Personal

 

I want to tell you a little about myself and how I came into the truth and why I am here now. In the summer of 1983, my mother showed me a magazine title The Plain Truth. She had received this magazine from one of her coworkers who was also her best friend. I was 17 years of age. I told my mom that I was not interested in reading this magazine and I didn’t see it again until a few months later. I was not searching for God nor was I searching for the truth. In addition, I had no clue what this magazine was about or why my mother wanted me to read it.

 

A few months went by when my mother took my 2 sisters and I shopping for clothes. It was just prior to the beginning of a new school year, around August. But once we were done shopping for clothes, she wanted to go to a different store to look at some furniture. I opted out and decided to wait in the car when we arrived at the store. It was at this time that I noticed The Plain Truth magazine sitting in the front seat next to me in the car. And so, out of curiosity, I picked it up and began reading the articles in it. It was at this time that God opened my mind to the truth.

 

In the summer of 1984, after having read the magazine for a while and numerous booklets, I realized that what I was taught regarding religion was incorrect. I had grown up Catholic and I would go to Church once a week on Sundays. That was the extent of my religious beliefs. But I had come to realize that this was all wrong. I made contact with the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) and met with the local minister by the name of Dennis Johnson who invited me to attend services with the El Paso Texas congregation.

 

But in 1988, I found myself struggling in my Christian endeavor. The glitter and glamour and the pulls of this world were a stumbling block for me and I left the Church. I have no excuse and make no excuse for what I did. I was wrong. But even when I left, I knew what I had come across and the potential consequences of my action.

 

I went to college for a few years but it never materialized in a degree. I worked several jobs such as fast food and a couple of factory jobs but I realized that these were not the kind of jobs that one could make a career of. In 1991, I applied for the El Paso Fire Department. They called me in the summer of 1992 and offered me an opportunity to attend their fire training academy. I began the academy in November of 1992 and graduated a fireman in May of 1993.

 

It was the first couple of weeks at this fire academy that we were taught a very valuable lesson, one that would stay with me throughout my entire career and for the rest of my life. “No man gets left behind” was this lesson and it is a principal that firemen are taught, that they practice and that they live by, especially when engaged in fighting fires.

 

I married my wife in 1997 and we had a daughter in 2000. When my daughter was born my outlook in life changed. I realized I had to be more careful at work, especially during some of the dangerous situations that firemen engage in. I did not want to leave my daughter without a father. 

 

But things changed for me in 2007. I realized that I had an illness and that this illness had no cure. It is because of this reason that I am here today, back in the truth. I began to search for the truth and for the God that I had come across 19 years earlier. I didn’t think I would live for more than a handful of years. During the first year back in the Church, I used to pray that God would grant me one Feast of Tabernacles with my family.

 

That same year, in 2007, I searched for the truth in the groups that splintered from the Worldwide Church of God. I found that the Restored Church of God (RCG) was teaching the same truths that were taught in the WCG. I read the Splinter Explanation Packet (SEP) and found that, even though it contained some new teachings regarding the truth, everything contained in this packet supported and confirmed that the truths taught in the WCG were correct and true.

 

The SEP was in complete harmony with the truths that had been restored in the WCG by the living HEAD of the Church, Jesus Christ through Mr. Armstrong. In addition, the rest of the literature that was produced by RCG precisely matched the teachings that I had learned in the WCG. And so, I knew that I had found the one true Church, the body of Christ, once again.

 

My family and I began having Sabbath services in our house in December of 2007. I cried on my first service because I felt like I had finally made it back home. I was now at peace with myself because I realized that I was now okay and could accept my fate with death. I felt like the prodigal son. I was baptized in 2008 and I made a vow to God that I would never leave the Church again. My wife was baptized the following year.

 

It was around 2010 that my wife became interested in the Ambassador Center courses in RCG. I thought it was great that she wanted to further her knowledge in the Bible, but when she asked me if I wanted to take the classes with her, I declined. And so, she sent an email requesting an application to take these courses, and they sent her two. And since my daughter was only 10 years of age, I knew the other one was for me. So I agreed to take the classes. I had no idea that these classes were geared towards building leaders and ministers until we were fully involved in the courses.  

 

I was ordained in the ministry as a Church Elder in 2012. I did not seek the ministry, just like I did not seek this calling. I was happy with my current position at work as a fire code inspector. But I accepted this responsibility. RCG was growing in membership and there was a need for ministers. It was at this time that RCG was in the process of establishing a full time ministry.

 

We were placed on salary, as many other men were during this time, and we served the brethren in northern Florida and in the Houston Texas area. And when the Church did not grow as expected, we were taken off of salary and asked to serve the brethren in southwest Texas and New Mexico. This occurred in 2014 and we were very happy to oblige because it gave us a chance to come back home. It was during this time that the majority of the field ministry were also taken off salary and asked to go back to work.

 

So we moved back to El Paso Texas and my wife and I went back to work. My wife went back to work as a nurse at a local hospital and the Fire Department hired me back as a civilian fire code inspector. We both had to work because my salary was not enough to support our family. Our daughter is currently studying to become a nurse at the local community college.  

