The Incredible Prophetic
Errors of
Herbert W. Armstrong!
Most
people in the Worldwide Church of God look upon Herbert
Armstrong as a unique
man gifted with tremendous understanding
of Bible prophecy. But a careful, candid look at this man's
actual
record on the
interpretation of Bible prophecy boggles the mind!
Most people over the
years became associated with the Church at
least to some degree
because of its ostensible understanding of
prophecy. Here are the unvarnished facts. YOU decide!
William F. Dankenbring
In 1956-57, as a teenage boy, I
became awestruck by the prophetic booklets written by Herbert W. Armstrong --
especially two called 1975 in Prophecy, and
When I began attending the local
Church in
All this seemed reasonable to my
youthful, impressionable mind, in 1957-58.
I entered an intensive study of Church literature, and found Mr.
Armstrong to be correct in many basic doctrines taught nowhere else. So I began attending
Needless
to say, it was a major disappointment for most of us in the Church when 1972
came around, and instead of the Church fleeing to the wilderness as so
powerfully predicted by Herbert Armstrong for decades, nothing happened --
except the temporary disfellowshipment of Garner Ted Armstrong for supposed
"spiritual problems," but which actually concerned sexual involvement
with young women other than his wife.
Obviously,
Jesus Christ did not return in 1975, as so confidently predicted for almost 20
years! Herbert Armstrong's prophetic
insight was in error -- his prophetic timetable was shot to pieces! From that time onward, he did not attempt to
pinpoint the exact year, or even the approximate time, of Jesus' second
coming. But he did keep on believing
that it would be "very soon," and preached that we were living in the
"time of the end."
The
Space Race
Also
back in the early 1960's, Herbert Armstrong became very interested in the race
for space -- especially after the Russians put their first "sputnik"
satellite in orbit around the earth in 1957.
He wrote articles, gave sermons, and wrote a booklet entitled "Who
Will Rule Space?' In those years, Herbert Armstrong was very impressed with the
fact that human beings could not survive in outer space without a
self-contained "earth environment" -- a "space suit." To
him, this indicated that man's proper habitat was the earth -- not outer space!
Herbert
Armstrong sincerely believed that man would never 'conquer space.' In fact, he
said several times, and even wrote, that if man attempted to "conquer
space," that God would destroy him, even as He destroyed the tower of
Babel when mankind attempted to build it to "reach heaven" (Gen.11:4).
Even so, Herbert confidently predicted that God would thwart and frustrate
man's attempt to rocket into space. He
said that if man succeeded in going to the moon,, he would not return alive!
As
the major proof text to support this theological idea, Herbert Armstrong turned
to Psalm 115, where we read: "The heaven, even the heavens, are the
Lord's; but the EARTH hath he given to the children of men" (Psa.115:16).
Of
course, after the United States first successfully put men on the moon, in 1969,
and several times during the 1970's, this prediction and teaching of Herbert W.
Armstrong was again quietly shoved aside and dropped -- forgotten, except by
those of us who personally heard his teachings in the late 50's and early 60's.
Herbert
Armstrong was supposed to be renown for his knowledge and perception of Bible
prophecy. And I believe that he probably
did pick up much basic understanding of prophetic portions of the Bible during
his studies -- such as the basic understanding of the book of Revelation, the
world kingdoms of Daniel 2, and their
correlation with the beasts of Revelation 13 and 17. 1 also believe that he
stumbled across a major Biblical discovery when a woman challenged him whether
he knew the locations of the "lost ten tribes" of
1975
In Prophecy!
In
the booklet by the above title, Herbert Armstrong struck fear into readers by
proclaiming a German-led European combine would "blast our cities and
industrial centers with hydrogen bombs" (p.14), and added, "It's
later than you think!" He declared that "these prophecies are as
certain as tomorrow's sun," and went on to proclaim confidently, " MILLIONS
of lukewarm inactive professing Christians will suffer martyrdom -- and
that BEFORE the anticipated push-button leisure-year of 1975 dawns upon
us!" (p.20, emphasis mine).
Herbert
Armstrong was so confident of his accuracy that he asserted: "You have
been warned! . . . You can take this lightly, let it slip from your mind . . .
If you do, you have now read your fate -- and . . . I SAY TO YOU ON
AUTHORITY OF GOD ALMIGHTY THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY SURE!" (p.31).
