Herbert W Armstrong

   What does the Bible mean by your heart? Keep your heart. And what does it mean, and why is it so very important? Why does it say, "because out of this heart the issues of life"? We are, as physical human beings, a composite of fleshly physical bodies, number one. Of human minds and an intellect that is more than just, as we know, a physical thing, but given intellect and the ability to think and reason by the spirit in man. And thirdly, by what the Bible calls the heart, which we might simply in our everyday terminology entitle our emotions and our feelings.

   And if we wanted read to reread that passage, we would say: keep or control your emotions and your feelings with all diligence, because out of this heart the issues of life. Your emotions and your thoughts and your feelings, brethren, about any issues are very, very important things about any elements of your human life. And as we're gonna see, emotions and feelings obviously are directly related to the subjects of love and hate, and any feelings that you know you might have between love and hate. And if we keep control of these — the heart, emotions and feelings — then we're going to be in a much better position when it comes to knowing where we are and where we're going. Because as the Bible says, out of this heart the issues of life that controls basically what we do, where we go, and the results that we have in all that we do.

   Now, love is something, brethren, that we feel. It's a feeling that you have inside, and it's a positive feeling and a good feeling. It's something that God has created. It's very beautiful, very tender and very right, and it's supposed to be a motivation to do good. Because God says of himself, "I am love." God is love, as the scripture says. And we as human beings are supposed to be able to develop and have created in us that very love, that very outgoing concern, and those feelings of compassion, those feelings of emotion and the ability to relate to other people because we know that they too can feel and they too have emotions and they too are just like we are.

   Godly love, brethren, flows outwards. As we know, it doesn't flow inward. It issues forth, just like the phraseology of Proverbs 4:23. It issues out. Out of it, out of those emotions and thoughts and out of the heart are the issues of life, and we're admonished to keep that heart — the way we feel, our feelings and emotions — with all diligence. Pay attention to it. Think about it. Ask ourselves, how are we feeling? Because our mental and emotional health is directly related to it and involved. And not only that, our physical well-being is oftentimes related directly to our emotional state and the way we feel about things.

   You know, there is such a thing as emotionally induced illness. There is such a thing as physical problems that can be created by a person who is depressed or who has become depressed, who is not feeling positive but feeling very, very negative, and as a result, maybe the cause of the disease or the problem is not organic, but it's psychosomatic. It's because the mind and the emotions have been depressed. It's not issuing forth anymore. It is not something that is positive and flowing, but it is more or less static. It's not being expressed. It's sitting there and welling up and building up and causing a lot of problems for the individual involved.

   Now, all of us, I know, from time to time have been in that kind of a situation before. We know what the old terminology "feeling blue" is all about. That has to do with your mind and your emotions and your feelings. We see this, I think, illustrated more in you know love life between people and especially those who are dating or who are courting than anybody else. People feel blue from time to time when their relationship is not going the way that it should, because those feelings are not being expressed or they're not being expressed properly, or if they are being expressed, maybe they're not being received. If they are being received, maybe they are not being reciprocated. It's a complex thing, and it definitely controls our relationship with other people and, brethren, our relationship with our God. Because he feels love, and we feel love, and it has to be a two-way interaction, a reciprocal relationship. Our feelings have to issue out. And if they issue out, they are expressed by obedience, by positive action, by serving people, by a good attitude, by a positive approach to things. But if our emotions are negative, then it's just the opposite.

   Like I said, I know that we've all been on both sides of the fence before, depending on the circumstances in our life. And granted, these things are not always easy to control. Can you imagine what life would be like without emotion? Without feeling? Without empathy? We'd all be like a bunch of automatons, marching around doing our everyday chores and activities. The wife you know would, like an automaton or robot like R2-D2, cook a meal, put it on the table. Husband would sit down, eat it, get up and leave. For example, there maybe wouldn't be a feeling of appreciation on the part of the husband. There wouldn't be a feeling of "I'm doing this for my husband" on the part of the wife. What would marriage be like without emotions and feelings? Unfortunately, there are probably too many people that are in that relationship and don't have the proper emotion and the feelings needed for a proper and balanced and growing situation.

   What would the family be like without love and without feeling? We see it all around us today. We see the results of either negative or suppressed or improper feelings and emotions. Life would be dry, it would be just factual, and it would be very, very negative, brethren, because none of us would be expressing positive feelings.

