Herbert W Armstrong

   I'll tell you one thing, uh, I, perhaps more than any, or my brother could give this as an example because I, from the time I was born, my folks have been coming into this truth. I, as a child more than any other of yours perhaps have been sitting in congregations just like this, listening to sermons from the time I was a baby. Right on up, and I know this as well as you do, that that implants something in your mind that these children that are here, sure they're fidgety, they move about and they're nervous and they have nervous energy and no they can't understand the way you can, but something goes in that little ear and they pick it up and they take it out of here with them and they remember it. You know they do. All of you know they do. They pick those things up, they listen, and they remember, and it makes an impression on their minds. It sure does. And they aren't going to forget it later on either.

   Now some that are older have heard a lot of these things and they'll use the same excuse that I use. It's, it's the most uh foolish excuse you could possibly use. I used to say, "Well, sure, I've been taught this in the time I was a child, but I'm not baptized yet, so it doesn't apply to me." I used to come up to some of the students in school in Ambassador College when they were baptized and really striving to live by every word of God, and I wasn't. Remember in particular, Raymond McNair, I used to give him a lot of trouble poor Raymond. He used to argue with him about various things as to how to keep the Sabbath and what he ought to do on the Sabbath and so on and so forth. Raymond was very patient with me. He'd always turn to me and he'd say, "Well now Dick, if you just believe in these things, why aren't you doing it?" And I'd always say, "Well, Raymond, I'm not baptized." Very, very foolish thing for me to say. That shows about how intelligent I was, doesn't it? It does. It shows just about how intelligent I was.

   There are some who grow up to an age where they can hear these things, they understand and they know. But they're just young and because they have not been taught from the very first. As babes what to do with themselves, how to govern themselves, how to overcome. They're not overcoming now. As a result, we have two schools, high schools, and we have some children in there that don't entirely know how to govern themselves and how to overcome what to do with themselves. They still need parental guidance because they're not capable of getting out and taking the responsibility on their own shoulders.

   I can say this as my father always said to me when I was a young man, to anyone who is young, this is a good example. I wanted the car. I said, "Dad, can I have the car tonight?" He said, "Sure, son, you can have a car, but before I give you the keys, do you realize that if you take that car out, I am putting a machine into your hands with which you can kill people, you can destroy their property. You can get me put into jail because you are under age and I'm responsible for you. You can do either a great deal of damage or you can take this thing and you can use it as it should be and have the enjoyment. And have that responsibility, but," he said, "you've got to realize that it isn't just something that you can hop in and go out and uh and uh flash around in front of the other kids and have a gay old time. And not take on your own shoulders those responsibilities which come with it." That helped me a lot to realize just exactly what it was. You have to take responsibility on your own soldiers.

   Any time that a child is able to be obedient to do what he should, he doesn't need a, uh, a parent perhaps to tell him what to do if he's doing all right. But then what does he need a parent for, to tell him when he gets out of line. Now, as we read, what is our relationship with God? We're here to do what? To learn to be kings and priests. Revelation the 20th chapter to rule for 1000 years with Christ in His government to assume responsibility. That's what we're going to do is assume responsibility over a certain position or portion of the government for teaching these backward people because the nation of Israel is going to be used to spread out. Over all this earth and teach them the things they now don't know.

   Who's going to be Christ's actually, uh, first mate or, second in command. David is because Israel is the group that's going to be used to teach all these other people how to live by the word of God. Now I want to ask you one more question. What people are they going to teach? What people? Let's turn back. Micah, the 4th chapter. Beginning in the first verse (Micah 4:1), "But in the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountain." In other words, the government of God shall be established in the top of all other governments, and it's going to rule over them. "And um, it shall be exalted above the hills and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his way, and we will walk in his path, for the law shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many people. And rebuke strong nations afar off until they beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up a sword against nations. Neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make him afraid, for the mouth of the Eternals of host has spoken it. For all people will walk. Everyone in the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. In that day, sayeth the Eternal, I will assemble her that halts. I will gather her that is driven out and her that I have afflicted." Israel is to be scattered among the heathen nations. I'm going through some verses in a moment that bring that out. "And he is to gather them and he says, I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast off a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in the Mount Zion from henceforth even forever." And in verse 8 of chapter 5 (Micah 5:8), "And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people, as a lion among the beasts of the forest, a young lion among the rocks, a sheep who she go through both treads down and tears in pieces, and none can deliver." These people are going to tear us down and tread us to pieces and we will be merely a small remnant. In the midst, scattered abroad, that's for the United States in general. That's not for us, but that is for a lot of our relatives that don't understand yet today. And are not preparing themselves. "Your hand shall be lifted up upon your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off. And in that it shall come to pass in that day, sayeth the Lord that I will cut off your horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots, and I will cut off the cities of thy land and throw down all thy stronghold. So he says, I will execute vengeance and anger and fury upon the heathens such as they have not heard," and so on.

