Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, greeting friends. This is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow.

   Now, my friends, what's going to happen between now and that wonderful peaceful World Tomorrow when we're going to have worldwide peace, universal prosperity. That seems to be the main thing that everybody wants now. Most people think if they just had enough money, everything else would take care of itself. They'd be supremely happy. Well, everybody's going to have enough money but we're also going to know the way of happiness and money alone doesn't produce that we're going to have peace. But how is it going to come when we live in a world that is absolutely helpless.

   A world of men that don't know the way to peace of men that do not know the way to happiness. A world that is filled with college and university graduates and with hundreds yet thousands of college professors who do not know the purpose of life, who do not know whether we were put on this earth for a purpose or whether we're just accidents and just happen to be here, who do not know the real supreme goal of every life, the purpose for which you were put here, who do not know what we are, who do not know why we are, who do not know the way to happiness.

   To universal prosperity, a world that is filled with statesmen and rulers and men at the helm and government who do not know the way to world peace, who only know the way to violence and destruction. A world filled with scientists who are inventing engines of destruction. So that now our leading world officials tell us that the weapons are now available now available for you that can annihilate an entire continent in one night. And that means to completely destroy all human life, all plant life, all animal life on a whole continent without any warning. In just one night, we're living in a world like that.

   Yes, we're living in a world that has the same human nature it always had. But a world where human nature now has accessible weapons such as it never had before. A world whose technologies and sciences have increased, but whose moral and spiritual capacity have not increased. A world that has many mad men at the helm of government who are willing to use these weapons to destroy in order to conquer other nations. And we're living in a world when our top men tell us that unless the nations will cry out to God Almighty. There is no other power and no other hope at all to prevent these weapons being used. They will be used.

   I wonder if you realize what some of the great men in this world are now beginning to wake up and realize Jesus Christ himself said of these days that there is coming on us now a time of trouble and great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time. No, nor ever shall be and except those days should be shortened. There should no flesh be saved alive. But thank God, the Eternal creator will intervene. And Jesus went on to say, but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened and there is a better world coming. God Almighty is going to intervene. God Almighty does have a purpose. He's working out here below and he has a definite plan and a definite time schedule for working out that purpose.

   God Almighty has not revealed every exact year and every month and every day in that time schedule for working out his purpose. There are some events we cannot tell the day or the month or even the year as to when they're going to happen. But we know the approximate time for these things. We know the time order and we can know the time order in which God is going to permit this world to come to its very last resort. God is going to permit this world to wreck itself and to come to the place where if he didn't intervene, if he delayed another moment, another hour in intervening, no flesh should be saved alive, man would destroy himself. Humanity would commit suicide.

   Now, what is going to happen in this terrible progressive Toboggan slide as we go down the precipice to the destruction of humanity in this world that man is plunging himself into until God catches him up and rescues him from the fall.

   Just what is going to happen between now and then? Now, I want to tell you, my friends, it's time you begin to listen to this program and tell your neighbors to listen every day. This knowledge of what is going to happen, of what awaits this world, of what you're going to see and live through, and your children, is the most important thing in your life right now. And it's time to wake up and realize it's time to open your Bible and begin to study it, time to blow the dust off of it and to wake up. You have 24 hours a day, and you probably have been thinking that you can't spare five minutes of that time every day to study your Bible.

   I've been announcing our Ambassador College Bible Study Correspondence Course recently, we don't want to send it out to anyone that is not willing to pledge and to resolve very firmly to devote not less than a half hour every day to the study of your own Bible. You think that's too much, a half hour out of your whole 24 hours every day? 1, 48 little tiny part of your time to learn these things. If you think that's too much, don't write in for that Bible correspondence course it isn't for you. You just go right on, heedless. You go on playing the ostrich, you stick your foolish head in the ground until these things happen to you as they're absolutely certain to happen. But if you want to wake up and know what's going to happen, you better get your name enrolled for that Bible Correspondence Course, because it's going to show you exactly what's going to happen and the events of the present are so serious.

