Son of Armstrong
The Fruit Does Not Fall Far from the Tree
It is predictable that the spirit and works of Herbert W. Armstrong would spawn someone like Ronald Weinland, a man making many bold claims in the delusion that he is God’s last prophet and one of His two witnesses. Armstrong behaved similarly and the Law of God says that like produces like. The Lord Almighty says to those snared in such works, “Come out from the midst of them and be separated…Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18 EMTV). In this paper we differentiate between the clean and unclean, what is of the Father and what is of men.
Ronald Weinland has announced that he is God’s final prophet before the end of this age, and one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11 (his wife is the other). He has staked his claim to this high calling and office on the accuracy of the predictions he makes in the Name of God. One is that there will be a nuclear detonation in a major American city on or before July 16, 2008.
If his predictions do not come to pass, here is what Ronald says should happen:
“If we come to the point in time where what I’ve said doesn’t come to pass, the reality is that I’m just a false prophet. That’s the bottom line… The reality is if it doesn’t happen, then you’re just false…I’ll acknowledge my error, my wrong, if I’m wrong.”
In fact, some of his predictions, such as the total collapse of the US dollar by mid April of this year, have already not happened, and there has been no retraction forthcoming from Weinland, only excuses that spiritualize and explain away his errors. However, here is what God says about Ron’s explanations:
“But the prophet who takes it on himself to say words in My Name which I have not given him orders to say, or who says anything in the name of other gods, will come to his death. And if you say in your hearts, How are we to be certain that the word does not come from the Lord? When a prophet makes a statement in the Name of the Lord, if what he says does not take place and his words do not come true, then his word is not the Word of the Lord: the words of the prophet were said in the pride of his heart, and you are to have no fear of him” (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 BBE).
It is, of course, consistent with the nature of a false prophet to never admit that he is false. It is for true men of God to shine the Light on the false so that others may see. Jesus Christ is the Light in Whom we live and Who has sent us to expose the darkness.
Ron has chronicled a sensational account of his predictions, God’s Final Witness, which includes a horrendous loss of life that is to now occur in these last days. Let us say that there is no doubt these are the last days, with great tribulation coming upon the world such as has never been before. Since bloodshed, wars and disasters of all sorts have happened before, at many times, there is another element at work here, one that is not strictly physical. What could be more devastating than the flood in the days of Noah? No, what is different is that, in these times, God is sending forth a spiritual fire to cleanse both Heaven and earth. (This fire, though unseen, is real, just like God Himself is real, though unseen.)
Ronald’s vision and predictions are carnal. He produces lies because he walks in the pride of his corrupt heart, according to the Word of God just quoted. No doubt most people pay no attention to his words, dismissing him as another fruitcake. He is a small man with a smaller following. But it will not do to be cynical and derisive. Rather, you should walk in humility and learn to distinguish error by knowing the Truth. It does you no good to dismiss false prophets while you may equally dismiss the true.
It is no surprise that Ronald Weinland is a false prophet, because the fruit does not fall far from the tree. Ron is the product of Herbert W. Armstrong. Armstrong made many predictions that did not come to pass. He was a false prophet, though he had many true doctrines. You must know that the Kingdom of God is not found in the meat and drink of doctrines, but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Armstrong’s fruits came from the arrogance of his carnal knowledge, which he has passed along to his followers. They, having drunk their fill of his spirit of superiority, could not abide one another and allegedly split into five hundred splinter groups after his death and the break-up of his life’s work, The Worldwide Church of God.
Weinland’s doctrinal errors are not identical to Armstrong’s; he has branched out into some of his own. What is the same is that he acts on the compulsion to be “the man,” and the winner in a game where almost everyone else loses. Here we shall kill two foul birds (I speak of presumptuous flesh) with one stone.
The flesh can never vaunt itself enough. Weinland, as an example, not only lifts himself up as the only prophet of the Lord since the time of the apostles, but he also pulls down the mother of prophets and kings. He accuses Sarah, Abraham’s wife, of fomenting envy, distrust, competition, pride, jealousy, and bitterness in the Arab people through her relationship with Hagar, mother of Ishmael. He says that the current enmity that Arab Muslims have towards Jews and the West is Sarah’s fault. In other words, if Weinland were a true prophet (which he is not), he would be accusing his own mother of sin, and condemning himself as a child of the flesh. No doubt he is a child of the flesh, for here is what the Scriptures say of Sarah and of us, her children:
“But brothers, we, like Isaac, are children of promise. But then even as he born according to flesh persecuted him born according to the Spirit, so it is also now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave-woman and her son; for in no way shall the son of the slave-woman inherit with the son of the free woman’” (Galatians 4:28-30 MKJV).
