Herbert W Armstrong

   I said, "Science can contribute nothing. There are many ideas. The pagans have some superstitious ideas. There is the so-called Christian idea. But," I said, "is there any authority back of any of them? Has anyone ever come back from there to give you any testimony? Is there any eyewitness account? Have you any scientific proof or evidence?"

   I said, "You have to do one of two things. Either this Holy Bible is a revelation from a God who does exist and who did create and who made it that way and who therefore knows and has revealed the truth to us, and you must accept this, or you must admit you are ignorant. You don't know anything." Then I proceeded to show what the Bible says. I said, "You accept that or admit your ignorance."

   They the same... I haven't, and I've been rather grateful for it, I have not been called on to preach any funerals, as I say now, for about 8 years or more. And that is one thing that frankly we want to take up among our ministers. I have never been completely settled and satisfied in my own mind about this funeral situation, as to whether we should take the stand that we will not have a funeral.

   Now, I have never taken that stand. And yet I realize that you don't see anything about funerals in the Bible. And are we going along with worldly and pagan ways in doing it? That is the question.

   And I feel this, that while our young ordained ministers are young men, they're quite young for the ministry, and yet they are men of considerably above average intelligence. They are men we know have been called of God. They are men that are college-trained and college educated, and they are men that are consecrated to God, and they are men that know the Bible.

   And while I think I'm old enough to be the father of any of them except one, Doctor Meredith, of course, yet, I very highly regard their counsel. And I make it a practice now to take up all these matters with them because God does lead them. And I will say this - that we have never yet taken up anything in council as ministers where there has ever been one dissenting voice. And they are not yes men.

   I think I mentioned last night the controversy that we had with Herman Hoeh and Raymond Cole about which day was the proper day for the Passover. I found they were not yes men. As long as they thought they were right, I couldn't budge them an inch. And I couldn't get either - neither one of these men are yes men, I'll tell you that. They have minds of their own.

   But we all feel that we are just so grateful that the Spirit of God is the same spirit in all of our minds, and if we're converted, we all have the one spirit, and it can only lead us into one truth if we're properly led. And that is the answer. And even though one of us doesn't know what another is believing, when we finally come to a decision in any matter that has ever been brought before us, whether it's a private problem - a number of cases we've had divorce and remarriage problems brought before us, where we have to get a lot of facts and details - and in every case, one of us finds that all the others already had in his mind the same thing.

   It isn't the case of someone setting it and the others saying, "Oh well, if that's what he says, I'll go along." We don't do that. But that's one thing that convinces me, and I think it convinces every one of our ministers who have had that experience, and it's something if you haven't been in such a council, you don't know what it is. It's an experience, I'll tell you, and it certainly convinces us that this is God's church because I've never known of anything quite like it.

   Well, now we haven't had a chance to go into this matter about funerals, and I don't want to say anything that is final. I'm not completely sure in my mind. The Bible is, well, I think you might say virtually silent on the question, but the Bible does give us principles to go by, and that's what we have to do.

   And that's where we need trained ministers that are called by God and consecrated and led by His Spirit, because I tell you where some of you brethren get off is in applying what you read in the scriptures. You can get to interpreting. Now we should not interpret at all. The Bible does its own interpreting, but we do have to apply a truth in the Bible or a principle, and we have to know where the principles are in the Bible that do apply and do it with wisdom and through the guidance of God.

   Now until we can come to something else, all I can say is I'm quite sure that most of you are going to go ahead and have funerals if there is a death in the family, and I can't say don't do it. I can say that I have often questioned whether we should, but I've never answered the question negatively yet. Neither am I able to answer it with any assurance positively that we should do it.

   But I do believe that if one of our ministers is near enough or available, that by all means you should have one of our ministers. And I will say this - if that is not possible, I certainly think you should not go to one of the ministers of Babylon that is going to preach that they are already there in the presence of Christ and things that we know are absolute lies and contrary to what God says in His word.

