Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
A drastic, world-shaking turn of events may occur unexpectedly this year.
This is the “Fortieth Year” and historically the 40th year has been the year of a drastic turn in national and world events.
It was after 40 years that Moses left Egypt as a prince and fled to Midian. It was at the end of another 40 years when God called Moses at the incident of the burning bush to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery in the great migration to the promised land. It was at the end of that 40 years that Moses died and Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan river into that promised land. These were actually turning points in national events of world significance in history.
It was at the foot of Mt. Sinai that the nation of Israel was born at the great ceremony after God had in a voice of thunder spoken the words of the Ten Commandments in the hearing of the more than two million people that composed the new nation of Israel. It was at the end of 40 days of fasting atop Mt. Sinai that Moses received the two tablets of stone on which God with his own finger had engraved the words of the Ten Commandments. It was at the end of 40 days of total fasting that Jesus qualified to wrest the government of the whole earth from Satan after the great temptation recorded in Matthew 4.
And now in 1985 we are at the end of 40 years since the founding of the United Nations and 40 years since the dividing of the continent of Europe right down the middle as a result of the Yalta Conference, February 4 to 11, in 1945. The nations of Europe had been involved in wars among themselves, culminating with the Second World War. That conference made a drastic change in the nations of Europe. The Eastern bloc of nations was gobbled up by the Soviet Union — came under Soviet domination. The Western bloc of European nations came under the military protection of the United States. (Editor: Herbie claimed he spoke for God. Funny neither saw this coming.)
Thus Europe was divided right down the middle, between the world’s first two superpowers, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. Germany was divided with the eastern area under Soviet domination and the western area dependent on United States power to protect it from communist takeover.
Dissatisfaction has been mounting in Europe. The Western nations of Europe are tired of being under the American umbrella. The Eastern bloc of Europe has suffered increasingly in economy and insufficient technological progress. Now there is growing talk about Germany being once again united in the “Fatherland.” httpv://youtu.be/UYtbEJfQtDI
For more than 40 years now The PLAIN TRUTH has been proclaiming an outstanding series of Bible prophecies of something due soon to occur in Europe that will change the whole world and shake up the lives of every one of us. (Editor: This of course was all bullshit. Herbert Armstrong’s “outstanding series of Bible prophecies” was nothing more than an attempt to create prophecy from the headlines of the day.
“Bible prophecies of something due soon to occur in Europe that will change the whole world and shake up the lives of every one of us.” Armstrong, as usual, was characteristically vague (as usual) as to “what” this event was going to be.)
httpv://youtu.be/AORrIlQGATM
Daniel’s prophecy in chapter 2 pictures 10 nations in Europe in our time right now, as the 10 toes on the two feet of the great symbolic image. Five of those toes picture five nations in Western Europe and five in Eastern Europe. Then is pictured a great stone, representing Christ at his soon Second Coming, smiting those toes, and coming to rule in the Kingdom of God over all those and all other nations on earth. This is further explained in the 17th chapter of Revelation, depicting those 10 nations of Europe uniting under the Roman Catholic Church. In the last decade certain leaders in Europe have been working feverishly to bring about such a reuniting of Europe. I have personally spoken to the principal leaders in this struggle, and to leaders in Spain, Greece and Austria.
For some reason God has been holding back the fulfillment of this prophecy — BUT IT IS CERTAIN TO OCCUR! Could this 40th year be the year that will bring it about?
Meanwhile God’s Work is growing now as never before. The first two TV broadcasts of this year each broke all records for responses from viewers. Those records were surpassed in February, with over 17,000 telephone responses from a single telecast.
I am now hard at work on a new book. It probably will be the largest and
most important book I have ever written. The title is MYSTERY OF THE AGES. It is being written as a textbook for the second year Theology class in Ambassador College. It will be published before the fall new school year begins. Copies will be made available to you.
Meanwhile remember this is the shortest month of the year and therefore one of our most difficult financially. You have your own vital part in keeping this greatest Work on earth going — and GROWING.
With love and prayers, in Jesus’ name,
Herbert W. Armstrong
And as Readers Digest says, “You MAY have already won!”
When a government would change or dictator ousted HWA would note, “Right on schedule”. In this letter, “God is holding back”. HWA had been dangling these carrots since 1934; COULD it be this year? Keep putting your money into the prophetic slot machine, it will eventually hit the jackpot.
In 1985, he could honestly say, “Time is short” as he himself was in the “gun lap”.
