The Most Amazing
Prophecies of Zechariah 11 Revealed!
Hidden in the
mysterious book of Zechariah are two of
the most incredible prophecies one could imagine which
directly relate to the
"last days"! Who
is the "idol shepherd" -- the "foolish
shepherd"? What
is the "flock of the slaughter"?
Who
are the
"three shepherds" who will be cut off in "one
month"? Why does
God warn of the "howling of the
shepherds"? It's
time you woke up and realized the very
serious danger you are in -- the TRUTH stands revealed!
William F. Dankenbring
The Amazing Prophecies of
Zechariah
In the 11th chapter of Zechariah is a most amazing
prophecy! It is clearly a prophecy for
the "End time," the last days.
Speaking of the end, God says, "For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd
in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek
the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but
he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
"Woe to
the IDOL SHEPHERD that leaveth the
flock! the
sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his
right eye shall be utterly darkened"
(Zech.11:15-17).
Who could
this end-time "shepherd," or minister and leader of an End-time
remnant of the
Anyone who
has studied the history of the Worldwide Church of God, and its leader and
founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, must notice some striking parallels here. For example, it is a fact that during his
tenure as head of the Worldwide Church of God, Herbert Armstrong built a large
and successful church, with over $150 million in annual income, before his
death in 1987. It is also a fact that he
had a violent temper, and "fired" some executives in the Church
multiple times, such as Floyd Lochner, former
principal of Imperial Schools, Jon Hill, former evangelist -- and yet tolerated
terrible sexual escapades by his own son, Garner Ted Armstrong. Back in the 1930's, it is known that Herbert
Armstrong was guilty of having sexual relations over a period of many years
with one of his own daughters.
Yet, despite
his flaws, God used this man and his wife Loma to bring back much truth into
the
Herbert
Armstrong did not "visit those who were cut off," or put out of the
Church, or the poor and disenfranchised, but rather disfellowshipped
members on the least pretext -- especially such sins as "bad
attitude," "insubordination," "rebellion," and
"disrespect" of his own authority. He viewed himself as the
"Elijah to come" before the 2nd coming of the Messiah!
Was Herbert
Armstrong the "foolish" shepherd of Zechariah 11:15, whom God said he
would raise up in the land in the last days?
The Hebrew word for "foolish" here is eviliy and means "silly, impious,
foolish." It comes from the root eviyl meaning, "to be perverse,"
figuratively, "foolish, silly, foolish man." Gesenius explains
it as "to be foolish, to be perverse." Of the root word, he says, "a fool,
foolish," opposed to the prudent or wise.
He adds, "it includes the notion of
impiety." This word is also used in
Job 5:2-3, where we read:
"For wrath killeth
the foolish man,
and envy [indignation, margin] killeth
the silly one. I have
seen the foolish taking root: but
suddenly I cursed
his habitation. His
children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the
gate, neither is there any to deliver them" (Job
5:2-4).
Interestingly, the oldest son of Herbert Armstrong, Richard
David Armstrong, was killed "in the gate" -- that is, in a freeway
accident in 1958, going the wrong way on a freeway off ramp, resulting in a
head-on collision. Surely, Herbert
Armstrong "took root" and built a large work of God -- but he himself
drank water on the Day of Atonement, when he taught the Church should fast and
do without food and water on that day; he taught for forty years that not even
adultery was grounds for divorce, and had his ministers prying into the lives
of people even before they were in the church, to ascertain whether their
marriage (if a second or third one, etc.) was "valid" in God's sight,
thus breaking up thousands of loving homes and dispossessing thousands of
innocent, poor children, heart-broken to see their parents have to split
up. Herbert was very unwise -- the very
epitome of a "foolish shepherd."
For fifty
years, Herbert Armstrong did not "heal that which was broken." In fact, he caused the deaths (and his
teachings even led to many suicides) of hundreds who denied themselves and
their families any and all MEDICAL ATTENTION when they became sick, fevered, or
ill. Documented cases in his church show
men becoming blind because they refused to allow doctors to treat their
glaucoma, and many died because they refused all medicines, or surgery,
including small children! Only in his
latest years did Herbert Armstrong begin to question his own teaching in this
regard. When he was sick and his life
threatened, when he was old, he permitted doctors to treat him around the
clock, taking heart medicine and every drug which he had so callously forbidden
to church members on pains of disfellowshipment!
