Herbert W Armstrong

   Never until World War I have there ever been, in all history, world conditions anything like we are living through right now. Most of you have grown so accustomed to it that you don't realize how utterly different is the world condition today from any time in the past. You've grown careless. You've grown heedless, not realizing the meaning, utterly unaware of what is now shaping up and what is about to happen and how all this is going to affect you and your life.

   There is a purpose behind all of this. It's all leading to something. It's leading to something that the world knows not what, in the end, it's all leading to the end of the world and the happy prosperous world tomorrow. Oh, not the kind of the end of the world that a certain college professor became ridiculously famous for predicting and which, of course, failed to come off on the predicted date. Not the end of this earth's existence, but the end of this world, this age, this world set up that has brought on all the chaos in the world today. The end of this false way of things that has brought this world only suffering and anguish and despair.

   There's a purpose behind all of this. God Almighty is working out his purpose here below. It's working out according to a definite divine plan, and it's working out on a precise time schedule. And the Eternal divine sovereign of the entire universe has revealed every major event in that plan and biblical prophecy long before it is happening. God has revealed what is to happen to you and to your family and to your home in our very present living generation. He has revealed why it's going to happen, the forces that are causing it all.

   You can know the meaning of world events today, what's going to happen next, where is all leading, how you may have absolute protection and security through the catastrophic events that are coming on this world immediately ahead, how you may live safely on past the horrifying events that are now forming and on into the glorious, peaceful, happy world tomorrow.

   My friends, it behooves you to listen, to pay attention. Your only safety, your only hope, your only immunity from terrifying things almost now ready to break upon an unsuspecting and an astonished world lies in knowing what's prophesized for the immediate future and the revealed way of escape and divine protection.

   Of course, right now, when these events are almost upon us, the invisible forces of evil are causing this world to totally misunderstand and to scoff and to ridicule the very prophecy of Jesus Christ about the end of the world. People do not seem to realize the difference between this world and the earth upon which this world lives and moves and suffers. In your Bible, the English word world is merely translated from two Greek words. The New Testament of your Bible was originally inspired and written in the Greek language. There wasn't any English language then. One of these two Greek words is Aion, which means simply age, a definite span, a duration of time.

   Now, this is the word that was inspired in Matthew 24 and verse three (Matthew 24:3), where the disciples were asking Jesus about the end of the world and where Jesus was explaining about the end of the world and when it's coming and why and what's going to bring it on. If you have the marginal references in your Bible, you'll probably find a little number opposite this word world in Matthew 24 verse three. And then in your margin, it will give you the alternate translation, meaning the end of or the consummation of the age is speaking of an age, a duration of time, not the earth's existence. It's referring to the 6000-year age, the period of time which God Almighty has allotted to mankind and during which God as the supreme ruler has decreed that mankind shall choose whether to obey the government and the laws of God, live the way of God as God has revealed it in His word, His Bible, or whether we shall reject God in His ways and His laws, His government over our lives and then pay the penalty of that sin.

   The other Greek word that is used in the New Testament and translated by our English word world is cosmos, which means simply system or pattern of organized society. And it refers to the civilization, the way of organized society or the system which mankind rejecting the rule of God and cutting itself off from God and his rule has chosen to establish on this earth.

   Now, this word "cosmos" does not refer to the material earth, but to the systems, the ways of society that people have established on the earth—the political systems of human government, the economic systems that regulate business and commerce and industry, the educational systems, the social customs. Yes, my friends, even the religions of mankind are mankind cut off from God that mankind has worked out and adopted this whole man-made civilization.

   Well, we think it's pretty good, do we? Well, God Almighty tells us twice in his revealed word that there is a way that seemeth right, not wrong but right to a man. But the end thereof are the ways of death. That's exactly where we're leading my friends. That's what we have on this earth. The ways, the systems, the customs that seem right. They don't seem wrong. They seem so right to a deceived mankind cut off from God Almighty. But they are ways and they are governments and systems that are totally contrary to the ways of God, the government of God, the laws of God. It would bring us peace and prosperity and happiness and the things we're groping for and that we want. But we're not getting but blind stupid carnal mankind is so deceived that humanity does not realize and does not know that the ways that are set up on this earth today are contrary to the ways of God, that they are wrong ways.

   These things that we like and that we love and that we cherish that we would fight and give our lives for are wrong ways that are damning our very souls and bringing us misery and unhappiness, empty, terrible lives. These ways have brought on all the fears and the worries, the heartache, and the failures, the discontent and the empty lives, the suffering and the anguish. Yes. And all this international disturbance and chaos, this war and this fear of war in this world.