   If you had to get a minister outside of the Church of God, I would say that the only thing to do would be to get a 7th Day Adventist minister, because on that question, they hold the truth the same as we do. And I think that anything that an Adventist minister would probably say at a funeral should be scriptural and not contrary to the scriptures. But still, I think you should get one of our men if it is possible.

   The question comes up: how far should our men travel and to what extent should we go and how much time in taking them away from the work of God to bury the dead when Jesus said, "You let the dead bury the dead, you come and follow me. We've got work to do." Now there is the question.

   But until we get it settled, if it is not too far, if we can, we will do our best to send you a man in the case of such an emergency. I think we have to realize that we are victims of the times in which we live. We've all been reared in it, and sometimes in a time like that of sudden grief, we don't know what to do. Although there shouldn't be grief, you know what Paul says: "I would not, brethren, you should be ignorant of the truth," and he wants us to know the truth that we grieve not as others do that don't have the hope of Christ. And the very truth that we have should prevent the kind of grief that you find in the world, although none of us certainly ever like to lose those that we love.

   Well, that I think is the only answer that I can give you now. Now if we should not discuss the Bible and should not spend our time in idle talk, what should we talk about? I think that is assuming that where some of the brethren are together either around here or - now I'm not sure that I understood the question properly that was given to me last night. I understood the question to mean, is it all right for brethren to meet regularly on the Sabbath to have a regular Sabbath service among themselves without a minister? And the answer most emphatically to that is no, you should not.

   Now later I was given the impression that the intended question was, is it all right for one of you to just visit with another one for fellowship or social fellowship on the Sabbath? Well, it would be very difficult for me to say no to that. Now brethren, we got into a place here we know - we get into a place that's difficult to answer. We know that if you're going to have regular Sabbath services, someone is going to try to ask questions and someone else will try to expound and answer it out of the Bible who is not qualified, and you're going to be misled.

   And I know by experience because before I knew better, I went out preaching. There would always be new converts, I would organize them. Now just think - new converts didn't know anything about the Bible, and I would organize them together as a little group and tell them to meet together and had no pastor. Why not a one of those little groups ever survived as long as 6 months.

   And finally I got to wondering what is the matter, and I found out. And you won't last 6 months, and the thing is that those people are not even Christians any longer. That is a thing that costs you your salvation. Now that we've looked into the New Testament, we see that it commands us not to do that, and there is the example beside not to do it.

   On the other hand, remember that your fellowship is with and through Christ, not just with one another separated from Him. And here's the question: where there is no local church, would it be all right for an occasional visit between two families on the Sabbath? Well, that certainly ought to be all right.

   I realize though, brethren, that if I say it is all right, that perhaps you get to studying the Bible and you decide among yourselves what you believe and the first thing you know there are 2 or 3 agreed you believe something that is wrong. It's an error. It's contrary to the church, and then you find you don't believe like we do. Well, you guess you're not with us after all. Pretty soon, where are you? Then you drift around, you float from one thing to another, carried about with old wise fables and every whisper doctrine and everything else.

   I would say that if you do, get out a Plain Truth or a Good News and just read and study those articles and let them be your guide and your teacher or the Bible Correspondence Course, the Ambassador College Correspondence Course or something like that. The difficulty comes when you start to try to explain the meaning of something and then you begin to interpret it and what are you doing? Putting your own reasoning and your own interpretation into it, and then that's where you go astray.

   So if you can avoid - again it's the use you make of it - now if you can avoid something like that that is going to harm you, why certainly it is all right for a couple of families, especially now and then, to visit back and forth on the Sabbath. You know, we don't want to be harsh and strict and autocrats up here giving you orders what to do, at all. We're just trying to find God's way, not our way, not what we reason out.

   And even though I've had experience in this, I still can't just let my experience alone give me the answer unless I find it in the Bible, but when we look in the Bible, we do find it. So I think that answers it. Now, don't get to answering yourselves questions you don't understand. Those questions, if you find you don't - and you find the other party doesn't and you say, "We'd like to know that" - don't discuss that question, but you sit down and write that question into the headquarters office for one of us.

