Herbert W Armstrong

   The Spirit is here, God, and I just don't feel much of the spirit of the devil here in this room. We're very thankful for that. We know we've been through some traumatic times over the years, and it certainly is gratifying to see the peace and the joy that we're experiencing here at this Festival of Tabernacles.

   There was a certain woman, her name was Millie Brown, she was in her middle fifties when this happened. Her husband, Leo, was about 60. Now, they had a good life together.

   By then their children were grown, their house was paid for, and their little place on the lake was paid for. They were planning on buying a camper, their car was paid for, they had some money in the bank, and they were planning for retirement, which for Leo would come in two years at age 62. He was 60, she was about 55 or 56.

   They'd had a good life together, and now they were planning to do a lot of traveling, visiting places and people that they'd wanted to go to all their lives. Leo had a good job. He worked for the power company in a maintenance crew, got a lot of overtime over the years, made good money, made some wise investments.

   He decided to retire at age 62, he said, because, well, when he started 30-some years before, people liked to go to work to work, but he felt that now these young kids coming along were just goofing off, and going to work just wasn't that much fun anymore, so he decided he would retire at age 62. But a problem developed for them, because along about this time Millie got some very bad news. Her doctor told her that she had the dread disease cancer, that it was terminal, and that she only had a short time to live.

   Millie went to pieces. She couldn't understand how this could happen to her. She got scared, scared stiff, you might say, and then she got angry, very angry, and upset, and began to get bitter.

   Leo tried to comfort her, he tried to console her, but he was at a loss as to how to do it. And instead of these two people getting together, drawing together in their sorrow and in their anguish, and relying on one another, they began to drift apart. Each withdrew within himself.

   He didn't know what to say to her, because any time he said anything, she tore his head off practically. And so he began being quiet. She went through great frustration, unhappiness, misery, she just found it hard to accept what was happening to her.

   And so he couldn't give her much comfort, much consolation. As the weeks went by, the relationship, instead of growing stronger and living each day for that day, and making the best of each day, and not really making a big deal because we all know we're all going to die, instead of that, as I said, they withdrew from each other, and she became more and more irritable and irritated. She couldn't accept the fact of her coming death in a grateful way.

   And Charlie, or rather Leo, felt more and more pressure on him until finally he left and got a divorce. Now, this poor woman spent her remaining weeks and days in absolute agony. The agony of a left, or forsaken, or abandoned person left to herself.

   She cut herself off from all of her loved ones and friends because she just couldn't get over her bitterness, her frustration, and in the last days, a great growing sense of loneliness. She was alone, self-forsaken, abandoned, left to herself, and she died in misery. You know, one of the great agonies of our day is loneliness.

   What I just told you was an extreme case, but believe me, there are thousands of cases like that that go on in this country and abroad. But others are extremely lonely. Many of you are lonely, terribly lonely.

   God built or put within us, or in us, to desire a close, intimate relationship with at least one other person, generally a person of the opposite sex, someone with whom we can share our life totally and completely, someone with whom we can have a relationship that is virtually transparent where there are no secrets, where all the hopes and dreams, the disappointments and the joys are shared together. We desperately want such a relationship. When God created man, the very first thing that God said was not good was loneliness.

   It is not good for a man to be alone. And God said, I will make a companion suitable for him. God and Christ are one.

   They have a fantastic relationship, an intimate, close relationship with each other. They can share life in all of its aspects, in all of its glories, all of the plans that they go through. But you know, God has a capacity to share life with millions of people, millions, literally perhaps billions of people, at the capacity he has.

   So when we read that it was not good for the man to be alone, I will make a companion suitable for him, I think we can also say it is not good for God to be alone. And Jesus said, I will build my church. Not that God is lonely, terribly lonely, but he has a great potential to share life with many.

   And so he created the human race, and now he has built his church to be the bride of Jesus Christ. Christ got married once before, as we heard not too long ago during this festival occasion. He married Israel.

