Tomorrow, January 16, marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Herbert W. Armstrong. He was the founder of the Worldwide Church of God and proclaimed the good news of the coming Kingdom of God as prophesied in Matthew 24:14. He also warned of the coming Great Tribulation (verse 21).

Mr. Armstrong’s death on Jan. 16, 1986, marked the end of the Philadelphia era of God’s true Church (Revelation 3:7-13). The next day, January 17, began the Laodicean era (verses 14-22).

Ever since his death, several momentous events have taken place on January 16 and 17. In 1990, the United States entered the Persian Gulf War with Operation Desert Storm. In 1994, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit Northridge, California. In 2016, the Iran nuclear deal was implemented. This has been God’s way of drawing attention to the importance of Mr. Armstrong. I document many more of these events in my booklet January 16: God’s Miracle Day.

Another of these events is due to happen this weekend. The Free Trade Agreement between mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and the European Union will be signed in Paraguay on Saturday, January 17. Mr. Armstrong forecast that this combined power bloc would overtake the U.S. and besiege it economically. This is an earthshaking event!

But there could be many more crucial events on this year’s anniversary. As my son wrote in “‘The World’s Greatest Crisis,’” crises are boiling over in Greenland, Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela and many other places that could also prove earthshaking.

We will be watching world events closely because it is a special day. The 40th anniversary of Mr. Armstrong’s death will be particularly significant because the number 40 and January 16 mean a lot to us. From the beginning, the Philadelphia Church of God, the parent organization of the Trumpet, has had a close connection to the number 40 and to January 16.

The Importance of 40

The number 40 appears frequently in the lives of spiritual leaders. Moses, Elijah and Jesus Christ each fasted for 40 days. The Israelites wandered the wilderness for 40 years. King David, Solomon and many of the judges reigned 40 years.

I was fired on Dec. 7, 1989, from the Worldwide Church of God, where I served as a minister. This was 40 days before the four-year anniversary of Mr. Armstrong’s death. On Jan. 16, 1990, many wcg members received my book Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today, which explains what happened to the Church after Mr. Armstrong died.

For our sister website pcg.church, I wrote an article, “40—A Sign From God,” explaining the significance of this number. God uses the number 40 to show us that He is here with us. It is a sign of God’s presence, a sign that He is guiding us and helping us.

Jesus Christ spent 3½ years with His disciples before being crucified. Then He was resurrected and appeared to them for 40 days (Acts 1:1-3). For 40 days, those men could see and touch the glorified Christ! He was literally present. Today, Christ uses the number 40 to again show His presence.

Read more about this in that article, “40—A Sign From God.”

Why January 16

Christ called His true Church a “little flock” (Luke 12:32). By the end of His ministry, there were only 120 disciples. Read about the Church’s small beginning and the persecution it faced in the book of Acts and in my book The True History of God’s True Church.

It is safe to say that this little flock reached its peak when God used Herbert Armstrong to proclaim His gospel around the world preparatory to Christ’s Second Coming (Matthew 24:14).

Mr. Armstrong died at age 93 after devoting himself wholly to the Work of God for nearly six decades. The Worldwide Church of God reached millions of people worldwide and hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters.

Whether or not people realize it, Mr. Armstrong’s life was a pivotal event in world history!

But after his death, the Church suffered a great falling away. It was a spiritual catastrophe and a direct fulfillment of the Apostle Paul’s prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2. Here Paul warns of a terrible calamity striking the true Church of God just before “the day of Christ”—the Second Coming. “[T]hat day [of His return] shall not come, except there come a falling away first [within the Church!], and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition [or destruction]; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (verses 3-4).

This is a prophecy of an unprecedented attack on God’s true Church. The only other instance where the description “son of perdition” is used is to describe Judas Iscariot—the man who betrayed Jesus Christ after Satan possessed him!

Now, notice this detail: “And you know what is restraining him [that ‘man of sin’] now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness [that evil, destructive force—it was a ‘mystery’ because it was being restrained, and was thus hidden] is already at work; only he [an individual] who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way” (verses 6-7; Revised Standard Version). The King James Version reads, “… until he be taken out of the way.”

As long as he was alive, Mr. Armstrong used God’s power to restrain that lawlessness. But on Jan. 16, 1986, he was “taken out of the way.” That is when Satan started attacking God’s Church.

Compare 2 Thessalonians 2 with Revelation 12, where God’s Church is symbolized by a woman. This passage adds an important detail. While Satan is depicted as persecuting God’s Church since its infancy, that persecution drastically intensified when he was cast down to Earth (verses 9-12).

The Apostle John warned, “Woe to the inhabiters 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. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child” (verses 12-13).

Clearly, this passage is for the end time, like 2 Thessalonians 2. So the great falling away shows us when Satan was cast down. It was the exact same time that Mr. Armstrong was “taken out of the way.”

January 16 thus reminds us of the great work God did through Mr. Armstrong. It also shows that Satan’s time on Earth is short! We are nearing the return of Jesus Christ!

The events surrounding this momentous day are a sign from God that the good news Herbert Armstrong proclaimed about the return of Jesus Christ and God’s coming Kingdom is about to become reality!

Read online now and request your free copy: January 16: God’s Miracle Day.