   And if we can't get it answered in a near number of the Good News or the Plain Truth or send you a personal answer, we'll get it at the next Feast of Tabernacles or some way, but bring it to God's ministers. And anytime you don't understand or you think we're wrong, come to us and tell us. We could be wrong - come and tell us. We'll listen to you. And if we're wrong, we know if you come to us about it, we'll be able to see it.

   Now I think that is the best guide that I can give you, and you will have to be on your guard that you yourselves are not harmed, but rather benefited.

   Now, here is another in the subject: "Honor thy father" - or is the subject "honor thy father and thy mother" important enough to work into a sermon here? A lot of people, adults, have wondered about it. I, for one, have had several inquiring. For instance - and then somebody's name is mentioned - feel if they take a drink of wine, they will dishonor both of their parents because their parents are so against it.

   Well, brethren, if my parents were against it, I wouldn't drink wine right in front of them and insult them. You know, the apostle Paul says that in putting a stumbling block in front of others, that one man is weak and believes that he can eat kind of meat that was sold in those days in the meat markets, all of which probably had been offered to idols. But if you knew that the idol was nothing, it didn't actually contaminate the meat - it only contaminated the minds and the hearts of the people that were doing the wrong thing. It wasn't the thing that was wrong, the meat wasn't wrong. It was what they were doing and thinking it was wrong, and you hadn't participated in that and the meat itself was all right.

   But here was someone that still seemed to think that those idols were not just dead pieces of wood or stone, that they were really alive and that really would hurt his conscience, and so Paul said that if it was going to hurt another one, he would not eat meat as long as he lived. In other words, it was all right for him to take meat - he knew that, but he wouldn't do it in front of someone else if it dishonored them or if it injured or put a stumbling block in front of them.

   Now the same thing would apply to one and remember that the Bible does teach temperance, moderation in all things, and the minute you take enough wine, it's going to your head and starting to thicken up your mind. You've had too much. I don't know why it is that we Americans have to go to one extreme or the other. We either have to make old drunken sops out of ourselves - you know, I don't know how it is here in Texas, but over in California, nearly all of the wine sold is this kind of stuff that is 20% wine and is sold for about 45 to 49 cents a quart, or they can buy it a lot cheaper in half gallon and gallon jugs. In other words, they get the cheapest wine they can get that has the most alcohol for the least money.

   Now, the very best wines cost up close to $7 a bottle and it's only 4/5 of a quart. Oh my, that's just a matter of a slight difference in flavor that is so rare because it comes from wines that are 50, 75 years old or more, and those people would never get that because they don't take it as something that is a special treat to be taken a little of, in moderation and in a manner that is beneficial and enjoyable once in a while. They just want to get as much alcohol down there gullet as they can get, and the quicker they can get themselves drunk or something - and the cheaper the better. Well, that's America for you.

   Well, don't ever think we're approving that for in a million years. But then do we have to go to the opposite extreme and preach what the Bible does not preach and condemn Jesus Christ when he did drink wine, but he never was drunk? He never took enough to let it go to his head or to make him foolish or anything of the sort.

   You know we're here to build character and to learn to make our minds to the right thing, to make a right and a wise decision, and then to have the will and the restraint and the control over ourselves, our passions, our appetites, to direct them as we should.

   Now, if parents of these kind come to a service like this and there's wine at the Passover and they're going to get highly offended if you take it at the Passover, well, I'd say you'd have to let them get offended because there it's a command of God and we ought to obey God rather than man and that takes precedence. But I don't think that would happen, and I don't think that you need to dishonor parents in any way.

   Now then, if they want to seal you to a promise that you will not do it and that you will violate the Bible teaching, whether they're around or not, they have no right to do that. Then they're encroaching on your religion. And once you're full grown, you're on your own and your parents are not controlling you any longer, and as long as they are, you're not under their authority. They have no right to do that, and you are not dishonoring them when you refuse to obey something that they have no right to impose.