   Now come back to, uh, Isaiah the 6th chapter and verse 13 (Isaiah 6:13). Well, coming on through here. Uh, he said that he had, uh, that, that, uh, these people would hear and understand not they'd see and perceive not make the heart of the people fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand that their heart be converted and be healed. Then said I, "How long?" And he answered, "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitants and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate. And the Lord have removed men far away and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tent, and it shall, uh, be, uh, again. It shall return and shall be eaten even as a teal tree and as an oak whose substance is in them when they are cast when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."

   Now there is to be a tenth saved, it'll be as an oak tree. The nation will when an oak tree is cast down and sheds its leaves, what happens? The life is still in the root. In the tender roots, the life is still in there and it will still grow, even though you cut the tree down, even though you take a teal tree and you destroy it, and you cut it down, it will still sprout again from what, from these tender roots. And there will be a tenth. A tithe of Israel left from which God is going to again raise a nation. And among those I hope will be some of the children who are here today and yet even to be begotten by those in. The Church of God Who can actually go into the kingdom, they don't have to be destroyed now.

   You've often heard the question and had it answered in the magazine, what about a baby that died? And is only a few days old and has never had a chance. And we understand and you've had sermons preached to you, some of you are new and have not understood this, but if you'll turn to Revelation the 20th chapter, uh, I can't go through all that of the white uh throne judgment right now at this time, but there from verse 11 on through verse 15 to the end (Revelation 20:11-15), you find there is a time coming when those who have died not having a chance. They have not had a chance yet. They shall be raised up. They shall have all of this truth preached to them, and they shall have a chance of either accepting it or throwing it away, doing what they should wish. They're going to have the same chance you've had, but they won't have the same opportunity for position that you have because you now have a chance to prepare in helping and teaching them later on, you see. They are still going to have a lot to overcome, but they won't ever attain the same position that any of us could in the government of God, and that's a fact. None of us can ever do what David did because he has already been given those things by God and promised the position that he will have.

   Now, come down to, uh, let's see, um. Uh, Isaiah, the 24th chapter. A lot of things that we could go through and here about uh the kingdom of God and it's coming. And uh I'm sorry I turned past it here. Verse chapter 24 and uh verse 20 (Isaiah 24:20). "At this time, the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard and shall be removed like a cotty, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall and not rise again, and it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the hosts of the high ones that are on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth, and they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit and shall be shut up in the prison. And after many days shall they be punished. The moon shall be confounded in the sun," and so on. And uh that uh that uh "the moon shall be confounded and sun ashamed when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his ancients gloriously. Oh Lord, thou art my God. I will exalt thee. I will praise thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth, for thou hast made of a city and heat of a spent city a ruin, a palace of strangers to the old city. It shall never be built. Therefore, shall the strong people glorify thee. The city of the terrible nation shall fear thee, for thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall."

   Now this church as such, has the promise of being taken to a place of safety. In Revelation. Where it talks about the Church of Philadelphia. And the particular era in which we are in the 3rd chapter. In verse 10 (Revelation 3:10), "Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth." At that time, God is going to keep us as a church.

   Now I think there is one thing that we uh should understand. We know that in uh, the millennium, there will be babes and children there, and we know that the lion is going to lay down with the lamb. They'll both eat straw together. God is going to take the wild nature out of them. The child shall play at the hole of the den of the ass, the snake, and there shall not be no fear. God's going to wipe all of those things out and we find, as Mr. Cole was reading, uh, last night, I believe it was in Zechariah the 14th chapter, that in the kingdom, the nations of men, of physical human beings are going to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. They're going to come up to Jerusalem every year to keep this feast. They're going to be obedient. Now the nation of Israel, of those who are the saints that are being saved now and called out will be instructing them, and there is also going to be a physical nation of Israel. There is also going to be a remnant, a small remnant of Israel that will be saved out of that.