   In the book of Matthew, the 6th chapter, verse 21, Jesus Christ makes a statement that ties in directly with what this proverb says. Verse 21 (Matthew 6:21), he makes a statement: "For where your treasure is" — the things that you highly value, the things that you are in love with, so to speak, the things that you are following after — "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

   Now in this particular case, he's talking obviously about the kingdom of God and that being a goal, that being a purpose, that being a reason for being, that being a result of the fact that we're called and understand that we're to enter into that kingdom. If that kingdom is our treasure, if we value it above diamonds and rubies and jewels, if it really means something to us, if we are emotionally stirred up in the right kind of way about it — and not of course in some Pentecostal type approach, and we don't mean that at all — but in a right positive exciting kind of way, then it says that is where our heart is going to be. Where your treasure is, where your goals are, what means something to you is tied directly to this thing, not your physical organ that pumps your blood, but to what it is deep down inside of us in our bowels, deep down inside of us that makes us able to feel. It makes us able to have emotions. It makes us able to have empathy. That helps us to be able to relate in a good and positive way with people, with God, with the church, with the work, with our families and loved ones, and with everything that we do.

   I can just think back about myself, just using one little example. I used to love, and I still do, basketball. It was where my treasure was. And because where my treasure was, that's where my heart was. And I sacrificed to play basketball. I didn't do certain things so I could play on a basketball team. I didn't smoke, I didn't drink, I didn't carouse around. I was on a fairly regimented training program, and I put effort into training and practice because I loved basketball. I used to go to church on Sunday morning and I would get up and after church and come home, eat, and as soon as that was done, I would put on my outfit. I'd go outside and I would play basketball until dark. Every Sunday, of course, after school practically all the time as well. It got so bad that I would even sleep with my basketball. I don't sleep with — I sleep with my wife now, not my basketball.

   Now that's being in love with basketball. And as a result, I played for 10 years you know on an organized team. 7th, 8th grade, 4 years of high school, 4 years of college. I was addicted to it. I'm not so much now anymore, but for a time that took up about 90%, 85, 90%, of my waking thoughts, of my feelings, of what I was interested in and what I wanted to do. And as I mentioned before, because of those sacrifices that I made, because that was such a burning desire and because that's where my heart was, I was able to achieve a certain amount of expertise and some awards and had some scholarship offers and some other things.

   That's just one example, brethren. I loved basketball. But some people love horses, and they will do anything for their horses, or they love dogs and they'll do anything for their dogs. That is where their heart is. Of course, that's reality. You can walk out, you can touch a basketball, you can walk out, you can touch your horse and rub him down. But how about the kingdom of God? That's not quite as much reality, is it? You can't walk out and see it, but you can read about it in the Bible and you know about it intellectually and mentally, and I hope, brethren, that we can relate to it just a little bit emotionally. Because if it's just a dry fact that we know something about and we don't feel anything for it, chances are we're not gonna be very excited about it. And if we're not excited about it, we're not gonna be making very much progress towards it, are we? I think you see what I'm saying.

   We do what we feel. If you feel lousy in the morning, then probably you don't do anything fruitful or productive all day long. Because of your feelings, you are excited and happy on the one hand, or you're depressed and frustrated on the other. You're what we call turned on or turned off. And obviously, of course, either one of those can be to an extreme. But brethren, I think by and large we know which side of the coin we need to be on. We know that God Himself is positive and excited and is looking forward to the kingdom as much or probably more than anybody, and wants to see us there with him. And we know on the other hand, brethren, that Satan is one of the most depressed, fearful, fearing creatures, probably the most that exists today. Satan and the demons. And because of that, and because this is their world, their influence makes this world that way. And it's a current that we have to pull against and fight against, and in fact even our own natures lend themselves or lead itself to being affected by that type of an influence.

   So brethren, like I said, we can be turned on or we can be turned off. Now, unfortunately, we fluctuate from time to time. Most of us when we came into God's church were pretty turned on about things because it was new and we were excited and it was the truth and hopefully we loved the truth. And it meant something to us, and over the passage of time, with our own problems, with our own difficulties, with our own frustrations, whatever they might have been, those positive feelings can erode. And they can you know begin to maybe turn slightly from positive to maybe neutral. In some cases, it goes on beyond that to the point of being negative. And if it goes too far and it's not controlled properly, it turns from negativism into bitterness and then bitterness into hatred.

   There are members, former members of God's Church, for example, that back in 1974 were affected emotionally by whatever the circumstance was in their local congregation or whatever it was that they heard or whatever. And as a result, it turned the key inside them and turned them off. And maybe they stuck around for a while. And after a while, they left. You know, that didn't have to be. It shouldn't have been. Because brethren, our minds are supposed to control, to a certain degree anyway, our emotions. And obviously as you know, our minds cannot control how we feel all the time, but at least it can control to an extent, I think, how we feel. Like I said, God has created us with the intention that our minds always control our feelings and our emotions, or at least be in charge. The facts being more important than the feeling. But unfortunately, again, that is not always done.

