Herbert W Armstrong

   And greeting friends around the world. This is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow.

   Does the Bible have anything to do with space flights? Is the Bible up to date in this space age or is it a collection of myths, superstitions of fairy tales, history and ancient theology. What about it my friends. Here we are living in the space age, a very real age, a very real world with men taking giant strides forward in space age technology, almost like stairsteps to the stars stepping out into space. Space flights seem only a few years away.

   And during this age of fantasy of Buck Rogers like science fiction, only it's real, men turn increasingly to science for the answers. But wait just a minute, you know that science able to produce such seemingly unbelievable conquest as controlled orbital space flight is unable, science is unable to answer the biggest and most important questions of all the biggest questions of life. Who are we? Why are we here and where are we headed? What about it? My friends, what about these big questions?

   There is a source to which you can go to prove it. And that source is Bible prophecy. Because one full third of the Bible is prophecy and you can prove and demonstrate the absolute infallibility of Bible prophecy.

   The Proof of the Bible, we have it for you in booklet form. Simple, easy to read, understandable, graphically illustrated and yet absolutely scientific, just as scientifically sound as any experiment, any time anywhere in layman's language too. So, you can really get it, write for the booklet on, The Proof of the Bible and the article on, Why prophecy. Why was prophecy ever written? One-third of the Bible is prophecy. And most of all that prophecy deals with this time with this day, with a space age, with this time of orbital satellites and manned space flights and the prophecies of the Bible are for our day.

   Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the greatest prophet who ever lived and also the greatest news agent who ever lived because he came with a message called the Gospel. But gospel merely means good news, news not for his time but beyond on down into our day news for this time of cosmonauts and astronauts news for this day and for tomorrow and next year in the years beyond. And the gospel has far more relevancy, far more applicability to today than it ever did at any other single moment in history. And it's time you began to understand it, to know what it says, to know what it contains of importance for you to know your relationship to it.

   Because the gospel deal with this frightening age in which we're living and tells you exactly how it's all going to come out where it's going to end, whether or not man will succeed in space travel and space flight, whether or not you will be living on the Moon or a colony on Mars is revealed in the Bible. All the truth about space flights and space-age technology is in the Bible. That sounds like a real false claim. I imagine to some people, will you take me up on it and write for this booklet on The Proof of the Bible, the one on, Why Prophesy and then the booklet on Who Will Rule Space? Who is going to rule space?

   Military men say that the strides to reach the moon are far more significant in a military sense than they are in the mere acquisition of technological or scientific knowledge that it is far more important to military men. And the military overtones are far more important than the mere knowledge and science and acquiring information about man's environment, about the solar system itself and about the universe beyond. But you need to know whether or not God is concerned with these things that are happening today in this series of programs we've been going through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and seeing what they say, seeing the great signs Jesus produced to prove that he was the Messiah to prove that he was qualifying to come and set this world, right. To prove that he is to become the returning King to rule on this earth here below. The proof of his Messiah was twofold. First of all, the literal proofs, he gave people that they could see as eyewitnesses then and secondly, the perennial witness, the perennial sign or proof that he left of the exact length of time he was going to be in his own tomb.

   Now, last time we came to the last verse of the eighth chapter of John, we're ready to begin now in the ninth chapter of John, and here we are again with one of these great proofs of the office, the Messiahship of Jesus Christ, proving the authority of his message, proving the veracity of the truth he gave about the way the world is going to be in the years beyond us now. Proving that when he said what he did in the prophecies about his coming again about a time when the world would never see the equal of it. A time that was unparalleled unprecedented in the history of the Earth that what he said was accurate. It was right, it was true, it was going to happen. And these were part of the testimonies or the proofs that he offered those people then and yet even today, people have looked askance upon the miracles of Jesus Christ. Every critic that's come along, every Bible scholar it seems has wondered about them.

   Well, now we're going to see one of the amazing miracles of Jesus Christ reading through this rather quickly coming to another very important section in the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Were in the book of John chapter nine verse one (John 9:1), as he Christ passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. How does this fit in to the whole picture of the gospels? Well, my friends, the gospels are not only the teaching and the message that Jesus brought, but a complete chronicle or catalog of all that he said and did during that three and one half year ministry and show you what your relationship is to it. Will Christ do the same thing today? That's the question, here's what he did then, here was a blind man.

