January 16, 2015, marks the 12-year anniversary of the day I received a very important telephone call from Mark Helm, our principle lawyer at Munger, Tolles and Olsen. It was Mr. Helm who spoke so brilliantly for us during the many hours of depositions and courtroom hearings during our court case.
I had been out of the office when the call came. When I received the message to call him, I did so immediately. Mark’s secretary put me through to his office. “Are you sitting down?” he asked me. I said, “Well, yes, what’s on your mind?” “You got it all,” he responded quickly, “not just Mystery of the Ages, you got all the written works you asked for … all 19!”
My heart skipped a beat and I was lifted into another world. I still cannot describe in words what a spiritual high I felt during that phone call. I was dazed, much like I was on my wedding day. I knew God had just given His Philadelphia Church something really big and fantastic. What miraculous and wonderful news. It was a long time coming—six years in fact.
I knew it was January 16, the anniversary of Herbert W. Armstrong’s death. Pastor General Gerald Flurry had stressed for years that we all should pay close attention to that date because an event like the death of God’s end-time Elijah is important to God. So, I was looking for something to happen. Well, it happened!
I think back on that day and the other astounding events of the court case often. God gave me a unique experience working with the lawyers and being directly involved with the main participants of the case from both the Philadelphia Church of God (pcg) and the Worldwide Church of God (wcg), now called Grace Communion International (gci). Stephen Flurry has ably recorded for us the notable spiritual details of the court case in Raising the Ruins. Now would be a good time to read this important book if you have not already done so. Of course, re-reading it would be good. Why?
Ponder the Magnitude
“The way we fought in the court case is the crown jewel of our conversion—a real demonstration of our love for God, for each other, and for this world. This identifies us to the whole world,” Gerald Flurry stated in his article “The Mantle of Elijah” (Royal Vision, July-August 2003). Mr. Flurry was not just talking poetically here. The leaders of the wcg were hell-bent on grinding the pcg into the ground, never to rise again. The court case was a real fight for the survival to do God’s Work of keeping His message alive and active on Earth.
All of us who worked on the case know that it was God who gave us the victory.
“We all need to pray and ponder on the magnitude of what happened with this victory. I don’t think pcg will ever experience one greater,” admonished our pastor general in this same article. We need to fully believe what Mr. Flurry says here. How excited are we about our right to print and distribute Mystery of the Ages and the other 18 works of Mr. Armstrong?
I visited our lawyers in August 2003, some seven months after the court case victory. Kelly Klaus, a second lawyer assisting Mark Helm with our case, confided in me that he had never worked on a case like ours before. All of the cases he was currently working on he considered routine—even boring. Over lunch with our lawyers, we had a rousing discussion about the major events of the case. I could tell they all missed the excitement of working with Mr. Flurry, his son Stephen and me. They were still excited about the case and what was happening in the pcg as a result.
What about you? Are you still thrilled to remember our court case?
If you invest the time to study and reflect again on this victory, God will reignite your excitement and passion to completing God’s Work. To help you recapture the significance of the case, I will relate a personal spiritual lesson that I learned while working on the court case.
How It Began for Me
Some time after the Feast of Tabernacles of 1996 (I don’t remember the exact date or month), Mr. Flurry called me into his office. He began by discussing the growth of the Work and then told me that he believed God wanted us to print and distribute Mystery of the Ages. An increasing number of people who did not have a background with the wcg were becoming interested in the pcg because of the Key of David program. To truly understand Malachi’s Message and our other prophetic literature, they needed the foundational truths that only Mystery of the Ages could provide.
At that time the members and ministry were working together to find used copies of Mystery of the Ages and other books by Mr. Armstrong to pass along to interested parties but those supplies dwindled quickly. It was very discouraging to me personally to not be able to give Mr. Armstrong’s writings to people who wanted them. So I was excited about Mr. Flurry’s concern for people and his boldness to step out and print the book that clearly explained the great truths of the Bible.
