God promised, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Jesus Christ confirmed that this Elijah would prepare the way for His Second Coming. This issue of Royal Vision shows how this prophecy was fulfilled by Herbert W. Armstrong.
Mr. Armstrong died in 1986. The Day of the Lord has not yet arrived, nor has Christ returned. For this reason, most of the people who, to one degree or another, believe the doctrines Mr. Armstrong taught, do not believe this man could have been this “Elijah.”
The main church groups that emerged from what was once the Worldwide Church of God reject Mr. Armstrong’s teaching that he fulfilled that role. The United Church of God views him as having done an Elijah-type work but does not teach that he personally was this prophesied Elijah; it says the church collectively participates in an ongoing Elijah-like role of preparing people for Christ’s return. The Church of God, a Worldwide Association, acknowledges Mr. Armstrong’s major leadership role but does not officially teach that he was the end-time Elijah. The Living Church of God explicitly rejects the idea that he was the end-time Elijah, teaching instead that this role may be fulfilled by one of the two witnesses or even by Christ Himself. Thus these groups pick and choose among the doctrines Mr. Armstrong established and reject his spiritual authority over them.
The Philadelphia Church of God teaches emphatically that only Mr. Armstrong fulfilled this singular prophetic office, and honors his spiritual authority to this day.
Yet the question remains: Why is there a 40-plus-year gap between his death and the Day of the Lord and return of Jesus Christ?
The answer: God is still sending Elijah through the remnant still carrying on Mr. Armstrong’s work: the Philadelphia Church of God.
The man is gone, but the work God did through him continues.
Laodicean Era
Mr. Armstrong taught that Revelation 2 and 3 are a prophecy of seven successive eras of God’s Church. The first era, Ephesus, was started by Jesus Christ Himself. The sixth, Philadelphia, was led by Mr. Armstrong.
Read Christ’s description of Laodicea, the seventh and final era before His Second Coming, in Revelation 3:14-22. This church era is spiritually lukewarm, materialistic, complacent, and, in Christ’s view, “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” In the final years of his life, Mr. Armstrong repeatedly warned that the Church was in danger of descending into this wretched spiritual state.
The major groups that came from the Church of God under Mr. Armstrong all recognize the seven churches as prophetic eras and agree we are now in the Laodicean era, or at least that Laodicean conditions dominate, though many of them view this as a general warning against Laodiceanism rather than a blanket condemnation of the Church of God today.
Gerald Flurry, however, has been clear from the first book he wrote back in 1989—Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today—that once Mr. Armstrong died, the Church entered the Laodicean era. After Mr. Armstrong’s successors in the wcg subverted his teaching, Mr. Flurry and his assistant remained faithful, and they were fired for doing so on Dec. 7, 1989.
The first two chapters of Malachi’s Message are“A Call to Remembrance,” a reminder of the doctrines Mr. Armstrong taught, and “Hold Fast,” an admonition to cling to them. Chapter 3, “Laodicean Era,” shows how God prophesied of the Church’s falling away from the truth, and Chapter 4, “Following Elijah,” proves that Mr. Armstrong did, in fact, fulfill that prophetic office. The entire book exposes exactly what happened to God’s Church, boldly corrects not only those who perpetrated these errors but also those who blindly followed along, and provides clear, Bible-based direction on how to repent of Laodiceanism and return to carrying on the Work of God as Mr. Armstrong had done.
Now, think deeply about how Jesus Christ’s message to the Laodiceans concludes: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:19-21).
What a loving message to a wayward people! It is rebuke springing from love. It is correction from God who is knocking on the door and hoping to come and sup with “any man,” any individual, who hears and opens! And it is a promise of a spectacular reward, amid appalling spiritual betrayal by God’s people, to those who overcome.
How would Christ rebuke and knock? As He always has throughout history: He would work through a man. In this case, one man, supported by faithful followers, who held fast what he had been taught by God’s end-time Elijah.
Malachi’s Message is that message of rebuke! It is a clarion call to the Laodiceans, inspired by Jesus Christ, to repent. Christ knocked on the Laodiceans’ door through
Gerald Flurry, supported by the newly formed Philadelphia Church of God!
