• Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, His One Body (Eph. 5:23).
• The Holy Bible is the sure Word of God (1 Thess. 2:13, Heb. 4:12 etc).
• God is a Family, presently composed of the One Eternal God (Yahweh) and the Word, Who was made flesh, dwelt amongst us and returned to divine glory as the Firstborn Son of God.
• The Holy Spirit is the power of God given as a gift from Him upon belief in the gospel message, true repentance, baptism and the laying on of hands (Acts 2:38, Mk. 1:15).
• The end-time Elijah is none other than Jesus Christ Who is about to come to His Temple as a thief in the night (Mal. 3:1), when He will restore all things (Matt. 17:11; Acts 3:20-21) in preparation for the coming of God the Father to this earth after His Millennial reign (2 Pet. 3:10-12).
• The first resurrection will take place at the sound of the last trump, when the dead in Christ will be raised, and God’s begotten children in the Church who are still alive, will be changed to meet Christ in the clouds. God’s people will be born into the Family of God (1 Cor. 15:52). The resurrection for the rest of mankind will take place after the Millennium (Rev. 20:5).
• It is evident that Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong fulfilled an important role in this end time by preaching the good news of the coming Kingdom of God as a witness. During Mr. Armstrong’s administration the Church had a membership of well over 120,000 members, thousands of co- workers, and funds to fulfill a major work of preaching and distributing the gospel via television, print (over 8,000,000 copies of the Plain Truth magazines printed per month and millions of booklets distributed), personal appearance campaigns and more. These abundant resources were given to Mr. Armstrong to preach the gospel to the World to an extent which presumably will be unparalleled until the Two Witnesses come on the scene (Rev. 10:11; Rev. 11:1-3); the dramatic increase in membership during Mr. Armstrong’s ministry attests to this. The Faithful Church of God in Laodicea has a responsibility to continue to preach the gospel in the lead-up to the commencement of the work of the Two Witnesses.
• The Faithful Church of God in Laodicea continues to grow in grace and knowledge as directed and inspired by the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18).
• All the many split and splintered groups that have been scattered by the shepherds (Jer. 23:1, 50:6; Ezek. 34:5) resulting in a ‘falling way’ from Truth (2 Thess. 2:3), form the sleeping virgins discussed in Matt. 25.
• Baptized members who have returned to the Babylonian system and doctrines of the World, form part of the Mother Church and Protestant Daughters which are Biblically referred to as the Synagogue of Satan (Rev. 3:9).
• As He gave Himself up to the hands of men, Christ took man’s sins upon Himself and carried them to the cross. As the perfect “Lamb without blemish”, Christ sacrificed His life as He spilled His blood through death to pay the penalty for our sins, as well as those of mankind (1 Jn. 1:7; Eph. 1:7; Rev. 1:5; Rom 5:8-9).
Commission statement
• Through preaching the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God, we feed and nourish the flock of God and help prepare His people for the soon-coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ‘as a thief in the night’ marking the beginning of the Day of the Lord (Zech. 3:7; Acts 20:28; Luke 12:40; 2 Pet. 3:10 – Please see our booklet entitled, “The Day of the Lord cometh…” and “Elijah”).
• As a prelude to the ministry of the Two Witnesses (Rev. 11:3), we are to sound ‘an alarm’ to warn the scattered sleeping ‘virgins’ as we announce Christ coming ‘as a thief in the night’ at the beginning of the Day of the Lord (Joel 1:15, 2:1; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 16:15), during which the opening of the seven seals is to occur (Rev. 6-16). We are to assist Christ in knocking on the door of His Laodicean Church (Rev. 3:20; Zech 3:8), and help seek out His scattered sheep (Ezek. 34:12).