On this page you will find various comments by Mr. Armstrong (with the sources) showing that he KNEW that he fulfilled the Elijah role and that NO ONE would succeed him in the commission of preaching the gospel to the world, as well as other interesting statements.
From the March 6, 1981 Worldwide News. A Special Edition. This entire WWN was one continuous article which was a sermon/message transcript that he gave to leading ministers that were gathered in Pasadena. The title of this article is: "Congress of leading ministers hears defined and reemphasized Spiritual Organization of Church". Below is an excerpt from the last portion of the article.
"I once appointed my son Garner Ted to succeed me. I didn't know any better. Today I wouldn't. What I've told you today is something, as I said, I would not have said a few years ago. But I look back and I look at the fruits and I see what prophecy says and I see that prophecy has been fulfilled. I wonder if you brethren see it?
And brethren, I have to say to you, no one is going to succeed me. God has called me to a job, to a commission. Mr. Rader has said time and again publicly that he doesn't expect anyone to succeed me, that God has never let anyone die until what God has called him to do is completed.
I think that when God lets me die, the thing He's called me for will have been completed, preparing the way for the Second Coming of Christ carrying that Gospel of the Kingdom to the world for a witness to all nations.
I don't know whether God's going to keep me alive for the rest of this day. I don't know whether He's going to keep me alive until next year. I don't know whether He's going to keep me alive for the next five or 10 years. I know He's able to keep me alive for 20 or 30 more years if that's what God wants to do. My God is that powerful. He can do it!
I have been persecuted ever since I gave myself to God. I try to be on the giving and not the getting side. I've been practicing the way of giving for just about 54 years now.
But I think God has called me for a job to do. If I have been someone in the power and the spirit of Elijah, remember there is no prophecy that God will have an Elisha following Elijah. There is no one in the Church that has the qualifications, the experience that could carry on the work that God has given me to do.
Who is there among you who can do it? If you will tell me Iwould like to know. It would be so nice if I could retire, because it's a pretty heavy load I have to carry. But I'm not thinking of myself, I'm thinking of what I've been called to do. And it must be done. And God's will will be done.
If anything happened to me I would expect the Church to continue right on and the local churches and the local church ministry. But the job God has called me to do is a prophesied job. It has been being done." (end of excerpt)
The below excerpt is from a Co-Worker letter dated March 19, 1981. It covers several topics including whether anyone would succeed Mr. Armstrong and the fact that Mr. Armstrong did fulfill the end time role of Zerubbabel and the finishing of the building of God's Church.
“Remember God does things in DUAL stages. As Zerubbabel built the first temple of MATERIAL stone, wood and other materials, he was a forerunner or type of one through whom Christ would raise up or build the SPIRITUAL TEMPLE -- His Church of our time, prior to the Day of the Lord and Christ's Second Coming. As John the Baptist prepared the way, in the PHYSICAL wilderness of the Jordan River for the first coming of the HUMAN Jesus (both man and God), then coming to His MATERIAL temple, and to His PHYSICAL people Judah, ANNOUNCING the Kingdom of God to be set up more than 1,900 years later, SO God would use a human messenger in the SPIRITUAL wilderness of 20th-century religious confusion, to be a voice CRYING OUT the Gospel of the KINGDOM OF GOD, about the SPIRITUAL CHRIST, coming in SUPREME POWER AND GLORY to His SPIRITUAL TEMPLE, to actually ESTABLISH that spiritual KINGDOM OF GOD.
Brethren, HAS THAT BEEN DONE BY THIS CHURCH?
Did God raise up a one-man LEADERSHIP to be used by Him in building this spiritual TEMPLE and in proclaiming after 1,900 years the true GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD in ALL THE WORLD -- to even go to kings and heads of nations (Rev. 10:11) -- in bringing the Church back to the FAITH ONCE DELIVERED (Jude 3)?
HAS THIS HAPPENED, IN YOUR DAYS, AND HAS GOD BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS PROPHETIC FULFILLMENT AS A PART OF IT?
HAS ANYONE ELSE DONE IT?
Brethren, HOW did the living Christ prepare me from youth to lead you?
At age 16, on my first job away from my home city, my employer aroused the spark of ambition within me. At age 18, I began fulfilling the "7 Laws of Success" -- all but the seventh, which is guidance from God in being led into the RIGHT goal, and general divine guidance. But I was trained in WRITING both advertising copy and magazine articles. I was trained in the magazine and newspaper business. I was led where I would have continual contact with successful men who had built some of the biggest industries and biggest banks in the United States or the world. I was trained in speaking to businessmen.
