Untitled No More! David Pack in Prophecy

January 2005

All splinter groups that broke away from the Worldwide Church of God suffer from a lack of legitimation. Leaders of the various churches based their decision to leave the WCG, in part, on the WCG’s lack of recognition of Herbert Armstrong’s prophetic role of the “End-time Elijah.”

Some of the more extreme splinters, notably the Restored and Philadelphia Churches of God, have begun to teach that the falling away was a great prophetic fulfillment of 2 Thessalonian. This leaves the leader in position to explain, then, what, if any, prophetic role they are fulfilling. After all, if everything prior to their taking up the reins of their own church had been prophesied, it might be awfully tempting for the leaders to argue that they themselves were prophesied.

Gerald Flurry has been doing this for years now and has even taken for himself several blasphemous titles. David Pack, on the other hand, has been simply referring to himself as the church pastor. But it seemed inevitable that he would take a title for himself.

In his two-part sermon, “Foretold: Watchman to Israel—Messenger to Laodicea!” David Pack takes for himself the titles “Watchman” and “Messenger.” Hardly as awe-inspiring as “That Prophet” or the “End-time Elijah,” but just as significant.

Pack writes that that this is his most important sermon ever:

This is the most important sermon that I have ever given. If you have never heard one of my sermons, start with this one. If you never hear another, listen to this one. [. . .] You simply cannot afford to miss this message!

Though for different reasons, I would argue the same. The sermon marks a change: Pack has raised himself above the various Churches of God and declared himself not just another minister leading a flock that is faithful to Armstrong's teaching, but the Watchman, a prophesied, Biblical, God-backed office. In short, Pack is arguing that he is the Watchman of Ezekiel 33.7 and the Messenger to Laodicea in Revelation 2.

But what makes this move any different from what Flurry did some years ago with his various titles? Pack is aware of the magnitude of what he's doing, and the potential backlash within his own church, and he takes pains to explain why this is not like Flurry's title-grab. In essence, his argument is that instead of claiming the titles and then working to fulfill them, he had been fulfilling them for some time and then realized he'd fulfilled them.

“No man can orchestrate or contrive himself into an office of God,” Pack argues. “God's servants look back at what they have done [...] to see what they are. False leaders look ahead to what they want to be, declare it, and set out to fulfill it.” Why would they do it this way? “Because they're humble. They're not trying to fulfill any office.”

From this, Pack argues that, like Armstrong, he did not take these titles, but was given them. The church, in accept them, is not being “sold” on Pack's claims. “I don't have to sell you on anything. My job is to teach you.”Deacons don't sell the people on their authority; pastors don't; elders don't! Unless he's false. Instead, church members are accepting Christ's pronouncement. They see Christ's actions in the elevation of Pack to the Watchman.

Of course the difference between the Watchman and a deacon is that a deacon is ordained for all to see. And that is the great problem with Pack's elevation to Watchman. There's no one senior to him in the whole church (which must have spurred him into thinking about potential titles in the first place), saying, “Ladies and gentlemen of the true church, I'm please to announce that David Pack has been raised from Pastor to Messenger/Watchman.” Pack even admits this:

You can't point to an ordination service [for authority.] That becomes a problem, doesn't it? If there was an ordination service, and [...] the Watchman is ordained right there in front of everybody, then it would be real clear, as long as you knew the man over him was true and had the authority to do it.

In this regard, he's in the same position as Armstrong when he decided that he was an apostle, the Elijah, and so on. But since Pack is basing everything on Armstrong, this is not a problem, but a solution. Using Armstrong as a model, Pack admits that his elevation to Watchman happened just as HWA “received” his apostleship: people began hinting that he might hold that role, and the idea appealed to him so much that he in essence ordained himself.

Pack realizes this, and to compensate, says that there are two types of ministers: “There are men sent bearing authority, either from God directly or senior ministers. [...] or he comes on his own authority.” He attempts to use Armstrong's writings (which Pack calls the “record of restoration”) to prove he was, in effect “sent” from a senior minister.

This perhaps doesn't mark the first time that the ultimate authority rests not on the Bible but on Armstrong's writings, but it's the most significant. Pack's prophesied office must also be derived from Herbert Armstrong's writings. That means the Bible is not enough. This only makes sense, as he is setting himself up in a way similar to HWA did, and has based his entire authority on his faithfulness to the “record of restoration.”

The watchman is “the leader of the church, in any age.” To prove this, he quotes Armstrong's feast booklet: “God expects the spiritual leader of his people to be his watchman (Ezekiel 33.7) and to warn the people.” Since Pack is the leader of the church, it's logical that he must also be the Watchman.

Yet how does Pack differentiate himself all the other XCGers running around saying, “I am/we are the Watchman!” Simple: Satan counterfeits everything, and so of course he's counterfeited this. For example, he points to the UCG's “Watchmanship,” and then shows it to be a counterfeit because the UCG encouraged members to give to relief efforts to help with the tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004. That, according to Pack, is “just like the world,” and it is “appalling that they can lose understanding in such a massive way!”

Pack is not an idiot, though, and he realizes that what he's doing is dangerously close to what Flurry did. During the second part of the sermon, deals with this, arguing that some people will have a “knee-jerk reaction” so strong that they knock out some of their own teeth and leave the church, saying “He's taking titles on himself.” His argument against this: look at what we've done! The ultimate proof of this being “of God,” according to Pack, is the Work itself, and to show the size of that work, Pack simply relates the RCG's website statistics. In other words, part of the experiential proof of Pack's claim is the number of people visiting their website!

As far as the Messenger title, Pack claims that he is the messenger who brings the message the final Laodicea era. He bases this on the claim that “angelos” in Greek could be also simply “messenger” and not “angel.” “These are seven men sent directly by Christ,” he says.

The end of the sermon basically covers how the church must become hated of all nations (and here he includes the critical letters mentioned earlier) and an overview of how Pack felt as he came to realize he was the Messenger and the Watchman.

What this all shows is a gradual shift toward a more traditionally cult-like organization of the RCG. Pack's proclamation that his “office” has long been prophesied bumps the RCG up a notch, and possibly, though hopefully not, closer to Jonestown and Waco proportions.