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Articles for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG

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55
A Message to the WCG
Part 5

This publication is a message of spiritual redirection for members and ex-members of the WCG. It was first written in 1992, revised in 1994 and also in 1998. It is also available in print from the address at the end.


The Need to Walk by Faith

This chapter is composed of extracts from a letter written to an ex-Worldwider, who later joined the CGI, and who is now an 'independent' Sabbatarian, but who still retains a restrictive WCG-type psychological approach to other Christians.

It was very interesting to read of your background, and especially of some of your experiences. I shall explain why.

We have all come through the Worldwide and our backgrounds are all heavily influenced by the narrow philosophical approach of that 'church', which has considered itself the one and only True Church of God. It may have mellowed that stance more recently, but the same sort of thinking still prevails in several ways, and I presume you are of the opinion that the True Church is essentially of seventh-day persuasion.

The fact that you learned so much about spiritual gifts in the 'Sunday-observing' group led by the Copelands, is significant in several ways. Chiefly, it demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is working with these Christians and that Christ considers them just as much a part of His Body as others who do understand about the Sabbath and Holy Days to which we have had our minds opened.

We recognised those aspects of biblical understanding as 'the Truth', and indeed they are – they are part of the Truth. But they are not the summation, and that is where we tripped up in the past. Because we thought, by virtue of possessing that knowledge, that we had all available Truth, we assumed these others who didn't understand those aspects were not 'of the Truth'.

God has led us to recognise that there are many others whom He is using to preach the Gospel to the world as a witness to the saving name of Jesus. Most of these don't understand about the Sabbath. That is obviously of lesser importance to God. Of far greater significance to Him (at the moment) is the fact that Jesus is preached, and that people are directed towards Him.


Look To Christ, Not To Men

The philosophy of the WCG, which we have inherited, was a trap in some ways, because our attention was taken off Christ, and onto the more physical aspects of observance, or onto the ministry who had – without realising it – supplanted Christ's position in the Church and usurped His prerogatives.

Jesus is our Saviour, not men in ministerial capacities. He is also our Mediator, not any man. He is also our Revelator as well as our Guide and our Master. However, rather than allow Him to guide us, we had taken our focus off Him and onto the men who have usurped His position, and onto what WE did physically as a part of receiving salvation. This may be why many outsiders thought the Worldwide was preaching a salvation by works. The emphasis within the WCG was very subtly wrong and caused many to think that if they didn't live up to the standards, they were failures. As a result, the teaching did induce severe stress in some individuals and suicide was not unheard of.

That was not the Gospel of Jesus Christ! That was a denial of God's love, compassion, mercy and long-suffering.

This may be why many have become blinded and side-tracked, putting far too much emphasis on physical aspects and far too little on spiritual ones. WCG religion degenerated to the level of ritualism, and we have been in danger of dying spiritually. It is ironic that the ones Herbert Armstrong once accused of being Sardis types, and spiritually dead, were often the ones who were spiritually alive, and seeking to follow Christ in the Spirit, while HWA became the victim of the devil's subtlety! (I will tell you what the Lord told my son about HWA, later.)

HWA tragically became the leader of a large group who became blind to their spiritual inadequacies, true to the prophetic warnings to Laodicea and Sardis.

You obviously have been led, like us, to read HWA's Spirit-inspired article from the February 1939 Good News, and to recognise its significance. We could never understand that significance whilst still trapped by such wrong thinking, so that is why we had to be cast out of the WCG. It was all part of God's plan for us.


Christianity's Two 'Sides'

Your experience in gifts of the Spirit with Kenneth Copeland's ministry has put you in good stead for what God now wants to do. He is leading us to a meeting of the minds, so that the 'two sides' of Christianity can meet and share strengths. We have a strength in the law; they have a strength in the Spirit. We are both incomplete alone. We need to team up. However, it is like bringing two repellent magnetic poles together – a physical impossibility. The two forces simply seem to repel one another. God must change our polarity.

That is what He has done with us since being outside the Worldwide. We are now free of such rigid – and often wrong – dogma. We retain the Truth which we have come to know such as the Sabbaths, and the relevance of other aspects from the OT. But we are free to move on guided by the Spirit, in other ways.