At age 34, God had me disturbingly CHALLENGED as I had never been before about keeping GOD'S SABBATH. I was forced into the most intensive and in-depth night-and-day study and research of my life. I then believed just the OPPOSITE of what GOD SAYS in His Word. I was trying to prove I was right -- to HAVE MY OWN WAY. In that first beginning six months' deep study of the Bible, I learned I had believed the very opposite of WHAT GOD SAYS.
In that period God OPENED MY UNDERSTANDING to most of the MAJOR BASICS OF GOD'S TRUTH THAT THE CHURCHES AND RELIGIONS OF THIS WORLD HAD LOST -- indeed, even the flickering remnant of the TRUE Church had lost!
He opened my mind to HIS LAW. Not only the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath, but the annual festivals and Holy Days. I learned the truth about God's GOVERNMENT having been established on earth under the archangel Lucifer, and the origin of Satan and PURPOSE of God in restoring God's Government over the earth. I learned Jesus was born to be a KING, which traditional "Christianity" seems not to know. I learned our identity as being of the lost tribes of Israel, and the difference between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. This gave me the KEY to understanding PROPHECIES! God revealed to me the symbols and truths of the book of Revelation as revealed through Matthew 24 and Daniel. I learned the Kingdom of God will be ON EARTH.
NO MAN taught me these truths. As the original apostles were taught by Jesus IN PERSON, so was I taught by Jesus Christ IN WRITING. It is the SAME WORD -- the SAME TEACHING.
I LOST that challenge. I had to GIVE UP MY WAY! I had to give up MYSELF -- and give myself to Christ, who had bought and paid for me. It took an inner battle -- a struggle against having my own way. I made, in my mind, heart and innermost intention, a COMPLETE SURRENDER to God. I told Him if He could use such a worthless life as mine, He could have it.
Two can't walk together except they be AGREED! I now AGREED with Christ.
I have NEVER DISAGREED. You yourself -- every begotten child of God -- does, through human weakness, commit sin even after the most deep conversion. None has lived perfectly but JESUS. But when I stumbled through human weakness, Jesus picked me back up on confessing to Him and repenting, and asking help never to repeat the sin. At no point did I DISAGREE nor water down HIS TRUTH.
He used me in building the Philadelphia era of HIS CHURCH -- and in proclaiming His Gospel IN ALL THE WORLD!
Now He has brought this Great Commission near its FINISH. Neither I nor you know how much longer will be required completely to finish it!
But as I said at the beginning, some, even in the public press, are beginning to ask, WHO is the "heir apparent," as the newspapers put it? WHO will rule the Church after Mr. Armstrong?
The answer is, NOBODY!
I have gone to considerable length in this letter to show you how God does His Work among humans through one man at a time. He specially prepared me for the Work He has called me to do. I know of NO ONE ELSE who has been so prepared.
My son Garner Ted Armstrong, as I have said, and he has said, has NOT AGREED with me as I was brought to agree with Christ. Some newspapers have speculated that Mr. Stanley R. Rader would succeed me as Christ's apostle. But as he himself has said before our brethren, and in the public press, his qualifications ARE ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT. He is a man of brilliant mind and expertise in accounting, finance, law and in many respects in this world's governments. But he is not qualified to lead God's people SPIRITUALLY, nor to become the human leader of the Church under Christ, if I have the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5) and I think I have.
Beginning with the massive legal attack on this Church by the State of California, January 3, 1979, sweeping changes were necessarily made in the organizational structure of the Church and Work. God providentially had moved me out of California to Tucson, Arizona, almost a year before. A new corporation was formed, the Herbert W. Armstrong corporation sole. All tithes and offerings were directed to Tucson. That, for the present, is continuing.
But while God has always worked through one man at a time as leader over His people, He also has given wise instruction, and those He has chosen should heed it. 1) We are not to put our trust in MAN, but in God. On the other hand through Solomon God says that IN MULTITUDE OF COUNSELORS there is safety.
I have always followed that principle, calling from time to time on various ones competent in whatever field was in question, for advice and counsel before making the decision.
I have used the board members of both the Ambassador College corporation and the Worldwide Church of God, Inc., board as counselors.
But now, in the corporation sole, under which the day-to-day operations are now conducted, there is no board of directors, and none called for by law.
In lieu thereof, I have formed the new ADVISORY COUNCIL OF ELDERS. That Council, at present, is composed of the following experienced elders, all of many years' faithful and loyal experience as ministers in God's Church.