   You see that every day. You might see it in yourself every day where somebody loses emotional control. He gets violent or angry and as a result, beats his wife up or commits some crime, maybe shoots somebody, beats somebody up, after which chances are he is full of regret for having done so. But he did what he felt like at the time, and at the time he felt angry, and he felt like he had an injustice maybe done against him. Or he felt like he was vindictive and wanted to repay somebody for something they did to him. Go out and shoot the cow, for example, or go out and kill a mule, or go out and smash up something, you know, throw a hammer across the yard or whatever. We are all subject to that. Or shoot somebody on the freeway, whatever. That's lack, brethren, of emotional control, and it's not the mind that does that. Most cases, it is not premeditated, cold-hearted, and calculated. In most cases, it's flying off the handle, getting white hot and angry about something, and losing control. And as a result, later on, having to live with guilt and terrible regret for the rest of your mortal life. And that's not character, is it? Because character is doing what you don't feel like doing, just the opposite of what you feel like if what you feel like is doing something wrong. And as a result, when this happens, people think over and over again, "if I had only." If I had only. If I had only. And I know that there are members of God's church, maybe former members of God's church who are saying now, cause I know I've talked to some, if I had only. Back in 1974.

   Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 32. Carries with it a statement about what we're talking about. Proverbs 16:32. "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he that rules his spirit" — rules his emotions and his you know feelings and where they might lead him — "he that rules his spirit is better," it says, "than he that takes a city."

   Chapter 19, verse 11 (Proverbs 19:11). It's hard to do this. It really is, but it says, "The discretion or the sound judgment of a man defers his anger." It puts it off. "And it is his glory to pass over a transgression." It's his glory to pass over a slap in the face, so to speak. It says glory. Not to react to something maybe that happened to him. But to sit back and as we use our modern vernacular terminology, to sit back and to try to be Mr. Cool.

   Now there is a time, of course, for emotional action and emotional reaction, and our mind has to tell us when and what those circumstances are. But again, too many people don't do that. And these things again are directly related to our spiritual growth and our spiritual life.

   Proverbs chapter 25 and verse 28 (Proverbs 25:28), "He that has no rule or no control over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls." Has no protection from the outside, from the influences of the outside, from the invading armies of the outside. No control whatsoever since the wall was broken down. There's no forerunner or foreguards out there to protect him. And likewise, for a person who does not exhibit or try to rule over his spirit and over his emotions and over his feelings, he too is subject to every whim and every influence, whether it be negative or positive that comes along from the outside and will cause a reaction in him, whether it be good or whether it be bad.

   So easy to do, isn't it? To fly off the handle. It's so easy to judge something based on the way we feel, rather than based on what the actual facts are. Because our feelings, brethren, can taint the way we perceive what facts are, and there you've got to be very, very careful. So think about it, think about your life. What is your emotional response to the circumstances of life? Think about it, there could be hundreds of them. How do you react when something hits you that you hadn't expected? How do you feel? How do you react to that feeling when you have that feeling? Do you control it? Do you try to control it? Or are we just like a little child with a temper tantrum and we just let go and we just completely express things in a negative way?

   Whether they're good circumstances or bad, brethren, your feelings about you, about your mates, about your families and children, about your job, about the Church of God, about the people in the church, about the work, about everything — very, very important. And it's something that you need to give a lot of thought to. We very much need the right and proper feelings and the right and proper expression of those feelings and emotions, or healthy emotions. And they should be expressed properly and not just bottled up and not squelched.

   The way that a lot of us have grown up, we think as men that it's not a masculine thing if somebody sees us cry. Is that right? No, it's not. Because of the image of being a tough guy, because of the image just that, you know, of the way society has developed, if a man expresses his feelings or emotions — maybe it's not quite the way now that it used to be, but at one time, if he didn't bite his lips and just keep a straight face and feel or show any expression whatsoever, people looked upon him as maybe a sissy. That's not right, and that's not balanced, and that's not the way Christ was, and that's not the way many of the old patriarchs are like David and Abraham and others who expressed you know their emotions fully. And that we should as well follow that example.

   A good example I think to talk about is that of grief at the passing of the death of a loved one, of somebody that means a great deal to us, which we all have to face from time to time. Grief is a normal human feeling, and it should be expressed properly. In fact, if it's not expressed, it can cause a person an awful lot more problems down the line. At the present time, somebody may feel like they're in control, and they give the impression that they're totally on top of things. But believe me, deep down inside that feeling of grief is just, I guess you'd say, bubbling away or kind of like a cauldron down inside, and if it's not expressed, it's going to eat away on the inside. It's going to give that person severe problems later on.

