desolate during the thousand years. Thus, they would proclaim only the "few" in the Worldwide Church of God understood the "wonderful world tomorrow" that was to be on this Earth, with the saints ruling here on the earth for a thousand years after the Second Coming of Christ.

Both Armstrongs also strongly implied that only their students would know what to watch for as signs of the end—only they would know to be looking for a "revived Roman Empire" in Europe, made up of ten nations, and ruled over by a dictator called "The Beast" and the "Antichrist". They also implied only they were expecting the regathering of the Jews to the land of Palestine, and that the Beast would make a treaty with the restored nation of Israel, and then break that treaty in the midst of the "Great Tribulation".

But were the Armstrongs being honest in this portrayal? Did no one else have a clue about these matters? Consider these quotations:

[1] "...the Book of Revelation appears to point to a successor kingdom to the Roman Empire that could roughly parallel the current European Economic Community. It is a ten-nation confederation... Presumably this group will make a league with Israel and then turn on her and begin to oppress her."

[2] "The prophetic scriptures tell us that the Roman Empire will be revived shortly before the return of Christ to the earth... the kingdom will be in the form of a ten-nation confederacy...We believe that the Common Market and the trend toward unification of Europe may well be the beginning of the ten-nation confederacy predicted by Daniel and the Book of Revelation."

[3] "...Rome would be revived in a ten-fold form. The Antichrist would then be invited by the ten kings, possibly "democratic kings," to rule the world as Prince of Rome...Making a seven-year treaty with Israel, he would break it after 3 1/2 years and turn upon her, initiating the Great Tribulation."

Do the passages above sound familiar to you? Could they easily be quotations from an old Plain Truth Magazine?

The Armstrongs were like many dogmatic prophecy teachers, who imply strongly in their writings that their group is the "only one" that understands prophecy—that their interpretations are somehow uniquely inspired by God, rather than as a result of their study of the writings of others who preceded them in the study of "eschatology" (study of "last things"). They also strongly imply that other, "false" teachers are blinded to these "true" interpretations. The not-so-subtle message: "Therefore follow me and support my ministry."

Consider the quotes just given above...

Quote #[1] is from Pat Robertson in his 1982 book The Secret Kingdom.

Quote #[2] is from Hal Lindsey in his 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth.

Is it possible that Pat Robertson and Hal Lindsey were just copying the ideas of Armstrong?

Quote # [3] It is a summary of a sermon given during the First World War by Baptist minister Isaac Haldeman, quoted in a book called Armageddon Now by Dwight Wilson, an Assemblies of God minister. As Herbert Armstrong didn’t even begin his Biblical studies until the 1920’s, he could hardly have claimed that Haldeman was merely copying his scenario!

In this article, we will be sharing quotations from a variety of sources that establish conclusively that much of the teaching of Herbert Armstrong about End-Time events and the Millenium was not at all unique to him. Why is this important?

1. Many people will accept a Biblical teacher as inspired, particularly because they are impressed with the teacher’s "amazing" ability to sort through the maze of Biblical prophetic passages and propound a fascinating system of integrating it all. If they believe such a teacher got all this "knowledge" by direct inspiration from God, they may tend to accept this as "credentials" for the teacher, affirming all his teachings are thus inspired. Many such students do not compare their teacher’s speculations with the teachings of others. Unfortunately, leaders of many organizations (like Herbert Armstrong) often strongly advise against reading the writings of other teachers. We thus wish to provide our readers with some information to compare to the teachings they may have accepted blindly in the past as being unique to their own group.

2. If Christians wish to use "prophetic teachings" as part of a package of preaching the Gospel, it is important not to misrepresent the teachings of others in the process. If you try to tell someone your group is the only one with certain knowledge about prophecy, and your listener knows for a fact that you are in error in your assumption, you have effectively eliminated your listener’s trust in you as a truthful witness. Thus we wish to provide our readers with a clear perspective on what a fairly large minority of Protestant prophecy teachers actually do teach.