Many members in God’s Church were upset and disturbed when Pasadena took Mystery of the Ages out of circulation. I was living near Buffalo, New York, at that time. Not one minister or minister’s wife I knew in that area expressed any distress over its removal. However, one ministerial trainee’s wife told me that she was very sad people would not be able to read the book. She said that the book had led her into God’s Church.
While sitting in his office that day, I fully realized that of all wcg ministers past and present Mr. Flurry was the only one I knew who was willing to put this important book into the hands of any who requested it. As I thought about what he was saying, I was thrilled and then concerned. I asked, “Do you think they will sue us?” Mr. Flurry looked at me and said, “We’ll have to see.” He also told me he was willing to face any possible consequences. The wcg obviously didn’t want the book—we definitely did. I told Mr. Flurry I was behind what God was inspiring him to do. From my work in the Church at that time, I knew the people of this world needed to be taught and to be able to read and study the true doctrines of the Bible. Satan had been so successful in deceiving them with false doctrine (Revelation 12:9), and Mystery of the Ages is the one book that could set them free of Satan’s deception. I remember going back to my office eager to get Mystery of the Ages sent out again.
The details of the pcg’s printing of Mystery of the Ages are covered in Chapter 16 of Raising the Ruins. You will truly benefit from reading it.
The Helge Letter
Holding my copy of the pcg edition of Mr. Armstrong’s “most important book since the Bible” was very rewarding to me. Knowing that we were going to advertise and offer it on the back cover of the January 1997 Trumpet was thrilling. On Jan. 4, 1997, Mr. Flurry explained in a sermon to the headquarters congregation that we had decided to print and offer Mystery of the Ages. The brethren were electrified.
Yet what impacted and encouraged me most from his sermon that day was Mr. Flurry’s faith! There was no doubt he made the decision to print Mystery of the Ages because Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, wanted him to do so. I remember him telling us that God would be with us through any consequences that may come as a result of our decision. He made it clear that there may be greater consequences—from God—if we didn’t print it.
In that sermon Mr. Flurry planted the seed firmly in my mind that God was behind us and He would take care of any problems and challenges that would come our way. On January 4, I did not realize how important that would be for me.
The second week in February, Mr. Flurry called me into his office. He showed me a letter that Ralph Helge had written to him concerning our printing of Mystery of the Ages. Of course, the wcg did not like what we had done, and they demanded an explanation. The wcg filed a complaint against us in the Los Angeles federal court on February 10. The pcg was not informed about the court filing until February 11. This not unexpected, yet unwanted, development was a major concern to all of us at headquarters. The fight was on!
Mr. Flurry assigned me to work on our case and, well, the rest is history. The court case dominated many of my days for the next six years. There was one vital lesson that carried me through the glum days and the nail-biters. It is a lesson we all must learn and keep at the forefront of our thinking—especially because we are moving ever closer to the sure-to-come tough times ahead.
I knew Zero About Legal Things
The only thing I knew about the law and legal matters came from the Ten Commandments and the first five books of the Bible. I had zero understanding of court cases, court filings, court lingo, court procedures, judges and the good or bad of lawyers except for what I had seen on television and in movies. A few speeding tickets had given me a look inside a courtroom. At those few times, all I had to know was the balance in my checkbook. Yet once the court case started, I was plunged into the world of all things legal: lawyers, judges and mountain-high stacks of paper.
The first few days of helping with the court case flew by. I did not have much time to think about myself or what might actually be facing us. I was just thankful I could talk with Terry Moyer, who was married to our television agent. He represented us for a few days and then put us in touch with the firm of Munger, Tolles and Olsen. My real education about all things legal began the night I first talked with Mark Helm. He had just been assigned to our case, and our first hearing was the next morning in Los Angeles. We hit it off wonderfully. Both of our worlds had been “rocked.”
