-Caveat Lector-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Conspiracy Was Strong - Part 2
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 20:21:56 -0400
From: "Timothy Aho" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Watch Unto Prayer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: The WatchmenFrom: Watch Unto Prayer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://watch.pair.com/pray.htmlDate: August 22, 1999
THE CONSPIRACY WAS STRONG
Part II: BRITISH-ISRAEL
THE JUDAIZERS
There have been approximately thirty recognized splinter organizations
resulting from Worldwide Church of God - Organizational Splits, although
other sources estimate that hundreds of groups have formed from the WCG.
It is a common practice of conspiratorial organizations to subdivide and
create new fronts with diverse names in order to diffuse public
perception of the greater conspiracy which is still intact. This plan
goes into action especially when the mother organization is exposed or
discredited.
Today, numerous Sabbatarian, Restoration, British-Israel, Messianic and
Sacred Name organizations, which have been spawned by the WCG, are
carrying on the work of the late Herbert W. Armstrong, indoctrinating
new disciples in his British-Israel teachings and worldview. In June
1998, an Israel Identity Conference held in the United States and
Australia was promoted and attended by numerous Church of God affiliates
and Sabbatarian organizations. These included the Worldwide Church of
God, United Church of God, British-Israel World Federation, Global
Church of God, Christian Educational Services, Servant's News magazine,
Faith in Australia magazine, The Journal newspaper, The Independent
Church of God, Perspectives magazine, Alert newsletter, Sabbath History
newsletter, The Shofar newsletter, Origins of Nations magazine/History
Research Projects. [Craig White, News of the Israel Identity Conference
with Dr Rick Sherrod, The Journal, 8-24-98]
According to Personal Freedom Outreach, Christian Education Services is
a splinter group of The Way International cult founded in 1985 by Victor
Paul Wierwille who denied the Trinity and divinity of Jesus Christ, used
only the Aramaic version of the Bible, rejected Sunday worship, denied
the Holocaust and, during the late 1960s and 70s, recruited large
numbers of young people from the Jesus Movement.
As well, the Israel Identity Conference was promoted by James Trimm of
the Society for the Advancement of Nazarene Judaism, which connects
through the Messianic Friends Network with numerous Messianic
organizations such as Jews for Jesus and Messengers of Messiah. Mention
was made in a SANJ message dated 8/17/98 that an international
conference is being planned in Jerusalem for several reasons, one being
that "Jerusalem is destined to be the capital city of United Israel
including both Judah and the Lost Ten Tribes." Another attraction in
Jerusalem is the presence of rabbis such as Yair Davidy of Brit-Am
Israel. The goal is recognition that the "Jews of Judah" and the Lost
Tribes are brothers, to the end they will be reconciled and reunited.
SANJ also hosts the Lost Tribes Forum -- "one of several Rabbinic
organizations (including Yair Davidy of Brit-Am) which teach that the
Lost Tribes migrated to Europe." (8/28/98) Yair Davidy, who denies the
divinity of Jesus Christ, also teaches that present day Jews are from
the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the tribe of Joseph is divided into
Ephraim which is Great Britain, and Mannaseh, the United States.
Herbert Armstrong's global agenda is also being fulfilled through
organizations like Sir Anthony Buzzard's Restoration Fellowship and the
greater Church of God General Council whose publication, The Journal,
promotes the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association and the
Worldwide Church of God. The Journal also lists the Olive-Hebrew Roots
CDRom Encyclopaedia promoted by HRM organizations and published by the
Saltshakers Ltd in London. The Olive-Hebrew Roots CD-Rom carries
articles written by Andrew Gould, Jacob Prasch, and admitted kabbalist,
Avi ben Mordecai, among other Messianic teachers.
On his Restoration Fellowship web page, Sir Anthony Buzzard explains the
Hebrew Roots Concept of Christianity. One issue of the COG Journal
announced a Hebrew Roots conference to be held at the Atlanta Bible
College where Sir Anthony serves on staff:
"The conferees will study the 'Hebrew roots of our faith'
[and] our biblical unitarian heritage as expounded by such
distinguished persons as Sir Isaac Newton and John Milton."