   You should honor your parents, of course, but it's a matter of what does honor and what does dishonor them. So I hope that makes it plain. I think in a case like that, I certainly would not take wine to excess, but to the extent that you know that it's right, and the extent that you know that Jesus Christ would do it, to the extent you could take it with Christ if he were here - and that's not very much, and it isn't too often - I say that that's none of your parents' business one way or the other, but don't do it in their presence if it offends them. You certainly can sacrifice it at that time if you're visiting them in their home. Don't expect them to supply it to you. Now if you've got the place you have to have it, you got too far. So I think that takes care of itself.

   Well, I wanted to dispose of those little questions. Now Norman Smith is going to speak to us this afternoon, after which we'll have a song and I might say that I did want to have the ordination service, but I guess I've just been so occupied with things that we haven't gotten around to arranging for it and being ready, and I believe we will postpone it until the last holy day now, since I just haven't and I believe we're not ready to do it in a proper manner this afternoon and we do want to do it properly. So I'll just have to apologize and ask you if you will be patient and we'll have it on Thursday.

   I'd like to bring to your minds, your mind a few things this afternoon on why we do have to become perfect. You know, we're told to be perfect, but sometimes we may wonder why, just why it's necessary. First, let's consider what our purpose is after we become sons of God and after we inherit His kingdom, just what we are to do.

   Turn to Revelation, the 5th chapter and the 9th verse, begin with the 8th verse (Revelation 5:8-9): "And when he had taken the scroll, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb" - the Lamb here being Jesus Christ - "Each holding a harp and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song saying, 'Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain, and by thy blood did ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hath made them, these men, a kingdom and priest to our God, and they shall reign on earth.'"

   You see, we, after being ransomed by Christ's blood, we are to be made a king, a kingdom and priest to our God. We are to be kings and priests. We are to rule and also as priests we are to serve and to guide and to teach the people on this earth, not up in heaven, but upon this earth.

   We might consider why could not God just take us and make us perfect and give us this job of ruling over this earth. Well, did you realize that he has already done that very thing once? He created a perfect being and placed him in charge of this earth.

   Turn to Ezekiel, the 28th chapter, and the 15th verse (Ezekiel 28:15). This is describing Lucifer or Satan that was placed on this earth: "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee."

   Then another description of this is given in Isaiah the 14th chapter. Begin here with the 12th verse (Isaiah 14:12): "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations?" You see, he was created perfect, but here he was cut down and asked the question how. Then it explains it: "Why, for thou hast said in thine heart, 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high.'"

   Satan was created perfect, and yet we see what happened to him. So the devil wasn't the son of God, and he was not interested in ruling this world under God as he was told to do, but he was interested in exalting himself and rising up and ruling above God.

   Then Christ came, and in that great temptation on the mount, he took this rule of this earth away from the devil. And now he intends to give it to someone else. And now God intends to solve this problem by giving the rule of this earth not to a created being in the sense that he did before, but to someone that is his very son and will be interested in ruling it according to His will.

   That looks very simple. Looks like it will take care of the problem if his own sons are going to rule it. But we must not forget the fact that some sons do not care what their father wants done. They have no respect for their father. They have no respect for his authority. They're shiftless, they're lazy. And they won't do anything that their father wants them to do. They will waste their father's goods. And they will end up destroying everything that their father has placed in their hands.

   Well, for this very purpose, that is the reason why we have all this admiration about overcoming so that we may become sons of God. God isn't going to have any sons like those that I've just described. If you're going to be a son of God, you must be perfect just like the Father is. You read that in Matthew, the 5th chapter in the 48th verse (Matthew 5:48). It says, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," and I'm sure all of you are familiar with that.

   Now when we are kings and priests of God in the millennium, we're going to rule on this earth, and we must rule this earth wisely. And we must rule it right according to God's will. In other words, it must be built and ruled God's way. Otherwise, confusion would result and there would not be any happiness on the earth.

   If you are placed in charge of a city, as we are told that we will be, the example is given, then you must rule that city properly so that the inhabitants will see just how good it is to be under your rule and will realize that you are ruling them correctly in the way that will make them happy.

   Now another thing: After we become God, we cannot be evil because God and evil are as far apart as anything can be because God is good and God is love. And God cannot have any sons ruling on this earth with Him who do not have the character to carry out His plan for rebuilding this earth. You see, that's why we have to develop character. That's why we have to overcome, so that we will have the character to carry out God's plan according to His will.