Doesn't this
prophesy begin to sound more and more like Herbert W. Armstrong, whom many even
today still "worship" as God's "one and only true servant"
of his time, and as the "Elijah" to come?
Meanwhile,
Herbert Armstrong knew how to bring in the money to the Work. He stressed his own "authority" as
God's only true servant, as the "head" of the only true Church, but
he taught members had to tithe one, two and even three tithes (every third and
sixth year out or seven) on their incomes -- or they would be cast out of the
Church and burn alive in the
In addition
to this, however, he often wrote hard-hitting, tear-jerking
"co-worker" letters, pleading for the members to send money to the
"Work" which always seemed to be suffering one financial
"crisis" after another.
Interestingly, in a co-worker letter dated
"If ever we needed large sums -- into
five figures and more . . . it is
right now!"
Sounds like the Work was in a real "crisis,"
doesn't it? But according to receipts
and financial records from the same period of time, on
In his
"I ask of all who can and are willing
. . . go to your local bank and
borrow whatever you are able -- $100 to $1,000. . . . And
you should
not obligate yourself to monthly payments except what you
will be
able to pay over and above tithes and offerings for the
Work. . . For
this is serious -- the most serious crisis since 1947 and
1948."
That was March 30. The
next day, March 31, Herbert Armstrong went shopping and bought a "pair of
French porcelain vases." The cost? A mere $2,079.00.
On
Apparently
Herbert's trust and faith did not last very long, because an
"The IDOL
Shepherd"
The prophecy
goes on, "he shall eat the flesh of the fat" (Zech.11:16).
Even more
after the death of Loma D. Armstrong in 1967, Herbert Armstrong lived a life of
luxury and wealth. With a personal
expense account of a million dollars a year, and final
say over all the tithes flowing into the coffers of Worldwide, he fulfilled
this prophecy. He ate the flesh of the
fat. His own salary was about $500,000
per year, which he justified saying all heads of major corporations, such as
General Motors, had salaries even greater than his. In his mansion on South Orange Grove Avenue
in Pasadena, Herbert Armstrong used to delight in showing people, and students,
through his home, to marvel at his aquisitions --
expensive paintings, dinner ware, gold faucets, marble bath tub, and other objets d'art.
At one dinner
where he hosted Ambassador students he asked them what
they thought the items on the table were worth.
When none had the slightest idea, he boasted, "Over
$125,000!" Among these objects were
two sculptured solid-gold foot-high salt cellars, the only known copies of
those once owned by King Louis XIV of
After his
wife Loma died in 1967, Herbert Armstrong began travelling
around the world, meeting with world leaders, giving them expensive gifts, and
getting his picture taken with them.
Notice what God's Word says about this:
"WOE to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! " (Zech.11:17).
Because of Herbert Armstrong's frequent and lavish travels,
around the world, the state of the Church began to deteriorate both spiritually
and in leadership. Says an article in
the 1977 Ambassador Report:
"In the last nine years, Herbert has
been on the move more than at any
other period in his 85 years. Due to his jet aircraft, he has been able to
move from one Hilton hotel suite to another throughout
as he calls on dictator after dictator. But while Herbert has been away,
the mice have been at play.
During his travels -- when he should have
been home mending fences and settling doctrinal disputes --
two costly
blowups rocked his church, causing him to lose thousands of
tithe-paying
members. (One came in 1974, and the other was in England in 1976.)"
("Herbert
Armstrong -- Man on the Move," by Perry Prescott, AR, 1977).
But the prophecy goes on.
Zechariah records:
"The sword shall be upon his arm, and
upon his right eye; his arm shall
be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly
darkened" (Zech.11:17).
What does this mean?
Who was Herbert Armstrong's "right arm" during his many years
as head of the Worldwide Church of God? None other than his son, Garner Ted Armstrong. Beginning in the 1950's, Ted began making
many of the World Tomorrow radio broadcasts, and soon the whole responsibility
fell on him. He became the only speaker
on the World Tomorrow television show every week. When his father travelled
abroad, he left Ted in "charge."