One thing God has had us do, is convey the understandings we have been privy to from our seventh-day background, to front-line evangelists and apostles God is using in the 'faith movement'.

The latest move of the Holy Spirit is in the generation of greater holiness and awareness of God's principles. This is a move of God to prepare the Bride in this late hour. We are not the only ones commissioned to do this. A journal called Tishrei, edited by Clifford Denton, has just been launched here. The date of its first issue coincided with the Feast of Trumpets 1992! It is a publication devoted to "the exploration of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith".

I'm sure you know what that implies!

I was saddened to hear of the persecution and rejection you have had to endure from others with whom you have co-operated in the past. There are bound to be disagreements among us as we grow in knowledge and understanding. We don't all grow at the same rate, and it may be difficult for some to appreciate one thing, while that same aspect may be comparatively easy for another to assimilate.

It is important, while this process of re-education goes on, that we don't fall into the devil's trap of condemning and judging one another, and allowing attitudes of hostility or resentment to enter our minds. Doctrine alone has the tendency to divide. It is love which unites…


Herbert W Armstrong

To come now to the details about Herbert Armstrong. Many in the WCG have unfortunately inherited an inflated impression of the value of the human leader because of his human achievements. Such misplaced admiration has detracted from the admiration we should all have for Christ, who is our real Leader. There were times when HWA claimed to be following Him, but in reality he was merely deceived by the devil and doing things in his own strength.

As you know, he was going in the right direction originally on the matter of church government, but later drew back. He lost that understanding little by little over the subsequent years. I personally think God wanted him to feed the flock put in his care, rather than go off on a tangent to create a big 'work' and found colleges, which inevitably bore his stamp and not that of Jesus Christ…

[In 1993] my son was given a wonderful 'prophetic' gift of listening to God. He can ask Him questions and receive immediate answers if we are meant to know the answers to the questions posed. While we were sitting in our lounge a couple of weeks ago, praising Him, God gave him a series of visions of His throne in heaven for about an hour. He described to us the wonderful continual praise being offered to God, some of the remarkable

things the angels participated in and the overwhelming love of God which flooded through all present.

I think it was shortly before this or shortly after, that He also spoke to Richard about Herbert Armstrong. He told him, "I need to tell you that Herbert Armstrong has done some things that I wanted doing in the past, but most of what he did was done with his own might. He wasn't submitting his life to Me so that I could use him in a mighty way.

"To make this more real to you, one of the many occasions I tried to guide him was a time when he was driving somewhere. And while going this somewhere, he wasn't going the way I instructed him to go. Because he didn't listen to Me, I had to commission an angel to brutally turn the wheel of his car so that he would go the way I wanted him to go.

"There are some who worship the man and adore him more than they adore Me. Such people will say that this incident proves that this was a man of God because I had to force him to make a decision which I wanted made.

"A person is not of Me just because I was manifest in his life once or twice. A person is of Me if he submits to Me, and when he submits to Me you will see fruits in his life. Now, fruits aren't what many people think they are. It is wrong to think that right doctrines constitute those fruits. That is blaspheming My Holy Name.

"Now, I'm going to tell you what are My fruits. These signs shall follow those that believe – miracles, healings, raising the dead and casting out demons. All of these flow through love, the most important fruit of all. The devil cannot manifest himself in love, because he is not love, but he does know all the right doctrines that are in My Word…"

Very revealing, I'm sure you would agree!


Examples of Walking by Faith

Richard (our son) was only 18 in 1993, but he was given, for a while, gift of faith so that God could use him effectively in a prophetic capacity. For example, Richard was told in January 1993 to take £150 of his savings and give it to someone whose identity God had not even revealed and to go to Aylesbury, where God would then point out the man. Richard did exactly as he was told.

When he got there, as he was walking past the Jobcentre, his eyes looked at a certain person. God spoke to him again and said, "That's the man." Richard went up to him and gave him the money as he had been instructed, and told him that God loved him (as he had also been told to say). Although the initial reaction from the man was one of incredulity, he was obviously later greatly encouraged. His personal spiritual life must have been at a low ebb, and God is working something out in his life.

The previous week, God told Richard to give £400 to a member of 'our' group who meet with us here on the Sabbath. Richard did what he was told.

