Why?

Next Part (HWA)What Mr. Armstrong Taught

As covered in the previous chapter, during the “Back on Track” years the Church and Work experienced phenomenal growth. This was its own evidence that Jesus Christ had worked through a faithful apostle.

As Mr. Armstrong neared death, he bestowed virtually every title and function he held to his successor, save one: the office of apostle. Mr. Armstrong plainly stated that this was the one office he did not have the authority to transfer to another man. This was a rank that Christ clearly had to bestow based on one’s fruits.

Nonetheless, soon after Mr. Armstrong’s death, his successor took to himself that office and, consequently, attempted to wield authority of which he was neither qualified nor trained. The years of structure, organization, production, order, peace and harmony that resulted under the leadership of a true apostle was undone—replaced by the doctrinal confusion and subsequent church-wide chaos that was borne under the unauthorized leadership of a false apostle.

In the process, most members either forgot or no longer believed that the Church over which Christ is Head was “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20), and that truth—true doctrinal teaching—enters into the Church only through apostles. As soon as Mr. Armstrong died, tens of thousands no longer “endured sound doctrine” (II Tim. 4:3); instead, they “heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears” and “turned away their ears from the truth” to “turn unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:4). This occurred in both the Worldwide Church of God (which wholeheartedly embraced the false teachings and pagan traditions of this world’s religions), and in the hundreds of disagreeing splinter organizations and groups that emerged from it.

There is another absolutely crucial doctrine most either forgot or no longer believed—an amazing prophecy that everyone in the WCG membership once understood, agreed with and supported.

“Behold, I Will Send You Elijah”

At the end of Malachi 4 ALL, in the final verses of the Old Testament, written about 500 years before Jesus Christ’s First Coming, is the following prophecy: “Remember you the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of theLord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:4-6')">vs. 4-6).

The word “curse,” which comes from the Hebrew word cherem, is better translated “extermination, utter destruction or doom.”

Let’s understand the meaning here. God declares that He would exterminate—doom!—utterly destroy the entire planet if one lone man did not come PRIOR to the Day of the Lord. This incredible statement carries profound implications. In other words, God states that this one man’s appearance—an end-time Elijah (in biblical type)—stands between Him (God) and the destruction of humanity!

Now let’s turn to another passage of prophecy regarding the “last days.” We have already seen Jesus foretold that, prior to His Second Coming, “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14). He also said that, in the time of “the end,” mankind would be in danger of global extermination: “For then shall be great tribulation [“pressure, affliction, anguish, persecution, trouble, oppression, distress”], such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved” (Matthew 24:21-22).

The word “saved” does not mean salvation. Rather, it literally means “deliver, protect, preserve.”Thayer’s defines it this way: “to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue or preserve one who is in danger of destruction.”

Let’s put these verses together and gain greater understanding. Malachi 4 ALL speaks of God sending a man, prior to the “Day of the Lord”—the year of God’s wrath, or vengeance (Isa. 34:8; 61:2; 63:4). If this man did not come, God would “smite the earth with a curse”—with utter destruction. Clearly, this is the same event as Matthew 4 ALL: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved” (Matthew 4:22).

The latter half of Matthew 4:22 states, “but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” The word “elect” means “select, picked out, chosen”—in other words, the Church, whose members are called out (selected, chosen) from the world, and no longer “conformed” to it (Rom. 12:2). Christ said of true Christians, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16).

Unless God intervened—sending a faithful servant in the end-time to preach the gospel “in all the world, teach all nations...to observe all things,” including God’s laws and ways, and help restore the family unit among God’s people (turning the hearts of the fathers to the children)—humanity would be erased from existence!

Would God leave such a monumental role of the end-time Elijah up to human interpretation or guesswork? Would He obscure that man’s identity and leave it uncertain in the eyes of the faithful “elect”? Or would God—as He has done with all His servants—unmistakably identify the one who fulfilled that role, by his fruits?
God did send such a man.

The Elijah Prophecy

Elijah was an Old Testament prophet, whom God sent to warn the evil King Ahab of the House of Israel, who was under the idolatrous sway of his wife, Jezebel. With the power of God, Elijah raised the dead back to life, boldly stood against and taunted the prophets (priests) of Baal and brought fire down from above, fervently prayed for God to end a three-year drought (which God answered), and ascended into the sky in a whirlwind.

