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AN OPEN LETTER
To the true and faithful members of God’s Church
– Worldwide –
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
Numerous times I have written to all of you at large over past months with the desire to try and help all of you who are yet in the wrong places.
Recently I attended a funeral and I met any number of members I either had known in other Churches or members that I had once pastured who are now with other groups who are clearly off the track in their teachings. They have all departed from the proven doctrinal teachings that Jesus Christ used His late apostle to RESTORE within His Church.
From a virtually dead Church with only about three doctrinal teachings remaining within it, Jesus Christ used Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong to RESTORE at least 19 of the original doctrinal teachings, that He had used His personally taught and trained apostles to place within His early first century Church.
During the last year of his life Jesus Christ led Mr. Armstrong to write a book. A book in which those doctrinal teachings were made very clear and the intent was to enable all of us to clearly see our way through the strong delusion that would immediately begin following his death on His Church. The book is entitled: THE MYSTERY OF THE AGES.
Within that book that is so very easy to read and understand are all of the basic and fundamental truths, as well as what we need to understand about God’s Church, and what our part is to be in it.
Though many corporate Church leaders have compromised with some of those doctrinal teachings, God has not! Truth is truth! And what is truth? “Thy word is truth,” (John17:17). And Jesus Christ said His true people would be set apart by the truth (same verse). Not some truth, but all of the truth God has clearly revealed to us in Scripture!
This is essential for us to realize as members of His one and only true Church, as made very clear by our Savior:
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him: “If you ABIDE in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall make you free” (John 8:31). Free from those who would SEDUCE us with wrong teachings.
We should also know, that if we knowingly reject TRUTH, God will reject us (Hosea 4:6).
There are the known leaders who are teaching new or clarified teachings, as they may term them, that sound true on the surface just as did those after the death of Mr. Armstrong, but just as DEADLY wrong!
And sadly, members and ministers see no problem with the acceptance and teachings of those doctrinal errors!
One elder asked me, after a conference which I attended for the last time, as to what I thought about that Church and what had taken place during that time. I replied, “They have the Passover service wrong, a two-fold gospel, wrong government, and problems in other areas.” He thought for a second, and as he moved away, he said, “I’m satisfied.”
This is where many thousands are today, “I’m satisfied.” This is a most definite and overt Laodicean attitude. These are members who are lukewarm, and have need of nothing, rich and increased with goods, and sleeping their way into the Great Tribulation.
God speaks to this Laodicean attitude in virtually all of the corporate Churches, including a few members in the group that I pastor, to WAKE UP! Jesus Christ calls such people ‘wretched, poor, blind and naked.’ He counsels us to anoint our eyes with eye salve that we might see this sad condition to whatever level of degree it exists within each one of us.
If we say we are completely free from this attitude, then perhaps this brings about the overall problem of the Laodicean Church as being self-righteous!
Please study and consider the following Scriptures in which Jesus Christ said His Holy Spirit would open our minds to receive and GUIDE us into ALL His truth (John 14:16-17, 26; 16:13).
God’s Holy Spirit will GUIDE us INTO ALL TRUTH! Notice it says, TRUTH, NOT ERROR! God’s Holy Spirit will NOT lead one into error! Being led into DOCTRINAL ERROR comes from either reliance on human reasoning or from the clever deceptions of Satan himself, as can be seen from many Scriptures.
With that in mind, one can rightly ask, “Are the leaders of your corporate Church remaining fully true and faithful to the doctrinal teachings, or have they deviated in one area or another?”
They either lie or accept a lie from another when they tell you Mr. Armstrong changed before he died. It has been said: “He came to see he was wrong about physical sin. Further, if he were alive he would rewrite the Mystery of the Ages for that was the way he was!”
I actually had this said to me by one leading evangelist! I responded by saying that was not true! He only looked at me without saying anything.
It is very easy to prove he did not change by combining the writings of the Mystery of the Ages with two of the last letters he wrote in his Autobiography, volume II, Pages 637-641.
The last one was dated 11-25-1985, 52 days before his death. In those two letters he wrote: “The Mystery of the Ages was the best book he had ever written.” Further, he wrote: “He felt God Himself led him to write this book.”
Does this sound like he changed his mind? What he wrote in that book are the exact same teachings he had taught and believed for many years; and even wrote that he still did.
Even IF he had changed his mind, which he did not, would you change your mind about those doctrinal teachings? The question comes back to whether we ever proved them ourselves from the Bible. I did! And I hope you did as well.