While I was unschooled in legal matters, Mark knew absolutely nothing about us and had only a small inkling about our case. Of course, all that changed over the next six years. The details of Mark’s skill in handling our case is chronicled in Raising the Ruins.
The Vital Lesson
Over the six years, I inevitably learned much about court matters. At one point our lawyers even suggested to me that I go back to school to become a lawyer—they believed I could become a skilled arbitrator. While that was a nice compliment, I had no interest in pursuing a law degree. However, I was very interested in how God was schooling me during the court case.
The one vital spiritual lesson I learned, which I plan to carry with me into eternity, concerns the critical importance of the faith of the leaders above us. “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation,” wrote the Apostle Paul (Hebrews 13:7). I reflected on this scripture often during the court case. It became my anchoring verse to help me weather the tough tests and trials wrought by wcg v. pcg. Study this verse carefully.
When our faith flags, we must learn to follow the faith of the ministers God has set over us. As Paul said, we must remember the men “which have the rule over you.” That means to remember their examples of faith. I had many opportunities to apply this verse over the course of the six years, but one incident stands out that I’ll never forget.
The Very Difficult Day
In “Offensive Warfare,” Chapter 22 of Raising the Ruins, Stephen Flurry discusses the impact of Mike Feazell’s preface on the wcg’s proposed e-book publishing plan for Mystery of the Ages. Gerald Flurry saw how this preface could be used to turn our whole case around. Our lawyers didn’t quite see it the same way. Having spent many hours with our legal team over the telephone and in person, I knew their thinking well. They viewed our case as primarily a fight over copyright. Mr. Flurry never saw it that way and taught those of us working on the case how to see it in the right way.
This case was the wcg’s final attempt to bury all of Mr. Armstrong’s writings—revealed truth from Christ—with him forever! Mike Feazell’s Armstrong-bashing preface gave us the opportunity to expose what the wcg was doing to a judge and a jury. Mr. Flurry believed we should question the wcg officials on their non-copyright views of Mr. Armstrong and Church doctrine in the final round of depositions in preparation for a damages trial. Our lawyers were not convinced. They wanted us to focus purely on copyright matters.
Two Phone Calls
One night, while I was kneeling down to pray about the matter, Mr. Flurry phoned me. He patiently and diligently stressed to me the importance of our lawyers conducting the case in the manner we wanted. He instructed me to make a concerted effort to convince them to broaden our lines of attack.
After the conversation, I realized that I could not afford to be insecure about my lack of knowledge about copyright court cases. This was Christ’s court case, and He was using us to keep His truth alive for the whole world. It dawned on me that our lawyers were actually working for Christ. At that moment, Hebrews 13:7 kicked in for me in a most powerful way.
Within minutes, I received another call. It was one of our lawyers. He asked me to listen carefully to what he had to say. He wanted me to convince Mr. Flurry to not stray from the copyright issues of our case. He wanted me to persuade Mr. Flurry that we should not get into doctrinal issues in the depositions.
Before I told him a definite no, I asked him several questions: “In the five years in working with us on the court case, has Mr. Flurry ever missed a payment to your firm?” He answered, “No.” I then asked, “Do you think that there has ever been a time that Mr. Flurry has lied or hid any underlying motives from you?” He said, “No.” I knew that he believed Mr. Flurry to be a man of character. He definitely knew that the wcg leaders were not. Then, I said, “I think you should run the court case in the manner Mr. Flurry wants you to.” I told him I believed that if he did what Mr. Flurry asked, they would get what they needed to satisfy the copyright issues and what we needed to keep the pressure on and expose the wcg. That is precisely what happened!
Of course, the real hero in our court case is Jesus Christ, who does work through a man. There was never a time in our court case where Mr. Flurry expressed any doubt that we would win the copyrights to Mr. Armstrong’s writings. He set me a wonderful example of faith.
What a blessing it is for us when we learn to follow the faith of the man whom God has given to rule over us. Let’s all be sure to read, study and apply Hebrews 13:7. We will need it desperately in the coming days.