December 10, 2010

“. . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the Seven Churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea” (Revelation 1:11).

The History of God’s One and Only True Church

By

Alton (Don) B. Billingsley

Continued from 4-13-2010, 4-23-2010; 4-30-2010; 5-7-2010; 5-17-2010; 5-21-2010; 5-28-2010; 6-11-2010; 6-18-2010- 6-25-2010; 7-2-2010; 7-16-2010; 7-23-2010; 7-30-2010; 8-6-2010; 10-15-2010; 11-12-2010; 11-26-2010; 12-3-2010-

Regarding the establishment of His Church, Jesus Christ said to the apostle Peter and the rest of His disciples:

“. . . On this ROCK (Greek: Masculine, Petros, Feminine, Petra, meaning Jesus Christ Himself, Deuteronomy 32:3-4; I Corinthians 10:4) I will BUILD My Church, and the gates of Hades (graves, I Corinthians 15:54-55) shall NOT prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18).

The Church in Philadelphia - The Church of Brotherly Love - began in October 1933 (with 19 members) and is ongoing —

And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia write, "These things says He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of David, He who opens, and no one can shut, and shuts and no one opens: I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength have kept My word, and have not denied My name.

Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but lie— indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.

Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trail which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast which you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God and he shall go out no more.

I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of of My God, the new Jerusalem, wwhich comes down out of heaveen from y God. And I will write on him My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches (Revelation 3:7-13).

This Present Historical Writing continues with the History of the Philadelphia Era of God’s true Church—

WORLDWIDE NEWS, SPECIAL EDITION

June 24, 1985
Page 1

Recent History of the Philadelphia Era of the
Worldwide Church of God

By Herbert W. Armstrong

All members need to be updated on the history of the Philadelphia era of God's one original Church as founded in A.D. 31 by Jesus Christ -- especially the past 15 years of its life.

Jesus Christ said that in the world His Church would have tribulations and persecutions. He did not foretell clear sailing.

NO PEACEFUL EXISTENCE IN A HOSTILE WORLD. "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you," He said. Again in God's Word we are warned, "It is through much tribulation that we must enter into the Kingdom of God."

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:14). The apostle Paul warned the elders of the Church at at Ephesus that grievous wolves would enter in among them to destroy the flock, and also of their own selves some would seek to draw away disciples after themselves (Acts 20:29-30).

Why is this so? Why has God's Church in this Philadelphia era gone through a period of friction, controversy within the Church and split-offs, with certain ministers leaving the Church to take followers after themselves during the 1970s? It was even so during the preceding Sardia era. And why has the Church withstood this controversy and even a certain amount of division in our midst and emerged into unity, harmony, oneness and thriving progress of the present?

Why did the Los Angeles Times recently publish a story with a full six-column headline clear across the page, saying Worldwide Church of God "Thriving on Controversy"?

These are actual events affecting our own very lives during the past 15 years. To understand, we must refresh our minds briefly on how it all first started, 6,000 years ago, at the very foundation of the world and of the human family on earth with the creation of the first man Adam.

God was beginning His greatest all-time accomplishment -- to reproduce Himself. God had first created angels. The great archangel Lucifer had been placed on the throne of the earth when God created the earth and the vast universe. Lucifer had rebelled against God's government and led a third of all angels into rebellion. He became Satan the devil, and his angels became perverted demons. Then God created the first human, Adam, mortal, out of the dust of the earth, with only a physicochemical temporary existence, but offering Adam eternal God-life and opportunity to replace Satan on earth's throne. Adam also rebelled against God and His government, rejecting the tree of life, and choosing to take to himself to the knowledge of good and evil, relying on himself instead of God for knowledge and the way of life.

Thereupon God closed off the tree of life (the Holy Spirit), except for those specially called, until Christ the second Adam yet in the future should replace Satan on the throne, as the first Adam should have done.

Traditional Christianity, theologians and Bible scholars seem never to have noticed that the tree of life -- which was the Holy Spirit imparting God-life -- was closed to the world and still today remains closed. God had said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). "Image" refers to spiritual character; likeness refers to form and shape. God creates in dual stages. To make man in God's image means spiritual image -- a spiritual being with God's perfect divine character.

But the first stage of this creation was the physical human man, mortal, having temporary physical existence. Yet in that man, God created the human spirit to empower the physical brain with intellect. This spirit gave mortal man not only physical and material intelligence and mind power, but also the capacity for good or evil, but on the human level -- the carnal or selfish level. Through the symbolic tree of life God made accessible to Adam God's Holy Spirit to beget in him God-life of immortality and also the God-mind for acquiring God's spiritual knowledge and spiritual character. When God closed the tree of life He closed off from mankind this contact with God the Father, immortality, the God-mind and what the world calls "salvation."