   Now when he found Israel, in a sense it was typical of the courtship of human beings, in a sense, because Christ is not like the average man in his courtship, but Israel is certainly like the average human being, not just woman but human. In our life, for many of us, we were born, we grew up, we had this desire to share life with somebody, we were waiting for the right person to come along, hoping the right person would come along, and sure enough, we met someone, fell in love, quote unquote, we had a brief courtship perhaps, and we got married, had a wedding ceremony, a honeymoon, and then we got to know each other. Now when Christ was courting Israel, he didn't quite do it that way.

   He tried to set the right example in that courtship. He knew Israel, but Israel didn't know him. And so he wanted to reveal himself to Israel before the ceremony took place.

   He began revealing himself in Egypt. Here was Israel in captivity, in abject slavery for hundreds of years, longing for a union with the Messiah who would deliver them from this bondage. But when the Messiah sent his representative, the Israelites didn't like it.

   This was not their night on a shining charger. This was not the way their hopes and dreams had been visualized in their minds. They didn't expect some man to show up and say, come and follow me.

   They didn't expect that at all. God was teaching them some lessons. God wanted them to get to know him, the kind of God he was, before he married them.

   And he gave them a number of opportunities. He dealt with them while they were in slavery, brought them out of slavery. He wanted to demonstrate to them his power, his ability to take care of them, to be the proper husband, to take care of every possible conceivable need that they would have in their lives.

   And he took many opportunities to demonstrate that ability and the love that he had for them. He kept showing it to them. He brought the plagues on Egypt.

   He spared the Israelites for the most part, especially from the final ones, brought them through the Red Sea. And he let them experience a little bit of a hardship now and then to see how their reaction would be. And sure enough, their reaction was a carnal one.

   They couldn't understand how God would allow Moses to make all the mistakes he made, of all things, leading them down into that trap by the Red Sea, between the mountain and the Red Sea and Pharaoh's army. Things like that were just absolutely hard to accept for the one who was to become the bride of Christ in a physical sense. So we know that Israel failed.

   Israel failed to be the proper kind of wife. God bent over backwards many times. He forgave her and forgave her and forgave her over and over and over again, even though she became a harlot, an adulteress, getting caught up in multiple adulteries.

   He told them, you know, when you get into trouble, cry out to me in repentance, then I will rescue you. And a number of times, you can read that in the book of Judges and Joshua, that's exactly what happened. They would get into trouble, cry out to God in repentance, and he would rescue them.

   And this went on seemingly generation after generation. But they reached a point where they got so far from what God had wanted them to do, even though they accepted the covenant, which they didn't know they were accepting. Just like today with most marriages, they make a vow, they call it, and then a few years later the vow is broken.

   It doesn't seem to mean very much to many people. Those Israelites violated that vow time and time again, and God allowed them to. But when they repented, he helped them.

   But they reached a point where they finally stopped repenting, and instead they made alliances with other nations and went to other lovers and other husbands, so to speak, and continually turned their back on God, even though God's prophet said, you're doing the wrong thing. Return, you backsliding people, and God will forgive and forget. But they came to the place where they refused, and so God allowed them to go into captivity.

   Now, God is selecting a tried and proven group to become his bride, and we are to become the very bride of Jesus Christ. But he's not going to do it the way he did it before. He's going to make absolutely certain that we really do know him, that we know him and accept him as God, the way he thinks, the way he acts, the way he is.

   You see, what his standards are, the rules he lives by, the rules he sets for us, we have to prove to him that we are willing to be obedient to him. We can't just make a promise like Israel did or like we did before the altar in a physical sense, not really fully understanding the commitment we should have been making or the commitment they should have been making, but rather taking it rather lightly. And when the going got tough, they bailed out.

   No, we have to come to really know God. And when we really know God and accept him as God, the way he is, then the marriage will take place. It is a proper and right kind of courtship that God is insisting upon for all of us.