   Now I'll ask you this question, as God reveals Himself in the Bible and reveals his nature and what it is. Whom do you think he would save for that remnant? I just ask you, if God reveals Himself, do you believe that he would take? The children of those in this church and allow them to be cast out. No, and actually I want to ask this question, are the children a member of the congregation? The answer is yes.

   Let's turn back to Corinthians. I Corinthians, the 7th chapter. God chose this (I Corinthians 7:3). That we are To render unto the wife through benevolence and likewise also the wife under the husband. That we're to, if we would have power remain unmarried, nevertheless, if not to go ahead and marry, it's far better to marry than to burn in your passion. And also that if one has a mate that is unconverted, God says, "If she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife." You're not just to leave, "for the unbelieving husband is sanctified." Verse 14 chapter 7 (I Corinthians 7:14). "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy."

   Now, does that mean that they'll be saved? No, we've just read those verses. It shows that they shall not enter into salvation, the land shall not be saved because of the righteousness of anyone. They, even the righteous shall deliver only their own, uh, their own souls themselves. They shall not deliver any other one. The actual truth of the matter is this. That any of us who have children are so held responsible for teaching them righteousness. There are the commands, "Honor thy father and thy mother." To whom is that command given, I ask you. It's given every bit as much to the parents. As it is to the child. Because that presupposes the fact that you have the responsibility for teaching that to your children. It does.

   The whole trouble is, I think with a lot of us. That we just didn't begin right in the first place. And actually, as God has given us authority and shows that it comes from the ministers down to the the head of the house who is the husband. He is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. I know when my wife and I were married, that in the ceremony my father read that and we took a vow that we would both be obedient to those scriptures. That she would obey me, as she would be obedient unto Christ, that she would reverence me as her husband. I took a vow to love her even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. To provide for her and care for her and do all of those other things.

   Now, naturally when you're first married, you have a few problems. Things do come up that have to be settled. And I know that frankly a lot of our problems here in the church are in relationship with husband to wife and, and uh sometimes with our children, our children are not always as ruly as they should be. And I can tell you this. That God has given the church a place of safety where he is going to take it from this time of trouble it is to come. And if your children are obedient, if they are being brought up correctly, and if they're not, just literally the snotty little brats that are going to go off and are being that they are learning so much disobedience now. That they would be the, the kind that would defile a kingdom of of of physical human beings that God would save as a remnant of Israel for the millennium, God will take them out of the way. He is going to punish this nation and wipe away their sins and save a remnant that he can take on in and again re-establish this government, not this government, but this people as uh a nation with his government of all the tribes of Israel.

   Now that doesn't include the 144,000 in the great and innumerable multitude. Those people are to be brought into the born-again state of the family of God. That does not include physical human beings, but there are to be physical human beings out of Israel saved for that time. I can just say this, that it's a matter purely and simply that by his own righteousness, well, is a child responsible? No. Up to what age? There's no age you can give. I can't say your child is responsible at 12 or your child is responsible at 18. It isn't altogether true. That's an age that only you or they or God or according to their ability and, and, uh, what is the knowledge and instruction that they have had can be determined. But you are responsible for your young children. I will be responsible for mine.

   You believe that as long as I know that, and as long as I have the command for teaching them to be honorable and respectful toward me, to be obedient to God's command, that if I then being in God's church, raise a child that is disobedient, that goes off and does everything and will join teenage gangs. And commit crimes and do everything that it shouldn't, and I allow him to go right on and keep Christmas and Easter and New Year's and all these other heathen days, and I more than that, let him get into temper tantrums where he learns to have murder in his heart. I just teach him to become a murderer. Do you think that as long as I have that responsibility that I am going to get through on the skin of my teeth knowing that? I tell you no. Because I'm not fulfilling the righteousness, I'm not living up to every word of God unless I do equip my responsibility in teaching my children to live as they should.

   Now, as the Father shall not bear the iniquity of the Son, neither shall a son bear the iniquity of the Father. That doesn't mean that any of you that have young children. And because you can say, "Well, they're disobedient, but maybe they'll be cast out. Maybe they'll be uh just be uh done away with here because they're, they're not good and they're not minding me." And you'll get on through. That's not so. Frankly, your responsibility as a parent entails teaching them and keeping them in line.