Are we thus saying that the teachers whose material we quote here have the same "truths" as the Sabbatarian COGs in other areas of doctrine? No! We are merely pointing out that, in some areas, they were not so "clueless" as the Armstrongs indicated. And that if we wish to reach out with that "truth in other areas" which we do have, we need to do it from a position of honesty, not misrepresenting the teachings of others to make ourselves look "special". We can only hinder our cause by attacking "straw men" in the area of prophecy.

The following representative quotations are from the book Armageddon Now—The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 by Dwight Wilson (c. 1977, Baker Book House). The author has carefully documented the writings of over 100 prophecy teachers, many of them espousing scenarios very similar to that of the Armstrongs. It is much more likely that Hal Lindsey and Pat Robertson were "borrowing" their ideas from these Protestant writers rather than from Herbert Armstrong.

When reading these quotes, it is important to understand the theological terms used: "Premillenialism" refers to the belief that Christ will return to the earth before the beginning of the Millennium. "Postmillenialism" declares that man’s efforts will result in a Millenium of peace on the earth, and only then will Christ return. A third doctrine, "A-Millenialism" declares that there will be no actual thousand year period called the Millennium, and that all ideas of it are to be accepted only as metaphors for a heavenly existence.

If you want to investigate these teachings in-depth, you can probably obtain Dwight Wilson’s book from a local book store. However, by reading the following pages of quotes, below, you should be able to see that many groups have had teachings similar to the "Church of God" groups in regard to the Millenium. In order to save space, we will leave the quotes in this type style, with no extra quotation marks or indentations. Sometimes, the book quotes other books—those "sub-quotes" will be indented. We have boldfaced many of the dates to make it easy to see the time-span of these teachings. Here we go:

 

[p.17] According to Peter Toon in his study of Puritan eschatology, the belief in the restoration of Israel was widely held even among the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Most Puritans subscribed to the idea of a large-scale conversion of Jews to Christianity before the end of time, and in turn believed that there would also be a return of the Jews to Palestine. Sir Henry Finch in "The World’s Great Restoration, or The Calling of the Jews" (1621) explained that the Euphrates River would dry up for the Jews to pass through on their return to Palestine, and that they would be opposed by Gog and Magog (equated with the Turks), but the Jews would win as God fought for them. This interest in the restoration of the Jews was reinforced by the horrors of the Thirty Years War in Germany, which led men to imagine that they were living in the last days. Toon cited the great jurist Hugo Grotius for the observation that eighty books concerned with the millenium had been published in England by 1649. A writer of the second quarter of the seventeenth century, Joseph Mede, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, is designated by Toon as the "father of premillenialism," and John Milton and Isaac Newton are listed among his indebted successors.

[p. 18] The American, Increase Mather [a prominent theologian], in a 1669 work entitled The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation Explained and Applyed, affirmed the following beliefs:

That after the Jews are brought into their own land again, and there disturbed with Gog and Magog (Not John’s, but Ezekiel’s Gog and Magog, at the battle of Armageddon) who shall think with great fury to destroy the converted Jews…

The Jews who have been trampled upon by all nations, shall shortly become the most glorious nation in the whole world, and all other nations shall have them in great esteem and honor. Isa. 60:1,3....

That the time will surely come, when the body of the twelve Tribes of Israel shall be brought out of their present condition of bondage and misery, into a glorious and wonderful state of salvation, not only spiritual but temporal.

[p. 19] It is difficult to show a direct continuity from the seventeenth-century Puritan radicals to the present-day premillennialists, but Ernest R. Sandeen has magnificently demonstrated the developments since the Napoleonic era in his ground-breaking work, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930. Sandeen describes the significance of that early era:

The identification of the events of the 1790s with those prophesied in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 provided biblical commentators with a prophetic Rosetta stone. At last a key had been found with which to crack the code. There could now be general agreement upon one fixed point of correlation between prophecy and history. After 1799, in Egyptology as in prophecy, it seemed as though there were no limits to the possibility of discovery.

As the unbelieveable events of the 1790s unfolded, students of …. apocalyptic literature became convinced (in a rare display of unanimity) that they were witnessing the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13. The Revolution brought the cheering sight of the destruction of papal power in France, the confiscation of church property, and eventually the establishment of a "religion of reason". The final act occurred in 1798 when French troops under Berthier marched on Rome, established a republic, and sent the pope into banishment. Commentators were quick to point out that this "deadly wound" received by the papacy had been explicitly described and dated in Revelation 13. Although prophetic scholars had previously been unable to agree on what dates to assign to the rise and fall of papal power, it now became clear, after the fact, that the papacy had come into power in 538 AD.