   His disciples asked him saying, rabbi who did sin, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind. And Jesus answered neither did this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. This man has actually been allowed to be blind for the very express purpose and he could be not only a living witness then, but a testimony down to the dust of the centuries to us today. So that you could be hearing about him this moment over this program that people all over the world could come to hear about this man who his life was quite important. And the deed that was done was quite important. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

   We must work the works of him that sent me while it is day, while it was an opportune moment. The night cometh when no man can work. And that is true as never before. At this moment, Jesus Christ said of his true news agency, the ones whom he had called to proclaim this message of the good news of the coming peaceful world, the way it's going to be around the world. He said of them, they would not have covered all the cities of the nations of Israel until the Son of man be come.

   And that doesn't just mean Palestine, you need to write for our 26 page two color booklet, The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy and find out where our peoples are identified in the pages of the Bible and find out who is Israel today? And Anyhow? Why is it the very first place you ever read of Israel and the Jews mentioned simultaneously in the same scripture. They are at war one with the other. Does that makes sense, it wasn't the civil war, two different nations, two different capitals, two different dynasties of kings.

   There are four whole books in the Bible devoted to the separate National Histories of the Nation of Israel. On the one hand, and the Nation of the House of the tribes of Judah. On the other hand, the House of Judah, including of course, Levi part of it, most of it perhaps and part of Benjamin. So, you need to look into it for yourself and write for this book on, The United States in Prophecy. Well notice then he had said that his own people would not have gone over all the cities of Israel till he was come again. That was back in Matthew 10.

   And he said work, the works of him that sent him while you can while it's day because the night comes when no man can work. And that means a time of religious persecution, bias and bigotry unparalleled in history. A time when no man can be free anymore to tell the world the truth of what Jesus really said. He said when I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, anointed the eyes of this blind man to the clay and said, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation, sent it was merely a symbol, merely a physical thing which he did. Does that mean you ought to make clay and put it on the eyes of blind people? No. James 5:14 says, if he is sick, let him call the elders of the church and let them anoint him with oil.

   And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. The way, the method which Jesus Christ directly inspired in which he backs up today is given in the book of Acts in the writings of the Apostle Paul and of James and elsewhere in your New Testament. This was one of the many signs Jesus gave as proof of his office, as proof of the authority with which he spoke as proof of the accuracy and the validity of the gospel he came to proclaim.

   So, then here's the interesting thing. What were the opinions of the people concerning the deed that was done? How did the great spiritual people accept it? Did they applaud? Did they get down on their knees and thank God for the answer to prayer? Did they think what a marvelous thing here was the man who didn't know what green was, what blue was? It never seemed a beautiful buttermilk sky who'd never seen a sunset, never looked upon the face of another human being had never seen the green carpet of grass, the rugged mountains, the snow-capped hills had never seen a grove of big stalwart mild oak trees. He'd never laid eyes on one thing of beauty or even ugliness in all of his life. He'd lived in total empty nothingness and blackness from the time as a little baby. He drew breath. And now here was this great miracle of a person who had been totally blind. All of a sudden he could see how thankful were the spiritual men of the day. Let's take a look and see what the Bible says.

   So, he went and washed and came seeing, verse eight, the neighbors therefore and they that had seen him before times that he was a beggar said, well, of course, he was a beggar. There was no way he could find gainful employment. There was nothing that he could do. There was no one who was going to hire him and his parents were probably poor enough, they couldn't support him. So, he sat in the gate and begged and that's what most people of severe physical handicaps had to do. And what many are still doing to this day.

   And they said, isn't this he that sat and begged and other said, yes, that's him. And another said no, but he looks like him already doubt and skepticism. He said, I am he and they said therefore unto him. Well, then how were your eyes open? It wasn't that they said, thank God, you can see but they got real suspicious and said, how did it happen? Oh, aren't we a real fine example? Now, you know, we're no different today. We really aren't. People are real skeptical and suspicious about any possible intervention of God. It will make some people just mad. You know and make them just grit their teeth and oh boy, it makes him angry to think that God would heal someone is almost, well, it's been almost relegated to the status of witchery or black magic or superstition because we've gotten so far away from the real truth of God from belief in God, that God is God, that he is also God our healer is one of his very names in the Bible.

