Forty years ago, on Jan. 16, 1986, one of the most consequential lives of the 20th century ended.

After beginning his ministry in 1931, Herbert W. Armstrong established the Worldwide Church of God (wcg) from virtually nothing and built a powerful worldwide work. At the time of his death, his World Tomorrow broadcast aired on over 400 television stations. The Plain Truth magazine had a circulation of 8 million—more than Time and Newsweek combined. He met with hundreds of presidents, prime ministers and dignitaries as an unofficial ambassador for world peace.

Mr. Armstrong was the most influential, prolific televangelist, educator and religious leader of his day. In fact, God used him to fulfill several key Bible prophecies leading up to Jesus Christ’s return!

Time will eventually show that Herbert Armstrong’s life was a highlight of human history!

When he died, the wcg received condolences from prominent leaders the world over. U.S. President Ronald Reagan told Mr. Armstrong’s supporters that they could “take pride in his legacy.”

Do you remember this history? At a time when more people are seeking God and becoming religious, Mr. Armstrong’s life shows you how to be a real Christian. It is a study of God using a yielded human instrument to imprint His truth on humanity.

In addition to the 40-year anniversary of his death, 2026 is also the 100-year anniversary of when Mr. Armstrong’s mind was first opened to the truth of God in the autumn of 1926. These two significant anniversaries bookend his spiritual journey and offer us a critical opportunity to stop and think about the incredible life and legacy of Herbert W. Armstrong.

Two Challenges

In 1926, Mr. Armstrong was financially beaten down. He had been a successful advertising businessman in Chicago on the way to becoming a millionaire. Yet in the flash depression of the 1920s, he lost his business and moved to Portland, Oregon. Having been married a few years and struggling to make ends meet, he came to a crossroads.

God was humbling his self-confident, self-assured human nature, the same nature we all have. Mr. Armstrong saw God’s hand in it: “Yes, God Almighty the Creator was knocking me down—again and again,” he wrote in his Autobiography. “As often as I got back on my feet to fight, starting another business or enterprise, another blow of utter and bitter defeat seemed to strike me from behind by an unseen hand. I was being ‘softened’ for the final knockout of material ambition.”

Right at that time, he was confronted with two tests. First, his wife, Loma, challenged him to prove which day was the Christian Sabbath. Second, a relative, a recent university graduate, accused him of being ignorant for not believing in evolution.

Mr. Armstrong had never been interested in religion, but he now began a six-month, night-and-day study. Arriving at the Portland Public Library before it opened and leaving at closing time, he honestly studied the Bible and scientific evidence of supernatural creation, and then the founding fathers of evolution, comparing the facts and claims. He exhaustively studied whether the Bible commands Sunday or Saturday worship. As his study progressed, he saw how so many commonly held “Christian” beliefs actually contradict Scripture.

Through this study, Mr. Armstrong proved God as Creator and the absolute authority of the Bible. He also proved beyond doubt that the Bible commands seventh-day Sabbath-keeping.

This is an excellent example for us: We must all prove everything for ourselves (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

That intensive, six-month study led Mr. Armstrong to make an all-important decision: to surrender his will to God!

“The opening of my eyes to the truth brought me to the crossroads of my life,” he wrote. “To accept it meant to throw in my lot with a class of humble and unpretentious people I had always looked upon as inferior. It meant being cut off from the high and the mighty and the wealthy of this world, to which I had aspired. It meant the final crushing of vanity. It meant a total change of life! … It meant real repentance, for now I saw that I had been breaking God’s law. I had been rebelling against God. It meant turning around and going the way of God—the way of His Bible—living according to every word in the Bible, instead of according to the ways of society or the desires of the flesh and of vanity” (ibid).

As unlikely as it sounds, this crossroads in Mr. Armstrong’s life 100 years ago was a turning point in history! Why? Because God was preparing him to lead the Philadelphia era of His work (Revelation 3:7-13) as an end-time type of the Prophet Elijah, one whom God would use to “restore all things” before Christ’s Second Coming (Matthew 17:11).

‘Restore All Things’

This prophecy from Jesus Christ Himself is crucial to understand. The reason all things had to be restored was that for 1,900 years the Church of God had slowly lost the true doctrines of Christ due to persecution and spiritual lethargy.

The fulfillment of this epic prophecy began with God revealing one doctrine, then another. “As this study of the Bible continued, I was forced to come out of the fog of religious Babylon a single doctrine at a time,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “It was years later before I came to see the whole picture—to understand God’s purpose being worked out here below, and why, and how, He is working it out. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the many single doctrinal parts ultimately fit together, and then, for the first time, the whole picture burst joyfully into view” (ibid).

