Both Mr. Flurry and Mr. Pack transgress Mr. Armstrong's teaching regarding the office of apostle, which Mr. Armstrong would not even confer (on Christ's behalf) on the man he anointed to lead the Church at the height of its power to proclaim the Gospel.  Needless to say, both these men also lack the Biblical fruits of a true apostle's office/accomplishment—the demonstration only God can perform of having been “sent forth” in unmistakable power—as opposed to the concurrence of a few thousand lost sheep sincerely but vulnerably seeking a good shepherd.  Mr. Armstrong, by contrast, would not acknowledge his office for years after God had demonstrated powerfully the fruits of an apostle in his work.

 

In a stunning attempt to reconcile his small work with his correct belief that the Gospel still must be preached in all the world as a witness, Mr. Pack appears to claim that the national and international availability of his website constitutes preaching in every nation.  This is similar, but even more spiritually unenlightened, to an argument certain “liberals” used to make against spending money to purchase additional and higher quality air-time:  as long as the Gospel was available on some type of medium—whatever the time, frequency or audience—an area was “reached.”

 

Among all the various organizations only Gerald Flurry's considered Mr. Armstrong's writings vital enough to God's Church and Work to strenuously seek the right to publish them.  The organization deserves credit for this.  The Church in this age was built upon, preached the Gospel with, and grew mightily by studying and disseminating Mr. Armstrong's inspired writings.  All true Christians today received the great majority of their understanding from Mr. Armstrong's writings—by God's Spirit and in conjunction with the Bible—both directly and through surrogates trained by his writings.

 

Likely Mr. Flurry believed winning the right by judicial decree to publish Mr. Armstrong's works would be a great sign to the rest of God's people, and the goal was such a right one that God probably would have given that type of victory if not for the spiritual error described above.  Nevertheless, it was a fitting symbolic testimony that a group of God's people, after the shame of our being driven out empty-handed, went back to the desecrated Temple to rescue some of its most important treasures.  If they did not achieve this by glorious victory in battle, they still testified by their willingness to fight and to publicly put a fittingly dear price on those treasures.

 

In addition to these five main organizations and the beleaguered remnant of God's people who still attend Sabbath-meeting congregations at the former WCG, there are a number of even smaller organizations.  These mirror the larger ones:  they believe most of what Mr. Armstrong taught but reject some of it.  All are headed by a leader who claims he possesses “more accurate understanding” than Mr. Armstrong in end time prophecy and/or on certain other doctrinal subjects.