   The stark terror of the thing that is coming is so imminent that we have decided to start this whole correspondence course with a survey of the prophecies of what is going to take place and what is going to happen next and how we are to be delivered from all of this thing. But let me tell you, my friends, all of the people are not going to be delivered or saved from a terrifying trouble. I was showing you that what has happened right now. The gospel of the Kingdom of God is once again after 18 1/2 centuries of elapse of it going out to all the world as a witness unto all nations hasn't hit all nations yet, but it's on the way it is going worldwide right now, this very gospel that you're hearing this very program to which you're tuned in this very second. This is the instrumentality of God. This is the very work of God and the very last work of God in this world until he intervenes supernaturally.

   Listen, my friends, for 6000 years now God has been making his well known on this earth. Men have spurned the authority of God. They have spurned the way of God, they spit on it. They have nothing to do with it. Man thinks he knows more than God and man has set up his own civilization in his own way on this earth. Look where it's brought now it's possible to annihilate humanity. And what do we have anyhow? Look at the empty lives, look at the unhappiness, look at the pain, the suffering, look at our hospital filled, overflowing our insane asylums, our prison. We can't build them fast enough. Crime is increasing, violence is filling the earth. Nobody's word is good anymore. Men are fierce, they hate anyone, they despise anyone that will be good and want to do the right thing today. Great many do and yet there's good in human nature as well as evil. And some people think they want to do good.

   And so many people come to me and say, oh, I just want to know the will of the Eternal God. I just want the truth. Yes, they want it. They want it until it steps on their toes. They want it until it runs contrary to their will or something that they want awfully bad. Something that they really are tempted to want to do something that they might have to give up and then they don't seem to want it so badly. I've noticed that. Well, that's human nature and God almighty is going to have to change human nature and he's going to intervene and do it. Well, the chips are down. I tell you, my friends, there's not much time left. This is pretty serious and you better begin to take it a little more seriously.

   Oh, yes. You go about your daily life, your daily work, your job, your business, you women with your housework, those of you that are still doing housework. So many women today think they have to work and earn their own living like their husbands. So anytime they don't like the brute, they can get rid of him, you know, and support themselves. I hope you're not one of that modernistic type, but nevertheless, there are a lot of them today and that's the kind of a world we have degenerated into.

   No, the way of peace. We don't know, we're very wise to do evil in the things that harm us and bring empty lives and fears and worries and trouble and sickness and disease and heartache and pain and suffering and sorrow upon us. But we have no knowledge to do good it seems. And to bring the right result.

   You know, if this world isn't happy today, there's a reason all you have to do is look into human nature, look into people wanting their own way and people that refuse and reject the way of God that have no fear of the authority of God of God's great sovereignty. God is the supreme ruler of the universe. But in his ruling, he has ruled that we shall be allowed to do as we please for 6000 years. But that time is about up and God is going to step in and take away that kind of freedom, which has only resulted in our own unhappiness and is leading to our destruction.

   All right now, what is this time order? This gospel of the kingdom is now going to all the world as I've been showing you, then there is going to come a time of famine and pestilence that will take one-third of the lives of our people and only two-thirds of us will be left alive.

   Now, about that time, there's going to be a flight of those people that are God's people and whose hearts are in the work of God and getting this message out to the world and who are praying always and watching and who are accounted worthy to escape all of these things that are coming to pass according to Jesus promise in Luke the 21st chapter, they're going to take a flight. Is that flight going to be in a secret rapture up to heaven or is it going to be another flight to some place on this earth? We're coming to that, but they're going to take a flight to a place of protection that God has for them.

   Then it is coming this great tribulation and I've been reading it to you, 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 as Jesus expressed it as recorded by Luke in the 21st chapter of Luke, these be the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled and they speaking of our people and our nation shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations. And Ezekiel's prophecy shows that one-third of our people will be killed in the war that's coming.