   Mankind still believes that his way is right. Mankind seems to believe somehow that God is merely a creator who did create this earth and man upon it once in the long ago, that is if he believes that even that there is a God and a good many of us today don't seem to even believe that. And that God is not much concerned about how we live in this life now, but merely with the hereafter with our salvation, which it seems most people believe is God's effort to repair the damage of what they call the original fall of man. That is, it's God's effort to try to restore man to a condition as good as Adam was before he sinned under Satan's temptation.

   I want to tell you very few even know what salvation is. That's a mighty poor picture of salvation. And yet that's the more or less common idea, I think, today. Now your Bible reveals that God Almighty is the ever-present living all-powerful sovereign ruler of mankind on this earth and of all the universe. It reveals that the one basic important concern of our lives, the very purpose for which we were put here on this earth is to learn that God is the ruler, not only someone who created once upon a time and has gone way off and isn't concerned about us.

   You know, most people seem to think today that God isn't concerned about the kind of government we have, we should think about that and vote the way we want it, that God isn't concerned about our society, our social customs or the kind of schools and education that we have or our business and our industrial systems. That's none of God's business. So, a lot of people seem to think today and a lot of people want God just to keep his nose out of our affairs, don't they? Well, that's exactly what he's been doing and that's where all the trouble is. God is letting us go our own way.

   Now, your Bible reveals God Almighty is the ever-present, living, all-powerful sovereign ruler over mankind and over all the universe. And it reveals that the one basic important concern in your life, the very purpose for which you were born and put on this earth is to learn that God is the ruler, not just a creator who's gone off and isn't concerned about anything but the hereafter. He's concerned about the here and the now, and he's concerned about your welfare and your happiness right here and now, and that God is concerned about how you live and the way you live now and the result of it, the government of God.

   But on the other hand, that for 6000 years, God has ruled, God has decreed, yes, he has ruled as he has decreed this, that we ourselves, whom he made free moral agents must choose between his way and our own way. That seems so right in our eyes. But which way ends up in death that God has set before us, his gift of eternal life on the one hand and our own way, that seems right, but ends in death on the other.

   For, as God says, in Deuteronomy, the third chapter and the 15th to the 20th verses (Deuteronomy 30:15-20), listen, God says, "See, I have set before you this day life and good." That's on the one hand, death and evil on the other. You know, because God allows us to be free moral agents. My friends, a lot of people think that God isn't ruling because if God ruled, I think he would force us to do his way. But that is not the way God has chosen to rule. God is working out a purpose here below. It would defeat His purpose if he forced us contrary to our wills to do his way. If he forced us to do the way that would be good for us and that would bring us everything we want. I mean, peace and prosperity and happiness and joy and all abundant lives. We talk about gracious living, but we don't know anything about abundant living and real joy for happy living. And it's all because we're not living the way that would produce that effect.

   Herbert W. Armstrong will return in a moment. But first, this offer concerning literature of related interest. Why were you born? To become a farmer? Trying to feed the population to become an entertainer. To give people a fleeting moment of laughter. A millionaire with big houses and fancy cars and ulcers. To live out your last days on the end of a plastic tube in a hospital. To be the last to die in a war you don't understand. Is that all there is to human existence? just putting in your time on a troubled planet, no.

   There is a great purpose for your life, a reason you draw breath and you need to know what it is. Read the free booklet. Why were you BORN? This knowledge gives reason to life has meaning to all you do, for true added dimension to your life, be sure to read, Why were you BORN? Send your request to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.

   Now, God is working out a purpose here below, and that purpose required that we be free moral agents. That purpose requires that we work out character, and character can come only by a separate entity with separate minds. And God has made us to have minds that are altogether separate and different from his.

   You know, when you have a little baby, you will notice, and I've mentioned this before on this program, that that baby has a mind of its own. As that baby begins to grow up, the parents begin to find that the parents' minds are not in that baby. It has its own mind, and its own mind runs quite counter and contrary, very often to its parents' minds. Many parents learn that to their sorrow as they begin to grow a little older. And God has given us independent minds that are different from his. And that's all for a purpose. There is a reason because we could never become what God ultimately intends that many of us shall become in any other way.

   You know, God controls the planets up in the sky, not the moon, as I've mentioned before. The moon has no power to think; it has no free moral agency. The moon can't say, "No, I don't like the way God set me. God sent me here to travel around this earth down there once every 29.5 days, approximately. I don't like it; I'd rather go around the earth every 30 days or every 10 days or something of the sort." The moon can't make a decision of that sort and set itself in motion and start going around the earth in the number of days that it may decree. The moon must do exactly what God said, but there's no character there.