When the disciples asked why the Scribes said that “Elijah must first come,” Jesus replied, “Elias trulyshall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed” (Matt. 17:10-12),

The Elijah who “is come already” was John the Baptist, and the disciples understood this (Matthew 17:13). John was the “messenger” foretold to appear in preparation of Christ’s First Coming: “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple [His New Testament Church – Eph. 2:19-22; II Cor. 6:16], even the Messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, He shall come, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 3:1).

But Malachi 3:2 speaks of Christ’s Second Coming: “But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.” Jesus first came as a physical human being; as such, other human beings were able to “stand when He appeared.” Not so at His Second Coming! Christ will return as a triumphant King—with “His head and his hairs...white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes...as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters...and His countenance...as the sun shines in his strength” (Rev. 1:14-16). Upon His arrival, the returning King will lead a great angelic army out of heaven and will wield “a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Rev. 19:15).

Malachi 3:1-2, combined with 4:4-6 and Matthew 17:11-13, speaks of two comings of Jesus Christ (the former in the flesh, the latter as a Spirit-Being in the God Family) and two “messengers” appearing prior to Christ’s First and Second Coming: an Elijah who “is come already” (John the Baptist) and an Elijah who “truly shall first come, and restore all things.”

Let’s understand. John the Baptist was not literally the Old Testament prophet Elijah resurrected to physical life. Rather, he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). John was a type of the final Elijah, only the latter was foretold to “restore all things.” John restored nothing, to the Church or anyone or anything else. Over the course of an approximately one-year ministry (with about another six months in prison), he announced Christ’s First Coming and baptized many, probably in advance of a later conversion, as a means of “preparing a people for the Lord.”

Jesus declared, “Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11)—yet despite this, “They knew him not.” Likewise, the latter-day Elijah would not be generally known by the world for who he was and would be largely forgotten by most in the Church.

The Scribes and Pharisees of John the Baptist’s time rejected him as Elijah. Jesus said this was because he did not fit their description of the prophecy. John performed no miracles and did not sweep away the Roman legions from Jerusalem and Judea. He announced the Coming of a Christ that the religious leaders of the day were unwilling to receive, whom they found to be a “stumblingblock” (I Cor. 1:23; I Pet. 2:7-8). As a result, they rejected John and Christ, and went back into a waiting mode for the Elijah. Even today, many orthodox and conservative Jews put an empty place setting for Elijah at their Passover tables.

One billion people in the Islamic world are looking for an Elijah-like figure, called Imam Mahdi. According to some within the Islamic belief, this man is said to appear before a supposed second physical coming of Jesus, whom Muslims consider a prophet. The term “mahdi” means “the guided one.” This figure is expected to appear suddenly at the time of the end, when the earth is filled with injustice and tyranny. Ruling over the Muslim community for about seven years, he is thought to spread “brotherhood, equity and devotion” among Muslims, pulling them together, and thereby paving the way for what they think of as the return of Hadhrat Isa bin Maryam (Jesus Son of Mary). He is foretold to marry, to live 40 years and to defeat the “anti-Christ” before dying and ushering in the time of final judgment.

But as the world waits for the arrival of a “final Elijah,” that role has already been fulfilled! Only one man has been used to preach the gospel “unto all nations,” and “turn...the disobedient to the wisdom of the just” (Luke 1:17)—teaching God’s Way of give, and outgoing concern for others, to untold millions of television viewers, radio listeners, Bible correspondence students, readers, coworkers and Church members. Only one man has been used to personally meet with one-third of the world’s heads of state as an “ambassador without portfolio”—God’s messenger and representative of the true way to lasting peace. Only one man has been used to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” and vice-versa, restoring the family bond between parents and children, via extensive programs, functions, activities, curriculums and publications for the youth in God’s Church. And only one man has been used to “restored all things”—doctrinal knowledge revealing the true nature of the kingdom of God, government, man’s incredible potential, the identity of the American and British peoples in Bible prophecy, and so much more!

That man was Herbert W. Armstrong.

(HWA)What Mr. Armstrong Taught

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