   The subject of death in our society itself does not oftentimes permit the proper expression of grief. It's proper, it's normal. We shouldn't worry about what other people think, and we should be able to express grief when we need to express grief. In many foreign countries, maybe they take it to an extreme. They have 2 or 3 days of severe wailing. Maybe that is an extreme. But they get it out of their system, they express it. And after that they're able to adjust. And they go about life and they're not depressed for months, maybe years on end. Now like I said, maybe that's a little bit of an extreme to a certain degree, brethren, but grief is just one example of a proper normal human emotion. Jesus Christ experienced it and he expressed it. And we experience it and we have to and should express it as well.

   You know there's a popular song that you probably heard a lot about on the radio entitled "Feelings." Remember that one? Feelings? Nothing more than feelings. That says an awful lot. Because your feelings, brethren, like I said, about you, about other people, about God, about everything in life is a very important thing, and oftentimes we get our feelings stepped on. Oftentimes our emotions are crushed. That happens again in the love relationship an awful lot. Our feelings are you know we maybe oftentimes wear them out here on the end of our sleeves and they get brushed and they get bumped and maybe be damaged from time to time. And as a result, you know what happens? Most people, if they really get themselves crushed emotionally, withdraw. They pull inside, they don't want those sleeves out there to where they can be seen. And as a result, the shriveling process can begin on the inside, which again is not emotionally healthy.

   One thing, brethren, we have to do, and that's to be willing, if need be, to undergo that expression of having our feelings hurt. Because if we don't, we're gonna be cowering back and sitting on them and afraid to let that happen. But if we're afraid to let that happen, then we're causing ourselves problems as well. It's better to have those feelings out there oftentimes in a right and balanced way and to express them, and hopefully most of the time it'll be a positive experience, and if it isn't a positive experience, hopefully we can cope with it. But yet we are at least expressing that to other people, to our mates, to our loved ones or whatever. And that's what I'm saying basically in the sermon today. We need a lot more of the right positive kind of feeling and emotions because brethren, that's what love is. It issues out. It comes from inside. And godly love in particular comes from God to you and then you express it. How? Do you bottle it up and sit on it, or do you express it? Does it flow out of you to other people in the form of good works, in the form of showing care and concern about the plight of somebody's life?

   What I'm saying is this, brethren, all of us need emotional involvement in people's lives, in the church, in God's truth, in the right and balanced proper way because that is the motivation. If our marriages become sterile, if we have no feelings about them, if our experience in God's church becomes a sterile thing and we just feel blah about it, then we're gonna suffer spiritually for it. You've got to feel it to a certain degree. You've got to have a positive emotional involvement.

   OK, you say how? Well, that's another story I guess in itself. It might take a reassessment of your life. It might take rethinking, re-looking at things, and just turning yourself around. Using the mind, first of all, to begin to create the conditions where those feelings can be properly expressed. As I said, the mind is supposed to be in control.

   Turn over to II Thessalonians, the 2nd chapter, verse 10 (II Thessalonians 2:10). Of course here the context is talking about the man of sin and it says, "With all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." Now if you love the truth, it's like Jesus Christ said, it's where your treasure is, and if it's where your treasure is, then that is where your heart should be. They're connected together. You don't have one without the other. So there's a direct relationship between healthy human emotions and the love of Almighty God.

   Obviously there are differences in our own personalities and own human makeup. Some of us are maybe more staid and just normally don't express the way we feel, and others you know maybe are of the more bubbly type of personality and you just sort of effervesce all over everybody in a crowd, and that doesn't mean anything bad — effervescence just means sort of sizzling and bubbling away and they know you're there. It's nothing that you get on people they have to wipe off, don't misunderstand me. You are, you are exuding, I guess is maybe a better word, positive emotions and feelings and hopefully helping other people around you by that positive kind of an influence. But on the other hand, some of us from time to time are the other way. And if we are that way, then we should try to control that and watch it and hopefully change the circumstances that make us feel that way. And if we can't change those circumstances, then we need to be able to call upon God and ask for the spiritual strength to be able to adjust and to, even though the negative circumstances are there, to not you know express or exude a negative kind of an influence or a negative kind of feeling.

   As I said, sometimes those things have to be overcome. You know, the Bible says to overcome evil with good. And our minds and emotions are generally not in the center. They're not neutral. They're either on one side or the other, and it depends upon what's influencing us the most at the present time. It's not gonna be a void. It's gonna be filled with something, and what are we going to allow it or permit it to be filled with? Is it going to be filled with love and joy and peace and the things of the spirit of God, or is it going to be filled with negativism, criticism, doubt, fear, disillusionment, and all those negative things that come from one source? And somebody that would like to get all of us so discouraged and so turned off and so negative that we feel like what's the use? Forget it.