Steven Collins – another prophecy and Anglo-Israel guru – once joked that every time a German soldier picked up a rifle, his picture would be in the Plain Truth.
Once at Spokesman’s Club a member spoke about talking with some official at the German Consulate. When asked about Germany as a world military power, the official said he couldn’t see this happening any time in the near future. When given the HWA prophetic scenario, the official politely ended the conversation. Conclusion? “He must know something”.
Clearly HWA did a lot of guessing as he analyzed the news, and he ended up, in some cases, being less accurate than those billing themselves as “psychics”. I could understand why he felt as he did about the Germans, because they had caused a lot of trouble through WWI, and then when held accountable by the world for war reparations, they ruined their economy by printing up funny money to pay for it, setting the stage for WWII. Twice in HWA’s lifetime, the Germans had caused great evil in the world. So, he gave them a race change, labeled them as Assyrians, and spiked his gospel message by saying they were coming back, and this time, they were going after some other people he labeled as being tribes.
My parents, back in the day, did not know how to differentiate between an educated theologian, and a deficient do it yourself theologian who was a polished orator. They were also not very well rooted in logic, and allowed HWA to set all the parameters by which they evaluated him, his prophecies, his doctrines, and his church. I hate to categorize and brand the membership of the Armstrong movement, but, HWA was in reality a bottom feeder, and the fact that he used terms such as “dumb sheep”, and his constant exercise of low-grade authority prove that he knew it.
BB
Herbert Armstrong was wrong 100% of the time about prophecy in his lifetime because he used and proclaimed that “British Israelism is the key to prophecy”.
History shows beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that he was a false prophet, a kook, a crank and a cult leader with not much in the way of qualifications.
Tell this to an Armstrongist and they will be angry and immediately throw a temper tantrum about only he brought the truth of the Feasts. These defiant people insist on giving Herbert Armstrong a free pass on prophecy all because they want and have to believe Armstrong’s conspiracy theories and believe that the physical rituals of the Old Testament will give them salvation by works. They completely ignore Jesus even though they are supposedly going to be “the bride of Christ” when they act more like they would be appropriate to being the bride of Frankenstein.
They don’t want to hear about the absolute outrageous bad behavior of Armstrongist leaders and will insist that the leader they picked to be their paramour doesn’t have the referenced problems. This is particularly true of the widows in the cult led by the man who committed adultery on his wife while she was dying of cancer. Some how to them “he’s such a nice man” when Scripture is clear that he can’t be a minister because he’s disqualified himself. (The David defense only works if you happen to be the King of Israel and is not for New Testament Christians.)
They stop their ears at the incest of their “apostle”.
Now if it were that they were confronted by someone today and knew up front what a con they were, they might reject the psychopath immediately, but because they were sold the package of crap from the cesspool so long ago, they will tolerate just about any silly crazy thing and compartmentalize it so it all seems to make sense to them.
From my perspective, these types of people are stupid, fools and evil, unwilling to obey God with their own set of Commandments of which “Thou Shalt Embrace the False Prophet” is one.
They deserve what they get, or more appropriately, they deserve not getting what they don’t get.
The truth is out there and the time of excuses is long past.
I see in the Journal, some crank is going to explorer DNA and the Brit/Anglo angle to see if its true. Of course we already know what HIS answer will be. Armstrongism doesn’t live or die by that of course. The people don’t care that he screwed his daughter so why would they care about this? They won’t. The people are amoral.
James,
Yes, Bob Thiel mentioned that, along with his own research, which he admitted was limited. He also mentioned “skull shape” evidence, which reminded me of Nazi research to prove who were “true Aryans”.
The Mormons, who are more into their own genealogies, would want to prove Native Americans are descendents of Israel.
A few years ago, I read “The Unnecessary War”, which argued that Britain’s involvement in both world wars was their own doing. In WW I, it used an alliance with Belgium to jump in, and in WW II, an agreement with Poland. Both times, it was argued, the result escalated a smaller, contained war.
I found out about the book by way of a scathing review of it in the PCG “news analysis”. To them, it naturally challenged their HWA-inspired worldview. If the underlying agenda was an undermining of “‘God’ used ‘Assyria’ to punish ‘Israel'”, they neglect the history of ancient Israel, in which Israel would make deals which eventually would be their own undoing.
It is possible that PCG was critical of the authors’ view that Churchill was to blame for the British involvement. During WW II, HWA was critical of Churchill, but after the war, Churchill was elevated to a kind of cult hero.
What are you saying Hoss? HWA got it wrong AGAIN??? 🙂