Who Is the Breaker?

Did God prophesy over 2,700 years ago that He would raise up an end-time leader who would be forced to “break away” in order to follow Jesus Christ’s leadership? Was that leader and the little group that followed him prophesied to separate themselves from the main body of the Church of God in order to continue preaching the truth as God had revealed it through the late Herbert W. Armstrong?

In Micah 2:12-13, God says through the Prophet Micah, “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel: I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.”

To the world, those are very obscure verses. That is obvious because there is such a variety of opinions expressed in the biblical commentaries. Only a few commentaries show any depth of understanding about these two verses, and that only from a physical rather than a spiritual viewpoint.

God has now revealed the plain truth of these verses which had been locked away since the time of their writing by the hand of Micah. Thousands of years have passed since these verses were first written, and many prophecies had to be fulfilled, and viewed in retrospect, before they could be understood.

A major piece of the puzzle was that the end-time “Elijah,” prophesied by Christ in Matthew 17:10-13, came and went, and his office was unrecognized by the majority of God’s people because “they knew him not,” just as foretold.

Then the prophesied great “falling away” occurred in God’s Church (2 Thessalonians 2:3) and events unfolded to confirm that the Laodicean era had begun (Revelation 3:14-19). What followed those events is an amazing story of struggle and great spiritual courage, encapsulated in Micah 2:12-13!

A Remnant Work

As shown in the main body of Micah, a great catastrophe was prophesied to occur in God’s end-time Laodicean Church. The leaders of the Laodicean churches were prophesied to lead their followers into a very treacherous form of satanic spiritual captivity, with only a very few—a remnant—escaping that captivity.

Verse 12 of Micah 2 begins with God’s statement that He “will surely gather the remnant of Israel,” meaning those who escape Satan’s spiritual captivity. This verse is discussing a small but faithful remnant group of God’s people today (spiritual Israel—the Church) which would be gathered together by God out of a great churchwide captivity and apostasy from His truth.

The “sheep of Bozrah” in Micah 2:12—the little remnant group—are described there and in verse 13 as being led out of spiritual captivity back to the safety of their sheepfold. Bozrah is a place of great destruction wrought by God because His people have turned from Him (Amos 1:12; Jeremiah 49:13; 48:21-24; Isaiah 34:6). This little remnant of sheep from Bozrah receive God’s blessings to escape that punishment!

Today, God is severely punishing the Laodicean churches because they have rejected and abandoned His truth. And these sheep—God’s precious remnant people—have been led out of that destructive captivity in this end of the end time, back into the safety of God’s truth as restored by God to the Church through Herbert Armstrong. Isaiah 58:1, Jeremiah 7:1-3 and 26:1-6, as well as many other scriptures, confirm that this faithful little remnant is commissioned by God to perform the tremendous task of warning a sinning church!

A Great Noise

The phrase in Micah 2:12 “they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men” is a Hebrew idiom that has obviously distressed the translators because of the differences of opinion among them. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament is very helpful by saying this of the word translated “noise”: “The basic meaning of this root seems to be a severe disturbance, i.e. ‘to disturb greatly,’ ‘stir,’ ‘discomfit.’ … the earth (or land) which ‘is shaken’ ….”

In Joshua 6:16, the same word translated “noise” in Micah 2:12 is translated “shout,” in what Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon calls a “warlike clamor.” The same word is also translated in Numbers 10:9 as “blow an alarm” on a trumpet and in Joel 2:1 as “sound an alarm.” God has commissioned a small but righteous remnant group to “cry aloud” (Isaiah 58:1), or “make great noise,” and warn the larger sinning group that they have dealt treacherously against God and that great judgment is rapidly bearing down upon them. God has turned His back on His sinning people, and hearing the warning message and responding is their only hope (Hosea 5:5-8).

Verse 12 reveals that, in the very end of the end time, a remnant Philadelphian group of God’s people, His faithful sheep, were prophesied to hold fast to God’s truth and make a “great noise” or a “warlike clamor” as they “blow an alarm”—a trumpet.

Those in the adulterous Laodicean Church who abandoned God’s truth were to be severely shaken by that warning message emanating from an “office” established by God.

The “Breaker” Arises

Micah 2:13 reads, “The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.” Who is the “breaker,” and what is his role in the end-time split of the two churches?

The Hebrew word translated “breaker” in the King James Version is parats (pronounced paw-rats). In the New International and New King James versions, this word is rendered the “one who breaks open.” The Lamsa Translation From Ancient Eastern Manuscripts uses the term “pathbreaker,” and the New English Bible simply translates this word as the “leader.” The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states about this word, “God looks for a man ‘to stand in the breach/gap’ in front of Him when He views the idolatry in Jerusalem”—meaning spiritual adultery in spiritual Israel.

