Herbert W(olf) Armstrong is proved wrong again by Daniel 9 and the inconvenient proof cannot be ignored. Herbert Armstrong lied to all of us, claiming that Matthew 24 and Revelation is needed to understand the passage, but the text itself disproves this in Daniel 9:21-23 —
Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
Unless an angel of God lied, by the time he was finished, Daniel was going to understand the vision / prophecy.
Now, of course, skeptics can claim that the Scripture was written after the fact, but that still works for this passage — it is fulfilled long ago and there is no future fulfilment for our time.
There’s no reason to make it harder than it is (except for psychopathic scoundrels using it to make money and increase their swelling egos by getting away with yet another con game).
First of all, the timeline seems to be Daniel 9 was written some time around 539 B.C. or so, in the first year of Darius — a full 12 years after Daniel 8: There is no connection to the events described in Daniel 8 and it stands on its own with no connection to Daniel 9. Historians seem to agree that the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 begin around 457 B.C., the date of the edict of Artaxerxes to Ezra for the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 7:11-26; 9:9). This begins the 7 weeks of years (a day for a year) for the 49 years rebuilding of Jerusalem. The 62 weeks of years equal to 434 years from the time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the baptism of Jesus: The period of time leading up to “Messiah the Prince” (Daniel 9:26). This leaves one week (7 years). Every one agrees on the three and a half years of the ministry of Jesus Christ up to the time he was “cut off in the midst of the week”. This leaves the other half week of a day for a year of another three and a half years. This leaves a gap for those who want to play with numbers for the sake of their own false prophecies.
Herbert Armstrong, assisted by Herman L. Hoeh, devised a silly idea: There was a huge prophetic gap of nearly 2,000 years for that last three and a half years to create a vacuum into which the Great Tribulation is sucked to fill in the last of the 70 weeks prophecy. This, of course, is utter nonsense. The explanation is Occam Razor’s simple.
The last three and a half years of the prophetic week of seven years to confirm the covenant between Israel and “the one who is to come” is the time from the death of Jesus Christ to the death of Stephan (Acts 7). This completes the 70 weeks prophecy. At this point, the New Covenant is confirmed with Israel and the gospel is begun to the Gentiles to go forth to the whole world.
No other explanation is needed.
No other explanation should be applied.
This also fits in with the 40 years of trial of the Jews from 30 A.D. to 70 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed once and for all.
This is yet another nail in the coffin of Armstrongism which should remain dead and buried as we go forth and expose the fraud for what it is.
The prophecy of Daniel 9 is irrelevant for Armstrongism because it does not support their manic doomsday prophetic scenarios. It is about confirming the (New) Covenant with the House of Israel. That was fulfilled in the First Century A.D. and is not a part and cannot be a part of the so-called end days prophecies.
There is a prophecy in Daniel which may very well be relevant to Herbert Armstrong and his kook cult ideas — Daniel 5:
:23 …the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:
:24 Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.
:25 And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
:26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
:27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
:28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided
While the prophecy was not written directly to Herbert Armstrong and his followers, it has significance for today:
- For all the talk, God has not been glorified;
- The Armstrongist kingdom has been numbered — as in its days are numbered — and it is finished;
- Armstrongism has been weighed in the balance and found wanting;
- The Armstrongist kingdom is divided into about 700 pieces.
As Dennis Diehl pointed out recently, Armstrongism is just plain tired: The life, energy and joy has gone out of it. It’s like a very old diseased decrepit man on his death bed, cold and alone, without any real hope or support — a predatory criminal hated for his abusive crimes against his own “family” — using blood money his whole life to run with the rich and famous, looking to be intelligent, but having little more insight than a cobra — a predator with no empathy or conscience. It is barely hanging on, living off the remnants of past glory days filled with wine and roses, now in the dead of winter with little hope for the future except for the depressing end of it all.
No, Daniel 9 has no relevance to Armstrongism and Armstrongism is looking for the long slow death of entropy whose end is not far away.
There was that Six Day War of June 1967: The Jews claimed some important real estate. Certainly, God would have been interested in that and told his prophets, the Armstrongists. But no, alas, God had to keep it a secret so it would succeed, not that anyone would have believed Herbert Armstrong and his pathetic Myrmidons, mind you. They just didn’t get it! In a hilarious irony, Herbert Armstrong had negotiated an exclusive contract with the Jordanian Government for the broadcast of The World Tomorrow from Jerusalem, but the Six-Day War aborted the contract when Israel seized both sectors of the city. I guess God just didn’t have the time to warn Herbert after all that negotiation with Jordan would be completely pointless and his crowing about being to go forth from Jerusalem went up in so much smoke. No really — smoke! There didn’t seem to be a way to slip a semi-Christian Yahweh past the Israelis. Perhaps, God was protecting them from yet another false prophet. It’s understandable, though, that Herbert Armstrong would miss out on prophesying this, since the Plain Truth Magazine in 1965 said that east Jerusalem would remain in Gentile hands until Christ’s coming.
Long before the Soviet Union fell and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dissolution on December 25th, 1991, one would have thought that the WCG would have been able to predict the event. In fact, so pathetic is Armstrongism, that it failed to predict the dissolution of the WCG itself less than a decade later. One would have thought that the WCG would have been able to foresee that, but sadly not. Maybe it’s a Mayan Calendar thing — the Mayans weren’t able to see their disappearance either, apparently, but here the whole world seems intent in believing that they could predict the end of the world in December 2012. What’s with that? Even Bob Thiel knows better, and that’s saying a lot, what with the rise of his secret sect and all. Herbert Armstrong said shortly before his death that “If this church is God’s only true church on earth today the gates of hell can not prevail against it!” We’re not sure about hell, but the WCG didn’t survive the Tkaches.
We also remember the transformation of the assault upon the United States and the rest of the world: The economy took a really big hit; bigger though, was the impact that American citizens could no longer feel safe in a way never anticipated.