   That it sounds ridiculous. It sounds superstitious. It sounds sort of crazy to the modern professing Christian that God would heal a sickness or you can get it cut out, you can have your side open. The doctor can sort of throw out this, throw away that and hang this over there on the rail somewhere, put it in the bottle, preserve it and let you look at it. You can take out organs, dismember yourself, cut off limbs, legs, arms. So, on, we deal with electronics and radium and medicines and drugs and people look at these things and that's natural. That's logical why the pus from the infected kidneys of monkeys being injected into the bloodstream of little babies doesn't bother anybody today.

   That's not akin to witchcraft. Of course. Now, if you saw somebody in Africa on his knees before a campfire, muttering incantations and shaking a little bag of frogs, knuckles and bats, wings and powdered flies eyes or something, you might think that sounded strange. But monkey kidney puss, that's not bad. Well, it's just funny the way people look at these things and how the fact of God's merciful intervention in the case of sickness has been relegated in the minds of all, too many people to something akin to just these superstitious things, you know, because they do, they really do and they were no different then, they said, how did he do it? What kind of a trick did he use and so on.

   Well, the man told them and then they said in verse 12, where is he? And he said, I don't know where he is. And so, they brought to the Pharisees him before time was blind. Now they were going to find out, I'll tell you what we'll do, they said, we'll go get the truth of this. Of course, they had the man right there to whom it had occurred. They had the man who had been blind and now we're seeing, but they were going to find out it wasn't even good enough to hear it right from the mouth of the individual to whom it had happened. They were going to get this thing deciphered. They were going to have it analyzed.

   I know where I'll go, I'll go over here to my religious later. I'll go to my spiritual counselor. He'll give me the truth of it. Let's see if they got the truth that time. At least in this one historical account of it. So, they brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. Now it was on the Sabbath day when Jesus had made the clay and opened his eyes. And again, therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight and he said he put clay on my eyes and I washed and I do see.

   So immediately one of them drew himself up to his full height and looking down his gown and his robe is broad flatteries with his aloof stare. He said with great dignity. And upon this man is not from God because he keepeth not the Sabbath. That was a real wise saying wasn't it? How thankful was he? Because the man had been made so that he could see he'd been healed. He thought to heal that God could express toward a human being mercy that God could remove something from the eye that could cause the person to see was something that broke his little tiny picayunish system of do's and don'ts his little technical intricate, ingrown selfish religion that said, don't do this, don't do that.

   Do you know that during that day it became a sin for them to kill a flea on the Sabbath unless the flea bit them first. That's a fact. It's laughable, but it's an absolute fact. And you can see it in the historical record today. No wonder Jesus said they bind grievous burdens, big, heavy burdens and grievous to be born. Religion is not a narrow-minded system of, don't do this and don't do that about little tiny, technical, physical picayunish, picky things at all. But the truth of the great big important things in life as to who and what we are, what we're doing here, how to be a success, how to be happy, how to be truly successful, not just for now, but for all eternity, what the world is going to be like and what you ought to be doing to be there in that time, big things, things having to do with life in the hereafter, not waving feathers, tinkling bells, crawling on your knees, turning around three times, going through a lot of mutterings and contemplated and so on.

   You know, too many people think religion is some type of a great technical, intricate system of sort of walking around through chairs or doing something with the physical body or with your food or the way you dress or something of that nature. It's too bad. But, you know, you need to get the real truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and see what is the true religion here was this man's argument right away. This man is not from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath, according to what, what was the basis of that statement? It wasn't the truth of God. It wasn't the word of God in which he was supposed to be schooled. It wasn't the Old Testament scriptures of which he was supposed to be a minister and a preacher. It was his own bigotry. It was his own closed-mindedness, his own prejudice. That's what was behind his statement.

   But others said, well, now how can a man that is a sinner do such signs? They were close to the truth and there was a division among them, they say therefore to the blind man again. But what do you say of him? So, they questioned him, they examined him. He was the one to whom it had occurred. What do you say in that he opened your eyes? And he said that as the man who had been blind said he's a prophet, he didn't recognize who he was either.

   The Jews, therefore did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and had received his sight. That was the last out for them. They just decided to say, oh, he's lying. He's not telling the truth. You know, it's an amazing thing. A person is going to believe about anything exactly what he chooses to believe. Do you know that? A person will go for a counselor conference and they will decide what they want to hear and regardless as to how they hear it, what they hear, they're going to get out of that conference, what they made up their minds, they wanted to hear before they ever went in there.