   You know Paul makes a statement that he was not unaware of Satan's devices or his methods. And we shouldn't be either. And realize, as I said before, brethren, that Satan himself is fearful and negative and depressed, and he broadcasts those things. And you know if we aren't careful and don't watch it, we begin as like a radio receiver maybe to pick those feelings up and we amplify them by what we say and by what we do, and we influence other people in a negative way if we don't watch it. It says overcome evil with good.

   You know, back in the book of I John the 4th chapter, it says that perfect love, if you have it, casts out all fear. Turn over there. I John 4:17. "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness" — not being cowering, not being afraid, not being you know just shriveled up into a little shell — "but that we may have boldness in the day of judgment," not fear, but confidence and boldness in the day of judgment, "because as he is, so are we in this world. There is in verse 18 no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." One or the other is gonna be in you. Maybe both to one degree or another, but which one's gonna be on top? Which one's going to be in control? If we can have perfect love, brethren, we can cast out fear and negativism and the difficulties that we wrestle with. It says "because fear has torment." That's what Satan is worried about. He knows his day of judgment is coming. Every day the sun rises and sets, it's one day closer to the time when he'll be banished from the presence of God, which is the thing that he fears above all things and being separated from the glory of God. He fears that. "He that fears," it says, "is not made perfect in love." So which one is ruling, which one is in control? Is it the love of God? Or is it fears from whatever source it comes from?

   "We love him," in verse 19 (I John 4:19), "because he first loved us." He loved us first. You know the scripture that says that he gave his only begotten Son because he loved the world, because he loved all of mankind and their potential. And Jesus Christ himself had to love mankind an awful lot to permit himself the excruciating experience that he went through in the crucifixion. We love him because he made it possible, because he first loved us. "And if any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?" Simple corollary question. If you don't love your brother who you've seen, how can you love God whom you haven't seen? It seems that one of the conditions for loving God is whether or not you love your brother, the members of the church or your wife or your husband.

   Even by ourselves as pure and simple human beings, we don't have it, but it comes as a result of God's Holy Spirit and how much of that we have in us and how much of that is interacting in our thought processes and our minds and our emotions.

   You know, in II Timothy, the 1st chapter, verse 7, it says (II Timothy 1:7), "God has not given us the spirit of fear." God's Holy Spirit is not creating a fearful state in you. You know this should not be and it isn't a fear religion. Now maybe there's the right and proper place for expression of godly fear in some ways, and maybe back in the early years you and I read "1975 in Prophecy" and saw all of these earthquakes and Basil Wolverton's cartoons and these people falling headlong into chasms, and I don't want that to happen to me, so you maybe let that be an incentive for you to get on the ball and do something about it and to repent and to be baptized and to receive God's spirit. So at least it was used for a proper reason and maybe produced some good fruit. But God's Spirit, brethren, is not one of fear. It's one of love, of boldness and of confidence. And it says here, "but of power and of love and of a sound mind," a positive mind. And of course, your emotions and your mind and your feelings are all connected together. And if that be the case, then you're talking about positive feelings, about positive emotions. It's all there. It's all together. And like I said, it's all tied very directly to the Holy Spirit of Almighty God.

   One thing, brethren, that I want to impress upon you. One thing that if you don't realize it's very important that you should. And that is that you have got to protect your feelings about yourself, your feelings about other people. You've also got to express those feelings for other people, because if you don't express them, then there is no love issuing forth from you. And how do you express it, as I said, but by good works, by keeping God's laws and commandments, by showing empathy and care and concern for people. That's how you do it.

   You know, the Bible uses the term oftentimes, "bowels of compassion." We know several instances which we'll get to in a moment of how Jesus Christ experienced those very same feelings upon seeing somebody you know sick or withered up. It said Jesus wept in several circumstances. And he you know looked upon somebody and because of his compassion, the deep feeling he had just coming forth from him on the inside, he reached down and he healed that person. And that's an expression of love.

   Now it's very easy, brethren, for us, especially if we maybe don't have the same feelings about something that somebody else does, to judge that person. But maybe we don't understand what his burden is. Maybe we don't understand what his difficulty is. And it's wrong to judge somebody until you've walked a mile in his moccasins and know what his life is like. That's what the Bible talks about not judging your brother. That's one of the biggest causes I think of dissension and difficulty in the Church of God because we too much judge our brother, maybe we use ourselves as a standard and wonder and worry why people don't live up to whatever our standard is. But truly none of us are the standards. Jesus Christ is the only standard, and that's the standard we should be obviously shooting for and trying to emulate and following.