Now,
that is powerful "authority"!
But did Herbert Armstrong REALLY have "authority of God
Almighty" to make that prediction?
Was he the powerful "prophet" of God that he seemed to THINK
he was?
Notice
what the Scriptures say about this question.
In the book of Deuteronomy, God told Moses: "But if any prophet
DARES to speak a message IN MY NAME when I did NOT COMMAND HIM TO DO
SO, he must die for it and so must any prophet who speaks in the name of
other gods" (Deut.l8:20).
This is serious business, with
God! He THUNDERS rebuke against those
who "presume" to speak a message "in His name," when He
Himself has NOT given them the message!
He says the penalty for such a thing is -- DEATH! If nothing else, it would at least appear
that Herbert Armstrong got carried away with himself, in his predictions, and
was very over-zealous in some of his pronouncements, claiming God's inspiration
and authority for his interpretations!
Isn't that plain? but
notice further! God Almighty Himself
goes on, explaining further:
"You may wonder how you can tell
when a prophet's message does NOT come from the Lord. If a prophet speaks IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
and what be says does NOT COME TRUE, then it is NOT the Lord's
message. That prophet has spoken on his
OWN authority (NOT GOD'S!), and you are not to fear him"
(Deut.18:21-22, Good News Bible).
If Herbert Armstrong truly feared
God, then it seems to me that he would not have been so presumptuous and
"positive" in his statements, when he was really only theorizing or
speculating! He had no revelation from
God, no "Thus saith the Lord," no dreams or visions from the
Almighty. His predictions were based
entirely on personal Bible Study, as well as his own speculation, based on
various appearances. But when he went on
to claim "AUTHORITY OF GOD ALMIGHTY" for his erroneous predictions,
then he stepped way over the line -- and history has proved him to be in utter
error! In being so dogmatic, he
misinterpreted God's Word and sinned against God!
Now, it is not a "sin" to
speculate, or to make predictions based upon available evidence. We all do that in various aspects of our
lives. Stock brokers do it regarding the
stock market Farmers take their "best shot" at predicting
the weather, so they can know what crops to plant, and when to
plant. Weather forecasters make
predictions based on latest available evidence also -- and because of the
vagaries and temperamental nature of the weather, they are often forced to 'eat
their own words. "
The
"game of prophecy" is likewise a chancy, scary, dangerous
business. Many are the bones of false
prophets who have incorrectly surmised when Christ would return -- only to be
proven wrong. William Miller foretold
the coming of Jesus Christ in 1844 -- and was wrong. The Jehovah Witnesses predicted the Second
Coming in 1914. When Jesus failed to
appear at the appointed hour, they revised their prophecy. Rather than admit they had been mistaken,
they claimed that He did return -- "secretly," and was now ruling the
world from His secret Headquarters, which was supposed to be
The
Fall of Ancient
It
seems that whenever Herbert Armstrong launched out on his own, and made
predictions, he was invariably shown to be in abysmal error. But sometimes he simply "copied"
the errors of other Churches, or organizations, or writers, but simply never
gave them credit! That is to say, he
"plagiarized" their writings and idea, and never gave them one line
of credit, making any reader to think HE was the sole author of the material!
A
case in point is one of the booklets which for many years was one of the staple
booklets of the Worldwide Church of God.
Titled Proof of the Bible, in early editions of this booklet
Herbert W. Armstrong wrote that one way critics might attempt to
"disprove" the Bible would be to REBUILD ANCIENT TYRE! He quoted
the
Bible prophecies regarding ancient
In
the booklet, Herbert Armstrong boldly challenged skeptics, "Here is how
you can DISPROVE the Bible and the very existence of God. If there is no God, and IF the Bible is not
inspired! Just go over and build a small
city on the site of New Tyre." Herbert said there is nothing to prevent
skeptics from building a city on that site, "except that the Bible they
scoff at says they CAN'T" (p.20).
Back
in the 1950's I was impressed by these challenging statements, as I read
them. But one day, as I was visiting a
Church family in
At
that point, I didn't know quite what to think. But I assumed the booklet was
true, regardless of who really wrote it.
