Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, my friends, where is the true church today? I mean, the real original church that Jesus Christ said he would build. Now, he didn't say he built a lot of churches. He didn't say he would build many differing denominations. Jesus Christ said, "I will build my church." Well, my friends, and he built it. But what happened to it? Where did it go?

   Now, we find that there was a prophecy that there would be a falling away at the second coming of Christ, which he had also foretold because he said that he was going away, he was going to heaven, and he said, "If I go, I will come again." But, he had said, that is, it said through Paul's writing to the Thessalonians in II Thessalonians that that day would not come on the day of Christ and of his coming, except there be a falling away first.

   Now, we know that apostasy was definitely prophesied. Would that mean that the church itself would fall away from the truth, that the church would apostatize and then perhaps later be reformed, or did it just go wrong and stay wrong? What did happened to the church?

   My friends, when you understand first what the church is, we've been going into that a great deal on this program. And when you understand what the church, the real church that Jesus founded is, you will know that that church did not and cannot fall away from the truth because the church is made up of those who are in the truth.

   The church, the true church of God is made up of those who have and are led by the spirit of God, and the spirit of God doesn't lead you away but into the truth. Jesus said, "When the spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all truth." And so, the spirit of God is the spirit of a sound mind and the spirit that leads people in to truth, not away from it or out of it.

   And the church are those begotten children of God, sons of God as they're called, but not either male or female, not bond or free or Jew nor Greek, all one in Christ Jesus. The church is made up of those that are actually begotten of God who have the Holy Spirit of God, who have yielded to God, and who are governed by God.

   And when you're really governed by God, and your mind is controlled by God through His Holy spirit and being led into the truth. You're not apostatizing now. That doesn't mean that everyone in the truth knows all the truth or that anyone in the true church has all knowledge. Oh, no. Because the people in the church are those who are growing in grace and in knowledge don't have it all yet. So they may have some error that they've always had. But what I mean is they're not turning from truth into error. They are not apostatizing, they are not falling away because those that do that fall out of the church and they're not in it anymore. And those that are away from the truth are not in the church.

   That's the thing we've been bringing out: the church of God, my friends, is not a visible political organization. The church of God is not a group of people that you see going into some church building or the collection of all of the people in all of the church buildings that you see visibly going in to set in twos and seats in church buildings. That is not the way the Bible describes the church.

   Now, when we understand the truth, my friends, the real church that Jesus did build is not, as I say, a visible organization of people that you see, it's not a political organization and that isn't in politics of any kind at all because politics is where you try to make up your own mind and your vote and one person believes one way and another another and the majority rule or something of that sort. Or you play politics.

   Now, in the real church, they're all governed by God. Everyone in that church is governed by God Almighty. If you're not being governed by God, if you're not sincerely, to the best of your knowledge and ability, trying to live by every word of God and studying your Bible so that you may grow in knowledge and do that better day by day, then you're not in the church. We might as well wake up and face that, that applies to every one of us my friends.

   Those in the true church are becoming perfect, and day by day, they're growing in that direction. If you're to ever enter the family of God, since the Father of that family is perfect and the whole Family is, and you will have to become perfect. By that time. Of course, God will make you perfect. You will never make yourself that way again with our holiness. None shall feed the Lord and you have to become holy. Well, we're pretty unholy my friends. When we start out, we're so filthy that it takes the blood of Christ to have paid the penalty in ours stead so that we can be reconciled to God and have the stigma, the penalty of our transgressions, transgressions against God removed from us.

   Now, there's no politics because the government comes down from God. The mind of God rules. Those are the ones in the true church.

   Well, now let me give you the truth about the church and what happened to it. Let's go right back to the beginning and I want to show you my friends, this is going to astound you. This is almost dumbfounding knowledge. And it has taken, let me tell you, it has taken months and years of the most careful research into the history. Clear back to the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles to discern this truth that I'm going to begin to give you.

   Now, I'm going to show you that church. I'm going to show you what happened to that church. I'm not going to go into it in full detail, but I'm going to give you a bird's eye view of it. We're going to skim through some of it. So listen, I want to give you the real truth.

   Here is the truth now about the church. Where is that church today? What's happened to it? First, you have to know what to look for when you go searching history to find that church.

   Well, almost 2000 years ago, a messenger came to this earth from heaven bearing startling news of the coming world government. He talked about world government. Now, if I talk about that in some quarters today, they say I'm talking politics. Oh no, my friends, politics is human division and what this is not a human doing. This is an act of God. This kind of world government is something that is going to be set up by God and not by men.