The true
story of Ted Armstrong, and his own spiritual profligacy, is enough to fill a
book! Suffice it to say, that during the
course of his ministering in the Worldwide Church of God, Ted was also "boffing" girls right and left -- like a
"spiritual" Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame! In fact, Ted's sex-capades
became so famous that he was written up in an article "
Herbert
Armstrong's own spiritual "right arm" -- his own son, Garner Ted
Armstrong -- "withered" up spiritually, sought the comfort of the
flesh, and polluted the house of God!
Thinking he
would inherit the Church and Work from his father, when he died, Ted decided in
1978 to move
This was more
than a distraught Ted could bear, and he smelled the scent of Church attorney
and treasurer Stanley Rader, in this fateful decision. He felt he had been politically
"outmaneuvered," out-flanked, and "done in." In anger, he went to the press, and
complained about the way he had been mistreated. Herbert then accused him of rebellion, and disfellowshipped him from the Church! With anger piling on anger, Ted decided not
to submit to the status quo in the Church, and finally rebelled totally and
split off from his father's church, beginning his own Church, the
Herbert Armstrong's right eye, literally,
became darkened, and he could barely see out of his remaining eye. Yet from 1967 until 1986 he continually
"left the flock" so he could travel around the world, giving
expensive gifts to foreign leaders and diplomats, so he could get his picture
taken with them. He never preached the
gospel to these leaders, but only "hinted" that a "strong arm
from somewhere" would be needed to correct man's ills on this planet!
Notice! God says, "Woe to the IDOL shepherd" (Zech.11:17). The word for "idol" here is elyil, meaning ""good for
nothing, vain, vanity, specifically an idol, a thing of no value, thing of
naught." It is derived from al, a deprecative meaning
"nothing," "not."
God calls
this End-time minister, "the IDOL shepherd" -- that is, a religious
shepherd who in the final analysis amounts to "nothing" in God's
sight, who is worthless, full of self-inflated egotism, vanity, yet who is
WORSHIPPED LIKE AN IDOL by his followers!
Many still idolize Herbert Armstrong, today -- including Gerald Flurry,
and Roderick C. Meredith, who refuse to believe that Herbert Armstrong was
guilty of any of these things! There can
be no doubt that this "idol shepherd" perfectly describes the later
years of the ministry of Herbert W. Armstrong!
"The Flock of the
Slaughter"
But notice
even further! Let's now go back to the
beginning of Zechariah 11. This whole
chapter is a WARNING against the END-TIME CHURCH OF GOD!
"Thus
saith the LORD my God: Feed the flock of the slaughter;
whose possessors [minister-owners] slay them,
and hold themselves
not guilty: and they
that SELL them [into perdition and destruction]
say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds
pity them not " (Zech.11:4-5).
The
"flock of the slaughter" describes a church which must go through the
Great Tribulation and suffer greatly for its sins! It will be "slaughtered"
mercilessly. The next verse describes
civil war in the land. There is already
"civil war" in the Church of God, and infighting between the various
off-shoots that have sprung out of the fallen trunk of the tree of
Worldwide. What we see today is a fierce
competition among the shepherds for dominance over the remaining flock -- a
quest for "market share." It
is like pirhannas furiously devouring the carcass of
a cow thrown into the Amazon river -- like vultures
picking the bones of a dead animal.
Zechariah
continues:
"For
I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land [because they
have apostasized, and given
themselves over to do evil, and have
wickedly departed from the laws and love of God!], saith the LORD:
but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his
neighbor's hand, and
into the hand of his king [tyrant-demagogue ruler]: and they shall
smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver
them. And
I
will FEED THE FLOCK OF THE SLAUGHTER, even you,
O
poor of the flock " (v.6-7).
This has
happened! The Church of God has been
divided up into fragments, and spiritual "civil war" is now
raging! God is very angry with the
church leaders of this End-time! He
says,
"Howl, fir tree, for the cedar is
fallen [ie.,
Herbert Armstrong, like a
tall "cedar" tree, is dead!]; because the mighty
are spoiled [the Worldwide
Church
of God is being "spoiled" and destroyed by its new coterie of
leaders led by Joseph Tkach and
his son]: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan
[you ministers, who are compared to "oaks"]; for
the forest [the defenced
forest -- the church] is come down.
"There
is a voice of the HOWLING OF THE SHEPHERDS; for their
GLORY
IS SPOILED: a voice of the roaring
of young lions [the young
ministers];for the pride of Jordan is spoiled" (Zech.11:1-3).