   I want to go through a few basic scriptures to tell us exactly, or at least to a certain extent, let's get into perhaps the biggest problem we have, and that is the problem of church government. Let's take some examples, first of all, from the book of Titus, Titus chapter 2. Church government is a tough nut to crack for a lot of people. It is easy to say, Yes, I promise to love, honor, and obey, and as long as things go my way, I will obey.

   But when things don't go my way, then sometimes it's a little bit hard to be obedient. I've selected a couple of scriptures here that directly zero in on women, because we are to become the bride of Christ, all of us. Also, we've heard a lot about instructions for fathers yesterday, so I thought I would zero in on some scriptures here that refer a little bit more, perhaps, to women, and yet they can still be applied to us, as I said, because we are to be the bride of Christ.

   He is dealing with us as his bride-to-be. In Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 1 (Titus 2:1), speak you the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The older men need these things, these characteristics and attributes added to them. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; So God is talking here about the aged women.

   This reminds me of a Bible study that I held. We generally have a Bible study once a month in various parts of town. One particular study is in the north part of town for the women, some of the women up there, mainly widows and husbands who are not members of the church. Occasionally, married women will also come as well, which is fine, but it was designed primarily for the widows in that part of town.

   Well, during this one particular study, I was discussing some of the problems of marriage, and I asked the ladies there for some comments, some suggestions that I might make to married couples to help them over some of the rough spots of their marriage. Well, these widows, many of them were elderly in their 70s and 80s, made comments that I felt were very apropos, very helpful, right to the point. Comments like, well, you know, we've been there, we've lived through it, and we can see some of the mistakes we made.v

   A typical comment was that, well, when I was younger I was too involved in the physical and too concerned about the material things, and not involved in the things that really counted, like being a good wife and being a little bit more obedient and a little more supportive of my husband. When you've had a husband and lost him, or when you've had a job and lost it, men can relate to that, and women, you appreciate a little bit more maybe what the husband has to go through when he's out there every day fighting to stay alive, to keep his family going, to keep his finances going, to keep ends meeting as much as he can, to keep from sinking too rapidly into debt, trying to hold his nose above water, this type of thing. But these were the types of comments, I'm just paraphrasing them, that I was getting from some of these ladies, these older women who had lived through it, whose husbands had died years before, perhaps, and they were outliving them, and they could see the mistakes perhaps that they had made, and also could comment on some of the right things that they had done in their marriage.

   And commenting that women should spend more time with their children, taking care of the home, so that when the husband comes in, he will have a happy, joyous environment to come home to, rather than an aggravating situation, as Jesus Christ often did with the Israelites. Every time he looked down upon them, they were grumbling, mumbling, groaning, and complaining about something. Not a happy relationship, not a good atmosphere for the husband.

   But for the husband to be able to come in and see the housework has been done, the house is clean, dinner is on the stove cooking, I appreciate that when I walk in and I can smell dinner cooking. I think back to my bachelor days when I would walk in and there wasn't any dinner cooking. If I wanted dinner to be cooking, I had to get out there after work and cook.

   And it wasn't much fun working all day and then cooking. Of course, now some women have to work as well, or feel they do, because of financial stress or whatever, and that adds a burden to the marriage. But these women were talking about how pleasant it is when the husband can come home and find a happy, joyous atmosphere, and that the problems are so much diminished in that type of an atmosphere.

   I went home and did some studying on the subject, and guess what I found? Titus 2:4. That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, to dress it and keep it the way God told Adam and Eve, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. So what these women had told me was certainly biblical, and I had to admire them for this. Sometimes the widows in the church and the older men feel like they're the forgotten ones in the church.

   And sometimes they'll make comments like, well, we don't really contribute much as far as tithes and offerings are. We came into the church long after our incomes were ended, for many. Retired, stopped working, virtually no income, and we can't contribute much money.