   Well, that messenger was, of course Jesus Christ, his message was the good news. Now, the word Gospel means good news and it was the good news of the kingdom that is the coming world ruling government of God, not government of man by man, but government of God government by God. But for man, you know, man does not know properly how to govern himself, believe it or not, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man. And your Bible says that way it's going to end up in death. The wages of sin is death and there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, the end of which are the ways of death, that's in your Bible. That's what God says.

   Now you just witnessed the conditions in the world today. If you think men know how to govern themselves. Oh, I tell you, we just don't have any world peace at all. Look how much energy is being wasted and blown up in strife. Men trying to oppose each other. Each trying to not maybe both sides of the deal, trying to rule the world, but at least one trying to rule the world and the other trying to defend their own freedom. That's what we have in the world today.

   Well, Jesus message was good news and it was the world ruling government of God that is coming the very family of God into which we must be born to gain eternal life. You find about the government of God in Mark 1:14 speaking what Jesus preached. That you find Jesus speaking to Nicodemus mentioning that that Kingdom of God is something in to which we can be born in John three verses 3 to 5 (John 3:3-5). So it's something we can be born into. It is a family, it's a family that is a governing family, a ruling family, a God family and God is ruler.

   Now, Jesus came to deliver this message from God to man. He did not come to preach it personally in his own person to the whole world. No, Jesus spent his ministry preparing the foundation for the church. God works through human agencies. Jesus appointed and called his own disciples. Disciple means a student or a learner, one who is going to school to college as it were and learning, and they were disciples. Now later they became what? Why later they became apostles, and an apostle is, of course, one definition is one who is sent, but another is sent as an ambassador with authority representing the government of God in heaven and with the authority of that government in a foreign or a strange country. And that's what the true minister of God is. He's an ambassador of Christ. And the true minister of God carries the very authority of Christ and all power in heaven and in earth has been given unto him.

   So he prepared the foundation for the building of the church, and the church is commissioned to carry the gospel to the world. Jesus didn't try to just do that himself. All right, now, the church is the body of Christ, and the reason is the body of Christ is this, listen carefully, Jesus did certain work and his work was the preparatory work. The founding the basic work of getting a foundation under it for the church to go out and carry the gospel. But Jesus did work and it was the work of God. It was the start of the thing. It was the start of the church. He brought the message, he taught that message to his disciples. But he said of myself, I can do nothing, of himself he was as helpless as any human being. And we're all a lot more helpless than we realize. Of myself, he said, I can do nothing. But he said the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work, the power of God, the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God was in him and he was empowered by an outside power that came from without and empowered him and gave him power, such as the power over the laws of nature. He had power even over men's minds.

   Now, my friends, Jesus also came to die for us. And when he died, he was resurrected and he went to heaven. Now he didn't just bow out. No, he still runs it, but now he runs it from heaven. And he said if he went to heaven, he would send the Holy Spirit for those of his church. And then on that day of Pentecost, that same identical power that had done the work of God in the body of Christ in his personal human body before he died, that same power entered now into the collective body of his disciples and they became the church. They are the same power doing the same work and directed from heaven by Jesus Christ who was sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, directed by God. Christ is the head of the church. That same power was doing the work in and through the collective body, the combined human bodies of those apostles. Now, they have been fully trained, they have been taught of Jesus as students or learners for 3 1/2 years. That's why, my friends, the church is the body of Christ because it's a collective human body of all of the sum total of various individual human bodies, the one collective body and then through which the spirit of God is doing the work of God.

   Now let me tell you something, my friends and get this carefully. No one is in the true church who is not having a part in that work of God in that commission of God with a dual commission. First, there's the commissions that go into all the world and preach the gospel.

   Now, as a body, as a collective body, they have a second commission, and that's to feed the flock. And the church is the mother of us all. And we become begotten children of God, not just born like the mother must protect and feed and nourish the unborn child. So the church, Jerusalem above, the mother of us all. Yes, Jerusalem, the mother of us all, the true church of God is the mother of all of the children of God that are in it.

   And so God has set some in the church. First apostles. Yes. And then in the administrative division, next come evangelists and then pastors and then teachers of various kinds. And they were called elders. As a matter of fact, even apostles and evangelists are all elders but of the elders under the pastors. They were both preaching and non-preaching elders. Some were teachers and not preachers even. And that they were set in the church. For what? For the work of the ministry? Yes. And for the feeding of the flock till we all come to the full stature, the full-grown man because we are individually, if we're in the church, being developed and being trained to grow spiritually ready to be born into the kingdom of God, the very divine family of God, immortal, holy, divine beings. In the very kingdom, the very family of God, and God has given us the work to do.