Strong’s Concordance says parats is from a primary root word meaning “to break out” or “break away.” Gesenius’ Lexicon defines the word as “to break off, i.e., to separate oneself from any one [or group].” It is these definitions which first begin shedding light on the identity of the “breaker.”

The Breaker in Context

Backing up to verse 6 of Micah 2, we can see the context in which we find verse 13. There we can see two very distinct groups being contrasted one to another in this and succeeding verses.

Micah 2:6 says, “Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy ….” God is stating that there is an end-time church which has stopped prophesying! It is happening just the way God said it would happen in Amos 2:11-12.

In verse 8 of Micah 2, we find that Church which no longer prophesies described as rising up like an “enemy” of God! “My people,” God calls them. Yet they are His enemy! In Micah 6:2, it tells us that “the Lord hath a controversy with his people.” In contrast, the other church, the faithful little remnant, “breaks away” from that controversy and from being God’s Laodicean enemy.

In Micah 2:10, there is a chilling warning to the little church which is listening to God through His prophecies: “Arise ye, and depart”! Clarke’s Commentary says that phrase is an “exhortation to the godly to leave a land [a spiritual nation] that is to be destroyed so speedily.”

Verse 10 continues, “for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.” God is saying that this faithful minority in God’s Church would be forced to leave that polluted spiritual nation! Malachi 1:7 reveals that the Laodicean Church has polluted God’s truth and the little remnant must depart! Clarke’s Commentary goes on to say, if the people didn’t leave quickly, that “the land shall vomit you out into captivity”! This is a frightful warning filled with great urgency to get out of that deceived spiritual nation or suffer in its mind-numbing spiritual captivity, as well as its horrific and deadly physical captivity during the Great Tribulation!

In Micah 2:11, the subject returns to the enemy Church of God. “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.” God is saying that lying leaders in the end-time Laodicean churches would fail to warn about the terrible times ahead! This verse indicates that the Laodiceans would imply that the “good times” would continue almost endlessly.

Such statements would clearly show to those who were awake spiritually that the Laodiceans had abandoned their responsibility as the “watchman” which God prophesied in Ezekiel 33 and other scriptures, and that God would have to raise up another end-time watchman to fulfill that prophecy.

The Gate of Escape

“The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it …” (Micah 2:13). The New English Bible says, “So their leader breaks out before them, and they all break through the gate and escape ….”

Isn’t God saying that a human leader would be separated, or “broken away,” from the Laodicean Church before the faithful sheep of God’s flock are taken to a spiritual place of safety? That this leader, the “breaker,” would lead the way out of spiritual confusion, and that the people who follow the breaker shall escape through a gate and avoid captivity and destruction?

But, one might ask, how does one find the right “gate”? Which gate leads to escape? Jesus Christ gives us the answer in Matthew 7:14: “[S}trait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” That is the gate of righteousness leading to escape which only the very few find—only the very elect (Matthew 24:24) who hold fast to God’s instructions (2 Thessalonians 2:15) and then follow where Jesus Christ leads!

As Matthew 7:13 says, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” The “many,” meaning the multitude or the majority, go through the wide and easy gate by following deceitful leaders who are led only by their own sinning heart and mind! They are ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing seeking to devour the flock of God! (verse 15).

Micah 2:13 concludes, “… and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.”

Isn’t God saying that a human agent—a particular prophesied man—will be separated, or “broken away,” from the Laodicean Church just before the faithful sheep of God’s flock are led out of spiritual confusion?

Like Noah prior to the Flood, one man today was prophesied to lead a small end-time group from certain destruction. Verse 13 indicates that God would raise up one man, the “breaker,” or, as translated in the Revised Standard Version, “he who opens the breach,” before God led His faithful end-time people to a place of spiritual and doctrinal safety.

At that critical time, like Moses before the Exodus, a man in God’s end-time Church was prophesied to be raised up and given a certain amount of “kingly” power in order to assist God in gathering the faithful sheep out of His sinning Church.

The “breaker” and the “king” mentioned in verse 13 are one and the same office, although some commentaries wrongly state that the word “king” is referring to Jesus Christ. But that is not logical, because in the next portion of verse 13 after the “king” is mentioned, it says “and the Lord on [or ‘at’] the head of them”—referring to Jesus Christ, the King of kings (1 Timothy 6:14-15; Revelation 17:14; 19:16), leading the human king. The main meaning and usage is king (Strong’s Concordance 4428), used hundreds of times as king!