But the second personage of the God family, the Word, gave up His divinity and was born as a human of the virgin Mary. He was God in the human flesh, both God and man, but functioning as a human man in His ministry on earth. He came to qualify, as the first Adam had failed to do, to replace Satan on the throne of the earth. He came also to call out of the world God's Church, also to qualify to sit with Him on this throne and to qualify to teach and rule with Him as divine beings -- the very first fruits of God's harvest in reproducing Himself. He came also to ransom the world of humans from Satan, who had kidnapped all humanity. He paid this ransom price by His life's blood on the cross.

Jesus said He would build His Church. The word church, in the Greek language of the New Testament, is "ekklesia", which means "called-out ones." As Jesus had to qualify for the throne by overcoming Satan, so did His Church that is to sit with Him on that throne and be given power over the nations to rule, teach and convert into the family of God.

The original Adam could have been begotten as a son of God -- converted -- had he taken of the tree of life. This begettal would have come through the Holy Spirit. When God closed off the tree of life, He closed off reconciliation to God the Father -- that is, conversion or begettal of divine God-life. The world as a whole is still cut off to this day from that begettal, commonly spoken of by Protestants as "being saved." No such salvation is even yet available to the world. The world of traditional Christianity is blinded to this fact.

But the Church was called out of the world, to be separate in living by God's law instead of Satan's way of self-centeredness, competition and strife, following the first Adam. That is why Jesus said the Church would be persecuted, even as He had been. Those called into the Church would live by God's way of love, not the world's way of selfishness, contention and strife. This required the presence and flowing into them of the Holy Spirit of God, giving them a different purpose in life and a different mind and attitude than formerly in the world.

Why did Christ call the Church out of the world to be separate from the world? They were called as students. The Bible calls them disciples. The word disciple means student or learner. The Church was like at school, and Jesus was the original teacher. He called out of the world His 12 disciples, or students, for the very purpose of educating them to become teachers, and also rulers with and under Christ, when Jesus comes in power and glory to sit on Satan's throne over all the earth and to rule as well as to convert all nations.

To those in the Church who are growing in grace and spiritual knowledge, Jesus says He will give power over the nations to rule them -- they shall sit with Him on His earthly throne, and they shall be made priests or teachers and kings and rule with Christ on the earth (Revelation 2:26-27, 3:21 and 5:10).

The Church is actually a school teaching students to become teachers and rulers in God's Kingdom.

But these students -- or Church members -- must first themselves be converted, begotten as children of God, having received the Holy Spirit (tree of life) that Adam rejected. Why? Because the natural-born carnal mind cannot understand the spiritual knowledge and truths of God (I Corinthians 2:9-14)! Therefore God has made special provision, predestining those He calls out of the world to be called now, in the Church age, BEFORE God opens the tree of life and salvation to the world as a whole. That is why the Church is called the "first fruits" of God's harvest for His Kingdom.

Let it be emphasized again. As Christ the second Adam came to qualify to replace Satan on earth's throne, God chose and called certain ones out of the world also to qualify to sit with Christ on that throne. This is not the time God is trying to "save the world." God's judgment day for the world has not yet come. But to those specially called for the very purpose of sitting on that throne with Christ, it was necessary that they receive the Holy Spirit before they could learn God's truth, which the first Adam had rejected. That is why the Church is only the "first fruits" of those ultimately to receive salvation.

We receive the Holy Spirit ONLY after complete repentance of the way we were living. We must come out of this world to live a life separate from the life and ways of the world, with our minds on things of God, not things of this world.

That is why we are opposed and persecuted by the world. That is why they persecuted Jesus Christ. That is why some who become somewhat interested, are baptized and start in the Church, drift back into the world and leave the Church. Many professed to repent and be baptized who had not repented, but were accepted by Church members as brethren. These false brethren did and always have entered into the Church professing to be members.

Jesus preached a definite Gospel. That and that alone is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a Gospel message about the Kingdom of God -- the begotten and finally to be born family of God -- a family of divine persons, begotten and finally to be born of God.

Jesus came. He called and taught His disciples. One of the original 12 turned against Him, Judas Iscariot. Jesus taught His students. Then He died for the sins of the world and commissioned those He had taught to go into all the world and teach in all nations the same message He had taught them.

They were to baptize those who repented and believed. But Jesus Himself said plainly, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44). Through predestination God chooses and calls those He nominates to qualify to sit with Christ on the earth's throne when Satan is removed. At that time, beginning with the Second Coming of Christ, God will open the tree of life to everyone then living. For the previously uncalled, judgment will be on them by a resurrection from the dead after the thousand years' reign with Christ. Judgment will then have come to all who ever lived. But at the present time judgment is on the Church only (I Peter 4:17).

After Jesus' death and resurrection He ascended to heaven to sit with God on God's throne, where He is today. Ten days after His ascension days after His death -- the Holy Spirit descended and filled His disciples. That day of "first fruits" the Church was born.