   And, you know, without realizing it, many of you may have looked into the Bible trying to find what you thought ought to be there. And that's what you thought you found there and haven't realized that you were sort of putting your ideas into the Bible instead of letting the Bible tell you what it means.

   I think I sort of shocked some of the Ambassador College students in my second-year class of systematic theology when I told them, it doesn't matter how adeptly, how perfectly, how psychologically, how soundly, how seemly, how meticulously you explain something to someone concerning a biblical doctrine or a truth. It doesn't matter how many dozens of corroborating and substantiating scriptures you have, how carefully you approach it, how far you go around by the North Pole to come back so as to so gently present it to the person, how friendly, how warmly you may present it. It doesn't matter. In other words, to make a long story short, just how well you tell it to him. If he makes up his mind in advance, he's not going to believe it. He simply won't believe it. And there's no way you can make him believe it. You've got to receive the love of the truth. You've got to be willing to be corrected.

   Jesus said, repent you and believe the gospel. He didn't say believe the gospel and repent you. He put it the other way around. You've got to repent, have your mind broken, have your will and your spirit conquered of God. And you've got to give yourself to God. Let God conquer that carnal mind and become teachable, become willing, become yielded to his dictates, to his spirit, to his law, to his word. And then you can begin to understand. Failing that, you won't understand. It's just an impossibility because your Bible says the carnal mind is enmity against God. It cannot understand the law of God. It just can't be subject to the law of God. Romans 8:7 tells you.

   So, notice, they said that he hadn't been blind, but they said this isn't the man that is, they said that this man who was telling them that he had been blind and they received his side wasn't even a man himself. So, they called the parents. Now, this is a very interesting account the way this happened. And I think you will really see a good lesson in human nature. They called the parents of him and received his sight. And they said, now, is this your son? We want to get the facts here. The leader may have said, we want to get all the facts. Now, this upstart here is claiming that some man produced a fantastic sign and performed a great miracle. Here he is, is this your son or isn't it? They said with great suspicion. The parents said, we know that this is our son and notice how they looked up to the religious leaders who were also sort of holders of political office remember, who had virtually the power of life and death over those people. All they had to do was to get two of them to accuse them of this or that and make stone them to death and leave a canon of rocks where they once stood.

   And the parents knew that and they also knew what kind of character was in the hearts and minds of these people. So, they answered pretty carefully. They said, well, we know that's our boy. All right. And we know he was born blind, but how he now sees, we don't know or who opened his eyes. They said very carefully, we know not. Ask him. He's of age, he'll speak for himself. These things said to his parents because they feared the Jews for the Jews had agreed already that if any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. And that would mean that others wouldn't do business with them. That would mean they would lose their livelihood. They would be outcasts in the community.

   With these honest men, they had agreed already that they were not going to be confused with the facts. It didn't make a bit of difference to them. What occurred? They were going to put somebody out if they even remotely said this is the Christ. Was he the Christ? Sure he was reading about him. We know he was, did they admit it? No, they didn't. Did they know he was. Yes, they did. Were they honest? No, they weren't. Has human nature changed?

   Therefore, said his parents, he is of age, ask him. So, they called the second time the man that was blind and they said to him, give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner. Did they know that? No, they didn't. Did they say it? Yes, they did. Are people pretty much the same today. You know, like James Keradorf, I told you about, a man who used to work for the union, and they were trying to rope some small cleaning establishment in.

   Now, you know, these things only happen in comic books, we think, except that this particular man had the fire backfire on him. He was going to fix this man. I'll get you to join the union or else. Now it's just this one man I'm talking about, I'm not talking about a whole series of them, but this one man set fire to a cleaning plant in Flint, Michigan because the plant wasn't willing to join a certain union. But the only trouble was he got trapped in there and it burned him to death. And that was sort of mute justice. Interesting story. No, human nature hasn't changed much in many different professions now. Has it?

   So, he answered again and he said, well, whether he's a sinner, I don't know, that's you fellows' decision. I don't know a thing about that. You're the religionist of the day. You're the great spiritual leaders. I do know this one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see. He did know that, didn't he? You'd think he would, he was looking at them, he knew that he had been blind for about 20 something years. And here he was now seeing so you can say that pretty authoritatively and they couldn't deny it, could they?