   But God gave you the opportunity to develop character, and character is the ability of a separate entity with a separate individual mind and personality to acquire knowledge and to come to a knowledge of the truth, to see both right and wrong and to choose the right and to make the right decision and to have the will to enforce on that mind and on that self, the right direction that it has wisely chosen. There aren't very many of that kind of characters in the world today. We go by impulse, we go by desire, by temptation. The first thing that flips into our silly, foolish minds, that's the way we go. And then we wonder why we're having the headaches and the troubles that we're having.

   God says, "See, I have set before you." God has done this. He's the ruler. God says, "I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil." God has ruled that we are to choose. If you obey the Commandments of the Eternal your God. The very fact He says, if you obey means, he made the free moral agents. He told us we must choose; well, let's drop down for just a moment here to the 10th verse Deuteronomy 30:15.

   God says, "I have set before you life and death," the two opposites, life and death. God has set them before us, blessing and curse. Therefore, God says, "Choose life." God has ordained that you must choose whether you're going to live eternally or whether you're going to choose death. And every one of you is making that decision; God has decreed that you must, and God will not make that decision for you. There isn't any devil that can make it for you. There is no man, no preacher that can force his will or his religion on you. God himself will not cram his religion down your throat. And God Almighty will not allow any force, any person, any force whatsoever in the universe to cram any religion down your throat; you make your own decisions. Now, God has said if you obey the Commandments of the Eternal, your God.

   Now, his commandments are the laws of his government. We have lawyers; we have judges and courts for our man-made laws, laws that are made according to the way that seems right unto a man. God says, "That's the way that ends up in death." It very often does. If you obey the Commandments of the Eternal, your God, that's God's government. Those are the laws made in heaven, not laws made in a legislature or in a Congress. If you obey the Commandments, that's the government, the laws of the Eternal, your God, which I command you this day. Yes, God commanded it, but he didn't make us do it. We choose by loving the Eternal, your God, by walking in his ways.

   Why do you see, my friends, of all through your bible it's talking about a way of living? You know, I read in one of our large weekly magazines, an article written by a great religious leader who said in giving his opinion of what Christianity really is. He said Christianity. First of all, is not a way of life. Oh, my friends, what ignorance and what deception grips this unhappy chaotic world today, and tonight. All the way through your bible, if you will read it, God is presenting before us rival, contrary ways of life. And one leads to life and the other leads to death. One leads to blessing and the other a cursings. One leads to everything we desire and want, and the other to everything we don't want, the pain and suffering and anguish and fear and worry. And that's what we've chosen.

   Now, if we walk in the ways that God says, He has commanded us by loving the Eternal, your God, by walking in his ways and by keeping his Commandments and his statutes and ordinances of his government, then you shall live. We're not doing it, and we're not living. A lot of people are existing. Very few people know what it is to really live.

   He says, "I have set before you life and death. The two blessing on the one hand curses on the other." Yes. A lot of people are under a curse today. They brought it on themselves; therefore, choose life. God wants us to choose life, but he makes us choose well, there it is, that's the way God has set it before us. That is part of God's program, that's his plan. He's working out of purpose here below. And that is necessary for the working out of that purpose, this choosing, this free moral agency this allowing mankind to choose the wrong way. God allows you to choose the wrong way. He's going to let you do it. You're going to reap what you sow too when you do. And that's what we've been reaping. That's all absolutely necessary in the working out of God's very purpose here below.

   But what has mankind done? Well, he started out from the very first man rejecting the rule of God, cutting himself off from God, setting up his own ways. Yes. Doing what man has thought was right. Mankind has set up his own civilization of man's devising, utterly contrary to the laws and the ways the government of God, and the Eternal has allowed it. God decreed that man had to choose. Because in no other way, could we ever be developed into the characters that are to be born finally into the very divine family of God, into the Kingdom of God. Flesh and blood can't enter the Kingdom of God. We're flesh and blood now; no human mortal on this earth is in the Kingdom of God.

   But Jesus came proclaiming and preaching the Kingdom of God. We can be born into it; we can enter into it. You won't be human, then you'll be divine; you won't be mortal, then you'll be immortal. If you can't enter the Kingdom of God until your will is absolutely at one with the will of God, the Father, the head of that great family. You can't become a member of that family any other way. And we have to choose; otherwise, there could be no character. If God forced us to do it, we'd just be spineless willy-nilly automatons. There would be no character, and God is the supreme, holy righteous character, and we must be like him. He has told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect and without holiness, even none shall see the Lord. God decreed that we must choose. You're going to choose. You are choosing which way are you choosing? You're making that decision by your very act every day that you live.