[both famous English Rosicrucians-BA]
A pastor of a major Hebrew Roots organization, Messengers of Messiah,
Peter Michas subscribes to the doctrines of the Jerusalem School of
Synoptic Research, a non-Christian Jesus Seminar-type think tank which
denies the inspiration of the Greek New Testament. The JSSR is a
"consortium of Jewish and Christian scholars" who, like the Unitarian
Anthony Buzzard, deny the deity of Jesus Christ, identifying Him as
being merely "like other Jewish sages of that time."
Having rejected the Greek New Testament, Peter Michas substitutes
rabbinic literature (the Babylonian Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash) and other
Judaic writings as the interpreter of New Testament doctrine.
Notwithstanding this departure from Scripture, The Christian Conscience
maintains a link promoting Messengers of Messiah. Also, published in
their Jan/Feb '98 issue was a favorable review by Lynn Leslie of Peter
Michas' book, The Rod of an Almond Tree in God's Master Plan, which
undermines the doctrines of the Substitutionary Atonement and the
Trinity.
Watch Unto Prayer has posted our own research of Peter Michas' book,
which consists of excerpts from The Rod of an Almond Tree categorized by
doctrine, along with statements from heretical and occult sources which
present identical doctrines. As I read this book and other writings of
Peter Michas, I wondered at the strange assortment of doctrines
expounded as "new revelations" that the reader is informed have been
lost upon the Church for centuries due to religious tradition. It was
upon reading Joseph Hopkins' critique, The Armstrong Empire, that I
would recognize the Hebrew Roots' doctrines as nearly identical to
Herbert Armstrong's teachings some 50 years previous:
"Among these were denial of the Trinity and the personality of
the Holy Spirit, insistence on the seventh-day Sabbath and
compliance with Jewish feasts and dietary laws, denunciation
of Christmas and Easter as pagan holidays, and the belief that
the "lost ten tribes" of Israel have survived to the present
day, and that the Anglo-Saxon people of England and America
are the lineal descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh. (The
Armstrong Empire, p.18)
"Armstrong...purports to declare "the astounding, but little
known facts" concerning "the True New Testament Church of
Jesus Christ"...through subsequent centuries to the present
day. With the congregation at Pella as headquarters and those
at Antioch and Ephesus as secondary centers, the authentic
Christian witness was preserved. "Rome," it is emphasized,
"was never the parent or Headquarters church... What was the
"Synagogue of Satan?" The Armstrong history identifies it as
"the great apostate church" of Rome -- adding that Rome's
"many Protestant daughters...are also Satan's churches. All
the revered giants of Christendom -- Augustine, Luther,
Calvin, Wesley, Jonathan Edwards -- were, he would have us
assume, either frauds or fools." (The Armstrong Empire, pp.
56, 57, 100)
"Armstrong argues at great length that Jesus was crucified on
Wednesday and resurrected on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath,
largely in order to do away with the basic assumption behind
Sunday observance -- that Jesus arose on the first day of the
week. His objections to the Good Friday and Easter
observances, almost universal throughout Christendom, provide
added incentive to the effort to establish a different Holy
Week calendar... A more sophisticated and complex version of
this argument is developed by [WCG Ambassador College Dean]
Herman Hoeh in a 47-page booklet published in 1959. Again the
reasoning rests on interpretations that have been discredited
by reputable scholars. During the week of the crucifixion,
says Hoeh, there are two Sabbaths, one of which came on
Thursday, the day after the crucifixion...Hoeh takes this
as...proof of the Wednesday crucifixion." (The Armstrong
Empire, pp.110-11)
Peter Michas postulates a "three Sabbaths" theory in his attempt to
establish the fact that Jesus was cruciufied on Wednesday and arose on
Saturday - a new revelation that is calculated to invalidate Western
Christendom which assembles for worship on Sunday. Sabbatarian cults
have missed the fact that the New Testament does not enjoin Christians
to keep the Sabbath. Rather, they meet to worship on the Lord's Day, a
different day of the week with a different observance altogether.