Consider the doctrinal teaching, ‘Born Again’: There are many who believe they were born again at conversion and baptism. Three evangelists, I personally know, stated their beliefs on this subject some little time before the scattering took place.
One said in a sermon that I heard later on tape, “He had believed this all along.” Yet he remained quiet about it, until it had come to be an accepted belief within the Church under the new administration.
Another told me on the phone that he had proved this to himself. I asked if he had re-read the booklet by Mr. Armstrong on the subject lately. He said he had not.
The third one gave a sermon in Pasadena on the subject making known his acceptance of it. Other ministers have their own beliefs about the Trinity as well as other doctrinal teachings that are clearly erroneous in light of God’s true teachings.
It is my hope and prayer that all of them will come to see their error and repent of it before God, just as I also pray for all others who are caught up in the cleverly deceptive web spun by Satan.
This doctrinal error is very easy to disprove, ‘IF’ we take literally what Jesus Christ said about it. And if we value our hope for eternal life then we had better, for it is BY His words that all of us are being judged now, and later (John 12:48).
Think seriously about what Jesus said about the new birth we must all experience or we will perish:
Jesus answered, “MOST ASSUREDLY, I say to you, UNLESS one is born of the water and of the Spirit, he CANNOT enter the kingdom of God. That which is BORN of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. [Then to illustrate by example, He said] The wind blows where it wishes, and you HEAR the sound of it, BUT cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. SO IS EVERYONE WHO IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT” (John 3:5-8).
What Christ said here does not need any interpretation, or another explanation. The meaning is very clear that if and when we are born again, we will be like the wind that CANNOT be seen! And to see and enter the Kingdom of God, we MUST be born again.
Some say, ‘born again’ means ‘born from above’. This presents no problem for AS Jesus Christ is descending from heaven he will give a loud cry similar to what He did at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:43; I Thessalonians 4:16-17). Then all of the saints will be resurrected! And when resurrected, they will then undergo the new birth from flesh to Spirit (I Corinthians 15:35-54).
I do not have space to touch on similar wrong teachings that are just as easy to be understood, IF we accept the plain words of Jesus Christ instead of the interpretations of others who want to falsely reason and make the simple complicated.
Somehow it seems so difficult, for many to really come to grips with reality and truly grasp, how so very close we are to the Great Tribulation! Its wide-open, yawning, cavernous mouth, will be ready to swallow all those who will yet be sleeping at that time! Members who are in the wrong places, and who are with the wrong leaders, seemingly not caring, or just bewildered and confused as to what they should do.
There is a great need for each and every true member to dust off the book, Mystery of the Ages, and begin studying it while having the Bible along side of it. This will enable all of us to see where we are and where we should be. And it should be often reviewed, for this is why God led Mr. Armstrong to write it.
Brethren, time is swiftly going by and soon it will be too late for any and everyone who are following their own reasoning, instead of the TRUE WORDS of Jesus Christ.
We are now seeing DISASTER AFTER DISASTER coming down very hard on this country just as God said they would take place in the endtime making known the end of this age is almost here (Ezekiel 7:1-12).
The end began DAWNING on 9-11-01 when terrorists STRUCK at the very heart of America in New York City and Washington, D. C. taking the lives of almost 3,000 people.
Do we remember that last Year was one of our worst years for disasters? Now, Disaster has STRUCK again! This time in one of the most important cities in this country in regard to our economy! And it is already having a rippling impact on the whole nation. In addition, perhaps up to 10,000 people have lost their lives in this disaster. QUESTION: When and where will the next disaster strike? No one knows for sure.
A real factor to consider in the equation: This is the 19th year since the death of Mr. Armstrong. A complete time cycle that possibly holds great significance in view of how God used him for better than 50 years WARNING Israel! Having this in mind, I personally feel the house of Joseph will see disasters more frequently, until the time of the Great Tribulation.
I truly love all of the leaders and members whom I have known for many years and would dearly love to see them to come to see where they are wrong and admit it, as did Mr. Armstrong when he changed the day we observed for Pentecost and also upgraded the teaching on Divorce and Remarriage.
Humility, repentance, and change, is necessary for all of us, IF we are to escape the horrors just ahead of us!
With real love and grave concern,
Don Billingsley
P. O. Box 8819,
Modesto, CA 95357
(209) 772-0737. www.cog-ff.com
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