Peter, by the Holy Spirit, encourages daughters of faith, saying of Sarah:
“For so once indeed the holy women hoping in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose children you became, doing good and fearing no terror” (1 Peter 3:5-6 MKJV).
Weinland seeks to placate Muslims by saying that it is not their fault that they follow a megalomaniac blasphemer. He tells them that they can blame the West, which loves them only for their oil. Instead of identifying the horrible lies being fed to them from the Koran, Weinland gives them liberty to play the victim card, thus justifying their suicide bombings, murders, and other sins. We understand why Weinland does this. How can he find fault with his brother, Muhammad, who also sought to be the last prophet? In doing so he would be openly condemning himself. So he blames the children of Sarah. This is the way Satan operates. He always sides with the children of the flesh.
Weinland says that since the time of Isaac and Ishmael, “neither lineage dealt with each other with genuine care and concern; instead, animosity and deep-rooted attitudes were passed down, through both, from generation to generation…All have failed to show the way of peace which comes from God.”
Israel is the only nation on earth that is known to return land to those who have aggressively sought to exterminate them. Israel has offered more rights and respect to the Muslims than the Muslims often offer to other Muslims in their own countries. Is Israel perfect? Of course not. But to lump Israel’s behavior with genocidal wars and suicidal bombings is unjust and mad. No reasonable and knowledgeable person, let alone prophet of God, would propose such an equivalency.
Here is a prediction Weinland makes that is demonstrably false. He says of what he categorizes as the last kingdom of men on earth, before God’s Kingdom consumes them all: “God has revealed that [Europe]… will become the strongest power the earth has ever known.”
The image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, which God showed Daniel represented all the empires of the world, described the last kingdom as an inherently weak mixture of iron and clay. Is that not the case of our Western democracies? The United States, leading the way, cannot even subdue a small nation like Iraq. Indeed, the last days are here, and this prediction of Europe becoming super powerful is sheer nonsense.
Even as I write, Europe is cowed into submission by a Muslim minority living within its borders. How can they fight those without when they are ruled by their enemies from within?
Weinland says that only he knows the meaning of the seven seals in the Book of Revelation:
“It has to be revealed through God’s servants, and most of it was reserved to be revealed at this end-time through God’s end-time prophet – me.”
But here is how John introduces his book:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John; who bare witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that reads, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:1-3 ASV).
Somebody is a liar, either the apostle John or Ronald Weinland. John says the things he wrote were to show God’s servants what would shortly happen, and this involved things they could observe and keep. He was not specifying anything as off limits – kept in store for a future audience. The time was ready even then. “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
Ron, on the other hand, says that only he understands these things and, unless you believe him, you are lost. That means there could have been no blessing for all who came before Ron, because how can there be a blessing when you cannot comprehend the prophecy and find direction in its words? You need Ron, and if you lived before Ron, too bad. If Ron is correct, John is plainly wrong to promise the reader a blessing. However, if John is wrong and what he says is a lie, then Ron also must be wrong, because he is basing his interpretation on words that cannot be trusted.
If the apostle John is in error, he could not be speaking from God. But if what John says is true, and we know that it is, then Ron is wrong, because he contradicts John’s revelation from the very outset. Clearly John’s prophecy has been for all believers since the words were recorded, and that is because the things in the book of Revelation are primarily describing happenings in the spiritual realm.
Any person that comes along and tries to tell you everything that will happen on the world stage, detail by detail, based on the Book of Revelation and Biblical prophecy is – and listen carefully because I am choosing my words carefully – full of shit. They are feeding you the end product of the digestion of the Word through their own imagination. Show me one prophet or servant of God who ever spent his time providing such information. You will not because you cannot.
What did the Son of God do? Did He explain all manner of prophecies about Himself before they happened, or after? He met certain disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection and, after asking them what was happening and hearing them describe His empty grave with perplexity, He said:
“O you foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27 EMTV).
Could He not have told them beforehand? Why didn’t anyone in Israel have accurate predictions regarding these prophecies before Christ entered His ministry? According to Weinland, and so many others, someone should have been able to penetrate these mysteries and know what would happen like a Hollywood director working from a script. But the Lord does not work that way. He causes us to walk by faith, not by sight, and we see the truth of His words after they are fulfilled.
Did not Mary keep all the things that the angel Gabriel spoke to her about her newborn son in her heart, pondering them? Yet she did not understand them until many years later, after Christ was crucified and risen from the dead. She went through a time when she did not accept His calling, and even questioned His sanity. Her heart was indeed pierced, as was foretold by the angel. God was not expecting her to figure it out. She had to live it out. Life is His intended end, not knowledge.