God was starting to raise a work to reach millions of people and to prepare the Church of God for the return of Jesus Christ!

Thanks to this intensive process, we now have the full picture of God’s dazzling master plan. All the puzzle pieces have been joined together through Mr. Armstrong’s writings. You can read an eye-opening biblical explanation of many of these restored doctrines in Mr. Armstrong’s masterful book Mystery of the Ages. We offer this book free of charge, along with all his foundational works, which we won the copyrights to in a court battle. (You can read about our fight to publish these works in our free book Raising the Ruins.)

What will you do with God’s truth? We need to follow Mr. Armstrong’s example of repentance.

Turning Point of Faith

Right at the beginning of his ministry in 1931, Mr. Armstrong had to turn down a salary from the dying Sardis era of God’s Church (see Revelation 3:1-6) so he could preach God’s truth unhindered. This is a lesson in faith we all need to learn.

He wrote: “‘As for me and my house,’ I then said firmly, ‘we shall serve the Eternal our God, and Him only shall we serve. If men pay us a salary—even as small as $3 per week—we have now learned we must preach only what men order us to preach. If we are to work for God, we must look to God as our employer, and trust Him to supply our every material need. And then,’ I added, ‘if we fail to serve Him as He commands, He will stop our income.’ …

“I did not fully realize, then, that this was a crucial turning point in the history of the Church of God.”

Why such a turning point? Because God had taught Mr. Armstrong that, to do His work, you cannot look to men, even for a little $3 salary! To do the work of God, you must trust in God.

What a turning point that was! Mr. Armstrong went from $3 a week, to nothing, to eventually overseeing a work with an annual income of over $200 million!

“But from that ‘all-day wrangle’ I was independent of them and their ministers financially,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “From that time I was dependent, solely, on God. We did not ask or solicit financial contributions from any except those who voluntarily became financial co-workers with us. And that has been the policy ever since” (emphasis mine).

After that decision, the work began a phenomenal increase of approximately 30 percent per year for the next 35 years! Any company in this world would love such explosive growth. It all started with that fundamental lesson: Mr. Armstrong learned to rely solely on God. And he learned that well.

Mr. Armstrong suffered 28 years of poverty while learning that lesson. Before he owned a car, he had to hitchhike from congregation to congregation. What dedication! What faith! I doubt if any other man would have endured the way he did. His whole family suffered along with him. He believed it adversely affected his children. Wouldn’t it affect you? It isn’t always comfortable to rely solely on God.

Mr. Armstrong was a talented man and could have made a lot of money doing something else—he had proved that. But even when his circumstances got really bad, he remained dedicated to God.

You couldn’t take a man out in the world with human vanity and offer him the leadership of a multimillion-dollar business without first trying and testing that man. He would never last! Men would worship the gold, the money, the stature. No—first that man must be tested.

God built the work of the Worldwide Church of God on a foundation of faith. Mr. Armstrong experienced tough trials, but he always remained faithful, and God always delivered him.

Mr. Armstrong’s Autobiography documents his journey of faith. It recounts the many hours of painstaking prayer and fasting that built the Church. It tells the story of his conversion and constant pursuit of perfection.

His life is the fulfillment of this promise: “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

January 16

The spiritual significance of Mr. Armstrong’s ministry was clear even during the final years of his life. However, the significance of his death was not fully apparent until some time had passed.

The Bible repeatedly draws special attention to the number 40. In the past 40 years, God has continually drawn special attention to Mr. Armstrong’s impact by having important events and fulfilled prophecies occur on January 16, the date of Mr. Armstrong’s death. I explain this in my free booklet January 16—God’s Miracle Day.

Throughout his ministry, Mr. Armstrong faced opposition and persecution. Some of the worst came from within the organization he founded. But empowered by God, with strong, righteous leadership, he held those forces back and kept the Church and the work of God on track.

When he died, however, that opposition was no longer restrained. Slowly at first, but with increasing momentum, it began to wreak chaos within the Church of God, changing doctrines and casting truth to the ground.

Perhaps you attended the Worldwide Church of God, or remember hearing Mr. Armstrong on radio or television. Maybe you wondered what happened to the Church he raised up. You need a full answer to that question—and you need to act on it!

After all of Mr. Armstrong’s sacrifices over 60 years serving God and all the miracles God performed to bless his faith and his efforts, these satanic leaders destroyed God’s work! God calls them thieves, liars and traitors. 2 Thessalonians 2 describes the primary leader as “that man of sin”!