   Now I want to ask you a question: Are you overcoming just now? Are you able and do you have the character, the strength of will to do those things which you see you should do and which you know that you should do? Now if you do, that's fine, but if you don't, just what reason and by what reasoning do you think you're going to have the character then to overcome or to carry out the will of God then? Do you think you'll be able to do what God has told you to do then if you can't do it now? I don't see how, and I don't see by what reasoning you think you can.

   Well, it looks very serious. And it is about time that we got rid of the idea that we have heard expressed: "While I'm doing my best, I'm trying to overcome and God's going to see and understand, and he's going to overlook it." Well, turn back to Revelation, the 3rd chapter in the 21st verse (Revelation 3:21). It says, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." It doesn't say anything about he that tries to overcome, and it did not say Christ did not say, "Even as I tried to overcome." And I'm sat down with my Father and his throne, but it says, "As I overcame."

   Are we not to overcome also? Then if we can't do it and if we're not able to do it, and if we're not doing it as we should, then it's about time that we begin to ask for God's Holy Spirit in greater measure so that we can be able to. You heard what Mr. Cole said about the great power of the Holy Spirit this morning. Do you not think that great power is more powerful in your natures, if you just ask God to give you of His spirit? There's plenty of power there to overcome your nature and you're without excuse if you don't overcome it, because the way has been provided.

   Perhaps one reason why you can't overcome is that you're too close to the ways of this world. Now when you go into the ways of this world, you must realize that this world is under the rule now of Satan the devil because he was placed over it in the beginning. Christ - has the right to take it away from him, but he has not taken it away from him as yet.

   Now when you become a part of this world and its ways and you go into it, you are in effect saying, "That I think the way Satan is running this world is all right." You are approving that way. Now if you approve the way that Satan is ruling this world, you will never have a chance to rule it God's way because in approving Satan's way, you are saying, in effect, "I am not interested in the way God wants to rule this world, and I don't care about having any part in it." That is in fact what you're saying by your actions, whether you realize it or not.

   If you're not satisfied with the way this world is run, then don't be a part of it, have nothing to do with it. God wants someone to run it his way and he doesn't want someone that knows the wicked ways of this world. He wants someone that has come out and has studied and knows his word and his plan for ruling the world, and he wants someone that is willing to rule it with him his way.

   God is providing this reward that we have of being with him in his kingdom, and if God provides the reward, don't you think he has a right to set the conditions to receiving that reward? If anyone gives you a gift, he has the right to set the conditions that you have to meet to receive it. And you can't tell Him what the conditions are, or you can't, if you say "I don't want to meet the conditions," then you don't receive the gift. It's just that simple.

   And to be a son of God and to be with Him in His kingdom, you must be 100% in accord with the will of God. We turn to John the 17th chapter and the 21st verse (John 17:21), and you will see this: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me." Christ and the Father are one. And they say that they - He says that they may all be one. "As thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

   So you see, if you do want to become a part in ruling this world and actually seeing it happy and seeing the peoples of this world made happy - and a happiness that they long for but yet they run exactly the opposite way to find it - if you really want to be a part in it, then you have to overcome everything in your nature. You must overcome it completely.

   And at this time God is proving to Himself and to you whether or not you will carry out His will and whether or not you will carry out His work after He makes you His Son in His kingdom. He is proving that now by proving whether or not you will submit to His will, to His word, and to the authority of His ministers.

   Whenever they teach you what is in the Bible and when they give you commands on what things you are to do, and if you openly violate what they tell you to do now, then that is a sign that you would - not that you will, but that you would - violate what he tells you to do after you become His son. Now I did not say that you will violate it because you will not. You will not be His son. That's why the authority is placed in the church now to see whether or not you will obey it.