   You know, the Bible says that the youth should rise up before the hoary head. That's a command. Did you know that? How many of you did know it? I just wonder, it's in your Bible, I've read it. That means the child is to stand up and rise and show that honor to those who are of white hair and of age and show that respect unto them. Now how many of our children actually do that? Very few. We think we're being horribly strict with our children if we taught them to do things like that, wouldn't we? Children are actually to be seen and not heard. That's a fact. They should be quiet and learn to respect their elders, but we say in this day and age we can't do it, and I tell you we can.

   The Bible says. Back here in uh, it's in Proverbs. I forget the exact verse now, but I'll look it up here and see if I can come to it, uh, as I am talking. That uh it says "a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding," and that's in the 10th chapter of Proverbs and the 13th verse (Proverbs 10:13). "In the lips of him that has understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding." Oh that's the fact we're to paddle our children.

   Yet I want to make one thing very plain and very, very clear. There are two things that personally, uh, rile me up. There are, there are 2 things that just personally rile me up because it is so contrary. And I've mentioned this before in churches where I have preached this kind of a sermon. Our children are to be obedient. They're to learn to sit there and don't think they can't sit in church and get something out of the message. They can. I did, and I'm here to tell you that I did all the time I was growing up. My brother will tell you the same thing. His children do, and my children are going to. They'll sit in church and they'll listen and they'll, they'll get something. It'll penetrate into their heads and they'll know. They may not understand everything, but they at least know, and it makes them feel that they are a part of the congregation, which they are. And they should be here too.

   Some people I've known in the past wouldn't come to church because they were afraid to bring their children. Their children were too unruly, and they actually, week after week would go by and wouldn't come right where they lived in a town where we had a local congregation because their children were so unruly. Well, I just had to let them know that if that situation wasn't rectified, they weren't in the church of God anyhow and they better not come. But you know your children should come and they should sit there and they should learn to be quiet.

   But every time a sermon like this is preached, there are a few who will go overboard, it seems, and they'll, they'll spank their children more than you should. Now what is your example? It makes me feel bad. It breaks my heart, and I know my brother. You've heard him preach so many times about this particular subject on the radio. Yet he himself has seen where some have gone beyond and done what they should not to their children and raised wealth where they shouldn't have been. Now God forbid that any of you should do anything of that nature whatsoever.

   You've got to use the same kind of love in punishing your children that God uses with you and he never does it in anger. God doesn't know anger the way you know it. God only knows anger against sin because it isn't good for you. God chastises you. Why? Because he loves you. Isn't that true? Surely. God chastises you because it is good for you and every time God does deal with you in that manner, it is for your good, not because you have annoyed him. He is not a parent to us as we are sometimes to our children. He is not the God that most people think he is. He's a loving, tender hearted kind God who is looking out for our every good thing. So that everything wonderful and good can happen to us. Some parents, even as I read you there in Hebrews the 12th chapter, they punish their children for their pleasure rather than for the good of the child. Now don't ever let me see that happen in any uh congregation that I'm over. I'm over Fresno right now and I think they understand that and the others of you should too. You punish your children. And be diligent in it. Do it right and see to it that they're brought up in the Lord, but you've also got to teach them respect, they've got to have respect for you.

   I want to go into just a few things that that entails too, but first I want to say this. There always are. Mr. Meredith and I were discussing this some last night just for a moment or two. The fact is, you know, when you're young, you're a lot more able to live with children. Now, God has just made it so that when you're younger you have your children. And when you're older, you cease and quit bearing children because it isn't good for older people to have children. They get on your nerves easily. My father and mother love their grandchildren, but they don't want them around too long or too much. They've raised us now. They've brought us up. We're going to raise our children or are raising them. I'm the only one that doesn't have any yet, and as I say, I think we have, we, we do have one on the way. Uh, my sisters, both have one has 4, the other has 2, and Ted has 3 children. I have 2 sisters. All have children. The folks have raised, my parents have raised us. They're not about to raise any little bitty children, and I, right now, if somebody gave me tomorrow a child that was one year old, and I all of a sudden had to take that one year old child and begin to raise it and get on my nerves, and I couldn't do a good job, you know that.