This provides a vital key to answering the question regarding the gap between Mr. Armstrong’s death and “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” in Malachi 4:5.
Malachi’s Message
The last chapter of Mr. Flurry’s first book, “Malachi’s Message,” explains how God’s correction for the priesthood in the prophetic book of Malachi, like the condemnation of the Laodiceans in Revelation, applies to the wcg after Mr. Armstrong’s death—specifically to the rebellious ministers of the Laodicean era. That is the context of Malachi’s entire prophecy.
This context is crucial to fully understanding the Elijah prophecy that concludes the book of Malachi, as well as other references to Mr. Armstrong earlier in that prophecy.
Malachi 3 begins with Jesus Christ speaking about the preparation for His Second Coming: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me ….” In his booklet The God Family Vision, Mr. Flurry writes about this verse: “There is all this chaos in God’s Church; many are stumbling at the law [Malachi 2:8]—then God says, ‘I will send my messenger.’ Why didn’t God say, ‘I have sent’? It’s as if Mr. Armstrong was sent after or even during this crisis. Of course, we know the Bible presents things ‘here a little, and there a little’ (Isaiah 28:10), and we understand that everything is not in a precise chronology. But the book of Malachi does have a clear chronology. It is discussing the Laodicean era and an end-time Elijah, or Levi, whom God has already sent. Then He says here, I will send him.
“What does God mean? This is a definite message to the Malachi remnant. Two messengers are mentioned in Malachi 3:1: the end-time Elijah and Jesus Christ. We already know that the Elijah messenger has come and gone.”
“The Bible is a coded book,” Mr. Flurry continues. “If we see this as God sees it, we realize that God wants this very elect remnant to resurrect the work of Elijah and send him again! It says that to the Malachi group—those people with Malachi’s Message. It is telling them to ‘prophesy again’ (Revelation 10:11) in the context of the great mystery (verse 7). God wants us to get the same prophecy out there again—including some new revelation, like what you are reading right now.”
With this context, these bold pronouncements in Malachi’s prophecy take on even richer potency. Even amid a terrible betrayal by God’s ministry and people—which occurred after Elijah had come and gone—God will send Elijah again anyway. “If the Laodiceans don’t do their job, and they pollute or destroy the Elijah work, God just sends him again through His loyal remnant,” Mr. Flurry explains (emphasis added).
You must view God’s promise at the end of the book of Malachi in this same context: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Again, this is in the midst of the Laodicean crisis.
The fact that this Elijah work is still happening while the Laodiceans are rebelling is punctuated by the terrifying warning that concludes Malachi’s prophecy: “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” “And if they don’t heed this warning, they—God’s own people—are under ‘the curse’ of losing their eternal lives,” Mr. Flurry explains. That is the worst possible outcome for God’s Spirit-begotten saints! Everything is at stake! We either make it into God’s Family or we die forever—to be as though we’ve never lived” (ibid).
This is the urgent, life-and-death Work being done by this remnant of the Philadelphia era of God’s Church. These verses give a clear directive: “God is telling us in strong language that we must declare what Mr. Armstrong taught; he was God’s messenger,” Mr. Flurry concludes. “And we live in a time when the very prophecies he taught are now coming to pass in an amazing fashion.” Through this Work, God is sending Elijah again.
As bold as this claim sounds, the pcg now has decades of work, sacrifice, risk and faith to support it, along with numerous Bible verses to back it up.
Succession
For more than three decades, pcg Pastor General Gerald Flurry has remained loyal to the truth God restored through the Elijah and has painstakingly raised the ruins of the Elijah work, piece by piece. God has blessed this effort, giving physical growth and additional truth and revelation.
The pcg has continued Mr. Armstrong’s work in turning “the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers,” not only with youth programs and biblical emphasis on moral physical families but also with the biblical revelation that God is a Family.
Mr. Flurry and the pcg retained the truths restored through Mr. Armstrong on everything from who God is to Sabbath-keeping to holy days to Church history to meats to makeup and dress to tithing to Church government to healing to resurrections to Bible prophecy. Mr. Flurry has quoted, cited and consulted the writings, sermons and judgments made by Mr. Armstrong—thousands of times.