This interpretation assumes that the two beasts in Daniel and Revelation are identical and that the forty-two months of Revelation 13 figuratively represent 1,260 years, 538-1798. This is an example of one of those necessary shifts to symbolism—days equal years—an uncomfortable equation for literalists.

[p. 23] A variety of millenial groups developed in the United States in the early nineteenth century [1800’s]. "America in the early nineteenth century was drunk on the millenium." [Sandeen]

[p. 24] In the 1850’s premillenialism recovered from the setback suffered as a result of Miller’s errors—and accordingly, writers began to risk works on prophetic themes again. Jacob J. Janeway, a theology professor at the Presbyterian’s Western Seminary, published in 1853 "Hope for the Jews: or The Jews Will be Converted to the Christian Faith; and Settled and Reorganized as a Nation in the Land of Palestine." Janeway believed the Jews would be restored "under the reign of the promised Messiah". The issue of the preconditions for the restoration was to become an item for discussion over the years. Janeway contended that if the Jews returned in their present state of unbelief they would have no peace or security. He discussed their historical persecution, and then by way of contrast the renewed interest in returning, mentioning that "a society of the Jews has been formed in London, with the view of stirring up their countrymen, in all lands, to seek a re-possession of the land".

[p. 24-25] A preacher of the Scottish National Church, John Cumming, published in 1855 two works which became the seedbed for many premillenarian volumes. One bibliographer claims that Cummings’ works "outsold those of any other writer of his day."…. [Cumming] cited the prediction of the church father Lactantius that the world would come to an end after 6000 years of existence, supported the idea from Jewish traditions, and offered calculations that terminated the 6000 years at 1862, saying, "Just as the six days have their seventh, the 6000 years will have their seventh thousand, or what we call the millenium."

[p. 26] …After the fall of the Moslems, the "drying up of the Euphrates," the Jews would emigrate from all nations, including the "land of Sin"—China. Cumming predicted [in 1855] the nations would assist the Jews:

We may expect that the nations of the earth will begin, on the eve of that movement among the Jews, to discuss in their cabinets the restoration of the Jews. There are books recently written, which urge the nations to help them to their own land. The Jews in London are collecting money in order to purchase Palestine at this moment: the Jews in America have collected enormous sums to build the temple again in Jerusalem. All these things are signs of the times, and indications of the approaching change.

Rumors of the rebuilding of the temple are a recurring theme in popular prophetic writings down to the present. Cumming did not divulge his source, but assured his readers that an American, a Mr. Noah, was collecting a million dollars for the purpose.

Lecture VII of The End was entitled "The Russian and Northern Confederacy" and began with a quotation of the entire thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel. At great length Cumming established the identity of the great northern power that was "doomed to perish ultimately in Palestine amid tremendous scenes." His argument is particularly significant because it is evidently the source for a multitude of later writers on the subject.

[p. 27] [Cumming asserted that] Caucusus is derived from the words Gog and chasan and means "Gog’s fortified place"…. It was claimed that the Araxes River was called Rosh in Arabic and that Russian was derived from Rosh…. [And Cumming stated] "We arrive at the conclusion that Rosh, Meshech, Tubal find their descendants at this moment in the northern and southern parts of Russia."

[p. 29] Except for his inclination to set dates, John Cumming is probably the best nineteenth-century example of the kind of writer that developed the ideas which contributed to the mind-set of the twentieth-century premillenialist. His failures in date-setting may account for the preference of later writers for terms such as imminent and soon rather than specific dates. The most infamous date-setter of all was Michael Baxter, a British preacher who also toured the United States. From 1861 to 1908 he made various errors, including identifying Louis Napoleon as the Antichrist and predicting the second advent between 2:30 and 3:00 PM, March 12, 1903.

