Herbert W Armstrong

   What about this world that we live in today? I want to tell you, my friends, the scientists that have been developing these great terrifying weapons of destruction are themselves very, very much frightened. They look into the future and they say that unless we can have world government, there is no hope for humanity.

   And I don't think, I mentioned this a lot of times on the air, but I don't think you quite grasp it. when the greatest scientists in this world, men whose names are known around the world because of their greatness as scientists, and they are so frightened as they stare the future in the face that they tell us that if something doesn't intervene to stop it and they can see nothing but world government that human life will be wiped off this earth, there will not be a soul living left alive.

   Now, they're not wrong in that. That is actually prophesized. My friends, God almighty prophesized that Jesus Christ foretold that 1900 years ago. I want to read that to you. I just wonder if you realize how important it is.

   You know, we go along in our routine day after day. We're so used to this life we live in, we get close to whatever we're in our job, our little entertainment and our social connections and our interests in life. And we get so close to those little things that we don't realize the times that we're living in, and we don't realize that this world is aflame, it's on fire.

   And here we have our diplomats and the United Nations going along. They're not bringing about any peace. What are they doing? Oh, I tell you, my friends, we're living in fearful times, and most of us are getting so callous to it. We just don't realize men are not competent to save this world. Men are not competent to deliver us out of it. Men are not competent to control the terrifying forces of nature that are now being unleashed.

   We go on to sleep at the switch and think, oh, well, it'll never happen here. It can't happen here. Well, it is going to happen here. Listen to what Jesus Christ said. This is the most famous prophecy I believe in the Bible. It's when the disciples came to Jesus privately, Matthew 24, up on the Mount of Olives, and they knew that he had been referring to the fact that he was coming to this earth again. And at the end of this world. I don't mean the end of the earth's existence. I mean, the end of this present world.

   And what is the world? Well, it's the, it's the cosmos, it is the system, this pattern that has been built up with human living of men that have cut themselves off from God Almighty of men that have defied God and the laws of God and the laws God almighty set in motion and are making their own laws and their own rules and living the way that seems right to a man. And the natural mind of man is, is antagonistic toward God and toward the laws and the ways of God that God set in motion.

   And we have this society, with it's, with its political and political systems of human government, with its commercial and industrial and business systems, economic systems, with its social systems, with its educational systems, and with its religious systems, in this world, that's the world and that whole world is coming to an end.

   Now, that means when Jesus Christ is speaking here of the end of the world in this prophecy that I'm just about to read to you. That what he means is the end of all these governments on earth. It means the end of the, of the Kremlin. It means the end of Parliament and the end of Congress. That's what it means. It means the end of all of our business and all of our economic and commercial systems on this earth as they now exist.

   It means probably the end of our banking structure as we know it. And as we do business now, it means the end of our social customs and ways that we follow socially, our pleasures and everything that becomes our life. It means the end of the present school systems. It means the end of the churches of this world and they're all of the religions of this world. It means the end of those things. They're all coming to their doom.

   And to that end, I wonder if you realize what the end of the world really means. The earth will still be here and there will still be people on this earth too. But the people are going to have a new government and it's going to be the government of God and it's going to set up new systems.

   God Almighty said to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We give you, God says we give you and I say we because it was Elohim there and there was the one spokesman, of course, doing the speaking at that time, but he represented the Elohim, which is more than one person, the family, the Kingdom of God and the Word of God speaking for the Kingdom of God. And the Word of God is the one who has made flesh and dwell among us and the one who is God's spokesman.

   And the Word said to Adam and to Eve in the Garden of Eden, we give you all the trees in this garden and everything here except the one tree in the midst of the garden. That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

   Now, we don't give you that. That is not for you, that doesn't belong to you. And the reason we have not given that to you is because it's a deadly poison. And in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

   Now, if you don't eat of it, you will sooner or later take of another tree here, the tree of life, and that tree would give them eternal life. They didn't have eternal life. God did not create Adam or Eve with eternal life. And I defy you to find any place in your Bible that says He did. He just didn't. He said to man, dust thou art and unto dust, shalt thou return, thou. He didn't say your body. He said you thou and however there was the tree of life which he could have had, but he didn't take it.

   So they defied God. They defied the commands of God. They rejected the rule of God over their lives and telling them what to do. They lusted for that one tree that was coveting, that was breaking the 10th command. They had another God before the true God and obeyed the devil that was breaking the first command. They dishonored their only parent in that. And thereby they broke the fifth command, not the fourth, but the fifth. And they also were guilty of stealing what was not theirs. Oh, they broke the 10 commandments in that sin. That is sin because sin is the transgression of the law and the law is spiritual and they broke a spiritual law by a physical act. But it was a spiritual principle in their minds and in their hearts.