 

In the summer of 2015, a troubling sermon/bible study series was given in RCG. It was a 3 part series where “proofs” were laid out that the leader of RCG was the person fulfilling the role of the end-time Elijah and discrediting Mr. Armstrong as the final Elijah. This marked the turning point in time when RCG would begin to engage doctrinal error and thus in a mixture of truth and error.

 

And in November of that year, a sermon series titled “The Greatest Untold Story” (TGUS) by David Pack began and it changed the entire landscape, not only of the prophetic truth, but of the doctrinal truths that had been established by a faithful apostle who served the Church for 53 years in the 20th century, Mr. Armstrong. It was at this time when RCG began losing large amounts of truths. Just losing the critical understanding that Mr. Armstrong fulfilled the role of end-time Elijah is the fork in the road that always leads to doctrinal error.

 

After 3 ½ years of listening to heresy Sabbath after Sabbath, the time came when we had to leave. So we left in RCG on the First Day of Unleavened Bread in 2019, and we left in order to stay in the truth and thus stay in the Church.

 

We stayed this long because we did not know where else to go, even though the new teachings did not make sense to us and were confusing to say the least. And we also stayed because we did not want to leave the sheep behind. I searched the internet and realized that there was no other group that was holding fast to the full truths that were established in the Church by Mr. Armstrong.

 

I also hoped and I prayed that God might set the Church back on track somehow, but it never happened. Once heresy takes root in the Church, God will cease to guide it and He will remove Himself from it. This is what He commands all Christians to do in Romans 16:17, it is what Mr. Armstrong instructed the Church members to do, and because God would not disobey His own command, it is what He would do as well.

 

In addition, Mr. Armstrong learned from personal experience that when men begin to engage in erroneous teachings, it is nearly impossible to restore these men back to the truth. So I submitted my letter by email to RCG. This is the course of action God instructs everyone to take when heresy strikes the Church. And this is the only reason that a begotten member of the body of Christ should ever leave or be removed from the Church. The following is a copy of this letter:

 

Dear Mr. ___________,

 

It is with sadness that I write this email to you to inform you that I can no longer walk in agreement        with the Restored Church of God. I have been having a difficult time accepting all of the new teachings. I cannot prove them from the Bible and they have been difficult to understand.

 

I will be going back to the old beliefs, the truths that we once understood while I was in the Worldwide Church of God, the truths that were revealed to and restored to the Church by Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong.

 

Therefore, please accept my resignation and the resignation of my family from membership with the Restored Church of God.

 

I will miss the brethren dearly, which is one of the reasons I continued this long.

 

I wish you well and I thank you for all of your assistance throughout the years.

 

Sincerely,

 

Luis Garcia

 

I have no excuse and make no excuse for staying as long as we did in an organization where heresy has taken root. In this I was wrong and I have asked God’s forgiveness and I have repented of this. And if you are in an organization where heresy has taken root or where the truth has been watered down, changed or altered and these doctrinal errors are not corrected speedily, God’s instruction to you is that you must not hesitate to leave.

 

It is important to note that members or ministers who leave or are removed for any other reason other than the truth do not remain in the one true Church and are not led by the living HEAD of the Church, Jesus Christ. And it is also necessary to understand that Christ would never use such men to lead His Church. But it is possible for these individual to be grafted into the body of Christ upon true repentance.   

 

It took some time to get grounded again in the truth after leaving. Fortunately, there is a vast amount material from the Worldwide Church of God that is now available on the internet. There are sermons, Co-Worker letters, The Good News Magazine, The Plain Truth Magazine, and most of the books and booklets that were published during the Philadelphia era of the Church, and more, that is still available online. And this is what we have used to purge out the heresy and build again on the foundation of truth once again.

 

But there is one thing that has weighed heavy on my mind since the day we left. And it involves the lesson that I learned when I became a fireman, the lesson that “no man is left behind”. But it is not only this lesson that weighed heavily on my mind, it is the spiritual principal that is found in John 10:11 “A shepherd will give his life for the sheep”. It is these 2 principals that have prompted this website and the documents found herein. And it took some time because I have a full time job since I still work as a fire code inspector and I also have a family to care for.

 

The documents found on this site contain the antidote for heresy and liberal doctrines. When you read these articles, you will hear from an old but wise apostle, Mr. Armstrong, as he guides you back towards the truth and you will also hear the voice of Christ. And so, you now have a chance to relearn or perhaps to learn for the first time, some of the most precious truths that were revealed to the Church during the Philadelphia era, an era of the Church that was doctrinally on track.

 

This website is dedicated to those who want to return to the “old truths” and be fed the “old teachings”, the doctrines that we all once adhered to. And so, I have now done my due diligence and now it is up to you and the spirit of God to lead you. May God be with you and may the holy spirit that dwells in you, help you find your way back home and back to the faith, back to the truth that was once delivered to the saints!

 

With sincerity and love

And in Christ’s service,

 

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Luis A Garcia

(915) 590-2947

lgarciatexas@gmail.com

www.TheRWCG.org

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