The problems regarding the Sabbath began when the Roman Catholic Church
called Sunday the Sabbath. It is not the Sabbath -- it is the Lord's
Day. Sabbatarian groups use this misnomer to call attention to the fact
that Saturday is the true Sabbath -- which it is. However, they miss the
point of the New Covenant that Christians are not bound to the Sabbath
observance as were the Old Testament Jews. The Galatians were in bondage
to observing days (Gal. 4:10), desiring to be under the law. Romans 14
deals with the issue of Christian liberty, condemning neither those who
observe, nor those who do not observe, one day of the week above
another.
The Old Testament Sabbath prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is
Himself the believer's Sabbath (rest) every day of the week. The
Judaizing heresy is based on rejection of the finished work of Jesus
Christ in general and, specifically, the substitutionary aspect of
Christ's atonement as symbolized by the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:10
"But the goat upon which the lot fell, to be the scapegoat, shall be
presented alive unto the Lord, to make an atonement with him..." Herbert
Armstrong would have his followers believe that Satan is the atonement
for sin. Peter Michas misses the point entirely.
Herbert Armstrong: "With the Seventh-Day Adventists, Herbert
W. Armstrong identifies Satan -- not Christ -- as the
scapegoat upon whose head 'the responsibility for sin will be
placed.'" (Joseph Hopkins, The Armstrong Empire, p.143)
[(Armstrong's] Bible Story Vol. III, p. 32, states that the
Scapegoat, as pictured in Leviticus 16th chapter, represented
the Devil. However, Isaiah 53:10-12 and 1 Peter 2:24 state
that the Son of God is the Sin-bearer or the Scapegoat. [WCG
VS. COG (7th day)]
Peter Michas: "The fate of the unrepentant man, represented by
the scapegoat, was to go to a place of desolation and
separation from God." (Rod of an Almond Tree, p. 241)
Having misinterpreted Leviticus 16, Peter Michas contradicts II
Corinthians 5:21:
Peter Michas: "Yeshua did not literally become sin, but the
totality of humanity's sin (both past and future) was imputed
to Him on the tree. Because Yeshua was sinless and could not
retain sin, the authors belief the sin was sent back to Satan
by means of the man who chose Satan as his master." (Rod of an
Almond Tree, p. 240)
II Corinthians 5:21: "For he hath made him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him."
Other doctrines held in common by Peter Michas and the late Herbert
Armstrong are the Oneness, Unitarian and British-Israel doctrines.
Herbert W. Armstrong taught: "...like the 'Oneness' people,
that the Jehovah or Yahvah of the Old Testament is the Jesus
of the New. With several exceptions, the YHVH of the Old
Testament is the Father who created everything through His
Son, however." [WCG VS. COG (7th day)]
Peter Michas teaches: ""To understand the true relationship of
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, it is
essential to preserve the concept of oneness . . . In the Old
Testament Hebrew, the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) is translated LORD
and refers to Yeshua. Therefore, 'the Lord your God' is a
reference to 'YHVH/LORD your Elohim.' This shows that YHVH is
a oneness with the plurality of Elohim." (The Rod of an Almond
Tree, p. 256, 259)
Like Unitarians Herbert Armstrong and Sir Anthony Buzzard, Peter Michas
denies the doctrine of the Trinity. Note the terms used by Peter to
describe the Holy Spirit as other than a Person:
"The unity of Yeshua HaMashiach with God the Father and the
Holy Spirit has never been clearly understood from the
doctrine of the Trinity..."
"To understand the true relationship of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, it is essential to preserve
the concept of oneness..."
"The aspect of the Father may be simply understood as the Will
of God. The aspect of the Son may be understood as the Word of
God. The aspect of the Spirit of the Holy One may be
understood as the Power of God..."
"To say God is three 'persons' opens the door to
misunderstanding God. God is Spirit and cannot be reduced to
the concept of a person..."
"The Spirit of the Holy One is the very essence of the power
of God the Father and not some separate entity." (The Rod of
an Almond Tree, pp. 255-57)
BRITISH-ISRAEL DOCTRINE
The main doctrine of the Worldwide Church of God, however, was the false
interpretation of Bible prophecy which maintains that the Anglo-Saxon
races are the lost tribes of Israel. A brief history of WCG and its
doctrine of British-Israelism may be found on the Religious Tolerance
website: Anglo-Israelism; British-Israelism; Worldwide Church of God.