   And you know that mankind ever since has run himself contrary to God. And that's because God in his great purpose sent out a period of 6000 years when God himself willed by his own mind and his determination, his decision as a part of his purpose and his plan, that man shall be left free to decide whether He will voluntarily accept the government of God or reject and rule himself and suffer the consequences of his own misrule or whether He will accept the government and the rule of God over his life and have all the blessings of that rule.

   And man has elected because God left the decision with man and man has decided to follow his own ideas and to reject God and man has built up a civilization on this earth. And I want to tell you my friends that all of the business and the economic and the commercial system on this earth is of man's devising. God didn't do it. God didn't give man any of these directions. It is the way that seemed right unto a man. And God says there is a way that seemeth right unto a man. The ends there, the ways of death.

   And let me make something else very plain right here. Man has not done what he really thought was wrong. You know, when you look at men, we think because we, we in the fiction stories, you read the movies you see and all that sort of thing, a villain is always wholly bad and the hero is always 100% good. But people are not like that. Those things are not true to life. Actually, there is good in the worst of people and there is bad in the best of people and people do what they think is right.

   And the carnal mind is enmity against the very laws and ways of God is not under subjection to God's ways and will not willingly subject itself to it. And it just seems to the normal mind of man, the way man is born, the way his mind develops as he grows up, it is the nature and God is responsible. God put that nature in him and that nature makes man feel antagonistic to the ways of God. Why man thinks God is all wrong?

   And there is a way that seems right to a man and that's to a man with a mind that rebels against the ways of God. And that way is the way of death. In other words, it transgresses God's law. Now, there you are one scripture says there is a way that seemeth right unto a man. The end, there are the ways of death. Another says that the natural mind of man is enmity, antagonistic against God and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And how do you come to God? How do you really find the right way? Seek ye the Eternal while He may be found in Isaiah 55. Let the wicked forsake. What? Let the wicked forsake his way the way that seemed right to him.

   Now, then when we realize that there is both good and bad in human beings, that that tree that Adam and Eve took was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And that there is good and also evil in human nature. And the way that seems right though is usually wrong to a human being and that human beings have not done what they thought was wrong. They haven't been villains, the leaders been such diabolical characters that they were just trying to do what is wrong. Oh, no. People are trying to do what is right. But we have been misguided. We have been deceived and that's what we need to wake up and realize it isn't a matter of condemning the leaders and the people who have set up these things they think they're doing right.

   I'm trying to point out how wrong some of it is but they think they're doing right. But there again, there is evil in people as well as good, but generally speaking, people are doing what they think is right.

   You know, you may think you look at all the religions in the world and you don't agree with all of them. A Protestant looks at the Catholics and he thinks, well, that's not the right religion. But let me tell you something, most of all those Catholics are just as sincere as you are. They're, they're good people. They are Catholics because they think that's the right religion. That's why they're Catholics. But then what about the Protestants? Well, they're just as sincere and you Catholics listening to me, you better realize that too.

   The Protestants, there's a little prejudice between you and the Protestants and the Protestants and you and all that kind of thing. I know. But they're Protestants because they think you Catholics are wrong. They've heard a lot of things that aren't true about you, Catholics. Maybe they've heard some things that aren't true too. But uh, they, uh, just the same, they believe you're wrong and that's why they're not Catholics because they think it's wrong. They don't want to be in the, anything that's wrong and they're Protestants because they think the Protestant religion is right.

   Now, how about the Jewish people? Why they believe their religion because they were brought up in it and they, they've come to believe it's absolutely right. They're honest and sincere. You know, I don't hate the Jewish people anymore and I hate the Protestants or the Catholics. I love them all and I want to tell you that God loves them all. And Jesus Christ died for them all.

   That doesn't mean they're all right though. And that doesn't mean that they're all offering you the truth and you had better do what the Bible says and prove all things before you make your decision. Instead of just judging that what men have set up on this earth is the right thing.

   Now, men on this earth believe they're right. And they're doing mostly the thing they think is right. Of course, you know, there's a little of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and all of us and sometimes we're not as honest as we like to think we are. But we don't even admit that to ourselves.

   You know, I've said many times that I really believe that Adolf Hitler thought he was doing the right thing. I don't know whether he did it first or not, but I'm quite sure that as time went along that the thing went to his head and he had himself really believing that he was sort of a savior of the world and it was for the good of the world that he should conquer the whole world and rule it and let the German people lord it over the rest of us. I think Adolf Hitler really believed that was the best thing. Oh, yes, he thought he was doing right.