These 'amazing' phenomena are not isolated events for those who are prepared to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit. They are every-day occurrences for those who will walk with God, and be aware of Him constantly in their lives. The book I mentioned previously by Dave Duell [Faith – Believe it.... or Not!] recounts many more supernatural events like these, which are evidence of the miraculous working of God today.

You probably think Richard is 'loaded', giving away so much money! Not at all. That was all he had! He now has nothing left. It seems God is preparing him for a special ministry which will involve a high level of commitment and reliance upon God, which can only be achieved by walking in faith. After he passed these tests, God spoke to him again and told him that He will be moving someone to give him a red BMW 325i estate some time in the near future for the work God has in mind for us. (Our car is just about clapped out!) God has everything planned out, it is up to us to take what He wants to give us. That statement is true for all of us, whether it is healing, salvation, physical needs, deliverance from problems. There is a way to receive from Him, and that way is through faith. That quality pleases God greatly.

This is the one quality on which the WCG could not adequately expound. It did not understand real faith. So it was not in a position to give the membership the teaching that could have helped them receive it. As a result, deliverances, healings and spiritual growth were minimal. We have seen much greater works outside the confines of the WCG borders since being out than we ever saw during the 25 years we were within!


God's Indicators

That's not to say that the WCG didn't have a purpose. It did!

It is interesting to note that there are 111 instances in the OT where the word "Shabbath" occurs (meaning Sabbath, or cessation). The PO Box for the WCG in the formative years was invariably number 111! God used the WCG to preserve many aspects of 'ritualistic' observance which have become lost to the rest of Christianity, such as the Sabbath and Holy Days.

But God couldn't use that organisation for much more than that. Spirituality was merely skin deep, and the good fruits were very sparse. Often, works were merely human, not superhuman like Christ's. Yet God wants us to be like Jesus in every way!

So, He is now calling us to move on with Him into a deeper appreciation of His spirituality. I feel in some ways we have only just begun, so please do not think we are some spiritual giants; we have a long way to go. I am sharing these things with you because I feel they will encourage you, but it helps me too at the same time.

When we first moved to this home, it was unusual how our phone number was selected for us by the telephone exchange. God gave us His stamp of approval, showing us that He is guiding us. Seven, as you know, is a number denoting the perfection of God's hand. Four signifies faith. The total of the digits is 33 (3x11). Eleven is biblically significant with regard to writings, and three denotes finality in God's dealings.

Not long afterwards, we had need of another line, and the number that was selected for us also added up to 33! It was not planned.

One day God spoke to me and had me do a little multiplication on a calculator to show me something in our phone number. He said, "Take 2, multiply by 3, multiply by 7, multiply by 13, multiply by 37...." I was amazed to see the result - our telephone number! All these figures have numeric significance in the Bible. [These are explained in our booklet, God's Great Genius, available for £2.00.]

Looking back, we can see where God's hand has guided us every inch of the way. Even the house we live in. He made it all possible, giving me the physical ability and strength to make it what it is today, for the benefit of others who can now be helped as a result.

Some time ago, Helena was given a dream or vision of me digging foundations and then concreting them. This was taking place in Aylesbury town centre right under the clock tower, a most prominent and public place. In musing about what this could mean, I am coming to see that what God has called us to do from here, is to lay a written foundation for the spiritual superstructure that God now wants to add. A foundation is constructed below ground where the large amount of work is hidden and not seen. Its value is not appreciated until much later, but when the new superstructure is built thereon, people will be able to see what it was all for. It will be in a prominent place, where people will be taking note of the time.

God is so ingenious!

God has given Helena various premonitions and dreams** which indicate that after the show-down with the forces of evil in the WCG, there will be a separation. Some (hopefully many) good members will come out to follow God more fully, at which time she is convinced Aylesbury will become the HQ here for a significant splinter group of God's people to come out of Worldwide and be delivered from false and prejudicial concepts.

Until next time, be strong in Him. God bless you and all those with you.

With our sincere love,

Malcolm B Heap


** Since this was first written in 1992, God has given us many more dreams and visions, some of which pertain to the WCG and are posted at http://www.
midnightministries.org.uk/wcgb_index.htm.

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www.midnightministries.org.uk