Raising the Ruins (25 page)

Brethren, I want to make a strong point here. You need to grasp what people are hoodwinked by Satan the devil on. I know
Gerald Flurry
very well. I thought I did. I didn’t know some of the things he was doing behind the scenes. But he was never around Mr. Armstrong’s feet to be trained there. I was with Wayne Cole. We sent him up to [Washington] when I was with Wayne Cole in 1975. When the decision was made to send him, he was serving not in Pasadena, he was serving in [Norwalk]. We sent him up to Washington to handle those four churches: Yakima, Quincy, Tonasket and Pasco. That’s where he was for about 10 or 11 years. Then he went over to Oklahoma City.

How could he carry on for Mr. Armstrong? He wasn’t even trained around him, much less at his feet. Wasn’t even trained close to him. Wasn’t even trained at his coattail. Wasn’t trained within arm’s reach. He was miles away for about 13 or 14 years. Whom did God appoint to carry on for Moses? One trained at his feet: Joshua. That’s the smart way to do it.
¹⁶

First of all, Christ did say He would build His church,
¹⁷
but He did not say He would never leave the church! He said, “I will never leave
YOU
, nor forsake
YOU
.”
¹⁸
Church history proves just the opposite of what Mr. Waterhouse said. God doesn’t leave His people, but His people can leave Him! Read Revelation 2 and 3. Then read Revelation 2:5 and Ezekiel 8:6 where it shows God will forsake a church that forsakes Him.

According to Mr. Waterhouse,
Gerald Flurry
couldn’t carry on for Mr. Armstrong because he wasn’t at Mr. Armstrong’s feet like Garner Ted Armstrong, David Antion, Albert Portune, Wayne Cole and Stanley Rader. Or what about David Jon Hill or Charles Hunting? Those men were all trained at Mr. Armstrong’s feet. But does being so trained guarantee someone will remain faithful to the teacher? Judas Iscariot was trained at Jesus Christ’s feet. Lucifer was trained at God’s feet.

Mr. Tkach was indeed trained at Mr. Armstrong’s feet. At a special service the day Mr. Armstrong died, Mr. Tkach said, “[W]e are a product of [Mr. Armstrong’s] dedication and service. … We can appreciate having the opportunity of being able to support and hold up the arms of the late Mr. Armstrong.” At that time Mr. Tkach promised to stay on the path Mr. Armstrong had established. He said,

And the admonishment is now for those of us still living who now have a task that is set before them, a course that has already been charted by God’s apostle. We need to maintain that course and not deviate from it one iota.

Then, during the final prayer at Mr. Armstrong’s funeral, Mr. Tkach said, “We readily admit and acknowledge that there is no man who can fill his shoes, but, Father, we aim to follow in his footsteps.”
¹⁹

Following on the “coattail” of Mr. Armstrong did not prevent Mr. Tkach from changing every major doctrine Mr. Armstrong established, even after Mr. Tkach said that the course had “already been charted,” and that we were not to “deviate from it one iota.”

Melting Away

You get an idea of how the
WCG
reacted to
Malachi’s Message
and
Gerald Flurry
those first few years. They ridiculed the Philadelphia Church of God, calling it a “peanut shell” or “snow flurry,” because they thought—or at least they hoped—it would just go away.

But it didn’t. Our work kept growing.

Ironically, it’s the Worldwide Church of God that has been slowly melting away. Its income has plummeted. Its leaders have sold off all the property. There is no work being done. Even many of its leading men have died, including Tkach Sr. on September 23, 1995. Earlier that year, while operating on Tkach Sr.’s gall bladder, doctors discovered widespread cancer.

Yet, Mr. Tkach’s physical demise is nothing compared to the spiritual disease he brought into the Worldwide Church of God. And those under him, instead of fighting against the cancer, actually helped it spread. As Mike Feazell said in his book, the church Mr. Armstrong devoted his life to building “had slowly ceased to exist.”
²⁰

“…
Mr. Armstrong persevered during the last year of his life to complete this, his last book. One of his last public appearances was to present it to the students of Ambassador College. But he also wanted to make it available to a much wider audience.”

— Joseph Tkach Sr.

Plain Truth, November-December 1986

Less than a year before he died, Mr. Armstrong summed up his prophetic message in a letter on February 25, 1985. “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.” He continued,

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.
¹

The prophesied rise of a European beast power—a teaching that embarrassed the Tkaches—was the beating heart of Mr. Armstrong’s prophetic teachings. He continued in that same letter, “For some reason God has been holding back the fulfillment of this prophecy—but it is certain to occur!” God had been
holding back
the final development of this Euroforce, according to Mr. Armstrong. He then wrote, “Meanwhile God’s work is growing now as never before. … 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
.”
²

While events were held back in Europe, they had accelerated in the church. Mr. Armstrong was hard at work on the most important book of his life.