   You know, a man never admits to himself he's wrong. That's the hardest thing in the world to do to admit you're wrong. Well, I don't mean that no man ever admitted it because if you are really a begotten child of God, if you are a real Christian, you have admitted you are wrong or you never could have been a Christian. That's the very beginning that makes you a Christian is to admit you have been wrong and to turn from your way and the way of human beings to God's way.

   Well, here's this world and it has its religions and it has its business and economic, its commercial system, it has its social customs and ways. It has all of its religions and it has all of its systems, that world is doomed, that world is going down and it's going to be replaced by the world tomorrow. And that's a world of God's making and that is a world that will be perfect in its pattern and in its government and its laws and the things that God gives us and enforces on us.

   I don't think everything in it will be perfect. The people will not be because they're still human, as long as they're human, they won't be perfect. But I mean, all of the rule and the government of God that comes from God will be perfect and the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Eternal. It will be as full of the truth, the truth that shall make men free as the ocean beds are full of water. That's in Isaiah 11, that's prophesized and it's absolutely certain my friends, it's coming.

   Now, the disciples asked Jesus (Matthew 24:3-22), Tell us what will be the sign of your coming and the end of this world. And Jesus answered and said, unto them, take heed that no man deceive you, many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and deceive many. And that's happened. They say that Jesus is the Christ. Of course they do. He didn't say many will come in my name in their name saying they are the Christ or come pretending that they're in my name saying that they are the Christ, but they will come in my name saying I am the Christ, not saying that they are the Christ.

   Then there were going to be wars and rumors of wars and all of that sort of thing and famines and pestilences. Now those he said at the beginning of sorrows, then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and you will be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And he continues to tell about that when this thing comes then that in Judea flee to the mountains and all that sort of thing woe to them that are with child and give suck in those days. Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day for then then shall be.

   And that was certainly a long time from Jesus time when he was speaking it then shall be great tribulation. Now notice then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time. No, nor ever shall be, there is the greatest time of world trouble that has ever happened. Now, when he says they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, that means Christians. And it's a time of the martyrdom of Christians and it is yet to come. It hasn't happened yet, but it also is speaking of our people, the American people, the British you people up in Canada, it's speaking of you and it means that our nations are going to be delivered up to be killed and we will be hated of all nations for his sake because we are his chosen people and we don't seem to even know our identity and to know who we are. It will be a time of world trouble such as never happened from the beginning of the world till now.

   Now this world has already started erupting, it has already started to erupt and the hydrogen bombs are now here and they're going to drop because other prophecies say that our cities are going to be destroyed. And we have never had anything that can totally destroy a city until we have the hydrogen bomb. Well, we destroyed some cities over in Germany in World War II, with maybe several 1000 smaller bombs or we mostly destroyed them, but the hydrogen, one hydrogen bomb will totally wipe out. It will just simply vaporize the city.

   Now, And except those days should be shortened or cut short, there should no flesh be saved alive. Now, if you get the actual Greek of that, that is the meaning of it. And the Moffat translation has it that way that no flesh would be saved alive, that not a human being would be left alive on the earth. That's what Jesus was saying when you get it into the English of our day, but now get this. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be cut short.

   Now, who are the elect read right on? Then if any man say, "Oh, here is Christ or lo there, believe it not for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible, but it isn't, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect, the very elect of the people that cannot be deceived. It is not possible to deceive them. Therefore, they must be just about right now.

   If you turn over, well, just turn over the page for instance. And when God sends his angels to gather those that are to meet Christ in the air, the returning Christ as he comes, the dead in Christ shall rise first and those that are left alive that are his shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. And they shall meet him in the air as you find in I Thessalonians 4 and in I Corinthians 15.

   Now in verse 31 right here where we are in Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:31), he shall send his angels, speaking at that time. I mean, and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds that is the gathering of the elect to meet Christ in the air. Now the elect then my friends, are not Christ-rejecting Jews who lived 1900 years ago as some try to tell you. But the elect are those that are begotten of God, the real Christians that are changed to immortality at that time and are going to meet Christ in the air.

   Now you turn over to the 18th chapter of Luke and here is a parable about praying always and never quitting and notice the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge saith verse six and verse seven (Luke 18:6-7), and shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him though he bear along with them, there again his own elect are the ones that are crying to him day and night that are really converted that are really children of God. Now, they're the ones that can't be deceived and for their sakes, they're going to be on earth at that time. Not in some false secret rapture that you can't read in your Bible unless men try to read it in there. Oh, how men have been deceived? I call on you to listen and to read your Bibles and to study and to wake up because you have been greatly deceived.