With Mr. Armstrong gone, the man of sin, inspired by the devil himself, was free to operate without restraint.

The next day, January 17, marked the beginning of the Laodicean era of God’s Church—an era characterized by spiritual lethargy, prophetic blindness and gross materialism (Revelation 3:14-22).

Satan Cast Down

Revelation 12 prophesies of a war in heaven where great angelic beings fight against the devil and his demons. Here is the outcome of that spiritual war: “[T]he dragon fought and his angels [the fallen angels—the demons], And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (verses 7-9).

Grasp the full significance of this passage. This says Satan deceives the whole world! That means every human being. Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls him “the god of this world.” He is worshiped, unwittingly, by great multitudes of people!

Revelation 12:9 tells us that Satan and his demons, of which there are millions, were cast to the Earth. When did this happen? God intends us to know, or He wouldn’t have given the prophecy.

Here is a detail that shows us the time frame: “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12). This occurs when the devil has only a “short time” before Christ deposes him from his rule on Earth.

Then verse 13 says, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.” This prophecy shows that as soon as Satan was cast down, the first thing he did was attack “the woman,” a prophetic symbol for God’s Church!

Again we see what a decisive turn in history occurred on Jan. 16, 1986: The world entered a profoundly different time!

We have now lived through 40 years of Satan the devil cast down to Earth. If you are older, think about how much the world has changed! The devil has surcharged the air with his spirit of murder and deception (John 8:44). We need to deeply consider the power of the devil and seek to understand God’s solution.

Come and Gone

Through the Prophet Malachi, God foretold this: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple …” (Malachi 3:1). The Bible is clear that this preparatory “messenger” role was fulfilled before Jesus’s first coming by John the Baptist (Matthew 11:10-11; Luke 7:27-28). However, John was only a type or forerunner of a man who would prepare for Christ’s return. Malachi’s prophecy clearly has an end-time focus, when Christ will appear not as a human being but as a glorified Spirit Being to rule with power! (Malachi 3:2-3).

In a related prophecy, Malachi wrote, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6).

When Jesus Christ walked the Earth in the first century, He directly referred to and endorsed these prophecies. And He spoke to His disciples explicitly about events and signs that would lead to His glorious return—especially in His most important “Olivet prophecy” (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21).

Now consider this vital statement from that prophecy: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). Christ was giving His disciples—and us today—a sign of “the end” of the age He was referring to. And what was that sign? The preaching of the true gospel message in all the world.

This sign was fulfilled by the ministry of Herbert W. Armstrong. He was a sign that the Day of the Lord and Christ’s return is upon us! The end-time Elijah has come and gone. How much more urgent should we be now, 40 years after his death, to respond to God’s message?

Look at the world around you. See how wars and violence are breaking out all over the Earth! Mental derangement in politics and media is widespread. Family dysfunction and breakdown is everywhere. Several Bible prophecies Mr. Armstrong expounded on for decades are being fulfilled before our eyes! These vital warnings are highlighted in our newly updated booklet He Was Right.

Fighting for the Legacy

I was a minister in the Worldwide Church of God when Mr. Armstrong died. I was extremely supportive of the new leadership, but soon, I became alarmed by the changes taking place at Church headquarters. I began to search the Bible for answers as to why the Church was going astray.

In the spring of 1989, God began to show me the answers. I started work on a manuscript that explained 2 Thessalonians 2 and many other prophecies about the Church’s departure from the truth. That manuscript became a little book, titled Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today.

When Joseph Tkach Jr. found out about Malachi’s Message, he summoned me and my assistant, John Amos, to Pasadena and fired us—on Dec. 7, 1989.

That marked the start of the Philadelphia Church of God (pcg). A group of 12 of us met for our first service the next Sabbath. Then we immediately got to work refining Malachi’s Message.

This began a fight for the legacy and truths God had restored through Mr. Armstrong. For 36 years now, we have continued that effort.

God wants us to fight for and honor Mr. Armstrong’s legacy! This double anniversary—100 years since his mind was opened, and 40 years since his death—gives us the opportunity to consider how this one man changed history. His teachings reveal the true God, and his example of prayer, obedience and faith is a pattern we should strive to emulate.

I know the truths he taught from the Bible can change your life, because they changed mine and the lives of thousands of others. If you have a history with God’s Church but are not supporting the continuation of Mr. Armstrong’s work, then you need to make some changes. Elijah has come and gone—and time is short.

Stop and think about this—and seek God before it is too late!