It thrived and grew amazingly, but soon opposition and persecution set in. By A.D. 51, much of the Church in Galatia had turned to another gospel (Galatians 1:6-7). A violent controversy arose over whether the Gospel to be preached was the Gospel of Christ or a gospel ABOUT Christ. The latter won out. There ensued a "lost century" in the history of the Church, from about A.D. 70 to 170. The original true Church survived, but gradually lost much of Jesus' teaching and biblical truth. By the early part of the 20th century much of God's purpose and truth had been lost -- but the struggling true Church still had the name Church of God, the Ten Commandments including the Sabbath, and also tithing.

I came among the brethren of the Sardia era upon conversion from 1927. I never did become a member of that era of the Church. In 1930 a division occurred among the Oregon brethren, resulting in the formation of the Oregon Conference of the Church of God. The Sardis era of the Church had become, virtually spiritually dead. That was the beginning of a gradual transition to the Philadelphia era. I was ordained in June of precisely a century of time cycles after the original apostles were ordained -- in this transition era by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God. I continued to work with and fellowship with West Coast members of the Sardis era until 1942, when the rapidly growing work of the fledgling Philadelphia era required my full time. The present era was officially begun in October, 1933. For the next 35 years it grew steadily at the average rate of approximately 30 percent per year.

Ambassador College was founded Oct. 8, 1947, amid a life-and-death financial struggle for existence.

Ever since 1930 in the Sardis Church there had been opposition and political infighting among some ministers.

In 1927 God opened my eyes to the continuing command to observe the annual Sabbaths, as well as the weekly Sabbath. None of the Sardis era brethren in the United States would accept this truth of the annual Sabbaths, except for two or three families. As God continued to restore lost truths to His Church through me, the Sardis era brethren rejected all restored truths.

After two years of Ambassador College teaching in preparing new young ministers, the Church started its rapid growth and soon new local churches were being raised up in ever-increasing number as ministers were trained to pastor them.

The radio broadcasts, started January, 1934, continued to bring an ever-increasing number of candidates for baptism and conversion. The end time had come. God was preparing a Church, well organized on His own pattern, to be prepared as kings and priests to reign with Christ at His coming. Beside the growth of the Plain Truth magazine, I was continuing to write many booklets on various important doctrines and truths. Television did not go on the air until after World War II ended in 1945. We did not go on TV until July of 1955, but discontinued it after six months. Radio broadcasting had increased greatly, and in the latter 1950s the World Tomorrow program was using more wattage of radio power than any program on earth. The Church was broadcasting daily, seven nights a week.

In 1960 the second Ambassador campus was started at Bricket Wood, 19 miles northwest of London, in England. My elder son, Richard David Armstrong, had become the most-loved minister in the Church, but he died as the result of a head-on automobile crash while on a baptizing trip in late July, 1958, while in his 30th year.

In 1964, the third college campus was opened at Big Sandy, Texas.

The Work of the Church was fast developing worldwide. In 1967, April 15, my beloved wife, Loma, died after a happy marriage of 50 years. It was her challenge about the Sabbath in late 1926 that had led to my conversion, and she had been an important half of my ministry.

The growth of the Church was continuing until about 1972.

In 1968 word came to me through our German Office that King Leopold III of Belgium had said that he would like to meet me. I visited him at his chateau in Belgium, and a long friendship developed affectionately until his death in late September, 1983.

This led to meetings with many heads of governments of many nations until my heart failure in August, 1977. During those years the Ambassador Foundation was developing with projects in different nations in many parts of the world. I had been traveling overseas about 300 out of the 365 days a year.

Up through the 1960's, with new lost truths being continually restored to this era of God's Church, there had been little contention or opposition within the Church. But the wily Satan was not to allow this growth in harmony and peace and unity to continue without opposition. We were to learn the truth of Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed (Luke 8).

The seed sown was the Word of God -- the Bible. The Word was being proclaimed over the United States, Canada, Britain, Europe and some other parts ofr the world. It fell on four types or classifications of people. The first and largest number were those by the wayside. They heard, but "then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." These were the millions who hear, but the truth of God's Word never sank in. There was no response from this largest number, though they did hear, at least in part.

The second group were those on the rocks, who, when they heard, were interested and received the message with joy. Many of these were baptized. But they had no root, and temporarily believed, but because they lacked depth of purpose or capacity to grow spiritually, soon dropped out.

The third group were among thorns. When they heard they were baptized. But the cares and interests of the world choked them. They still wanted to be like the world. They were liberals. They brought forth "no fruit to perfection."

The fourth group, smallest of all, were those on "good ground," which kept the word and came out of the world, growing spiritually in character and biblical knowledge. They brought forth "fruit with patience," in various degrees (see also Matthew 13:23).

So it has been, especially since about 1969 in God's Church.

The world looks on such events occurring in any church as evidence of corruption or wrongdoing or something wrong and reprehensible in the church. Worldly clubs, societies or churches do not generally seem to have such troubles or controversies. Satan does not bother them. They are already on his side, but Satan seeks to destroy God's one and only true Church.

Now how did these controversies, troubles or divisions occur? It's time our members knew the truth.

To be contiinued--

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