   So if we don't submit to God's law, and if we don't submit to the authority, and if we don't have love for our neighbor, and if we don't overcome all of our jealousies and our grumblings and everything of that nature, and if we don't wholeheartedly give ourselves over to God, if we don't come out of this world and put our every action and our every thought and everything that we do into the support and the carrying out of the work that God has given us to do now - the work of carrying His gospel to this world as a witness - then that simply means if we don't do it now that we would not carry out His work and His will in His kingdom, and we will not be in that kingdom at all. It's just that simple, and it's time we begin to realize it.

   Oh, I see there is one question here that I did overlook. I thought it was part of the material I was going to use in the message, and I do want to take care of these questions: "Will you please help me with this question? How can we worship the Lord on His Sabbath? There is no one and no place where they observe it in our country around about us. How then can we worship Him on the Sabbath? And any other information along this line, please help us."

   Well, I tell you, I should imagine that there are many of you out there that have to solve that very question. But how can you serve and how can you worship God where you are all alone? You know, I'm almost reminded of the time when I had been in my first ministerial campaign actually - well, it was really the 2nd, but it was the first one after I had been ordained, in the summer of 1931.

   And I came to find out later that the man who had come up and gotten himself hired by the conference of which I was then a member in Oregon - was really an ex-Pentecostal preacher. He had told us he was an ex-Seventh Adventist. Well, I guess he had been both, but he didn't tell us that he was a Pentecostal fellow, and it gradually began to come out and so he was organizing what they call these tarry meetings, you know, to start going over words and saying "glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory" and keep it up about an hour. You know, we kept it up then long enough to lose all meaning and all of the antics that they go through which are so totally non-scriptural and contrary to the word of God.

   And he said, "Brother," he said, "you need to come out to this tarry meeting." He said, "We're going to have an all-night tarry meeting." He said, "So you get your baptism of the Holy Spirit."

   Well, I said, "Everything further that I need to get from God, I would rather follow the example of Jesus and go out to a place all alone, if possible, to up on a mountain, all alone and pray to Him alone."

   "Oh," he said, "you'll never get it that way, brother."

   I said, "Well, anything that I can't get that way, brother, I don't want. If I have to get it from other men, I don't want it."

   Now brethren, it is nice if we can fellowship together and worship God together, I think that's nicer. But if there isn't anything that you need to get that you can get only from men. Now the worship of God is expressing your love and your admiration and your obedience to God. Just what is worship anyway? And is there anything that involves worship to God that you can do with other people that you can't do alone? The only thing that I know of is if you do have a minister of God who has the truth and you can have a service where he is preaching and you are not a minister and you might not have that alone. But what else is there that you could get from other people?

   Now I think the answer is simply this, and I think it's what a lot of you are doing - that when the Sabbath day comes, spend your time, for instance, like I did the time when I knew something was wrong because my wife was very ill. It was shortly before our younger son Ted was born. And she was quite anemic and the doctor was very much worried because he was afraid she might not pull through on her weakened condition and she needed iron in her blood and he wanted to give her iron pills and tablets and of course we wouldn't take them and we were relying on God.

   And so it just seemed though that God hadn't healed her yet. And I say "yet" because he doesn't always do it as quickly as we expect. And that was the time when I made up my mind that there was something wrong with us somewhere. I said, "There's nothing wrong with God and his promises are absolutely certain. Now if for any reason He has delayed, for some reason He is refusing to do it so far it is our fault, not His, and I don't know whether it's our fault, so I have to do something about it to find out."

   So I began one Sabbath morning to fast and pray to find what was wrong. I said, "There must be something wrong with me, but I don't know what it is. But I'm going to fast and pray and ask God and I believe he'll show me what it is." Now if you're willing to be shown, I think God will show you, and he showed me all right.

   Now I devoted my time approximately 3 ways. I would read and study the Bible for perhaps a half hour or an hour - probably at least an hour. Well, of course, you get tired doing that after a while and you don't get as much out of it. So after an hour, I ceased to study the Bible, and I went into a room alone, shut the door. I got on my knees and then I began to pray. And I prayed for about a solid hour. I just talked to God.

   When you pray, you're talking to God. And I want to tell you that if you have repented of your sins, and if they have been cleared away through the blood of Christ, you have been reconciled to God, and then his ear is open to your cry, and he's listening. Don't you think he isn't?