   Now one-third are to be destroyed or to die in the famine and the disease epidemic that will follow. And when we are in the throes of that kind of an epidemic, a foreign nation is going to strike and it's a foreign nation that we seem to least expect not that Russia would not do it, but another nation is going to rise up that moves a little faster and get the jump on Russia. And there is another power that is now a rising that is going to do this very thing to us. And the third that remains are going to be taken captive into their enemy's land.

   Here it is, they shall fall by the edge of the sword. For those that fall will be dead and shall be led away. Those that remain under alive, shall be led away captive into all nations until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled. That is what is coming in the 29th verse Matthew 24. Matthew 24 verse 29 (Matthew 24:29).

   Let me go over it again real hurriedly because I want to show you what's going to follow that great tribulation now. Immediately after the great tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven. Now, that's immediately after the great tribulation.

   Now, we have seen that in the sixth chapter of Revelation, the great tribulation is pictured under the fifth seal and that means a martyrdom of those Christians that were not watching and praying that were lukewarm and they were not close enough to God. They were too close to this world. All their hearts were right. They believed in Christ. They even tried to obey him and keep his commandments, but they were a little lukewarm and a little lax about it. They were a little weak in character and those are going to be left behind and many of them will be martyred. And we find that martyrdom pictured under the fifth seal in the sixth chapter of Revelation, as Jesus Christ is stripping the seals of this great prophecy that coordinates that correlates as to time sequence, all of the prophecies of the Bible.

   Now, what's going to happen immediately after the great tribulation, the great tribulation is pictured in verses nine through verse 11. And now we come to verse 12 (Revelation 6:11-13). The very next thing and I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal. Here's the next one now. Immediately after the great tribulation and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell under the earth even as a fig tree caste her untimely fig when she is shaken of a mighty wind. There, it is the very next thing to happen.

   Now, then here is another thing in Matthew 24 and verse 30 (Matthew 24:30). I read verse 29 immediately after the tribulation, the sun will be dark, the moon shall not give or light, the stars shall fall. Now, the next verse, verse 30. And then, then at that time or immediately following shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, not the coming of Christ, but the sign of his coming. Now, if it appears, men see it, if it appears in heaven, they look up in heaven and see it up there, that's where they see it. You see they're looking up and seeing Christ sitting at the right hand of his Father on the throne in heaven.

   You have to go back to chapter four of Revelation to get the stage setting. This is in chapter six and in chapter four, John recording what he saw in vision says after this, I looked and behold, the door was opened in heaven. He's in vision. He appears to be in heaven. Actually, he was on the isle of Patmos down here on this earth, but he was taking invasions to heaven and he was just propelled 1900 years into the future as it were into our time. And the time setting is now today just before this day of the Lord that I'm going to tell you about now.

   And he heard a voice as it were of a trumpet. Yes, God always thunders and his voice is always like a trumpet when it is the voice of God or a voice that God can use, listen, talking with me and which said, come up hither and I will show the things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit and behold the throne was set in heaven and one sat on the throne that was God, the Father.

   Now come to chapter five (Revelation 5:1). And John says, recording what he saw in his vision, I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne, a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals. Now, no one was found worthy to open that book until he found in verse six, lo, he beheld and lo in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders that were out in front of the throne, stood a Lamb as it had been slain. The Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world. Jesus Christ, standing there in front of the Father at the right hand of the Father and he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. He was at the right hand of his Father. He took the book out of the right hand, all scriptures picture Jesus Christ at the present time as at the right hand of his Fathers throne in heaven. But he's coming back to this earth again now, then that's what people see in chapter six, they're looking up and crying for the rocks, fall on them and hide them from the face of him that set us on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.

   No man can look on God and live my friend and people will desire rather to have heavy boulders and rocks fall on them and crush out their brains rather than have to look on that face because they're so sinful they cannot look on a holy God. Now, why hide us from the wrath of the Lamb? For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand the day of God's wrath of the Eternal of the Lamb? Who is the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the day of the Lord is come the day of his wrath. He is now very angry. Now, what does that mean?