   Mr. Meredith had said, you know, when their baby Elizabeth was born, it's wonderful and marvelous how God has made those things work out. First few weeks, all I do is sleep and you kind of get used to having them around. That's right. You just kind of get used to the fact that you're a father. He said it wasn't any real blow to him. I still can't understand what it's going to be like to be a parent, but as you go through pregnancy with your wife, you understand the anticipation of waiting for a child, and when it comes, and right then is when you've got to really prepare. My wife and I are realizing that we're starting to work on it. We were working on it yesterday. One thing is this the home has to be ready to receive a child, not just with blankets and rattles and cribs. No, that's not what I'm talking about. There's got to be love and there's got to be peace, and there has to be God's government in the home. That's what has to be there in order that your children can be what they should.

   The man has to be the head of the house and the wife has to be obedient unto him, calling him Lord, giving him honor. And actually that means reverencing her husband. The Bible says that means what it says that the wife is to reverence her husband. Now, they don't always realize that a lot of times, you know, uh, I just say this about Louis, my wife, uh. She's young yet and uh she has a lot of things to learn. I don't worry about that, so do you and so do I. But I find that she jokes about certain things. Uh, that, that she shouldn't have been joking about that was not showing a a a correct respect and reverence to her husband. I kind of hesitate about ever saying anything about that because it looked like my feelings are hurt. Maybe I'm puffed up and I don't want her saying these things about me. I tried to explain to her that it has nothing to do with me, it's her. God has given her a command in the Bible and as her husband, I am properly reverence and as a minister, especially before others. And she's had to learn that. You don't always know these things immediately, but as Ted said the other day, if there is friction in the home, you can expect disobedience from the children.

   And frankly, I think that's what it goes back to in almost every case. If a husband isn't the head of the house, and if what he says doesn't go, you can expect the children to know that they can get away with it too, because what they see happening between husband and wife, they can get away with and that's the biggest cause of a lack of discipline in your home. Believe it or not, brethren, it is not in most cases a lack of spanking the children. Sometimes I think you even spank your children too much. Oh, I think that that that that's a fact. In some cases they spank the children too much. What they lack is the husband being the head of the house and having authority there and sometimes it is, frankly just the wife that needs the spanking and not the child.

   I'll tell you this, it's happened amongst the minister. I've never spanked my wife. I would if the occasion arose. Told her that right after I uh asked her to marry me. I said, "Of course you realize now what this means." She knew it right from the first, and then I took her up to Fresno after we got back from here and preached a sermon about, uh, wives being obedient to their husbands, turned back here to Timothy and Titus where it says "that wives be obedient unto their husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." That's in Titus 2:5. "Be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blaspheme." I wonder how many wives just stop to think that they can be blaspheming the word of God and even speaking in the wrong tone of voice to their husbands. Oh, that's a fact. I'll just stop. I'll, uh, uh, let my wife know sometimes that she shouldn't be doing it.

   The wonderful thing is I want you all to understand she is converted and she does repent and I want you husbands to realize that I too as a young man just being married here not so long, just some few months now, I've had to realize that I can be overly strict. And I have, and I want you to realize that I love my wife and I hope you husbands all do take the admonition that Christ gave you to love your wife as he loved the church and even gave himself for it. You know, I've been overly strict and I've had to apologize to my wife sometimes for being that way. After all, basically, love is the whole principle on which it's founded.

   God is love, and he's a kind of love that rises above human emotion. Christ did not talk back to people when they spat at him. He took it. Why? He had love for them. He said, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." He had enough love that he could suffer everything they could do to him and still maintain a right attitude. How many of you as a husband or wife can do exactly that? Now how many of you can? Do you expect that you can teach other people how to live and rule over whole nations? Teach them what marital relations should be when your own or not right? No, you can't.

   Do you women think that you can teach other women by the millions how to live and help them and counsel with them with their problems when they bring one to you. My wife's finding that out now, you know, women will come to her with a problem that they have in the home, and they, they want to know now what will I do, how will I act toward my husband in this instance? Do you think you can tell others about that in the job for which you're preparing yourself if you don't do right now? No, you husbands think you can. I know a lot of people, they just say, "Well, uh, we can't help it. The husband won't be the head in our house, so the wife's got to be, and that's the way it is." Well, it's too bad. I wonder if you'll get in the kingdom of God. I frankly do. You can't kid yourself about it. Mr. Armstrong always says, you know, the Bible says, "Don't deceive yourselves" and you shouldn't. The problem with children is usually residents. And you'll find out what it is that right in the relationship with the father and the mother, the husband and the wife.