[p. 31] James H. Brookes was also president of the Niagara Bible Conference, which was the beginning of the extensive prophecy and Bible conference movement which flourished in America through World War I and has survived down through the present. In 1878, Brookes drew up a fourteen-point creed for the conference; the last item of this creed dealt with the Jews:

We believe that the world will not be converted during the present dispensation, but is fast ripening for judgment, while there will be a fearful apostasy in the professing Christian body; and hence the Lord Jesus will come in person to introduce the millennial age, when Israel shall be restored to their own land, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord; and that this personal and premillennial advent it is the blessed hope set before us in the Gospel for which we should be constantly looking…

[p. 51] ...he [Arno C. Gabelein, writer for the prophetic magazine Our Hope] had speculated in his 1917 commentary on Ezekiel that Germany might "become united to Russia and march under the prince of Rosh into the land of Israel". Gabelein predicted also a revived Roman Empire which would be opposed to the alliance.

The idea of a revived Roman Empire was not new, but it was given new interest and impetus in the 1920s and 1930s by the ascendancy of Mussolini and Italy (and also in the 1950s and 1960s by the development of the Common Market.) Leadership of this great future power was supposedly to fall to a personality known, among other things, as the Antichrist.

[p. 51] During the war [WWI] Dr. Isaac M. Haldeman, pastor of the First Baptist Church, New York City, had developed this theme [the revived Roman Empire] in a sermon, "The Falling Stone, or the Overthrow of the last Kaiser." According to Haldeman, Rome would be revived in a tenfold form. The Antichrist would then be invited by the ten kings, possibly "democratic kings," to rule the world as Prince of Rome. He was to be from Babylon, originally a military leader who became king. Foreseeing that Germany and Russian would combine to advance in the east, the Antichrist would set up a Zionist state as a buffer. Making a seven-year treaty with Israel, he would break it after three-and-a-half years and turn upon her, initiating the Great Tribulation. He would then be faced with rebellions in Egypt, but eventually return from there to meet the forces from the north and east at Armageddon.

[p. 70] … rumors of the impending destruction of the Mosque of Omar (Dome of the Rock) or the Mosque el-Aksa and the rebuilding of the Temple continued to crop up. The Biola journal reported [in 1921] the publication of a Jewish catechism in London which said that whenever the Jews returned to their land and again constituted a state a temple would be built and the sacrificial laws restored. The reporter commented that the Scriptures clearly teach that the Jews will return in unbelief, but that they will have a new temple and re-establish temple sacrifices. The necessary destruction of the Arab center of worship, the Mosque of Omar, was referred to in classic understatement as "a delicate problem." It was noted that "the Jews can hardly be expected to take steps to restore the temple on the chosen site until they have a majority in Palestine."...

Chief Rabbi Kook [Kuk?] of Jerusalem has announced that a new Yeshibah [school] will be founded in the Holy City for the purpose of instructing men of priestly and Levitic parentage in their duties in the Temple. This includes formulas of sacrifices, etc. The rabbi believes this to be an urgent necessity since he perceives the rebuilding of the Temple as near at hand [quote from the King’s Business prophetic magazine reported in 1923].

[p. 71] The Evangel prophetic magazine reported in 1928, a rabbi as saying, "The Mosque of Omar will be torn down soon, and a wonderful temple, like Solomon’s, will be built there." A Jewish writer was quoted on the significance of rebuilding the Temple: "The Jewish National Home cannot be complete without it, and I would go even further and say that Palestine will never be flourishing until the temple building is fully established in ancient glory." Another article, "The Sure Word of Prophecy," cited press dispatches from Jerusalem reporting that permission was being sought by zealous Jews to build altars at the Temple site and restore the sacrifices, and that prospective priests were already suspected of practicing ritual sacrifice.

 

That concludes our quotes from the book Armageddon Now—The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 by Dwight Wilson (c. 1977, Baker Book House). Obviously, we do not agree with every prediction made by these quotes or with some of the modern-day countries that were supposedly identified in the Bible. But we must also realize that Herbert Armstrong once identified Benito Musollini as "the Beast," and also published a book called 1975 in Prophecy—almost none of which was fullfilled in the time predicted. The important thing to realize is that there were many others who understood a 7000-year plan, and a tribulation followed by the Millennium.