   All right, that's immediately after the great tribulation, isn't it? The sun and the moon are dark. And then the very next thing they see the sign of the Son of man in heaven. And then it is proclaimed that the day of the Lord of the day of his wrath, the Lord's wrath is come. All right now, quickly, once again, back to Joel, the second chapter and the 31st verse (Joel 2:31), the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. And that happens immediately after not before, but immediately after the great tribulation is when that will happen. Now, the sun and the moon shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood that is before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. In other words, the day of the Lord will happen immediately after that. What is the day of the Lord? Joel himself explains it back here in the first chapter and in verse 15 (Joel 1:15), Alas, for the day, the day of the Lord or the day of the Eternal is at hand. And as a destruction from the Almighty, shall it come?

   Now? It's a time of destruction. It comes from the Almighty. Therefore, God sends it; the Almighty sends it, and it is a time of wrath.

   Now, let's read on chapter two of Joel's prophecy (Joel 2:1). Blow you the trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm in my holy mountain. So it's a time of war too, isn't it? The trumpet, the alarm of war. When all the inhabitants of the land tremble. Now, Zion is the church, but all the inhabitants of the land is everybody else that is not in the church, and let them all tremble for the day of the Lord cometh and is nigh at hand, a day of darkness and gloominess. A day of clouds and thick darkness as the morning spread upon the mountain. That's what it is.

   Let's go a little further. I'd like to have you notice, my friends, what Zephaniah says about the day of the Lord. You will find this thing described this period known as the day of the Lord in more than 30 prophecies. Now, listen, nearly all so-called Bible students are mistaken and confusing this thing with the great tribulation. They seem to think it's all the same thing. And I want to show you the first comes great tribulation. And after it's over, immediately after the great tribulation, the sun will be dark, and the moon will be as blood, and the stars will fall. I showed you that both in Matthew 24 verse 29 and in Revelation six and beginning with verse 12; it's the very next thing after the great tribulation.

   And now the sun and the moon are to be dark, and the stars are to fall before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, and after the sun and the moon are dark, they look up and see the sign of the Son of man coming in heaven, as I read to you in the sixth chapter of Revelation. And then it is proclaimed that the great day of his, the Lord's wrath is come. All right. Now, let's see what Zephaniah describes as the day of the Lord, beginning with verse 14, chapter one, Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1:14). The great day of the Lord, or the day of the Eternal is near. It is near and hastens greatly when it's near it now, Zephaniah is a prophet for now, my friends, you know that the church, a New Testament church, the church Jesus said he would build is founded on the very foundation of not only the apostles but also of the prophets and Jesus Christ himself, the Chief Cornerstone. He is the real pastor of the church. He's the head of the church, not any man on earth, Jesus Christ is the living head. He's not a dead Christ hanging on a cross, he rose from the dead. You take him down off the cross and buried. And three days and three nights later, he rose from the dead. Now the day of the Lord, and he is alive and he is the one who is going to send this. Listen, the day of the Lord is near, it is near. It hates us greatly. Even the voice of the day of the Eternal, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Didn't I picture the mighty man to you over here in Revelation, the sixth chapter a minute ago, the chief captain is a mighty man. Certainly.

   Now here it is, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath. Yes, it's the day of the Lord's wrath. It's coming as a destruction and God is sending it, but my friends, it's not God's wrath against people. It's God's wrath against sin, which is destroying people whom God loves. God created us. God made us for a purpose. God made us in his own image that we might be conformed unto his dear Son, Jesus Christ. He made us to be begotten and then born of him into his family, into his kingdom because God is the kingdom and he is very angry against sin, which is destroying this world. So that's his wrath. That day is a day of wrath. It's the day of God's wrath against sin, which is your enemy. And you and I, my friends, haven't had enough sense to see it, but God knows and God is angry against that thing that we so gullibly seem to love that thing that is destroying us and our lives. That day is a day of wrath. A day of trouble and distress. A day of wasteness and desolation. A day of darkness and gloominess. A day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fence or defense cities and against the high towers. In other words, it's also a time of war. God is going to send supernatural plague, but also there will be a terrible World War at that time. It's a mixture of both.