I really didn't question it much at the time. It discussed ancient Biblical predictions
against
In
Ezekiel 26 and 27 God did foretell the fate of ancient
As
the prophecy said, God did bring Nebuchadnezzar, and later Alexander the Great,
against
The
Worldbook Encyclopedia points out that Alexander the Great conquered
Says
the Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Commentary, the prophecy that
Regarding
the phrase, "thou shalt be no more," the Commentary points out,
"not that presently there was to be no more a
Adam Clarke in his Commentary quotes
Maundrell, who visited the place before 1825 A.D., as follows: "It is a
As to the prophecy "yet shalt
thou never be found again," Clarke declares: "This is literally true;
there is not the smallest vestige of the ancient
Clarke adds, "Notwithstanding
the former destructions,
Herbert
Armstrong would have done his cause much better service, and God greater
service, if he had been much less naive and accepting of Adventist literature,
copying their ideas and plagiarizing their material on "Tyre," if he
had only done his own research, and used the Commentaries referred to above.
Attempting
to use the example of
In
1973 Herbert Armstrong visited modem
Early
Predictions that "Bombed"
Herbert
Armstrong, like many evangelicals, had a general sense of Bible prophecy. Like them, he saw that the Bible predicts a
union of 10 nations which will coalesce in the end time, and fight Christ at
His return. This belief, of course, is
not original to the Worldwide Church of God.
Many evangelical, Sunday-observing Churches also believe it!
However,
in his attempt to fit this fact into his own prophetic framework and timetable,
Herbert Armstrong often went astray.
In
the June-July 1934 issue of The Plain Truth, for example, he wrote:
".
. . the year 1936 will see the end of the Times of the Gentiles . . . we may
expect
the present worldwide depression, time of trouble and fear of war to
continue
until the year 1936! . . . quickly after that time, we may expect to see
the
heavenly signs of the sun and moon becoming dark, the stars falling . . .
which shall be followed by the 'Day of
the Lord.'" (page 5).
But 1936 came and went --
and nothing earthshaking happened.
Nothing like heavenly signs, stars falling, and the beginning of the
"Day of the Lord"!
In
the March 1938 Plain Truth, page 8, however, Herbert Armstrong was even
more bold. He audaciously asserted:
"Mussolini
and the pope will hatch up an idea . . . of setting up a world-
headquarters at Jerusalem -- and so Mussolini's armies will enter into
Palestine
(Daniel 11:41), and eventually will capture just half of the city
of
Jerusalem! (Zech.14:2)."
Notice
how clearly and forcefully Herbert Armstrong spells out the exact sequence of
future prophesied events! Unfortunately
for his dogmatic and unequivocal assertiveness, he was totally wrong! Again, his prophecies failed to come to
pass.
Mussolini's
armies never got near Palestine -- much less to Jerusalem! And suffice it to say, he and the pope never
got a chance to capture half of Jerusalem!
Herbert
Armstrong continued to make these kinds of predictions. In the January 1939 Plain Truth, page
4, he dogmatically prophesied,
"MUSSOLINI WILL FIGHT CHRIST!"
Was he right in his prediction? Let history judge. As everyone knows, Mussolini, far from
fighting Christ, was killed by partisans, and hanged, toward the end of
War II.
He was not the prophesied "beast" of Revelation that Herbert
Armstrong thought he was!
Herbert Armstrong wrote in the August-September
1939 Plain Truth, page 6,
"Once world war is
resumed, it must continue on through the Great Tabulation,
the heavenly signs, the
plagues of the Day of the Lord, and to the Second Coming
of Christ, at the last battle,
at Armageddon! . . . But this you may KNOW!
THIS WAR WILL BE ENDED BY
CHRIST'S RETURN! . . . WE ARE JUST
THAT NEAR CHRIST'S
COMING!" (Emphasis mine).
Notice again how dogmatic Herbert Armstrong
was! Did GOD ALMIGHTY inspire him to
predict those errors? Did God
miscommunicate His intentions to His "servant"? Did God get His signals crossed? Or was it Herbert Armstrong who presumed to
speak when God had not spoken?
Truly Amos the prophet was inspired of God to
write, 'The Sovereign Lord NEVER DOES ANYTHING without revealing his
plan to his servants, the prophets'' Amos 6:7). Obviously, therefore, Herbert Armstrong did
NOT understand the prophetic plan of God, did not have God's plan REVEALED to
him -- and therefore was not inspired of God when he made these
self-proclaimed, dogmatic prophecies during the 1930s! In retrospect, his prophecies seem utterly
foolish and uninspired.