   II Timothy 3:1-3. I guess it's really a prophecy. I guess it applies now just as much as ever. Beginning, I guess in verse one, "But know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves." You know this is the now generation, the generation of the self, the generation of selfishness, I guess it's probably more than any other. "Lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents." What are other factors here? "Unthankful, unholy, without natural affection." And affection is just another term for feeling and for emotion. Affection is a very positive and a warm term, a warm word. It's something that we all need an awful lot of. Affection, affection for each other, affection for family, wife, children, affection for the brethren in the Church of God. And there's a problem. "False accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." So a very egocentric approach to life is what I think it's talking about. And not able to feel for other people. Not able to feel empathetically what another person is going through in his life.

   You know what empathy is, I'm sure, don't you? Being able to feel, however slight it might be, the feelings of another person. Now we oftentimes have those circumstances again in the expression of grief. And oftentimes maybe we don't know how to express feelings of empathy at the time of somebody else's grief. We try, we mean well. Maybe sometimes we make it more difficult for the people who are suffering grief than they had before, but at least the person who is suffering grief, I hope, realizes that the intention and the motive of the person who tried to express concern and love was good and was for them.

   And we rub shoulders every day, probably, with people who have taken on this way. Who are cold and callous, who are not concerned, who can drive by and see somebody maybe in an accident and not stop and help them, somebody you know who is in need of some type of physical help, maybe who — you've all heard Mr. Armstrong talk about Kitty Genovese and her attack, I think in New York City, crying and screaming out for help, and not one person would lift a finger to go out and help the individual, not even call the police. Good example of exactly what it's talking about here. That's why Jesus Christ said to love your neighbor as yourself and to do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

   You know there's a bank account. Not one of money, but one of accrued good deeds that each of us has. And I've seen this thing work for me from time to time. And I'm sure some of you have as well. You stop and help somebody in whatever circumstance he has. First you gotta be careful because you can also get helped right off the face of the earth sometimes as well, like picking up a hitchhiker or whatever, but whatever — woman changing a tire or some other problem that somebody has — you help them. And you do it out of the goodness hopefully of your own heart, not because you know you expect remuneration or you expect them to tip you or expect something from them. And you do some of these things, some good works and some good deeds. All that's being recorded up there in your little bank account. Maybe it even draws some interest.

   And some days you're gonna find yourself in a position where you're gonna need some help. This happened to me. I've tried to help people and I've seen their desperation or their needs. And I've gotten myself too into a couple of situations that I was very glad somebody came along and helped me. And I think back and wonder if I hadn't helped somebody else, do I have the right to expect them to help me?

   I blew a trailer tire up by Lufkin, Texas on the way down here. And unfortunately I didn't have an axle jack. I went to this person's house, asked to use the telephone. I called all the service stations in town. I called a couple of tire dealers in town. Sorry, you know, we're closing or we don't have the time or we don't have what you need, and as a result, 10, 15 minutes later up the highway comes a small truckload of men who'd been out doing some logging, and they saw me parked beside the road, pulled over, crossed the median, and stopped. They saw the flat tire, he went to his truck, he got an axle jack, put it under there, and cranked it up, and we changed the tire.

   Now, I didn't get out and do all of this. He could have and maybe that would have solved the problem, but the guy stopped voluntarily of his own accord. Tried to give him a beer afterwards too because it was a hot day and he said, "Sorry, you know, you drink it yourself, we're all Baptists." Tried to pay him, he wouldn't take it either. So, I think I got paid back for something that I did because I've helped people with jumper cables and pulled people out of ditches before. That's a little bit about empathy, a little bit of natural affection, hopefully, of seeing somebody else and putting yourself in that position and saying, if I were them, what would I like people to do to me or for me?

   So society, brethren, it's really not that way. It's filled with competition with "get the other guy before he gets you." Very impersonal approach to things. And not too much feeling. Not too much empathy. We in the Church of God, brethren, can't allow ourselves to become that way. We have got to go the other direction. We've got to be able to have and to express deep feelings for people.

   You know, empathy is a very important tool for a minister. The ability to take a person or to talk to a person to see the strait that that person is in, and to hopefully progress and help them. Empathy is a very important tool of anybody who is a counselor. Because in the counseling process, he has to be able in his mind through their conversation, to determine where that person is coming from, where he's going, and what he needs to help him get there. And without empathy, no help could result. The term in psychology is called unconditional positive regard. You accept that person. There's no barrier there. You don't give the feeling that you're not wanted or you're not accepted.

   Empathy, brethren, is that way. Empathy is the tool that you use to walk with another person into the deepest chambers of his soul, when he's trying to express his feelings or his thoughts, his emotions or his problems. And it's something that, like I said, if we had a lot more of it, maybe we wouldn't judge so readily. Maybe we would be able to express more positively help for other people, for the brethren, for our families and marriages and so on.