What about Jacob and his son Joseph? Why did Jacob, a man of God, not understand Joseph’s prophetic dream, though he kept the matter in mind? He did not see; his sons tricked him into thinking Joseph was dead. The matter was not known until after Joseph revealed himself to his brethren as the ruler of Egypt, the prophecy fulfilled. That is precisely the way God intended it to be. No man knows the nature of the fulfillment of prophecy until it is fulfilled.
That is the way it always works. The way of Weinland, Armstrong and company, and other groups like the Seventh Day Adventists, is the way of men, who crave the certainty of carnal knowledge and despise the spiritual substance of faith.
Weinland, however, is not satisfied with thinking himself superior in knowledge to all others today. The flesh is never sated. The universe must positively revolve around it. Not only must it win; others must lose. Ron predicts death and punishment for those scattered Armstrong followers who do not fall into line with him:
“As in the story of Elijah and the ministers of Baal, the words of Elijah were upheld with great power, and God revealed through whom He was working. The same will be true in the things that will happen to members of the leadership of the scattered Church who refuse to repent and hear God’s true servant…every minister who was scattered, who fails to repent early on and return to God (with me, as God’s minister, teaching them) will die during the final three and one-half years of great tribulation. They will not be in the first resurrection, and they will not see the millennial reign of God’s Kingdom on earth.”
What happened to you, Ron, that you are so bitter about being rejected by your “Church of God” brethren? “Take that, you unappreciative heretics! You would not listen to me, the man of God!” Is that the Spirit of Christ in you speaking? No, it is the spirit of man and of Satan, his sponsor. It is the man of sin in you who wages vendetta warfare on his perceived enemies. It is this same spirit that indulges the doctrine of eternal torment against those who do not agree with those religious of the “right” persuasion.
Weinland says the death of Church members is at his choice, from God. Ron, we are members of Christ’s Body, and not only do we reject your words, but we reject you as God’s last time prophet and one of the two witnesses. Put us on your hit list, and let’s see what happens. You say that the signs of God’s servants in these last days will not come through miraculous healing, but by calling down plagues on mankind. To you, the two witnesses are for destruction, not healing. So destroy us then, if you are a witness, the spokesman and prophet of God. We certainly deserve it, according to you.
But what did Jesus say to the “sons of thunder” when they proposed to destroy? Whom shall we believe, Jesus Christ, or Ronald Weinland?
“And He sent messengers before His face. And they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for Him. And they did not receive Him, because His face was going toward Jerusalem. And seeing, His disciples James and John said, Lord, do You desire that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did? But He turned and rebuked them and said, You do not know of what spirit you are. For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save. And they went to another village” (Luke 9:52-56 MKJV)
It is evident that Ronald interprets Scripture by his carnal mind and hateful heart.
The Worldwide Church of God and its many splinters are not God’s Church or, more accurately, His Body. It is all simply more in the long line of breakaway movements of men’s works of the flesh, going back in time to the Catholic Church and beyond, all part of the whore of Proverbs 7 – Mystery, Babylon the Great.
People of the former and present Worldwide Church of God, you are destroying yourselves. You need to come out of your love affair with the Tree of Knowledge that leads you into the perpetual reorganizations of a dead and rotting carcass. You are forever spinning your wheels, ever learning but never arriving at knowledge of the Truth, Jesus Christ. Religion and doctrine with end time teachings are not the answer; the cross of Jesus Christ, Whom we preach, is. Come, hear, and learn of us, for we are meek and lowly. The Lord is here.
Ron says that God has not given “His people all knowledge about Himself and His Son.” Presumably Ron will teach you this, but we know that all knowledge of God is in the Son. If you have the Son, you will have that knowledge:
“But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; so that, according as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31 MKJV).
And:
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16 MKJV).
The problem for those that do not know God is not that the Lord’s hand is shortened, or that His mind is disconnected from His Body. The lack comes from not being part of His Body or not being in submission to Him, just as Ron himself is not. He is doing his own thing, which, in delusion, he calls “God,” and demands others worship what he has conceived and presented to the world.
But those who do not know the Father do not have the Son. This is not because they do not have Ron’s doctrine explained to them. When they are turned to Christ, taking up the cross and dying to this world, then they will know God, guaranteed:
“I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know Him Who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I am writing to you, little children, because you have come to know the Father” (1 John 2:13 EMTV).
John also said:
“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things” (1 John 2:20 MKJV)
And: “But the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and no lie, and as He has taught you, abide in Him” (1 John 2:27 MKJV).
Today religion is everywhere and the cross of Christ nowhere. That is what the Lord told Victor in 1976 (see Prophecy – “I Am Hurting”). It is all sham profession, with devastating effects, everyone perishing for lack of the knowledge of God. The Lord brought Victor into His covenant by the cross so that others could also enter life by the laying down of their lives, too.