   Now, God says, "I, God, will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Eternal, my friends." For 6000 years, God has been revealing his truth to people. He revealed it to Adam in the Garden of Eden. He talked with Noah, and Noah went about 120 years, a preacher of righteousness, and righteousness in your Bible is defined as all of the commandments of God. So, Noah was a preacher of the rule, the authority, the government of God, but the people wouldn't listen. The earth was filled with violence. People went about their own pleasures and as in the day of Noah. So, it is now; the same thing is filling the earth once again.

   God sent prophets to Israel, but they stoned the prophets and killed them. God sent his own Son with a message of the kingdom of God and repenting of man's ways and to turn and let God rule. But he's made us free moral agents, we can only come under God's rule by our own free choice. We can only have the blessings of the rule of God, the peace, the happiness, the joy, and everything that goes with it if we voluntarily will turn to him and to his rule. But they crucified his Son. Then he sent out his apostles. And tradition says that they were all martyred and then the world rose up and tried to martyr all of the Christians. History says between 50 to 100 million were martyred, their lives taken; they were put to death for daring to want to go the way of God. That is the way to peace, the way to happiness, and the way to salvation and eternal life.

   What kind of men do we have on this earth? What kind of a world is that we've been born into that we live in, we've grown up in, thinking it's a good world because there is some good in human nature. Well, there you are. God has spoken from the very foundation lovingly, and he sent prophets and people killed him. He has preached, yes. And he's preaching through me now, but people won't listen. Not many of you will listen. I know that. And so, God is finally going to speak to the people. And the only way that they will listen, he's going to punish them like a parent punishes a child that won't listen to soft words. He is going to punish with physical punishment. And he says, "I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Eternal, and their blood shall be poured out as the dust, and their flesh is the dung, neither their silver nor their gold." Everyone wants money now for protection. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Eternal's wrath. The Lord's wrath; the whole land shall be devoured with the fire of his jealousy, and he shall make a speedy riddance of all of them that dwell in the land.

   Now, my friends, I want you to get this picture. They confuse today the great tribulation with the day of the Lord. They are not the same thing at all. The great tribulation, and I have shown it to you in past broadcasts, is the wrath of Satan, the devil because he knows he has but a short time and he's going to persecute those that have the commandments of God and obey God and the faith of Jesus. And the devil has many that are deceived themselves and who profess Christ. And they really believe that that tribulation is the wrath of God. The tribulation is the wrath of the devil. Immediately after that time, God will intervene with signs in the heaven that are going to strike frantic terror into the hearts of men. And then is coming the day of the Lord, the wrath of God with plagues. And he's going to punish the power that invades our land by a war from another nation and that will be Russia.

   Now I'm going to go on and explain every bit of this in short to you and define these nations in prophecy, so plain every day at the same time.

   Because of the importance of this subject and other related topics. We are pleased to offer the following free literature. The United States and Britain are part of one of the most mysterious puzzles of all time. The prophecies of the Bible mention the ancient nations of Libya, Syria, and Ethiopia. But they seem to omit all reference to modern nations such as the United States and Britain. How could such important nations be left out of inspired prophecy? This mysterious puzzle is unraveled in the full-length book, "The United States and Britain in Prophecy." This book reveals the true identity of these people from the pages of your Bible, and yet it goes beyond past history and shows you what to expect in the future.

   If Bible prophecy leaves you puzzled, be sure to read "The United States and Britain in Prophecy." Your copy is free of charge. There's no cost, "The United States and Britain in Prophecy." 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 request 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.