   Brethren, empathy is something Jesus Christ Himself had an awful lot of. I'd like you to turn to Luke chapter 19. Luke 19:41. "And when he was come, now this was when he was entering Jerusalem riding, I think here on the donkey, and the Pharisees said to his disciples and the people standing by, you know, don't rejoice and don't express your joy. Christ told them, look, if they held their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. It was an emotional thing. It was a thing of a great deal of meaning, a great deal of feeling that people had. And Christ and it says of Christ when he reached Jerusalem — verse 41 — "when he was come near, he beheld the city, and he wept over it." He saw it and he knew that in that city were thousands of people, husbands and wives and teenagers and little children. Another part of the gospel says that he wished that he could have just gathered them all under his wings, like a hen gathers her little chickens, you know, when it starts raining outside or whatever to protect them, to help them, but they would not have it. And that got to him. And he wept over it because he knew that another 30, 35 years down the line, Jerusalem was gonna be destroyed. And it meant a great deal to him because he knew of the human suffering that was going to result from that.

   Remember the circumstance of the resurrection of Lazarus. Christ was accused there of — or at least it was said about him that he wept because he was you know feeling so much grief for Lazarus, which exactly wasn't the case. He was feeling something else very, very deeply. Another example of his weeping or his ability to express emotion at the right and proper time.

   John 3:16, let's just read there. That's probably the most popular memory Bible verse that there could be. John 3 and verse 16. "For God so loved and he felt for the world, which he created, and human beings in his own image, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Beautiful. Meaningful, totally filled with feeling for you and me. And it's because of that feeling and that love that God had that Jesus Christ even came to this earth. As I said before, many times, Christ Himself was literally moved to tears and moved to compassion when he saw the suffering of people, and a big part of his ministry was you know taking up and healing the sick, and people just thronged him when they knew about the miracles that he performed. People let down other sick individuals through the roof to get to him so that they could be healed.

   Brethren, you and I have to protect our tender emotions if we're gonna keep them tender and not let them become hard and become callous and become unable to express them. We've got to protect our emotional relationships with our husbands and wives and with our children and with our families, and not let things come between that are going to destroy that relationship. Very, very important because we're gonna live with each other while we're here on this earth, and if we allow those emotional relationships that hopefully love relationship to be damaged, we're gonna put a real strain on every facet of your life. You know, for one reason or another, a parent or a brother or somebody is offended, you don't try to maintain this relationship with them. Now, you may go for years without being around or being with that person or without expressing something to that person or him expressing something to you. Those vital human feelings and emotions, brethren, need to be protected, need to be guarded, need to be kept intact because like we read in the beginning of the sermon, out of those things are the issues of life. That's where we're coming from.

   Take a look in Romans 12th chapter verse 10. Romans 12 verse 10. Actually, verse 9 (Romans 12:9), "Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. And be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly kindness, with brotherly love; in honour preferring or outdoing one another." You know, Romans 12 is called the Christian living chapter. That's what it is. It's a part of Christian living, being kindly affectionate, accepting one another, not judging one another, expressing that unconditional positive regard for people. Making them feel wanted, making them feel loved, and making them feel a part of the body of Jesus Christ and a part of your circle of friendship, if that's the case.

   Let's go over to I Peter. I Peter chapter one. In verse 22 (I Peter 1:22). "Seeing that ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently." We all need that now. We need this to see. We need this throughout the rest of our lives, in all that we do.

   You know, I hope we can just take a look at it now from this viewpoint. Take a look at the circumstance that Mr. Herbert Armstrong has found himself in. And can you feel for him empathetically what he is going through? How about Ted Armstrong? Can you feel something about what he has gone through? Well we should be able to. Obviously, what he as I said, not to get into a big long discussion about that, what has been done is not right, but nevertheless, it's been done. And he is a human being. Both of them are. Can you think about what feelings are involved on both sides between a father and a son, and the difficulties that you know can exist. The feelings about the church and the college, the feelings that the ministry, that headquarters that Mr. Armstrong can have for the Church of God, worldwide, and the feelings that we ought to have in reciprocation for the Church of God and for the brethren around the world, worldwide, very meaningful, very important thing, unfeigned love of the brethren with a pure heart fervently as it says here in I Peter.

   Let's go to I Thessalonians as well. Chapter 3 and verse 12 (I Thessalonians 3:12). "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men." You know, not just the brethren of the church, but all men everywhere, all people, because they are too made in God's image. "And toward all men," it says, "even as we do toward you." Same book, 4th chapter, verse 9 (I Thessalonians 4:9). "But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another, and indeed you do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia; but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more." Increase and grow in the ability to express those feelings and that kind of love.