   So I spent about an hour just talking it over with Him. Now, I didn't ask him for what we needed. I never mentioned the fact that I wanted Him to heal my wife. I didn't spend that hour begging Him to do something. You don't have to spend long hours begging God to do something. If you think you'll be heard by your much speaking, you haven't read God's word and you don't know His instruction. But I talked with Him about things. And I talked to Him about myself and what was wrong.

   I didn't see it, but I said, "I'm willing to see it. Now I know that when you show me it's going to be pretty uncomfortable. I'm not going to like it, but I said, I've come to the place that I would rather have my wife healed and I would rather know what's wrong with me that prevents it than to avoid this humiliation or suffering or whatever it's going to be when you show me what's wrong." You know, it's never pleasant to find out where you're wrong and admit it. That's taking punishment, but I said I'm willing to take that punishment because the result is bigger.

   Well, I didn't find out yet. Then I spent about an hour in thinking about it, trying to reason it over. Now I spent an hour in studying the Bible and that hour I spent looking up about how to fast and pray incidentally. And I spent an hour in prayer. Now I just contemplated, thought it over, reasoned it out in my mind. I sat there and thought about an hour.

   Then I picked up the Bible and I read another hour and studied. Now I tried to turn to things that would show me what was wrong with me. Then I spent another hour in prayer and well, I don't remember whether it was an hour every time because you know, Ted is past 25 now, and that was before he was born, so as a matter of fact, it was 25 years ago, last either late January or February. That's exactly what it was. It's over 25 years ago.

   But I kept that up all day. And evening came and I hadn't found out where the trouble was yet. I was getting pretty hungry by that time. And when you're good and hungry, you can get closer to God than you can when your stomach is completely full and you've overeateen on a big Thanksgiving dinner, I can tell you that.

   Well, I went to bed and had a night's sleep and woke up the next morning and I went at it again. And I kept at it until about 2:30 or 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon. And by that time I knew where the trouble was. I'd read enough scriptures and I'd prayed to God enough and I began to feel altogether different. And the trouble, it wasn't any great thing and yet it was a terribly great thing too.

   Well, we were in a time of financial hardship and I was trying to earn a living. I wasn't in the ministry, of course, yet. I had to earn the family living and things were, everything was going against us and I was desperately trying to earn a living, and I'd been out in the world, and I had gotten too close to the world and too far away from God, and I finally came to see it. There wasn't any one thing I had done that was so terribly wrong or sinful, except this one thing of neglecting God and getting too close to the world, and that is a very sinful thing.

   Well, I think I properly repented of it. And I did thank God though that he had brought me back close enough to Him again where I really had that fellowship, and I know my prayers when I first started out on Sabbath morning, didn't seem to even go as high as the ceiling. It didn't seem like God was listening, but I made up my mind I'd stay with it and keep praying anyhow. But by Sunday afternoon, I was in communion with God and I knew my prayers were going all the way to Him and I knew He was listening. And it was the most real thing in the world.

   Well, I've told it to you. I've told it over the air. You've all heard it. It was such an unusual thing that I've told it a good many times because it was one of the very moving and outstanding experiences of my life, and you'll probably hear me tell it again. But one of our children, one of the girls who were 10 years older than our boys - I shouldn't give their ages away, but then they happen to be - and I heard them saying, "I was in the bedroom with the door closed, playing," and I heard them saying, "Oh, here comes Grandma and Grandpa."

   And so I thought I should go out. My father and mother were coming. And so now I knew that my mission was accomplished, and I knew I could ask God now and my wife would be healed. But when I began to ask Him, I thought of other things. I asked him to heal her and to give her the iron that she needed in her blood and just cause it to be there so that all of her anemia and everything would be completely healed, that He would supply what was lacking.

   We had to have at least $75 or $85, whichever it was, for the hospital bills. She was going to have to go to the hospital in 2 or 3 weeks and I don't think Dick was not paid for yet and we couldn't get in the hospital unless we had the money and so I asked him to send the money for the hospital bill. And then it came to me some other things - that we didn't have any fuel and we were out of food and I asked him to send it and I asked him to give me something that would provide the money that we needed and so that I could earn it.