There is no other way. This is the sword of fire through which one must pass to have access to the Tree of Life. Death is required to have Life. On the other hand, access to the Tree of Knowledge is free; as with Weinland. One may keep his or her life while consuming the false promise of life through knowledge. Having one’s eyes opened to be like God is not the same as being joined to Him. It leads to death. Death by the cross, however, leads to life everlasting.
Another darkened, false teaching:
“For centuries, the Catholic Church has been led into deception through Satan’s power, but he will exercise even greater direct control at this final end-time.”
The Catholic Church was never led into deception. To say such a thing implies it was once in the Truth, which is not the case. The Catholic Church by name and nature has been the bride of Satan from the beginning. There has been no light in her at any time, for “what fellowship does light have with darkness? And what agreement does Christ have with Belial?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
Therefore, how can she be led into greater deception? How can slaves of sin come under greater control? This is sheer nonsense and fear mongering, giving glory to Satan as though he wields any power outside of the will of God. God is the One calling the shots, and the One to acknowledge as doing all things:
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7 KJV).
Weinland also teaches some common diabolical doctrines, such as soul sleep, annihilation, and that Lucifer is a fallen angel who led a revolt in Heaven, rather than a man in history, which the Bible shows him to be. He teaches that a change of nature into Christ comes by human willpower. He says it is up to man to choose salvation, which is a ubiquitous false gospel that disregards the entire testimony of Scripture that God, not man, chooses.
Weinland predicts great wars and carnage wiping out huge tracts of mankind. Why will these billions die? He writes: “Simply put, mankind does not want God’s way. People must learn what their selfish ways produce.” Yet how can people learn if they are sold out to sin, killed, and eventually annihilated, which is what Ron says will happen if they do not choose to do right after they are resurrected? With this latter fate, their lives and deaths are in vain. This god of Weinland is a vicious and sore loser, and he is decidedly unglorified by his works. And Ron is like his god.
Like Armstrong, Weinland advocates salvation by works, a prime example being the keeping of the physical Feasts of the Law of Moses (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles). Those who advocate these have never known or kept them in the Spirit, the only way possible today. (See Victor Hafichuk’s Testimony and The Feast-Keeping that Is Sin.) According to Weinland, the Jews do not know God because they do not keep the Passover on the correct date. But the Jews, along with Weinland, do not know God because they have not received and eaten of the Passover Lamb. Externals like dates and physical ordinances have nothing to do with His salvation.
Another of Armstrong’s false teachings is that Britain and the US are primarily constituted by the lost tribes of Israel. This is a fallacy that fosters pride, trying to gain spiritual credibility in the flesh. That can never be. Ellen Kavanaugh provides very pointed Scriptural evidence that destroys this myth:
http://www.lightofmashiach.org/losttribes.html
One place where Armstrong was right, however, was that he “fully believed that the Yahweh of the Old Testament writings was Jesus Christ, who would later divest Himself of His Godly power in order to be born human of His mother, Mary.” Weinland disagrees here, believing he has transcended his predecessor. He teaches that Jesus Christ is not God the Father Who existed from eternity. This leads him into making stupid statements that directly contradict the Scriptures, such as:
“Jesus Christ was not the ETERNAL (Yahweh) of the Old Testament…Jesus Christ was dead when He was in the tomb. He had no life in Him. He was not eternal! God, His Father, had to raise Him from the dead.”
But Jesus said to the Jews:
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19 MKJV).
And the Scripture says of Christ:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it” (John 1:4-5 MKJV).
It was not possible for death to overtake Christ. Yes, God raised Him up, for He is God, made manifest at “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ….the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who alone has immortality, dwelling in light which cannot be approached…” (1 Timothy 6:14-16 MKJV).
God plainly says He is our one and only God and Savior, with no other God formed besides Him:
“You are My witnesses, says the LORD [Yahweh], and My servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD [Yahweh]; and beside Me there is no Saviour” (Isaiah 43:10-11 KJV).
“Thus says the LORD [Yahweh] the King of Israel, and His Redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6 KJV).
God and the Redeemer are One, the first and last, the only God.
Read The Most Glorious of Truths and Jesus Christ, Almighty God.
Weinland is wrong and will die in his presumptuousness. His goal is to vaunt himself by reconstituting the Worldwide Church of God in his own image. He asks if anyone has ever seen such claims as his precise timelines and predictions: “This is the evidence (witness, testimony) of the true God of Abraham!”
Apparently Ron has forgotten his spiritual father’s predictions that fell to the ground. And is making predictions so impressive that we should think we are seeing God before our eyes? Isn’t he counting his chickens before they hatch? His predictions, like his father’s, are not coming to pass. That is because both of them are false prophets.
One thing Weinland is right about, however: In these days God is revealing His will and purpose to all mankind. He is revealing Himself. That is what we and The Path of Truth are all about.