   Now, these ways, this system of organized society on this earth, this pattern that we have in this civilization, this cosmos, to use the inspired Greek word during this age, has led gradually and progressively to what? Why, to this very climactic crisis in which we find this world today. At the close of this age, my friends, this 6000-year allotted age for mankind to choose, during which we are to choose. This 6000 years of this age, this world has run its span now, it has only a very few more years to run during this very latter half of the 20th century.

   Now, chronology has been lost to mankind generally. But now it is once again in these very last days, revealed to God's own servants and this age is going to end before the end of the 20th century. It's going to end with this living generation. Nearly every one of you listening to my voice now is going to see this world, this age, this cosmos, this pattern on the earth. And you're going to see dawning a glorious, happy, peaceful world tomorrow and peace will flood this earth. And this earth is going to become as full of the knowledge of God, which man has rejected and doesn't know now because he's rejected it, it will become as full of the knowledge of the Eternal as the ocean beds are full of water.

   Well, my friends, we need to wake up. We are in the very last generation of this age, this world, and we're at the world crisis. At the close of this age, mankind has turned the instruments of his own devising into destructive channels. And now leading scientists and government authorities are warning us that an entire continent may be laid waste in one single night without warning that can happen here. We have come to the very last days of this world, this age. We have come to the place where man himself is bringing on the self-imposed end of this world. He's imposing on himself, the very destruction of the world. And where leading scientists tell us now that it is possible to unleash forces that can annihilate human life from off this planet. That is possible. And as long as there are madmen at the helm of some governments in this world, we're in grave danger. Thank God there are no madmen in Washington D.C. or London, England. But there are madmen in some of the countries in this world and our nation and your life is in danger this minute.

   Now, all of this is exactly what Jesus Christ said that we're coming to the time now when it's possible to blast human life off the face of this earth. Jesus Christ himself said in Matthew 24 and verse 22 (Matthew 24:22). And except speaking of our time now that we're coming immediately into the days just ahead of us, he said, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved alive, not a single mortal life would be saved alive on this earth. Unless those days. In other words, the events that bring about those days are cut short and it will take supernatural divine intervention to cut them short. But he added, and here is the glorious, good news. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. God is going to step in and intervene and save us from ourselves.

   Now, my friends, what is going to happen? Where are we? I'm going to be covering prophecy a great deal in the coming broadcasts and showing you where we are now and what's going to happen next and what is going to be the order of events from now because we can know God has revealed it. God knows what's happening. He knows what's going to happen. He is working out his purpose here below. He is allowing human nature to run its course. But he knows the course that human nature will run and he has revealed it through the prophecies of the Bible. Why is it that men have not been able to understand these prophecies? Well, there are reasons. First, there are certain keys to understanding and they have not had them. And one, a good understanding have all they that do God's Commandments. The 111th Psalm and not very many today are willing to do that. So not very many today can have understanding.

   Where are we now? What's coming next? I'm going to go into that in the very next broadcast. Continue to listen to these programs every day, every night and now listen, my friends before I leave the air.

   If you were to attain to the glory, that is your potential destiny to really fulfill the tremendous purpose for which you were put here on this earth. You must not only surrender unconditionally to God in real repentance and receive Jesus Christ as a personal savior. You must be converted, that is changed by continual, overcoming and growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   You must, as Jesus Christ said, actually, live by every word of God that is by every word of the Bible. You need to come to really understand the Bible, but need help. At last, you can enroll for the Ambassador College Bible course by correspondence and study it in your own home. If you want to really understand the Bible, if you are willing to set yourself to devote a half-hour or more every day to the study of your Bible with this wonderful Bible study course, then we will start sending you the lessons by mail.

   We're not charging any tuition, we mail it to you without charge, trusting God by faith to supply the need. I'm quite sure that you have never seen a Bible course that will even compare with the Ambassador College Correspondence Course. But the one textbook remember is your Bible and you will have to be willing to devote sufficient time to really study it if you hope to comprehend and to clearly understand it and it is non-denominational, it will open your eyes. It's very important.

   So now request your first lesson in the Bible correspondence course, there is no charge whatsoever. There will be no request for money whatsoever. Just tell me the call letters of the station to which you're now listening and send your request into Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 in Pasadena, California. And so now this is Herbert W Armstrong saying goodbye, friends until tomorrow and daily on most of these stations.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Herbert W Armstrong sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God. For literature offered on this program, send your request, along with the call letters of this station. Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123, That's Armstrong Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123. The World Tomorrow broadcast is also seen on local television tune in every Sunday at 11 p.m. on TV 23. In addition to joining us weekday evenings at 10:30 here on WSL radio.