Required Reading

In
Mystery of the Ages
,
Mr. Armstrong set out to explain the biblical truth about seven great mysteries man has not been able to solve: the mystery of God, the truth about angels and evil spirits, the mystery of man, of civilization, Israel, the true church and, finally, the mystery of the kingdom of God.

“These are the seven great mysteries that concern the very lives of every human being on Earth,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in the preface of the book. “The plain truth of all these mysteries is revealed in the Bible, but none of the churches or theologians seem to have comprehended them.”

“Why?” he asked. Because “the Bible is the basic mystery of all.”
³

In April 1985, Joseph Tkach Sr. told the ministers he believed
Mystery of the Ages
would “prove to be another major step forward for God’s church and the spreading of the gospel around the world.”
⁴

That same
PGR
also reported that Mr. Armstrong’s February 25 letter brought in the “highest response in several months.” According to Richard Rice, many recipients wrote Mr. Armstrong to tell him they were eagerly looking forward to reading
Mystery of the Ages
.
⁵

Mr. Armstrong finished writing
Mystery
on May 14, 1985. A few weeks later, on June 7, Mr. Tkach told ministers that they needed to constantly review the doctrines that had been restored to the church through Mr. Armstrong. He then referred to
Mystery of the Ages
and said “this is a book that
should be reread
as soon as we finish it the first time, in order to really soak up what God is teaching us.”
⁶

When Mr. Armstrong handed out new copies of
Mystery of the Ages
to the sophomore class at Ambassador College in September, he told them,

I want to say that you need to read every word, and you need to go over it more than once. You aren’t going to get the full meat of this book in one reading. This is a book that, after you’ve read it, you can read it a second time and then later a third time.
⁷

In the book itself, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “As you read and reread this book, compare constantly with your own Bible.”
⁸

So this was not something Mr. Armstrong wanted the brethren to take casually. He admonished the membership to thoroughly go through the book over and again. After it was printed, it automatically became the most important piece of literature in the church. It was used as a textbook at Ambassador College. And it was required reading for all people interested in becoming a member of the church.

Six months after Mr. Armstrong died, Church Administration gave these instructions to the ministry about baptismal counseling:

Although the reading of
Mystery of the Ages
and certain booklets and correspondence course lessons regarding the subjects related to baptism
should be required,
the complete reading of all of Mr. Armstrong’s lengthier books is, in most cases, an unnecessary requirement for baptism candidates.
⁹

Some ministers, apparently, were requiring prospective members to read all of Mr. Armstrong’s books prior to baptism. While that wasn’t necessary, one clear exception was Mr. Armstrong’s final book. E
VERYONE HAD TO READ
Mystery of the Ages
!

Without missing a beat, the Philadelphia Church of God continued with this policy at its inception in 1989, even though the book had been out of print for over a year and a half. “Mr. Armstrong instructed the ministers to insist that every baptismal candidate read
Mystery of the Ages
,”
my father wrote in late 1989.
¹⁰

At a 1994 ministerial conference,
PCG
minister Dennis Leap called
Mystery of the Ages
the “primer text prior to baptism.” He then reminded our ministers about Mr. Armstrong’s instructions that it be “required reading.”
¹¹

My father reiterated this same policy two years later, telling
PCG
ministers, “Mr. Armstrong required that anyone who wanted to be baptized must read
Mystery of the Ages
.”
¹²

At the end of his life, without question, Mr. Armstrong considered
Mystery of the Ages
the most important and significant work available within the Worldwide Church of God. Even Mr. Tkach said so for at least a year after Mr. Armstrong died. And since the establishment of the
PCG
in 1989, my father has upheld
Mystery of the Ages
as essential reading for prospective members.

But Mr. Armstrong never intended this book to be for members only. In it, there is a message for all of mankind. This is why he devoted so much of the church’s resources and money toward the printing and distribution of
Mystery of the Ages
.

“Largest Audience Possible”

“You could say that Mr. Armstrong was the art director as well as the author,” said Greg Smith, the book’s designer. “He met with several people from Editorial periodically to review the design, the paper stock, the typestyle and finally, the cover.”
¹³
Mr. Armstrong considered these details extremely important because of his expansive plans for the book. For the cover jacket, he wanted something that looked regal, so he chose a deep shade of purple that had to be specially mixed at the printer. The title was printed with raised lettering, embossed in gold. The church printed 150,000 copies of the hardback version and hired a New York publishing house—Dodd, Mead—to coordinate the book’s distribution.