   So, they said, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them. I told you even now and you do not hear, where would you hear it again? Why do you want me to repeat the story? Do you want to become his disciples? He sort of gently inserted the knife. Hey, he got a little big in there, didn't they? They reviled him and they said you are his disciple, but we're the disciples of Moses and they began to revile the person. So, when all else failed, when all the cross-examinations failed, when all their attempts to get around it failed, had to resort to a petty human ridicule. It was the only thing they could do. And you know, that is the final end resort of people who don't want to receive the truth. They just end up in ridicule and just say, well, he couldn't be anything and that's it. It closes their mind. That's the end of it. Let's not be that way with the truth of God today in this age. Write for these booklets I've announced if you want to learn a good deal more about it.

   This booklet, "The Proof of the Bible." The booklet I announced on, "Who Will Rule Space?." And now let me take time to tell you again about The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. When you hear me telling you about the Bible about Christ, about the fact that the gospel is relevant and up to date today. Do you begin to wonder most people do, they say, look, you can't tell me the Bible has anything remotely to do with our way of life in this modern nuclear age. The world is filled with an accent on science, every single newspaper. You read of announcements about recent space shots or somebody uncovers another bone or somebody has some chemical experiment by which he hopes to uncover a certain secret in life.

   Are those things true? Did you and I evolve? Did our ancestors used to grunt and snort and sort of drag their knuckles on the back of the ground? Did they anciently come out of a swamp and climb trees? Where did we come from? Can you prove it? Can you demonstrate it? I've announced constantly these booklets, Does God Exist? And, The Proof of the Bible. Well, now as a direct relationship to that, The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course talks about why bother with the study of the Bible in the space age. Why is the Bible, ignored and rejected and impugned and ridiculed by people today. Is it one of the event ridicule? Can you prove it? What is the Bible? Most people couldn't tell you much about it. They've got a very definite opinion about it, but they couldn't tell you much about it. Isn't that pretty much true of opinionated people?

   Now, you know, true freedom is a fantastic word and true freedom ought to also envision intellectual freedom, the freedom to pursue, to track down to uncover knowledge, factual research, historical practical proof in certain matters of which you're in question.

   Now, this beginning number will show you why a study of the Bible is important in the first place. It answers the question: Why should anyone want to study the Bible? What is the Bible? How do you study it? Where do you start? How do you begin to understand it? If you can? Most people think you can't. I've heard all my life people tell me you can prove anything by the Bible, or you can't prove any such thing. Now, you can take words out of the Bible, twist them around, get them out of context, turn them backwards and upside down and then claim to prove it. But the way the Bible is written, you can't prove anything but the truth, you can prove the truth of God, but you can't prove anything else.

   Well, now when you read a word, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Can you believe it? Now, you're the product of a modern school system. You've gone through it just like I have you read about the caveman, about the Neanderthal man, about the Cro-Magnon man. And if you were in school when I was, you even read about the Piltdown man, which of course since has been expunged from all textbooks, and you'll have to look quickly if you can find any reference to him anymore. That was as I think you may recall, a hoax, makes you wonder about some of the rest of it.

   But why don't you write for this first number? There's no obligation. There is no insert that tells you to write for something. Nobody's going to come calling on you trying to sell you a bunch of books. It's absolutely free of charge. The only book you need to buy is something you ought to have anyhow, if you don't have your own Bible, then you may need to go out and get one and that's up to you to find wherever you live, whether you live in Johannesburg or up in Manchester. So, write for this, it's absolutely free. You're going to be inspired when you see, you'll be glad you wrote for it. It's an 8 1/2 by 11 notebook size. So, you can put it in a loose-leaf notebook and there is no obligation and no follow-up if you get the first one and decide we don't want to continue. That's up to you but write for it. It's absolutely free and without tuition. The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course.

   Remember the other books I've announced they're free. There is no follow-up and no request for money. Send your letter to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California request The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course by sending your letter to Herbert W Armstrong box 111 Pasadena California. That's Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California investigate in just a moment until next time. This is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye friends.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong, for literature offered on this program. Send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123. Or you may dial this toll-free number 800-423-4444.