   My father was mentioning in a ministerial meeting in here the other day how that he did have a problem when we were growing up, and I know that my mother did side sometimes with we children. You know, when we were being punished, that's a terrible thing. That's something you've got to root out. The mother will tell a father to punish them, and then side in with the children because it hurts when it happens. That happens, I'll tell you though. My brother's fairly, fairly well, I guess got that worked out in his home. Doesn't seem to be much of a problem there and one of the cutest things that I've ever seen, my father told you some cute things about his grandchildren. I'll tell you one more. Uh, Ted lives very close to the colleagues and I, uh, will be down there once in a while, stopping in the morning to see the children. Ted come rushing in. He has 10 minutes between a class. Mark will be playing around and have toys just thrown out in front of the house in the, in the garden, you know, and then the lawn there and all around the room. Ted snaps his finger and says, "Mark, go pick up those toys and put them away right now, and he says, when you get, when I get home, you're going to get a sinking." Well, you know, Mark says, "Yes, sir," and he runs and he picks up his toys and he puts them away, and I've seen and it's fantastic. I've never seen anything like this before. I've seen that boy when I came home with my brother in the evening take off his belt, hold it up to him and say, "Daddy, I'm supposed to get a spanking this evening." I'm not lying either. That's a fact. I've seen it happen. I've seen him remind his father that he had a spanking coming. I never did that. I think I used everything I possibly could to get away from it. Uh, that's a fact. I just get out of it in any way that I possibly could.

   But actually, what, what is it? We can take our children, we can teach them to be what they should. So that actually I've often wondered, am I now, uh, at my age, marrying and starting a family just producing a family that should be destroyed in the Holocaust to come. They're not old enough to be converted. No, they won't be even then, perhaps don't know, don't know how much time there is, but suppose I have a son, a daughter, or 2 or 3 sons and daughters. By that time, they're only about 10, 11, 12 years old, or even younger, does that mean that God would call me to go and to leave them? That they should just be forsaken, that God will give them no protection whatsoever. No, you've got to realize, as he pointed out in I Corinthians the 7th chapter, the husband is sanctified by the wife, and that means the marriage. It's speaking thereof the marital union, and it means that the marriage is sanctified even though you're told in other places that you're not to enter into any union with an unbeliever, and that's true. Once you're in the church, you can't marry somebody outside of it. You're only to marry somebody in the church. You may have to wait a while before God provides the right one, but you'll be happy if you do as I did and wait. You'd be very happy because God always gives you a better one than you'd ever get for yourself. And you know that that's just the way he does work things out for you. But your marriage is sanctified by God. It is God who ordained marriage in the first place, and he put the husband as the head of the house, and he met him to rule. He met him to rule with love, and he met us to teach our children to be obedient.

   Now, I'll just tell you frankly that I hope in future years, that my children will not be the remnant which will be scattered abroad amongst the heathens. But that even though I, and I've often discussed this with some of the younger ministers, that as I read you, we shall be delivered up. Into synagogues, that means right into churches and into the palaces and before throne. Many of us are going to actually be put to death. Now that doesn't mean that you have anything to fear. This church as such has a place to go, a place of safety to be protected from the time of trial. But as I've mentioned in Pasadena. What would be the better thing for one of us who is younger, those who know the Bible and are able to do as Paul said that he would pray that God would be glorified in his body, whether it be by life or by death, to live or die for Christ, that it would be better than just to pass off in some sweet old dream in a back room where nobody ever heard about it to actually die for Christ. He set up us a perfect example that we should follow in his footsteps. And yet I know that if anything like that should ever have to happen to me as a minister, and I, I frankly think that it it it might to those of us who are younger ministers. As time goes by, we don't have any reason to expect that the younger of us, uh, should not be used in that way, and I would count it an honor and a glory. Any of the rest would too, and I hope you would because you know, here is the patience of the saints that they keep God's commandments and love not their lives unto death.