This is a prophecy against the MINISTRY of the End-Time
Church! God is going to punish them for
their wickedness, obstinacy, stubborness
of heart, pride, and evil-doing! Now let
us go on with this most amazing prophecy!
God continues:
"Three shepherds also I cut off in
one month; and my soul
loathed
them, and their soul also abhorred me. Then said I, I will NOT feed
you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be CUT OFF,
let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh
of another . . .
and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that
it was
the word of the LORD" (verses 8-11).
Who are these
"three shepherds"? Are there
not three principal shepherds that have come out to Worldwide, each proclaiming
themselves to be the "remnant church of God" and doing "God's
End-time Work"? Who could they be? Look around.
Take note. Are these three
shepherds not specifically referring to
1) Garner Ted Armstrong, who
left Worldwide in 1978 to begin
his "Church of God, International;"
2)
Gerald Flurry who left Worldwide in December 1989, to begin his
"Philadelphia Church of God;"
3)
and finally Roderick C. Meredith, who in January,
1993, began
his own splinter
church from the remaining members dissatisfied
in Worldwide, calling his curch
the "Global Church of God"!
If none of
these men REPENT, if they all refuse to return to God and His Laws -- including
His truth concerning the Passover and Pentecost holy days -- then their
blood, and the blood of their followers, is upon
their own heads!!!
God thunders, "Son of man, PROPHESY AGAINST THE
SHEPHERDS of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; WOE BE to the
shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!
should not the shepherds feed the
flocks?" (Ezek.34:1). Notice!
This is not talking just about ONE "flock" or ONE
"church"! God uses the PLURAL
here -- "flocks"! And
He speaks not of just ONE "shepherd," but the PLURAL -- "shepherds"!
This is a warning to the prophets and preachers and
ministers of the various "churches of God," today! God continues:
"Ye eat the FAT, and ye clothe you
with the wool, ye KILL them that
are fed [by commanding three tithes, by oppressive church
government!]:
but ye feed not the flock.
The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither
have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up
that which
was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was
driven away,
neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with FORCE
and with
CRUELTY
have ye RULED them. And they were
SCATTERED,
because there is no shepherd: and they became meat [prey] to all the
beasts of the field, when they were scattered"
(Ezek.34:3-5).
The Hebrew word for "ruled" here, describing the
force and cruelty of the oppression and tyranny of these ministers who uphold
their own perverted, Nazi-version of "church authority," patterned
after the Roman Empire, the Papacy, and ancient Nimrod's Babylon, is radah, which means "to tread down,
subjugate, crumble off, have dominion, prevail against, reign." Doesn't that describe the End-time ministers
-- all of them -- associated with Worldwide, and its three major splinter
groups?
The prophet
Jeremiah also describes these end-time "prophets" or spokesmen of
God, or so they claim. He wrote:
"WOE be unto the PASTORS THAT DESTROY
AND SCATTER
THE
SHEEP OF MY PASTURE! saith the LORD.
Therefore thus
saith the LORD God of Israel
against the PASTORS that feed my\
people; Ye havd SCATTERED my
flock, and driven them away, and
have not visited them:
behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your
doings, saith the LORD"
(Jeremiah 23:1-2).
Jeremiah continues his bitter lament because of the sad
state of the End-time ministry of the church of God in its various branches:
"Mine heart within me is broken
because of the prophets; all my
bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom
wine
hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words
of
his holiness.
"For
the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land
mourneth; the pleasant places of
the wilderness are dried up, and
their course [margin, cursing] is evil, and their force is
not right.
For
both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in mine house [in the
church!] have I found their
wickedness, saith the LORD.
"Wherefore
their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the
darkness: they shall
be driven on, and fall therein: for I
will bring
evil upon them, even the year of their visitation"
(Jer.23:9-12).
How
amazing! These prophecies, uttered about
600 years before Christ, or some 2,600 years ago, have come to pass, just as
the Word of God predicted! God calls the
prophets or ministers of His End-time Church "windbags." As the Moffatt
translation says, "The prophets are but WINDBAGS; the Word is not with
them!" (Jer.5:13).
Truly,
Zechariah 11 has been fulfilled -- in amazing detail! God's Word has spoken!!!