Micah 4:8-10 clearly reveal a church, the daughter of Zion, which is going into the Great Tribulation because there is no king or counselor in it. Such a king or counselor can certainly refer to God (Isaiah 9:6), but it is asking the question, “Is there no king in thee?”—meaning no physical king in spiritual Israel, the Laodicean Church (Zion)—no human leader who is looking to God for guidance.

The Laodicean Church has no such king or counselor—no godly government in God’s own Church! Therefore, God cannot rule it. He says in effect, “Do you not have a leader (or king) who gets counsel from God? Is there no one whom I can use as a counselor or leader of my people?”

The Laodiceans are not getting counsel from God, because they don’t have one-man rule—they don’t have God’s government—the family government which was so successfully established under Mr. Armstrong for 57 years and down through the ages in God’s Church prior to him! The Laodiceans don’t have a king, or leader, who has God as his Head!

The Philadelphia Church of God (pcg) broke away because the Laodiceans would not follow their Head, Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:19; Ephesians 4:15). God sent a breaker (a king or leader) to lead the way so His faithful remnant sheep could know where God was working. God then gave His tiny remnant the little book—Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today—so they could understand what had occurred and what He was commissioning the breaker and the little group to do (Revelation 10:1-10). The loyal sheep “broke away” in order to follow their Head.

Christ Our Head

In contrast to the headless Laodiceans, it is Jesus Christ who leads the breaker—God’s specially chosen human leader—through a gate of righteousness and out of a deceived and sinning Laodicean Church of God! We are to follow our leaders as they follow Christ! (1 Corinthians 11:1; 4:14-16).

The last part of Micah 2:13 reads, “their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.” The faithful, prophesying little church and its leader are, without a doubt, being led by the Lord Jesus Christ—the true Head of the pcg!

The other church, in contrast, is God’s “enemy” (Micah 2:8)—the Laodicean Church—which Christ is no longer leading, and which must go into a fiery holocaust!

The pcg is the only church through which Jesus Christ is doing His Work today. The Laodicean Church is truly groping like blind men, confounded by spiritual darkness, without Jesus Christ leading them. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world (John 1:4-9), but those who reject His leadership are groping in dismal darkness!

God has prophesied that this “break away” leader, with Jesus Christ as his Head, will lead those who will repent and follow.

Clarke’s Commentary says the “breaker” is “He who is to give them [the ‘remnant’ of Micah 2:12] deliverance, and lead them out of the way of their return. He who takes down the hurdles, or makes a gap in the wall or hedge, to permit them to pass through.” Careful examination of God’s revelation about this end-time Church leader who is forced to “break away” reveals much about events in God’s Church just prior to Christ’s Second Coming.

Lange’s Commentary further qualifies the identity of the breaker by stating, “He that breaks through: the head, the leader whom they will set over them …. They break through, pass into the gate, and go out through it. And their king passes on before them, for no other than the king, out of the house of David, can be that ‘breaker’ (Amos 9:11), and Jehovah at their head, as in the marches in the desert (Numbers 10:35; Exodus 13:21).” So in the opinion of Lange’s Commentary, the breaker will be of the lineage of King David, a physical as well as a spiritual Jew!

Who Is the Breaker?

Approximately 2,740 years ago, God foretold through the Prophet Micah that a leader would arise in His end-time Church who must “break away” while following Christ’s leadership. That leader was prophesied to separate himself from the main body of the Church of God so that he could continue preaching the truth as God had revealed it through Herbert Armstrong!

Has anyone done that in this end of the end time? Among the “king-priests” (Revelation 1:6; 5:10) in this end-time Work of the living God, has any one leader who is of the lineage of King David been raised up to fulfill this office of the breaker after the death of Mr. Armstrong? The answer is yes! The question is now: Are you spiritually awake enough to recognize that leader?

Only after the death of Herbert Armstrong could this prophecy even be understood! It could not be comprehended until after the Worldwide Church of God veered radically from the truth of God as revealed to the Philadelphia era apostle, Herbert W. Armstrong. Only just prior to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ has God raised up an end-time break-away church following a break-away leader who is following Christ.

It is now up to God’s very elect (Matthew 24:24), to back up, support and follow the “breaker” through the righteous gate of escape, all the while finishing this great warning commission, as we follow the true Head of the Philadelphia Church of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and soon-coming Husband and King!

Continue Reading: Chapter 3: Who Is Like Unto Our God?