Other purveyors of British-Israelism, such as the Rosicrucian Prieuré de
Sion, and its brotherhood of secret societies, have revealed a plan to
place one of their bloodline on the throne of the rebuilt Temple in
Jerusalem. This positioning of a false messiah, whom the world will
worship as Christ, has been carefully planned and executed over many
centuries. The grand scheme of the Rosicrucians will culminate,
according to former Grand Master Sir Isaac Newton, when the secret
societies "bring Jesus down" to earth.
"9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut
off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that
shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the
end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war
desolations are determined.
"...The last missing week: 62+7+1=70 starts in 1996 and runs
for 7 years. Half-way through - in 2000 we bring down Jesus
causing the sacrifice to cease:
"9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one
week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the
sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading
of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the
desolate."
Isaac Newton's interest in Hebraic studies is documented in The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment by historian Frances Yates, who confirms Sir
Anthony Buzzard's description of this most famous of the English
Rosicrucians:
"Newton's historical attitudes, his intense preoccupation with
apocalyptic prophecy, would have made him intensely aware of
the apocalyptic interpretations of the near extinction of
Protestantism in Europe ...The approach to Newton through
Rosicrucian alchemy might help, not only to unify his physical
and alchemical studies, but also to integrate with these the
Hebraic piety behind his historical studies." (p. 205)
The Merovingian legend misrepresents Jesus Christ as a member of the
Essene Community of Qumran (also called Nazarenes), whose messianic
vision was to unite Jew and Gentile in order to deliver the world from
the power of the evil Roman Empire. According to Merovingian lore, Jesus
married Mary Magdalene and fathered children. When Jesus failed in his
mission, Mary and Joseph of Arimethea fled from Israel to Europe. The
royal bloodline of Jesus Christ, claim the Rosicrucians, continued in
Great Britain as the Merovingian dynasty. Another version of the
British-Israel doctrine maintains that the ten northern tribes of Israel
migrated from their captivity in Assyria to the British Isles.
Hebrew Roots leader Michas plainly teaches the British-Israel doctrine
of Yair Davidy and Herbert Armstrong in Chapter 6 of his Study of
Revelation:
A look at several verses in Genesis and other related
passages, will give further insight into the full meaning of
verse 6. "Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly
multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand
which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate
of their enemies" (Genesis 22:17). The word translated "gate"
means strategic sea gates, the sea lanes of world trade. The
countries that have and do possess these lanes are the United
States, Britain, Canada, and Australia.
"And the L-rd was with Joseph, so he became a successful man.
And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian" (Genesis
39:2). In Genesis 39:23, we read that "The chief jailer did
not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the L-rd
was with him; and whatever he did, the L-rd made to prosper."
The covenant blessing was given to Joseph and then to Ephraim
and Manasseh (Genesis 48). This covenant blessing is also
shown in Deuteronomy 33:13-17. In verse 17 of this passage, it
speaks of an ox or wild ox. In Hebrew, the word is unicorn. It
also speaks of the first-born, but it is actually talking
about not just the first-born but includes the offspring of
the future. Those who would come from Joseph, Ephraim, and
Manasseh would be the head, not the tail, and would receive
the choicest blessings under the sun from the sea and the
world. Where on the face of this earth has more food produce,
minerals, sea trade, and commerce? The free nations, the
Gospel- preaching nations. Do any other nations fit the
picture of receiving the blessings promised to Joseph,
Ephraim, and Manasseh? China and the nations of South America
and Africa do not fit this picture. NO!
As we mentioned, the word in Deuteronomy 33:17 translated "ox"
is actually "unicorn." This is most important as the symbol of
England is the unicorn. Verse 17 continues with "With them he
shall push the peoples." Who will? The nations of the unicorn.
Those are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of
Manasseh. There are hundreds of Biblical references which show
us the picture of these nations as the descendants of these
three men.
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