The Council of Elders, as of now, consists of Dibar Apartian, Dean Blackwell, Robert Fahey, Ellis LaRavia, Raymond McNair, Leroy Neff, Joseph Tkach, Leon Walker and, as adviser to the Council, Ralph Helge.
Now as to any possible successor to me. God has never removed a man called to a specific leadership or assignment or commission until his mission is COMPLETED.
1) Has the commission of carrying the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world been completed? How far does God expect it to go? Only HE knows. It has gone to multiple millions. It has gone into all continents. It is still going. I am preparing to speed up its proclamation to the world as we come in on the homestretch. But I DO NOT KNOW, nor does any but GOD know, where that finish line is! WE MAY BE CLOSER TO IT THAN WE REALIZE!
2) The CHURCH for this present era has been raised up. God's TRUTH has been restored to it. IF, and AS God may reveal any more truth, I will assuredly share it with you. I have done, and am doing, the best I can with God's help to help you all to GROW in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am doing what I can to HIGH PRESSURE YOU into a DEEPER spiritual life with Christ, a deeper, more fervent PRAYER LIFE.
Perhaps my job in these areas is not yet finished. GOD WILL KEEP ME ALIVE AND ON THE JOB AS LONG AS HE NEEDS ME, and I will serve Him to my utmost as long as He leaves me FREE to do so, and gives me the breath of life.
I have shown you that the book of Haggai is a PROPHECY. Zerubbabel's temple, to which Jesus came at His first coming, was a TYPE of the SPIRITUAL TEMPLE (God's CHURCH) to which, in its resurrected GLORIFIED state, it will be the GLORIOUS TEMPLE to which Christ will come SOON NOW IN OUR TIME.
Zerubbabel, therefore, was the typical forerunner of one Christ would use to build that GLORIFIED SPIRITUAL TEMPLE -- God's Church of this END TIME.
In Zechariah 4:6 and 9, God says of this former type: "This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power (humanly), but by MY SPIRIT, saith the Lord of hosts." In Revelation 3:8, Christ says of the leader of today's Church, "I know thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength (only a little strength humanly), and has kept my word, and hast not denied my name." This Work in our day has not been done by human strength or power, but by FAITH and the POWER OF GOD'S SPIRIT.
Further, "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house (the first temple); his hands shall also FINISH IT!" So far as I know, GOD HAS NOT RAISED UP ANYONE ELSE TO FINISH THIS WORK HE HAS USED ME IN DOING!
God could take my life in the next breath -- or He has power to keep me on the job as His instrument for as long as He deems necessary.
I have NEVER SAID I expect to live until Christ comes.
But, just in case of my disability for any reason, to prevent Satan from causing division, I feel God has inspired me to delegate power to the Advisory Council, during any such complete disability, to take full charge of the Work and all its assets and activities.
The CHURCH must not be scattered. It must not become scattered, because there is no COMPETENT, CHRIST-CHOSEN SPIRITUAL SHEPHERD, TO BECOME MEAT FOR BEASTS (human) OF THE FIELD! (See Ezekiel 34:5.) This is a safeguard for YOUR protection.
This letter is already overlong, but I felt important.
I urge all who have not already asked for it, to request the new Lesson 13 of the Bible Correspondence Course.
Brethren, NEVER were your prayers so URGENTLY NECESSARY -- both for YOU and the Work -- and for me! My life has been threatened -- but by faith in God it shall be spared until my work is complete. I now have to ask you to sacrifice and send in special EXTRA generous offerings more than ever before. Time is short. Soon there shall be a FAMINE of hearing the Word of God (Amos 8:11). If we work harder now, SO WILL SATAN. SO PRAY AS NEVER BEFORE!”
With deep love, in Jesus' name,
Herbert W. Armstrong
COMMENT: Isn't it INTERESTING that in the last couple of paragraphs of this letter, Mr. Armstrong warned (prophesied!) that the Church MUST NOT become SCATTERED! And he said it was because there was no competent SHEPHERD (to take his place) ! He quoted from Ezekiel 34, and indeed that whole chapter applies more today than ever to the Church(s) of God. This prophecy clearly shows that there is NO shepherd or minister holding fast at this time. But notice in this chapter of Ezekiel it does NOT say that some of the sheep or flock wouldn't be holding fast! That's why God is addressing the shepherds or ministry. They are the ones responsible for FEEDING the flock. But it is not being done according to God's standards or God's way. Therefore God says He will do it (the feeding) HIMSELF, and that HE HIMSELF will gather together His flock!