   Now, then if you're in that true church, my friends, there are two things you as an individual have to do. One is your part in the collective body, the body of Christ. And there are two things the collective body has to do. 1st and 1st and foremost, get this gospel to the whole world, the true church of God then is the one that is carrying the same gospel that Jesus preached and is carrying that same good news of the Kingdom of God as Jesus said, they would at this time in Matthew 24 verse 13 or verse 14 (Matthew 24:14), carrying it to the whole wide world as a witness to all nations. And secondly, that is feeding and nourishing the true flock with the true spiritual food and not with false doctrines.

   Now, secondly, as an individual there, aside from your part in the collective body, you have another job to do and that is do 2 things to do in preparing yourself to grow individually. Of course, the main part of your growth or one of the main parts of your growth is your part in the collective work of carrying this gospel to the world and feeding the flock. But the other is your own personal, private individual part of going to work on your own self and developing yourself. First rooting out everything that's evil, everything that's wrong, letting the Bible correct you, reprove you in other words of overcoming. And you'll find a lot about overcoming in the New Testament. And if you're not an overcomer, you will never be born again. You will never get into the Kingdom of God. First, you have to overcome everything that's evil. Everything that's wrong, all the bad habits, all the wrong thinking, all the wrong doctrines, all the wrong ideas by opening your mind and by opening your heart and letting God and the Holy Spirit come into your mind and your heart.

   And secondly, you must grow in knowledge. Yes. And in grace, the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's his knowledge. The same knowledge he has let this mind be in you, which was in Christ, Jesus. Now, if you're in the true church, that's what you have and you will be first rooting out the evil. And secondly, bringing in more of the good that you didn't have before growing in good and in knowledge and in grace and in holy spiritual characters and in the good qualities, the spiritual qualities.

   Now, my friends, every individual who is doing that is in the true church. And there, I think I've just given you a pretty good picture of the true church. Where is that church? Do you know? Do you belong to it? You can't join it, my friends. No, God put you in by one spirit. We are all baptized. And the word baptized means immersed or put into, inducted into the one body, the body of Christ, the church of God by one spirit; we're all put into that one body of Christ. So that's the way you get in. You're inducted into it by receiving the spirit of God. And it's not a selfish life. You can't just crawl on your own shell and say, oh, I love me and I'm wild about myself and I put my arms around myself and give myself a squeeze. But I don't love anybody else. You can't do that and be a Christian. No, you've got to be concerned about others and not just your private life and your next-door neighbors and, and all that sort of thing.

   But my friend, God has given us a collective work of getting the gospel to the world that should be next to our hearts of everybody who is in God's own true church. You know, it's a wonderful program. It's a wonderful plan that God has given to his church. What happened to that church? Now, let's look into it. Well, Jesus devoted his ministry to calling out disciples, teaching them the gospel, setting them an example by his own ministry to follow his steps. He authorized them with the greatest transmission ever given to human beings to preach the gospel, the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And it's good news that the Kingdom of God will rule the world and bring peace to this world. There won't be any hydrogen bombs as a threat to destroy anybody then. I don't know, frankly, myself, whether they're going to do away with atomic power and all that sort of thing. It may be harnessed and put to good use and maybe it will be done away. I don't know what Christ is going to do when he comes to rule, but there won't be any war and there won't be any hate between nations. We'll have peace and the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Eternal God as the ocean bed is covered with water. Yes. And we're going to have prosperity and happiness and good health, and everybody is going to know how good it is to be alive, and it can be good to be alive if you follow God's way, God's laws.

   Now, before Jesus ascended to the throne of God, he commanded the apostles and the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they were imbued with the Holy Spirit. That's the same power that did the work of God in Him. And which also at the same time made them the daunting sons of God that put eternal life within them. They were begotten children of God and indued them with the power of God to carry on his work. The same spirit that had been doing the work in Christ. Now, Jesus founded his church by sending the promised holy spirit. On the day of Pentecost, it was an inspired church. It was a church in which Jesus through the Holy Spirit was living his life through which Jesus began to preach and to publish his gospel to the whole world. Now, Jesus was beginning to preach his gospel to the world by and through the church, it was still Christ doing it in and through the body, the disciples here, now apostles and other disciples through the power of his Holy Spirit.