A more recent book along the same line is: WHEN TIME SHALL BE NO MORE: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture by Paul Boyer (c. 1992, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). This book is a highly detailed, unbiased review of the history of the books, printed materials, preachers, and movements predicting "The End" which have flooded America in the past 100 years and more. And although this book, like the previous one, includes many quotations from sources promulgating quite a similar scenario to that proposed by Herbert Armstrong, it contains absolutely nothing about the teachings of Armstrong and the WCG! It talks about the writings of other smaller groups and cults, but not the WCG! Is that surprising? We have tended to think that the World Tomorrow program and the Plain Truth magazine were so powerful that they would have a prominent place in such a book by an unbiased sociologist/historian.

But we tend to forget that the message was tied so closely to the institution of the WCG itself that the associated literature never made its way into most "mainstream" sources of knowledge. Old WCG broadcasts are available only to those who taped them and saved a copy—there is simply no public index or availability. The few books that the Armstrongs commercially published never came close to being any type of "best seller" and are found in very few libraries. The Plain Truth used to be in many libraries, but was never listed in The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature. The back issues have been thrown out of most libraries. Armstrong had an "all or nothing" approach to others accepting his doctrine. After his organization grew large, he virually never spoke to other colleges, churches, or religious organizations. He never wrote articles for other’s newpapers or magazines, or appeared on other radio or TV programs. Consequently, little of his teaching ever made inroads into mainstream religious publications, schools, conferences, etc. And thus, when the WCG turned its back on Armstrong’s teaching after his death, his material became "invisible" to the world. For a fleeting time in American history the World Tomorrow blanketed the radio and television airwaves. But just like other radio and TV shows, such as "The Shadow" and "Gunsmoke," once its "run" was over, it was only a vague memory.

Here are a few representative quotations from pages 322-325 of WHEN TIME SHALL BE NO MORE. Again, to save space and keep it simple, we will not use any quote marks, and use indents only to indicate quotations within the quotation:

 

Prophecy writers stressed the absolute break between the present age and the next. The new order will be entirely God’s doing; human endeavor will count for nothing as Christ "take[s] care of the mess that man has made of his world." Indeed, as Chuck Smith emphasized, before the Millennium must come Armageddon, when "the systems of the world" will be "rooted out, pulled down, and destroyed." Not only institutions, but masses of evildoers must perish to make way for the coming era of blessedness. As Arthur Bloomfield put it, "The rubbish has to be cleaned up and burned before the garden can be planted."

A key motif in this outpouring of writing about the Millennium is an emphasis on order and harmony, often explicitly contrasted with the disorder and disharmony of contemporary social existence.

The uncertainties, distractions, and unpleasant surprises of today’s world will vanish. Everyone will have a role to fill in this "perfect environment where righteousness can settle down and be at home." With "no more starvation, wars, pollution, or wasted billions on armaments the world shall be a virtual Garden of Eden, and men shall live in harmony." Indeed, "the universe itself will run more harmoniously than at any time since creation." Enforcing this unity and harmony will be Christ himself. As Scofield insisted, the "tranquility, blessedness, and peace" of the Kingdom Age will be possible only because "the government will be a theocracy" committed to "instant destruction of the insubordinate or rebellious." Scofield’s post-World War II followers reiterated the point, Walvoord, citing the prophet Isaiah ("He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked"), wrote in stark terms of the nature of Christ’s reign: "The millennial rule of Christ... will be absolute in its authority and power; He [will be] supreme over the entire earth." Only thus, said Walvoord, could the "golden age" dreamed of by "social reformists through the ages" be realized.

…In contrast to all the failed schemes of human self-rule, including democracy, wrote Chuck Smith, Christ will introduce "a new form of government: a monarchy that will embrace the entire world... The Kingdom of God [will] cover the earth as the water covers the sea." These authors did not shrink from the implications of their belief. "Jesus will be an absolute dictator," wrote Herbert Vander Lugt. "He will displace one of our cherished freedoms—that of religion. He will not permit the practice or propagation of false religion in any form."

