The scriptures do not say these signs will follow the Disciples of Christ until the late 60s in the true church (after it has been raised up for a special commission after centuries of dormancy) and then faith must be exercised to understand the absence of this gift until Christ returns. I was brought into a version of truth that taught,
"Don’t’ Believe Me……Believe Your Bible!" How about you? Is the Bible really a complete book? Does the Christ you believe in teach you to submit to the Pharisees? What do you do if you detect something needs changing? Are you like the people Paul addressed when he told them, "You may well put up with it (apostate leaders)." Do you maintain the Status Quo and avoid making any waves? Do you live by every word of God or just practice highly selective religion? Or, maybe you just play politics and try to work within a very corrupt system?Dr. Meredith is correct in realizing that Healing is a necessary gift. The scriptures are just so plain. How many times does scripture have to say something to be valid anyway? If you listen to Dr. Meredith’s messages on this topic over the last two years, it becomes evident that he knows exactly when this gift was removed. It was in the very late 60s, just after Mrs. Armstrong died. During the 60s the presence of this important gift of healing gradually evaporated from the congregations. All of us in the laity who recognize this phenomenon are not just having a demonic inspired illusion. It is well know that Mr. Armstrong actually realized that this gift had been removed from him. He did not quit trying to accomplish the commission he had been raised up to perform. But he did recognize this gift of the spirit was gone.
Summary of Important Changes
The question then becomes, as I write to all of you in our close study group and immediate family, what specifically has been changed over the decades? That is a fair question so I will proceed to describe specific changes and analyze these changes, as I understand them. I will not be able to make anywhere near the number of identifiable changes in doctrine that some can. Rather, for the purposes of this paper I will identify a few specific changes that have probably been instrumental in causing the gift of healing to be removed from the main body of the church.
These changes include:
The change to submitting to the Pharisees,
The need to practice Apostolic Christianity,
The changes in scheduling the calendar,
The need to keep the entire Spring Feast,
The need to observe Wavesheaf Sunday,
Changing when the church kept Pentecost to Sunday,
The change to keeping The Feast of Tabernacles in several places,
D & R
What a Liberal is,
The doctrine of the Resurrection being on Saturday,
The doctrine of formality in worship,
The use of Trumpets in worship services,
What you would expect from a True Prophet of God,
The doctrine of restitution and its ban.
A change to understand the genealogy of Christ contains gentile blood.