Mr. Flurry started the pcg with abundant loyalty to the teachings established through Mr. Armstrong but extremely meager resources and almost no members. Yet he pressed ahead, following the pattern God had used in Mr. Armstrong’s life of stepping out in faith to publish, broadcast, make personal appearances, answer personal correspondence, establish regional offices, start a youth program, create a cultural foundation, institute a college and a school, develop a campus, build an auditorium as a house for God, and support biblical archaeology.
Like the work God did through Mr. Armstrong, the work of the pcg has grown from virtual nothingness to an active, extensive, positive and urgent force, all while never soliciting the public for donations. Several of the ruins raised up by the pcg literally bear the name of Herbert W. Armstrong: the Armstrong International Cultural Foundation, Herbert W. Armstrong College, Herbert W. Armstrong College Bible Correspondence Course, Armstrong Auditorium, the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology.
Perhaps the clearest proof that the Elijah work continues through the Philadelphia Church of God is the fight for Mystery of the Ages. Mr. Armstrong’s successors subtly edited, then significantly edited, then suspended, then finally terminated the publication of that book, which summarizes all things restored to the Church through Mr. Armstrong. They destroyed inventory and lied to members about their intent.
In 1997, Mr. Flurry began printing and distributing for free Mystery of the Ages. The wcg sued for copyright infringement, setting off a six-year legal battle (article, page 22). Mr. Flurry was willing to face litigation, deposition, fines and worse for the sake of those teachings. No other church that came out of the wcg supported this fight! This made them complicit in the effort to suppress God’s truth. In 2003, however, the wcg miraculously capitulated, selling the pcg the full copyrights to Mystery of the Ages and Mr. Armstrong’s other major works.
Ever since, the pcg has been sending Elijah, in a direct physical sense, by printing and mailing thousands of copies of Mystery of the Ages, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, The Incredible Human Potential, The Missing Dimension in Sex and more than a dozen other works by Herbert W. Armstrong.
These facts are true of the Philadelphia Church of God, and of no other church.
Completing the Elijah Work
Mr. Flurry has written for decades about the truths God restored through Mr. Armstrong, and he has received revelation that builds on those truths.
He writes in John’s Gospel—The Love of God: “The original Elijah revealed the true God to Israel. John the Baptist introduced the true Christ at His first coming—continuing the Elijah work. Mr. Armstrong prepared the way for Christ’s Second Coming. We finish the Elijah work that he did and introduce the all-powerful Christ to this deceived world. …
“The Apostle John gets very specific about how we finish the Elijah work.
“In verses 21 and 25 of John 1, the religious leaders mention a prophesied individual called ‘that prophet.’ Lange’s Commentary says it was ‘the well-known prophet; a personage in their messianic theology presumed to be familiar.’ This prophet was familiar to them because of their knowledge of prophecy. ‘This particular prophet, therefore, is meant, who should complete the forerunning office of Elijah ….’ “This is a prophecy of our work today!” Mr. Flurry concludes. In other words, that prophet and those people supporting him would finish the Elijah work. (This passage is thoroughly explained in our free booklet Who Is ‘That Prophet’?) …
“There is somewhat of a gap, however, between the end-time Elijah and the Day of the Lord,” Mr. Flurry writes. “It originally seemed that the Day of the Lord would come immediately after Elijah came. Some say that Mr. Armstrong’s death proves he was not the Elijah. But look at it spiritually: Elijah is still here! Because the group that held fast is bringing Elijah’s message back! That work will continue right into the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord.”
Through The Key of David, the Trumpet Daily, the Philadelphia Trumpet, Royal Vision, the correspondence course, kpcg.fm, the Armstrong foundation, college, Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology and dozens of other broadcasts, publications and other projects highlighting old and new biblical revelation, the Philadelphia Church of God continues to warn, raising up the ruins and prophesying again (Amos 9:11; Revelation 10:11). You urgently need to examine the Bible and other evidence so you know whether Herbert W. Armstrong was indeed the end-time Elijah—and from where God is sending Elijah right now.