Worldwide Church of God: Death Threat by Email

(7/21/97. The following are some email correspondence that I just had with an angry reader of the Kessler Letter. I am withholding his name as long as he does not send me any more correspondence.)

I personally do not believe Mr. Armstrong committed incest. I believe he is the victim of a bunch of Satan inspired Wanna-be's that were (still are) trying to discredit him and the Work of Jesus Christ!

But how can I prove to you and the world that you are wrong and end your mud slinging operation?

Simple! Let God the Father and Jesus Christ intervene and give you what you so richly deserve!!

I pray that as Paul prayed that God would reward you according to your wicked works and end your vicious rumor mill!! May God rebuke you for accusing Mr. Armstrong of committing incest and may He in due order put a judgment on you to compensate for ALL of your satanic wicked LIES!!!

Herbert Armstrong was a charlatan and a crook. Not only did he misuse his own daughter for his selfish purposes, he misused the whole church.

I was a member for 25 of my adult years. I too know the shock and revulsion of finding out that the man you would have followed into the widerness and died for was such a revolting person.

I would suggest that you do a little more research on the subject. There are plenty of books that I have recommended on my web site and there are plenty of links.

I have heard that some have done searches on Lexis and found a lot of information. You can even get transcripts from some of the more famous wcg trials, some have told me.

Have you asked your minister if this is true? Most of them knew it. Get ready for a great tap dance routine as they try to not tell a lie while still telling the truth. You will see what I mean.

Thank you for turning me over into God's hands. That is where I have been for the last 2 1/2 years and have been enjoying my freedom from the hands of men.

"Herbert Armstrong was a charlatan and a crook. Not only did he misuse his own daughter for his selfish purposes, he misused the whole church."

As you have sarcastically written: "Thank you for your kind Christian remarks. I'm sure God is proud of you."

Now let tell you something, incest breath! God used Mr. Armstrong as He has used no other man since the days of the early apostles.

I know this first hand. God called me into the Church and gave me His truth through Mr. Armstrong.

I was working a job on the Sabbath plus owned a business that was open on the Sabbath. A fellow employee handed me a copy of the booklet - "Which Day is the Christian Sabbath?".

I read it and believed it, but alas, I had basically 2 jobs on the Sabbath and could not keep the Sabbath. I thought that God would understand.

He understood alright! The very next Friday afternoon, I came to my job which was from 3PM Friday to 12 Midnight. I felt fine. Then precisely at sunset I became so sick that I was staggering to walk up to the time clock to punch out.

I was practically on my back for three days and when I came back to work, I told my boss that I could no longer work Friday Nights. He told me that he could not let me off and that I would have the use my leave time to take off - which meant that I would eventually be fired. My friend who gave me the booklet was just about to be fired and so now he had two religious zealots to deal with!

Also I owned a health Club and had some power lifters/bodybuilders who refused to leave the building the first Friday night I closed at sunset. (Try throwing a bunch of weightlifters out of health club because of the Sabbath!)

To make a long story short, God intervened and gave my friend and I hours that worked around the Sabbath plus I sold my health Club the week I was baptized.

But just before I was baptized, I read in a commentary (or Bible Encyclopedia) that Christians were no longer required to keep the Sabbath under the New Covenant. The article went on to point out that you will find no commandment in the New Testament to keep the Sabbath.

My head was spinning. Was this God's True Church that I was about to be baptized into? How could this be?

The very next Sabbath, we all watched a video tape from the man you hate - Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong in which he carefully and accurately explained Colossians II.

He got me back on track. (He was and never will be "a charlatan and a crook" to me! He made mistakes as we all do but not the kind you satanic "accusers of the brethren" are coming up with and you know it!!)

One man in our congregation handed me a copy of one of Garner Ted's books and asked me read it. I politely refused.

The next Sabbath, this man who was about thirty years older than me was greeting people at the door and I came up to him and refused to shake his hand and told him that I wanted to see him outside.

He came out and I walked out to my car and grabbed an old PT with Garner Ted's picture on it showed it to this man and then in a fit of rage ripped it to pieces in front of him and started railing at him it the parking lot. I told him how dare him to try and get me to read heretics literature!!

He finally got away from me and one of the men came up to me and told me I was going to be put out of the Church for this. That man's son and the minister were good friends growing up. They even worked together on a summer job.

I fasted and prayed about it the next Sabbath. The following Sabbath, the minister walked up to me and offered his LEFT hand to shake. He did not disfellowship me though, God again intervened!