   Well, I still don't think that that is anything that's going to have to happen to my children. They would go on and though they're not old enough to be converted, live into the kingdom of God when we will find the condition prevailing on this earth that I can bear children not to go into the time of trouble that we hear about and just die in that or anything like that at all, but that I can bear children now that are actually though I can be converted and go on into the kingdom of God. Be born again and be there guiding and teaching them and other nations that I hope to see generations of my own. How many generations take place in 1000 years. There's roughly 1 every 30 years, isn't there? We can just figure out how many great great grandchildren of my own I expect to see then during the millennium, because I think that my own children are going to be responsible. I'm going to be responsible for them and seeing that they are obedient enough that God will take them physically into the millennium, not spiritually born again. That doesn't happen to babies or little children, but God will protect them, and they are holy to this congregation. They're a member of the congregation. They're not a member of the church actually as such, and yet they are. You understand what I mean. They're not begotten of God's spirit, yet they are precious and holy. They are a heritage of the Lord. They are given to us by Him. God will see to it that they are saved, but you bear the responsibility for seeing they're the type of an obedient child that will do what he's told, out of which God could raise another nation in Israel. That's a fact. You take these sweet little children and you know that God can use them.

   And here's another thing. I was just reading last night, a lot of these verses here, and I forget I've got so many of them down here and I'm not going to have time or wish to use them all now at all. But God shows, you know, that he's going to take. Uh, all of it wipe the tears away from their eyes and, uh, I forget just where that is, but I'll have a chance to bring it to you again, where he says "in that day shall the lame and the hulk leap. The deaf shall hear and the blind shall see." God's going to take away all of those things, you know, we as mankind are suffering now in a lot of ways the faults of our elders, the faults of ourselves, and a result of degeneration and breeding. And just in human relationships and breeding, a lot of us are not what we should be.

   And as a result, one thing that you can know that from all of this atom bomb and hydrogen and the ren and exposure that has come to this earth, men are going to breed monsters in a few years. That's a fact. Bible says so and you'll see it come to pass. You will see it come to pass because of all these shots they're pumping into their bodies, because of all the X-rays they're taking, and now the society, this X-ray society meeting in Washington DC last week has realized that and said so. They've come right out and said that that's one of the greatest dangers of that is what it has on reproduction. They're going to breed those things, but at that time, even though we, being as weak as we are, might have certain things like that wrong, God says he'll take those out of our children at that time, that they would henceforth breed no more anything like that. He's going to set aright once again the things that he originally put in Adam, those laws and everything like that will be healed so that they would normally produce. Offspring that would be perfect. That's a fact. God's going to wipe away all of those tears and everything like that. We'll be able to enter into His kingdom. And I, I hope that this is the world that my children are going to to live in.

   Turn with me to Isaiah the 11th chapter (Isaiah 11:1). "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Eternal." That is the promise of Jesus Christ to come as our Savior. And in verse 5 (Isaiah 11:5), "righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reign. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and little child shall lead them, and the cow and the bear shall feed. Their young ones shall lie down together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox and the sucking child. Play on the whole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice or the adders then. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

   There is the world into which I hope any children that I produce now shall go, and yours too. If they're not old enough, you'd better make sure that they're obedient enough and that they are the type that God would see fit to bring them into the physical kingdom of Israel at that time. There's something that he loves very much. We have a service here that we go through every year, where Christ, when one brought children to him and the disciples said, "Oh no, he's too important, don't bother him with children," and he, he, uh, actually rebuked the disciples and he said, "Forbid them not but suffer little. Children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of God." And another time when he was talking to them, he pulled the little children and child into their midst, and he said, "Unless you all become as a little child, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."

   Now what did he mean? still on. Did he mean a rebellious child? Did he mean a rebellious child that had not been taught right? No, he meant a sweet innocent child that was obedient and it would be as all children should be. Well, that's something we've got to work on. You men see to it that you have your wives and better subjection, and you'll find that that will be the result in taking 9/10 of your problems out of your home. The one thing we all need to do more is to grow in the love of God and in His grace and knowledge. That means in learning how to let these rivers of living water flow out of our innermost being. Remember to use it. Don't beat your children. God forbid that any of you should beat them and, and, and treat them in an ill manner at all. But we do hope to see that those even of our physical children should go on into the physical nation of Israel in the uh kingdom of God when Christ is here ruling and they'll have a better world to live in than we ever did.