…But Christ will need help in ruling the world. Faithful Christians, mocked and maligned in this age, will come into their own in the Millennium. "Have you ever been a king?" asks Paul Lee Tan in "Jesus Is Coming" (1982). "If not, do not despair. Someday you will be a king. You will reign with Christ over the millennial earth."… A 1974 author put the matter in the no-nonsense vocabulary of a motivational seminar as he described the "high ‘management’ openings for can-do Christians" that the Millennium will bring:

Jesus is now silently recruiting those demonstrating capability as over-comers. He needs saints who develop success patterns in this present real-life testing ground ... Many leaders will be needed to reign over cities, nations, territories and millennium projects ... Don’t be surprised when, during the Kingdom Age, we find some little-known Christians reigning in positions of great honor and scope.

Frustrated hopes and unrealized dreams will be gloriously fulfilled in the Millennium, as the thwarted and the exploited at last enjoy parity with the great of the earth. S. Maxwell Coder, writing of the saints’ physical transformation, captured something of this psychological dimension as well: "Our new bodies will be incapable of ruin and decay. They will be glorious rather than dishonored and lacking in dignity, and powerful rather than weak." … Millennial belief, declared a prophecy-conference speaker in 1956, spoke to "the deathless urge in the heart of humanity for a better world" and the longing of men and women for "a corporate ordered life; a life not for the few powerful and fortunate, but for all a life that shall be rich in truth, justice, power and love." A 1973 author agreed: "In nobler moments, people have ideals in their minds which they would like to see realized. The millennium will see them brought to fruition." Often criticized as pessimists, premillennialists insisted that the opposite was true. "Every true believer is an optimistic futurist," agreed John Wesley White; "he is looking for Jesus Christ to come and set up His kingdom of peace and plenty." The soaring Utopian rhetoric of the prophecy popularizers’ descriptions of the Millennium highlighted with harsh if unconscious clarity the depth of their rejection of the present order, and the intensity of their longing for a radically different form of society. At a time when nuclear war threatened, the Cold War rumbled on, materialism and self-indulgence seemed all-pervasive, and an impersonal, computerized economic order threatened human autonomy, the Millennium shimmered on the horizon as an alternative future—an age of peace, justice, and rich human fulfillment under the absolute but righteous rule of an all-wise leader.

 

That was the end of our quotations from WHEN TIME SHALL BE NO MORE: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture by Paul Boyer (c. 1992, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). While we may disagree with many of the writers who have been quoted in this article on serious theological issues, we can surely see that they share many of our hopes and desires for a Millennium. How do we know who is going to be in the Millenium and who is not? Well, we do not know. That judgement has been given to the Messiah, our Savior.

We can simply go along with Paul when he said "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice" (Phil 1:18). We are still responsible for living and obeying the truth that we undersand from the scriptures. But if someone from another religious background wants to join us in praying "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven", why not let them do it?!! &

How Much About Prophecy Do You Really Know?

For a long time I thought I understood the Bible outline of world events for the end time. But what was my understanding based on? Was it from a careful reading of the scriptures and comparing them to world history and news events? Was it from fervent prayer and miraculous revelation by the Eternal? Or was it largely based on the teachings of one man—a man who had a good track record teaching the purpose for man, baptism, the Sabbath, holy days, and other doctrines? I have come to realize it was the latter. My teacher, in this case, was Herbert Armstrong and his associates. But what kind of "track record" did Herbert Armstrong have in fortelling the world events in his day from the Bible? Not a very good one (we will cover this in a future issue).

I have come to see that there is a diversity of gifts in the Church, and a person who is a good Bible teacher may not have the "gift of prophecy" (1Cor 12). Once a person prophesies falsely in the name of the Eternal, we should recognize that the Eternal has not sent them to prophesy (Deut 18:22). We, as humans, just have too much of a tendency to want to follow a person and not our Savior (1Cor 3). This is not to say that Herbert Armstrong did not teach many truths regarding the prophetic portions of the Bible. As the article on this page shows, much of what Armstrong taught was also taught by other serious Bible students. We do not need a complete understanding of prophecy to know that the Eternal will take care of those who seek Him and love and encourage others (1Cor 13, Mal 3:16-17). But before we claim that we "understand prophecy", or before we begin to teach it to others, we should consider the source of our understanding and ask:

—NSE

 

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