   And then I happened to think that I was going with an overcoat with a hole that big over around here and one hip or the other. And I had to go into office buildings downtown in the middle of the winter - it was cold and I'd wear that overcoat with that great big hole that big on the streetcar and walking on the street, I don't know how it looked to people. But when I go into an office building, before I got in the elevator, I'd take it off and fold it so that the hole was on the inside and didn't show it hanging over my left arm and I'd walk in and do business.

   So I told God that I needed a new overcoat and asked him if he would see that I had one, and then I knew I had to run. I hadn't prayed over 20 or 25 seconds, but I had to hurry because my mother and dad were out there by that time and so I said, "Well, Lord," I said, "it just comes to me this scripture that you know what things we have need of before we ask you. There's probably a lot of other things I need and I haven't time to ask you. You send them all," and I thanked Him for it and I ran out to Dad and Mother.

   Well, there they were, the whole back end of their Ford car - Model T or Model A, I forget which - the backseat had been taken out and it was filled with enough wood to last us a week, so we could keep warm and mother had the dinner all cooked, just had to be heated up and there was the food that I'd asked for out there just like that. And so we enjoyed the visit with them. About dark they went back home and got up the next morning, and my wife's cheeks were red and she didn't paint it on, and the doctor didn't understand what had happened.

   And of course the next mail was Monday morning. And it wasn't in cash, it wasn't the way I asked it, but there was the hospital bill, just the same, or the money for it. My wife's mother had been dead for a good many years since she was 12 years old, and then her grandparents when they died, left some money that should have gone to their children and her mother should have had a share. Well her mother's share went to their children. And one of the brothers had gotten it all and another brother had written a letter and he said that there was one of the brothers, one of my wife's uncles who lived in Portland and he had gotten a lot of the money.

   He says, "I'm writing him a letter and you take this letter to him and it just occurs to us that you're going to have a hospital bill coming up out there and you take this to him and your share will be a little more than enough for that hospital bill and you see that he takes care of it." Well, actually, we never did get the excess, but he went over and signed up at the hospital, and I suppose he paid it later, but that's the way that came.

   And that morning I was downtown and my brother saw my overcoat looking pretty shabby, and he wanted to buy me an overcoat and I began to say, "Well, I wouldn't take an overcoat from you." I said, "You've got your family to look after" and you know that just humiliated me all over. I wasn't going to let my brother buy me an overcoat.

   He said, "You go over and pick out one and there's a sale on over at Myron Frank's" and he said, "Noon, I'll come over and charge it on my account." He says, "It won't hurt me because I know now it was about the 20th of January. And he said, beginning this morning anything put on my bill will not be billed to me the first of this month, but not until the 1st of March," and he said, "I've got the March 10th to keep my credit good. So he said, I've got almost, well over a month and a half there, and I can handle it by that time, you go over and get an overcoat."

   And I was talking myself out of it and something said to me, you know, just like a voice that came into my mind, of course, there wasn't any real voice. I said, "Didn't you ask God for an overcoat and aren't you trying to argue about the way He's giving it to you?" and then I had to shut up and say I'd go over and take the overcoat.

   Well, there were other things that came that I had not talked about that God did think of that came later that same week. It was most miraculous. Now, I'll tell you if on the Sabbath, if you divide your time between Bible study and prayer and just talking about things and about the Bible, reading and studying the Plain Truth, the Good News, the Bible Correspondence Course, some of our booklets together among yourselves or even alone by yourself if there's no other person - I'll tell you, you can worship God. I hope that answers the question. You don't have to have other people.

   And I want to tell you that while it's a blessing to be able to fellowship with other people, it's one of those blessings that carries a responsibility with it, and you brethren who have a church, there's always a tendency that that church, that your fellowship will become nothing but a social club. And you get so wrapped up in each other in your social affairs that you forget to worship God. That's what's happened to most of the churches all over this land. And it's going to happen to you if you're not very, very careful.

Sermon Given the 4th Day of Unleavened Bread.