   Now, the true church is the collective body of individuals which has been called out from the way these beliefs of this present evil world who have totally surrendered themselves to the rule of God and who through the Holy Spirit become the begotten sons of God. You'll read that in Romans 8:9. Now Jesus purchased the church this church by the shedding of his own blood. He bought and paid for it. It belongs to him. It's his church. The true church is not a politically organized body, a group of people at all. It's not a visible organization. It is an invisible spiritual organism. It's those people that are individually and collectively led by the power of God, the spirit of God and by Christ in heaven who's the head of the church? Now, God put you in it, you can't join it. The church is called the body of Christ because it is the spiritual organism whose living active head is Christ in the same sense that the husband is the head of a wife and is doing the work of God. Now, in the same way that Jesus through his one human body was doing it on earth during his earthly lifetime.

   Now, I want you to notice that from the very beginning, the church was subject to the rule of God. They didn't vote, they didn't make up their own ideas, they didn't do what they wanted. They didn't do the way of the other nations or the other people around them. It wasn't a government with the will of man or boards of men. Jesus is the head of the church. He rules the church. Now directly under Jesus, God set apostles first in positions of authority to carry out God's will to be instruments in his hands, through which instruments he could spread the gospel and leave the church. However, an apostle has no authority whatsoever to make up his own mind or make a decision of his own and his own human free will about anything. He must be led by Christ, the head of the church as Christ is led by God, the Father who is ahead of everything, but there's authority and it's the authority of Christ, not of man.

   Now, Paul, the apostle was a man like that. He was subject to Christ. He was so yielded to God that Jesus could make his will known to the apostle Paul and he could use him in directing the work of the church and in preaching the gospel to the nations at that time. Now, I want you to notice. If you jot this down and read it after the program, you'll notice that in Act 16 verse six (Act 16:6), where Jesus through the Holy Spirit made known to Paul and he was not to preach the word in Asia, but Paul wanted to and Paul was not free to, he was not free to go where he pleased. He was directed by Christ. He couldn't do what he pleased under Paul in authority, but Paul was in authority, but it was the authority of Christ. He was so close to Christ that Christ could use him as an instrument. Now under Paul and authority were the evangelists. Some of them, Timothy, Titus, Philemon and so on who assisted the apostles by carrying out the will of God as Jesus revealed it to the apostle Paul. And as he in turn, gave order to them under the authority of the apostles and the evangelists were pastors in all the local churches and there were teaching elders and local congregations. You'll read that in Titus chapter one verse five (Act 16:5).

   Now this my friends was the government of God. It was church government. It was not a national or it was not the world government. This is not the kingdom of God, it's only the church of God. This is not civil government over any nation. It's not human government. It is merely the divine government of God in his church for carrying out his work on this earth. Now, the Father manifested his will to Jesus. Jesus revealed the Father's will to the apostles and they in turn revealed it to the evangelists. And there was authority all the way down the line and through the apostles and the evangelists, God's will was manifested then to the local churches. And before he ascended to the Father Jesus prayed that his church would be kept as one, one in unity. It would be kept as one in the Father's name. Holy Father, he prayed, keep through thine own name. How is he going to keep them one, keep through thine own name those thou hast given me that they may be one as we are as Jesus and the Father are one, two separate individuals, of course, two separate persons, but one God, one in mind and in unity and harmony of purpose and divine and in way of life and everything of the kind.

   Now, the true church which is called the church of God in 12 different places in the New Testament. Now, I Corinthians 1:2, the true church is not many divided, quarreling divisions or anything of that sort or groups of people. But it is one church composed of many members, one church united in spirit and mind and attitude and heart because its members have every one of them totally surrendered their will not to the apostle, not to the evangelist, not to their pastor, but to God. And all of them are surrendered to God from the apostle down to the lowest member that has no authoritative office whatsoever. And they are yielded to correction and reproof from the word of God and further enlightenment in and by and from the word of God. That's the true church. Well, I'm just getting started and ready to show you what happened to it. And here the time of this broadcast is up and you'll have to hear it in the next program. Well, I told you my friends again that so many people think they're saved and they're not now that might happen to you don't be too sure you buy insurance to protect yourself. Why don't you take out a little time as insurance to just check up to be sure God's word says, prove all things. Why don't you write in for this booklet? What Kind of Faith is Required for Salvation.