The hardback copies were distributed to
WCG
members as well as regular donors and co-workers who supported the church. The church also produced a paperback version and advertised it in the
Plain Truth,
which had a circulation of about 8 million. It offered free copies by letter to 480,000
Good News
subscribers as well as to viewers of the
World Tomorrow
television program. A condensed version (and corrupt, we later discovered) of the book ran serially in the
Plain Truth’
s seven different language editions.

To reach an audience outside the church’s sphere of influence, Mr. Armstrong offered the hardback version in book stores for $12.95. “This presents the book to an audience that possibly would not read or treat seriously literature received free of charge,” wrote Michael Snyder in the
Worldwide News
.
¹⁴
The church then spent $400,000 to advertise the book—the largest advertising campaign ever for any church literature. It placed full-page ads in 27 major newspapers, including the
Wall Street Journal, USA Today
and the
Saturday Evening Post
. It also advertised in
Newsweek
and several other magazines and journals. The ad explained “why
Mystery of the Ages
could be one of the most important books of our day” and informed readers that the book was available in bookstores.
¹⁵

In the church’s 1985 Behind the Work video, the narrator noted, “Every effort is being made to make
Mystery of the Ages
available to the widest possible audience.”
¹⁶

This is what Mr. Armstrong wanted for a book this important. He wrote to church members and co-workers in September 1985, “We want to reach
THE LARGEST AUDIENCE POSSIBLE
with this book. I know you will feel the same way when you read it.”
¹⁷
For a short while at least, it seemed like Mr. Tkach felt that way as well.

“Much Wider Audience”

For at least 12 months after Mr. Armstrong’s death, Tkach Sr. heaped praise on the book. On January 16, 1986—the day Mr. Armstrong died—Mr. Tkach told members and co-workers, “Even in the last year of his life, with declining strength, he completed with God’s help,
HIS MOST POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE BOOK
,
Mystery of the Ages
.”
¹⁸
Later that year, Mr. Tkach wrote in the
Plain Truth,

Although in declining health, and for all practical purposes blind, Mr. Armstrong persevered during the last year of his life to complete this, his last book. One of his last public appearances was to present it to the students of Ambassador College.

But he also wanted to make it available to a
MUCH
wider audience. He decided
Mystery of the Ages
should be published by installments in the
Plain Truth
—a parting gift to the millions he had served through radio, television and the printed word during his long life
.”
¹⁹

Mr. Tkach acknowledged that Mr. Armstrong wanted the book distributed far beyond church boundaries—that he viewed the book as a parting gift for “millions.” So Mr. Armstrong approved the serialization project
and also
the bookstore distribution, the advertising campaign, the press release and the direct mail and
World Tomorrow
offers. Tkach continued,

Shortly before he died, he said he had understood more in the last 10 years of his long life than in all the previous decades.

Mystery of the Ages
is the product of that understanding. Mr. Armstrong
DID NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE
of this last work, for it contained vital keys to understanding the plan of God as revealed in the Bible.
Mystery of the Ages
in a very real sense was a last will and testament, to be
passed on to those who would value it
. As we come to the last installment of this remarkable book, we gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to Herbert W. Armstrong, and his dogged search for the truth. He freely shared his understanding with us, and we have been privileged to make it available to you. He loved and respected his readers and, in a figurative sense, he remembered you in his will.
²⁰

A year and a half later,
Mr. Tkach retired the book from circulation
permanently
and trashed 120,000 copies left in storage. But not for the Philadelphia Church of God, today Mr. Armstrong’s last will and testament would be all but obsolete.

Our Big Day

When Mr. Armstrong handed out new copies of his book to the sophomore class on September 9, 1985, he nearly shed a tear as he asked, “Will you forgive me if I get a little bit of a thrill that this book is done—that this book is out now? Today is a pretty big day in my life, when I can hand copies of this book out to each of you.”
²¹

Our “big day” came 11 years later, on December 20, 1996, when we received our first copy of
Mystery of the Ages
—reprinted for the first time by the Philadelphia Church of God. For about a year, my father had seriously considered the move. He had discussed the subject with a few of us ministers at
PCG
headquarters in Edmond.

He advised me to contact a Washington,
D.C
., copyright attorney who had been referred to us by the husband of our television time-buying agent. I contacted him by phone in November 1996 and explained our situation as thoroughly and succinctly as possible. I told him that we would most likely move forward on the project, but wanted to get some legal advice before proceeding further. While he didn’t offer his opinion on the legalities of printing a discontinued work we didn’t technically own, he did tell us that if we chose to move forward, we should prepare for the possibility of litigation.