Some of us like to do jigsaw puzzles as a form of relaxation. They come in different sizes, the average adult ones being around one thousand pieces. On the outside of the box is usually a picture of how the finished puzzle should look.
So my wife Tine and I sometimes do these puzzles and diligently seek out all the pieces and analyze where each piece goes, comparing it with the overall picture.
But just imagine if there was no overall picture available. It would not be impossible to put the puzzle together, but it would be much more difficult.
Now consider if the pieces of two puzzles were mixed, with no picture, or even more than two. It would become nearly impossible to complete the task. Then, if some pieces that did not belong to any of the puzzles were also thrown in for good measure, at this point or previously, many would give up.
So you say, what does this have to do with the Church?
Well, this was the position Mr. Armstrong found himself in when God first called him—when he started to come into an understanding of the Truth.
He started off as biblically illiterate in his thirties, till his wife challenged him on the Sabbath question. This made him mad because he was sure the Bible teaches Sunday observance. All the churches teach it, so it must be right and the Bible must teach it.
He was so upset with his wife that he considered divorce. He could not accept such a crackpot idea.
But he accepted the challenge and studied for six months, and the more he studied, the more he realized he was wrong and his wife was right. That’s really tough for a man.
This is something like the analogy I described earlier, with all these puzzles mixed together with no overall picture and with some false pieces included. In fact, at that time, most of the pieces were false. So it was humanly impossible for Mr. Armstrong to do what he did—to gradually get the overall big picture from all the bits available, true and false. He did not have a picture to go by. He had to have God’s help and guidance.
We would not be able to see the big picture if God had not inspired Mr. Armstrong to find out what the big picture was. And all of us individually needed God’s help to see it, because before we were called and our minds opened, none of this made sense to us.
How many of us tried to teach our relatives or friends God’s Truth? They thought we were strange—even crackpots, like Mr. Armstrong thought his wife was.
Let’s turn to Isaiah 28, verses 9 and 10. “‘Whom will He teach knowledge? And whom will He make to understand the message?…’” This shows us that God has to enable us to understand His message. Continuing: “‘…Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line. Here a little, there a little.’”
This is gradually putting the jigsaw puzzle together, bit by bit till finally, a picture starts to emerge.
Once Mr. Armstrong proved the Truth of the Sabbath, he began to search for other pieces of the puzzle. He checked out the Seventh-day-Adventists and the Seventh-day-Baptists, then he began to realize that the Church of God (Seventh Day) had more of the Truth than the other groups. So he associated with them for a time. They had a lot of the pieces of the puzzle, but as Mr. Armstrong continued to study, he also began to learn from other sources. He found still more pieces of the puzzle.
He was not a trained scholar; he didn’t have much formal education. He could not read the Greek or Hebrew texts of the Bible, but he did find a lot of pieces of the puzzle by reading books other men had written. These other men had certain pieces of the puzzle, a piece here and a piece there, but they were unable to put the whole puzzle together.
So he was collecting all the pieces, and he had to pick out which pieces fitted the true picture.
One of the books he read was by Alexander Hislop, “The Two Babylons”, and that book makes it plain where professing Christianity got a lot of its practices and beliefs. Hislop knew who the great harlot church was, and yet he was a minister in one of the daughter churches. He was a minister in a Presbyterian Sunday-keeping church, and he remained in that position. Mr. Armstrong received many pieces from his book.
Another man was J. H. Allen. He wrote the book “Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright.” This book is similar to “The United States and Britain in Prophecy,” written by Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Allen was a Methodist minister. He had discovered some very important pieces of the puzzle, but he never saw the big picture. Like so many others who had a part of the Truth, he kept trying to fit the pieces into the wrong picture.
There was another man, E. W. Bullinger, and he compiled the “Companion Bible”, which has many valuable notes and appendices in it—some being true and some false. Mr. Armstrong got a lot of information from his work—for example, the events of the six days before Christ’s sacrifice. Mr. Bullinger understood that the crucifixion was on a Wednesday, and many more details. He was an Anglican minister and even though he recognized that the resurrection was not on Sunday, he remained a minister in a Sunday-keeping church. He understood that Christ was born in the autumn, but continued to observe Christmas.
So these three men all had important pieces of the puzzle, but like so many others, whom Mr. Armstrong also learnt from, they kept trying to make the pieces fit into a different picture where they wouldn’t fit. So they didn’t let the Truth that they had change their practices.
When Mr. Armstrong came across a piece of the puzzle, he began to practice it and publish it. It changed his whole life. Looking at Isaiah 28:10-12: “‘For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.’ For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, To whom He said, ‘This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest,’ And, ‘This is the refreshing’; Yet they would not hear.”
When we look up the word “hear” in Strong’s concordance, it means to hear intelligently; it implies to give attention to, obey, etc. It also means to proclaim and publish. Mr. Armstrong did all these things. When he learned new aspects of the Truth, he practiced it, he preached it and published it. That’s why God continued to guide him to discover more and more of the pieces and putting the pieces together until he began to see the big picture. He then made it clear to the rest of us so that we can see that big picture today.
Continuing on in verse 13: “But the word of the LORD was to them, ‘Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little…’” Now Isaiah is talking about those who would not hear: “…That they might go and fall backward, and be broken, And snared, and caught.” So to those who would not hear, the Truth becomes a trap and a snare. It did not benefit them. They had pieces of the puzzle, but they could not put them together because they did not hear, act or publish them.
So let’s make sure we are among those who hear, and obey what we hear. Then we can see the big picture and understand where the pieces fit, and which pieces are not a part of the big picture.