Luke 4:4:
I just find it intersting that there is another group out there also claiming to be the original church and their doctrines are the complete opposite of yours. It would seem there are other besides HWA’s followers that completely disagree with your teachings.
Herbert W. Armstrong. That explains a lot. He’s the author of *The United States and Britain in Prophecy. *I used to hear him broadcast every night on the radio in the 1970s. Have you ever read this?
The Lost Tribes of Israel
Sorry, my friend, but if you’re taking Armstrong’s writings from the 1970s seriously, you’ve been deceived. Badly.
Here are some other things Armstrong had to say:
Armstrong: “We know Bible prophecies definitely refer to Russia, Italy, Ethiopia, Libya, and Egypt of today. Could they then ignore modern nations like Britain and America? Is it reasonable?”
Russia? Do you have a Bible that refers to Russia? I own a eight different translations, with more on CD-ROM, and none of them refer to Russia.
Armstrong: “The fact is, the British and Americans are mentioned more often than any other race. Yet their prophetic identity has remained hidden to the many. The House of Israel is the ‘covenant people.’ The Hebrew word for ‘covenant’ is
brit b’rith]. And the word for ‘covenant man,’ or ‘covenant people,’ would therefore sound, in English word order,
Brit-ish (the word
ish means ‘man’ in Hebrew, and it is also an English suffix on nouns and adjectives). And so, is it mere coincidence that the true covenant people today are called the ‘British’? And they reside in the ‘British Isles’!”
No linguist would take this seriously. The word “British” is not derived from Hebrew but from the Celtic word
Brettas. It’s significant that the Celtic *Brettas *referred to the Britons, who were inhabitants of England before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons that Armstrong claims were Israelites.
Armstrong: “If you take the name ‘Isaac,’ you see it’s easy for someone to drop the ‘I’ when speaking quickly and to end up with ‘Saac’ as the name of the patriarch. He had descendants, of course, and these may be called ‘Saac’s sons,’ from which we get the word ‘Saxons.’ Is it only coincidence that ‘Saxons’ sounds the same as ‘Saac’s sons’—sons of Isaac?”
This doesn’t even qualify as a coincidence, since Armstrong had to make up the nickname of “Saac” in order for the “coincidence” to exist. In reality, the term “Saxon” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “
seax,” which means knife or dagger, not the Hebrew word “
Isaac” (
Yitskhaq), which means “laughter”
Armstrong: “By the year 721 B.C., the House of Israel was conquered and its people were soon driven out of their own land—out of their homes and cities—and carried captives to Assyria, near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea! … They refused to remain faithful and rebelled, they were to be punished seven times—a duration of 2,520 years—in slavery, servitude, and want.”
Armstrong theorizes that their punishment extended from 721 B.C. to A.D. 1800. And what remarkable thing happened in 1800? Well, besides the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency of the United States, not a whole lot. In fact, 1800 was a pretty dull year for history.
Armstrong: “The forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah begins with, ‘Listen, O isles, unto me.’ Take a map of Europe. Lay a line due northwest of Jerusalem across the continent of Europe, until you come to the sea, and then to the islands in the sea! This line takes you direct to the British Isles!”
That line first comes to the Aegean islands, which are also in the sea—the Mediterranean Sea—but this would mean the Greeks are the Lost Tribes, therefore, the theory would not play into the desires of some British or Americans to identify themselves with the lost tribes.
After Armstrong’s death, the Worldwide Church of God did a serious review of the doctrines it had taught up to that point and moved to a more biblically and theologically orthodox position. Many of their congregations still worship on Saturdays, for example, but they no longer regard keeping the Jewish Sabbath and feasts as points of doctrine. They have embraced the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that created beings can become part of the Godhead, and acknowledged that other churches contain true Christians.
My friend, have you also embraced these doctrines?
He instead tell us that men will come denying his very words. Just as the Christian churches of this world have done.