This older man would stab me in the back to the other members and God smote him with cancer and he died not too long after that. Again God intervened!

After Mr. Armstrong died and Mr. Tkach started to move the Church back into mainstream Christianity, I was devastated. I felt I was spiritually dying. (I was!)

At the Feast of Tabernacles 1992, we watching the transmission by Mr. Tkach to all the Feast sites and I prayed a prayer. I asked God to knock out the transmission if there was any heresy in what Mr. Tkach was teaching. About 5 minutes later, the bulb at the Norfolk VA Feast site popped and we were in darkness. I prayed again and the audio was cut in half. Again God intevened! I quit attending after the Feast

I prayed to God let someone much greater than I stand up for the Truth. Within a few weeks, Mr. Rod Meredith stood up for the Truth. Again God intervened!

My father and neighbors hated me and my religion. My father told me that he was convinced that if he got sick on the Sabbath, that I would step over him if it were the Sabbath day.

Then one Sabbath day he called to me and said he was very sick. To take him to the hospital. I asked him to wait for 30 minutes when the Sabbath was over and I would take him. I remembered his words and knowing him, this was one of his tricks.

He got so mad that he told me he was going to call the next door neighbor and have them take him to the hospital. All the neighbors knew of the incident so he was trying to his best to destroy me and my faith.

He provoked me to anger many times and one day I snapped. I prayed to God that may He strike you dead for all the persecution you have brought on me. Eleven months later he was dead of cancer! Again, God intervened!

Now I want to tell all of your cohorts in this little smear campaign about me! I want them to make jest of me and make fun of me just like they are doing to Mr. Armstrong! Go ahead Mr. Big Shot!

Well, now you have got me really worried. You have great power with God and now HE is going to get me just because you ask Him. Yeah, just being sarcastic again. :-)

If you have so much power with God, tell him there are a lot bigger problems on this Earth that need solving than trying to GET someone who exposes a pervert (HWA) for what he was.

Naturally, it is hard after sacrificing so much over the years, to admit that you have been wrong. Before you go killing off the messenger, you might do well to research the message to see if it is true.

I too had God intervene for me when I first joined the Worldwide Church of God. My wife was seriously ill. I had two young sons to take care of. I decided that I must keep the Sabbath also. I gave up my job of 5 years as an apprentice. The very next day I found an even better job. At that job I only had to go to work when they had work for me, they paid me full pay to stay home.

Sometimes I stayed home for weeks getting full pay. Even when I worked, I only had to work until my jobs were done. Most days I was out of the building in less than 4 hours. Still full pay. This gave me time to take care of my wife who was slowly dying.

So was this a reward for Sabbath keeping? At the time I thought it was. Now, in retrospect, I can see that God was rewarding me as a person willing to lay down his life in order to serve HIM wrong as I was. I would interpret your case the same way.

I saw a movie last week titled "Thinner", (I don't recommend it), where a gypsy just went up and touched someone he didn't like and said "Thinner" and then the guy kept getting thinner. He could eat whatever he wanted but couldn't put on any weight. If we get our choices from you, this doesn't seem too bad a way to go.

But, then again, I'm sure you would want it to be something we definitely would NOT enjoy.

So maybe you could tell God to send me a pizza for my last supper? Make sure He loads on the Pepperoni! I really missed that for 25 years. :-)

And, believe me, this is not a smear campaign against you. Some of us may see a little bit of the way we used to be/think in you and your statements.

The Bible states that men who self-righteously point out the sins (in this case perceived) of others are usually guilty of the same or similar sins. Okay incest breath, what's in your closet? May God display all your sins in living TechniColor. You deserve it! Name Witheld

When Loma & Herbert Armstrong have been resurrected and have served with Christ for 1,000 years and then you dogs come up in the 3rd (maybe 2nd resurrection) and slither up to them you will be too scared to look them straight in fhe face because you know they will have the power to look into your very sick perverted "hearts".

They will know how you who once were for preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and warning this world of the coming Great Tribulation and Day of the Lord had succumed to the pulls of the flesh and allowed Satan to use you as an instrument to attack the Work, Mr. Armstrong - anything to do with the real God!!

Just remember the next time you look in Herbert W. Armstrong's face. He will have enough power to melt down half our galaxy. I want you to tell him to his face that he is a pervert, crook, and all the other nice Christian words you like to shower down on others.

You don't have to apologize to me. Just humble yourself before Christ and Herbert & Loma Armstrong in the Great White Throne Judgment or quietly go your way in the third.

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