   Well, is a time coming when no flesh, no human being would be left alive on this earth. If Jesus Christ did not intervene and how is he going to do it? He goes right on. Speaking of the second coming of Christ, there, of course, another event is going to begin to happen to cut short, they just before it, but on the other hand, they'd get back to the same system if Christ didn't come and rule so actual in the overall sense, this world's ways and this world is leading itself to total annihilation.

   In other words, my friends, if you understand what has happened is that in our colleges and universities, we have gone to materialistic education, we've gone to what has been called German rationalism and the rationalism of the 19th century. And it began in the 18th century and all this doctrine of evolution which has thrown God outdoors and the Bible out the window with him and they reject God and they reject anything like divine inspiration in the Bible. And they're looking at things only materially and they think nothing exists except the material things that you can see.

   And that type of rationalism has permeated our educational institutions. And now science has developed until it assumes an overbalanced portion of modern education today, mechanical and scientific and material thought and material advancement. And so we've come into the machine age and now that the machine has developed, we're getting into other branches of science, developing other powers and forces culminating now in the atomic and the hydrogen bomb.

   And here is what we have done and my friends, it has taken place. Let me go back just a minute and sketch for you. This thing just a little bit that got into the colleges and universities. Do you know that most of the institutions of higher learning in the United States, our colleges were started by churches and back here when they really believed in God and they really believed that Christ was the son of God and begotten of the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary and that he was resurrected from the dead and that he died for our sins. They believed those things and they started our Great Eastern universities that was on the East Coast at that time, Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the Great Eastern universities. But naturally, they began to relax from their religious ideas and zeal and this thing even got into the churches.

   And then along came big business, and big business began to see that it needed trained men and that they needed technical men for the technical end of business and manufacturing, and all that type of thing that was being developed. And then came the income tax, and big businessmen found they could donate a certain portion of their profits to non-profit institutions such as colleges and universities and deduct it off the income tax. And so, great foundations were created. They just didn't donate this money direct to the colleges, but they set up their foundations. I think you've heard of the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation and some of those. They all formed their foundations which are non-profit corporations and are exempt from income tax. And then they set up men in those foundations to run them. They put countless millions of dollars in those foundations and they give a lot of it to educational institutions. Now it's given through the foundation to educational institutions. But let me tell you something, always when they do, it goes for the promotion of something that business is interested in to train technical men or technical jobs in that particular great corporation to make more profits and round and round, we go with a selfish, greedy motive of vanity and the selfishness to make more profits. Oh, I tell you. The people of the world don't seem to realize what goes on.

   Now, the upshot of the whole thing is that we have been training men and educating men in sciences and in technologies and in the development of machines and in forces and powers and energies and harnessing and controlling the powers and the energies of nature much more intensively than we have been training men to control these powers and these forces that man is now getting into his hands. In other words, my friends, the spiritual values have been neglected on the college campuses of this nation. And I want to tell you that when you have mad men that are ruthless and will do anything, the hydrogen bomb is going to be used. You know, it's a lot later than most of us seem to think.

   Never before have world conditions been like they are now world catastrophes are destined to rock this world in the next 15 or 20 years. You're going to live through these times. Yes, world catastrophes are going to shape this world and it's all written in advance in Bible prophecy and the Bible can be understood now. It's the most important thing in your life.

   Now, I realize that the Bible has not been understood, prophecies have never been understood until now, do you know why you find in the 12th chapter of Daniel, one of these great prophecies where it says Daniel couldn't understand even what he was writing, but the angel that was revealing what he wrote to him (Daniel 12:9), said, Go thy way, Daniel: these words are closed and sealed till the time of the end. Yes, they've been closed and sealed to now. But now my friends, God's time has come to reveal them. You can know what's going to happen to your nation, what you're going to have to live through in these next few years.

   Because of the importance of this subject and other related topics. We are pleased to offer the following free literature. History shows there had always been wars, disease and famine threats to local populations but never before has the possibility of total annihilation of the human race existed until this age of the arms race, nuclear stockpiles overkill and the hydrogen bomb an entire generation has learned to live under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. We've heard talk not of if World War III comes, but when. Ours is indeed a unique moment in history, except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved. States, a 1900-year-old warning by the prophet Jesus Christ. Are We Living In the Last Days? You need to know request this important booklet for a full understanding. Your copy is free. There's no charge or follow-up, request, Are We Living In the Last Days? Send your request to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123

   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 requests along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California, 91123. That's Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123.