During World War II, Herbert Armstrong continued
making false prophecies and predictions based on his understanding of
Scripture. In the August-September 1940 Plain
Truth he boldly asseverated,
"The Italians will capture both Palestine and Egypt."
Less true words were never misspoken!
In the November-December 1940 issue (which,
ironically, was one month before my birth), Herbert Armstrong continued his
bold foray into Bible prophecy and its interpretation. He unerringly predicted,
"God has decreed that
Joseph -- Great Britain and the United States -- are
to utterly consume and
annihilate the Turks from off the earth!" (p.7).
Although the Turkish Empire was ended by the
victory of the Allies during World War I, in 1917, the nation of Turkey
continued to exist, and still exists, today!
This "blazing prophecy" of the heralded "spokesman for
God" also has failed to come to pass.
In actual fact, there is NO prophecy of the Bible that predicts the
"annihilation" of the Turkish people from :"off the earth,"
as Armstrong claimed.
At the beginning of World War II, when Britain
was suffering its darkest hour, and Nazi invasion seemed imminent, it is
interesting to note that Herbert Armstrong quickly got on the bandwagon of the
pessimistic, and he joined in the chorus of nay-sayers and doom-predictors.
With seemingly unshakable confidence and unflappable insistence, Herbert
predicted:
"It
is part of God's prophesied plan that Britain shall be invaded
and conquered"
(Nov-Dec 1940, Plain Truth).
Herbert certainly did not foresee the glorious
"battle of Britain," or the stout-hearted courage and tenacity of the
British people, led by Winston Churchill!
Rather, he thought the Nazis would overrun England and Scotland, and
conquer all the British isles.
When Hitler then launched his blitzkrieg against
the Soviet Union, Herbert Armstrong again was not found wanting for words, to
interpret the invasion in the light of Bible prophecy. Seeing Hitler's troops initially cut through the
Russians like a knife through hot butter, he proclaimed "God's truth"
on the invasion. Apparently he had
learned nothing from his dismal record of continuous mistakes. He tried his hand at prophecy once
again. He asserted:
"Bible prophecy does indicate that HITLER
MUST BE THE VICTOR IN
THE PRESENT RUSSIAN
INVASION! . . . Hitler will emerge from the
Russian campaign stronger
than ever, free to turn the entire might of his
forces against Britain --
and America" (Sept-Oct. 1941 Plain Truth, p.7).
As history shows, far from winning his Russian
winter campaign, Hitler's armies were defeated by the Russian winter at
Stalingrad. Germany lost over a million
soldiers in the Russian invasion. The
German army was mired in the snow, ice, and mud at Stalingrad, and was forced
to retreat in bitter defeat.
Again, Herbert Armstrong was diametrically in
error -- 180 degrees from the truth! But
at least he was persistent -- and consistently wrong!
As late as 1943, Herbert Armstrong was still
whipping a dead horse. He wrote in the
March-April 1943 Plain Truth, page 6,
"But Hitler
(or his successor if there is one), and the False Prophet
shall fight against Christ!"
Talk about "false prophets," Herbert
Armstrong's batting average, during the late 1930's and early 1940's was on a
scale of one to ten, hovering at absolute ZERO! He was wrong every time! Hitler did not "fight against
Christ" His successor? There was
none. Hitler died in a Berlin bunker, as
the Russians invaded the city, thus ending the "Third Reich" in
flaming ruins.
Why Was Herbert
Armstrong So Wrong, So Often?
It seems incredible that any man could have been
so wrong about Bible prophecy -- and yet so insistent on proclaiming his own
ideas and interpretations. What
possessed him to do it? Why was he so
smug and overconfident? Why didn't he
have more humility, and willingness to admit that he could be wrong?
For some reason, during the 1930s and 1940s, God
had blinded the mind of Herbert Armstrong from rightly understanding Bible
prophecy. He allowed him to make a
"fool" of himself. Although
Herbert's booming voice on radio may have sounded like the resonant tones of a
Walter Winchell or Gabriel Heater, or a Lowell Thomas, his prophetic words
turned to mush. Nothing came to pass
that he so officiously and dogmatically foretold.