   Galatians 6, how do you do it? One example. Galatians 6. Beginning in verse number one. Let's just begin with verse number 2 (Galatians 6:2-3). "Brethren," here it says, "bear you one another's burdens." Now you can't do that unless you can feel for people, can you, unless you can have empathy for them and say, hey man, I'm glad I'm not in your moccasins. I'm glad I'm not in your situation. "And so fulfil the law of Christ."

   Go back to the book of Acts. Chapter 20. We'll see an example here of the apostle Paul. Acts 20:28. "Take heed therefore unto yourselves," says to "all the flock, which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers," Paul talking to the ministry, "to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood," and he goes on talking about after his departure, the entering in of some grievous wolves, trying to get people to follow them and all that type of thing. He says in verse 32, "I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance." And then verse 35, "I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

   Paul's own example here, you know, he knew he wouldn't see these people again. So "after he had spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore." Very emotional time for all of them "and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all," it says, "for the words which he spake, that they should see his face again. And they accompanied him unto the ship." Paul was able to feel it. Those men apparently were able to feel it. The good and right positive thing, brethren.

   Let's go back to I John. I John 3:14. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because," it says, "we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother" — you know, that's according to the way Christ explained it, it's a murderer — "and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us." I John, I mean John 3:16. "And we ought to lay down our lives" — our time, our talents, our abilities, our help, whatever it is, it says — "for the brethren. Whoso hath this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up," it says, "his bowels of compassion" — he doesn't express them, you know, he keeps them inside — " shuts up the bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" And it says, "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but love in deed and in truth." That positive regard that I'm talking about, that acceptance, that trust, that kind of confidence. That's what we ought to be able to feel too, brethren, for the kingdom, the Church of God, and for even ourselves.

   You know, the apostle Paul, as I said, was a man that, of course, had an awful lot of feeling as well. I'd like to show you what he said in Romans chapter 9 and verse 3. You know, he actually felt so strongly for those of his kinship, the Jewish people of the time, who would not accept God, that he indicated he would even be willing to give up his own eternal life if they could just have it now at the present time. Romans 9:3. He says, "I could wish" — maybe I really don't, but he says I think I could wish — "that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen," the Jews, "according to the flesh." You know that they could have what he had or someday, hopefully most of them will.

   Romans chapter 8, just back up maybe a page or so, verse 18 (Romans 8:18). You know, suffering is something we all feel from time to time in our own lives or maybe empathetically in the lives of others. "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature," verse 20, "was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage" — now that we're all subject to — "of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know," verse 22, "that the whole creation groan." Now that's an expression of a feeling, isn't it, groaning, you know, under bondage and just kind of wishing and wanting and waiting, for it says, and it means of course the kingdom. "And travailing in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that kingdom the wit, the redemption of our body." A time when we won't be subject to what we're subject to now, all the failures and foibles and weaknesses of human flesh. But actually the spirit composed of the Holy Spirit of God. Then we'll be totally positive, then we'll be totally happy, and then we'll be totally filled with love. We will be love just like God is. And it won't be something you're going to have to worry about.

   So where is our treasure? Wherever it is, it says that's where our heart is gonna be. Is our treasure keeping God's commandments? Is our treasure the kingdom? Is our treasure the church? Well, I hope it is. And if it is, we treasure it, and if we treasure it, obviously, we should feel it. And it should be a part of our emotional expression and our deep down inside feelings and thoughts about things. Where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be.

   As we read, of course, in the book of Acts [Proverbs], we're supposed to keep that heart with all diligence because out of it are the issues of life. That's what makes us up. So do we treasure our calling? Do we treasure people, their needs, our God, the kingdom, the work of God, our calling? If we do, brethren, those are the issues of life, aren't they? And they are a part of our very makeup. It's only through this kind of love that we can find the proper positive expression of human emotion.

   In conclusion, I'd like to turn to I Corinthians 13. It's called the love chapter. Gives some of the characteristics of what love is about, reading of King James at this time. "Love," in verse 4 (I Corinthians 13:4), "something that suffers long, and is kind; it is not envied does vaun itself up, is not vain or puffed up, it doesn’t behave itself improperly or unseemly, it does not seek it’s own, it is not easily provoked, it doesn’t judge by thinking evil; it doesn’t enjoy in iniquity," or the problems of other people, "but it rejoices in the truth; it bears all things, and believes all things, hopes all things, and it say endures all things." And it something "never fails," because brethren, that's exactly what we're talking about. Out of it, out of love, out of the heart of man and the expression of that love in us through God's Holy Spirit — is the issues of life, the most important thing. That's what we're told to guard, to be diligent with because again those things determine where we are, where we're going, and of course, that's got to be the kingdom of God.