Why would God leave him so completely in the dark?
I believe that God did use Herbert Armstrong in the very early
1930s on through the 1960s and 1970s to reveal much Biblical truth concerning
the Sabbath, Holy Days, Plan of God, and some aspects of Biblical
prophecy. God did use him, in a strong
manner, to lay the foundation for the End-time Work of God. But why did God allow Herbert Armstrong
during the explosive 30s and 40s, and even into the 50s and 60s, to make such
flagrant prophetic blunders?
Notice what the prophet Isaiah wrote:
"Surely the arm of the
Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too
dull to hear. But YOUR INIQUITIES have separated you from
your
God; your SINS have
hidden his face from you, so that he will not
hear" (Isaiah
59:1-2).
As author David Robinson explains in his book Herbert
Armstrong's Tangled Web, during the latter part of the 1930's and early
1940's, Herbert Armstrong was carrying on with an illicit incestuous affair
with his daughter Dorothy -- over a period of ten years! Robinson wrote:
"Incest is a terrible and unnatural crime,
an extreme perversity. That is why
I was shocked beyond
measure to hear that Herbert Armstrong was, himself,
guilty of this vile
sin. I learned of this in the summer of
1979 from members
of his own family. The story, sordid beyond imagination, was
told in awful
detail.
"One family source
was Garner Ted Armstrong. Last summer,
as HWA
attacked his own son in
such savage fury, his son was in the depths of despair.
His emotional mix
included anger and deep hurl In such a state he told family
secrets that otherwise
would have been locked within him forever.
He said
that he had learned in
1971 of his father's incredible conduct during the
'30s and '40s. The story came directly to him in lurid
detail, but he kept it
sealed in his own
consciousness for all those years. But
in the spring of 1978
while in his father's
house for the last time, his father had threatened to
'destroy him.' Ted, in
response, replied, 'Dad, I will destroy you.
I know
about you and ------ (He
was speaking of the younger of his two sisters.
"His father had been
on a high-handed autocratic binge. But
at that
comment he sat down
quietly and responded, 'Well, Ted, there have been
times when I have been
very far away from God!" (Tangled Web, p.266,
emphasis his).
What does this tell us about Herbert Armstrong's
relationship to the Almighty, the "revealer of secrets" (Dan.2:2-22),
from the mid-1930s to the middle 1940s?
God revealed "secrets" to Daniel because he was a righteous
man (see Dan. 10: 12) -- but not to Herbert W. Armstrong! Why?
The answer is now obvious. God
will never reveal the future, or what He plans to do, to the WICKED. Sin cuts men off from God. Herbert Armstrong's prophetic embarrassments
during the 1930s and '40s may well be directly due to his being "far off
from God" at that time!
The archangel Gabriel told Daniel,
"Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and
SEALED until
the TIME OF THE END. Many will be purified, made spotless and
refined,
but the wicked will
continue to be wicked. None of the
wicked shall understand,
but those who are WISE
will understand" (Dan.12:9-10).
It was the gross sins of Herbert Armstrong during the '30s
and '40s which cut him off from God, and which caused God to give him the
spirit of error and misunderstanding of Bible end-time prophecies, at that
time. He was so sure he was right -- yet
he was dead wrong!
If you have not read it, be sure to write for
the article, "HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN!" It will open your eyes in
this respect. God surely would not
reveal His prophetic secrets to a man living in sin, and committing continual,
habitual incest, for years, with his own daughter! Even though Herbert Armstrong may have
repented of this sin in later years, God severely punished him and allowed him
to make a fool of himself prophetically, during the years this relationship
continued.
The Track Record of the 1950s
It was in the late 1950s that I first came in contact
with the Worldwide Church of God, then called the Radio Church of God. At that time the whole Church was
focused on 1975 in prophecy, and predicting Christ's return that year.
In the October 1955 Plain Truth Herman L.
Hoeh, a man for whom I directly worked as a member of the Plain Truth staff
from 1972-1974, wrote that
"God Almighty has spoken through His
servants the prophets that He
will punish our people for
their sins . . . we will be totally
consumed
and carried away captive to other nations as slaves WITHIN TWENTY
YEARS" (p.16).