   We get letters from Mr. Armstrong asking for financial support, and if I send in a dollar or two, it's really something. And they feel often that they're not contributing much to the church. Well, that is certainly not true, I think, as we realize.

   If it wasn't for the power of the widows, sometimes I wonder if this church would collapse under stress. When God looks at his people and he looks for that cloud of incense to come up to heaven, I think behind that cloud a lot of the time he sees an older person, because some of us younger guys don't always have the time. We get involved in so many other things.

   I know I, for one, feel the power of the prayers of the widows and older people, and all the brethren, of course, for that matter. But I know many widows who pray for me every single day, and that keeps my life going. I want to thank you for that, and I know all the ministers feel the same way.

   You widows are very important to this church. You're a vital organ in this church. You're like the heart.

   You're necessary. So don't feel like you're useless. We really need you, and we love every single one of you with all of our hearts.

   And I know Mr. Armstrong feels the same way. So everybody agrees with me, but I get a lot of inspiration from widows. Sometimes when I'm feeling a little sorry for myself, I like to go and visit a widow to get cheered up, because their minds are not on the mundane, physical, material things of life.

   They're thinking about the kingdom of God and longing for the coming of Christ, and thinking about the work, and they're always talking about Mr. Armstrong and the work that Mr. Armstrong is doing and how they are behind him and supporting him every step of the way. And they don't care who Mr. Armstrong uses. If he's good enough for Mr. Armstrong, he's good enough for them.

   That's how they feel about Mr. Armstrong, and I think the rest of us feel the same way. When I'm down in the dumps, I can always go and visit a widow and get cheered up. It's a tremendous service that they do, and I know the prayers that go out are well-pleasing to God, and this church operates on prayer.

   This church does not operate on money alone. It takes money to get the physical plan going, but without the prayer, this church would go no place. To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blaspheming.

   So I wanted to say a few things there about the widows. And over in Colossians, over in the book of Colossians, chapter 3, let's get back here to the subject, Colossians chapter 3. We all long, we all have within us this yawning, gaping desire, this hole that's in us that wants to be filled as human beings. And the only way to fill that is through the intimate relationship of a marriage with Jesus Christ.

   And that's what physical marriages picture, that kind of relationship. And so we have to build the ingredients within us, the character within us, that Jesus Christ will want to marry us. We have to make ourselves ready to get busy at it, because it's not going to be done for us.

   God allows us to go through problems and trials which help us, but we have to respond. We have to respond. You know, if you look at your right hand, there's something in your hand.

   You can't see it. It's a spiritual something. It's a ticket, the one-way ticket.

   And on that ticket, there are two destinations, and your life is going to prove which destination you're going to. I think you know what I'm talking about. You're either going to the kingdom of God, or you're going to the lake of fire.

   And you've got a one-way ticket in your hand that you are going to mark yourself. I won't mark it. God won't mark it.

   You will mark it, yourself. You know, when people get marked in the church, they mark themselves. They mark themselves.

   Some people have said, well, you can't put me out of this church. Christ put me in this church, and only Christ can put me out of this church. Yeah? Well, how did Christ go about putting you in this church? You were invited to the fellowship of this church by a representative of Jesus Christ, and you can be uninvited from the fellowship by a representative of Jesus Christ.

   That's just the way it is. Ever since I've been in this church, that's been the teaching of this church. Some resent that.

   They don't like that. Well, eventually, they depart. I feel that part of the reason for the spirit of peace that's here is that a lot of the spirit of warfare that was here last year isn't here anymore.

   They've left. They've gone off to do their own thing. They've gone off to do other areas.

   Colossians 3,:18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. And Paul said in Ephesians 5 that he's speaking a great mystery concerning Christ and the church.

   It doesn't say, husbands, force your wives to submit to you. It says, wives, submit. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.

   It doesn't say, wives, pressure your husband into loving you. That's not the way it's stated, and that's not the way it works. It has to be a voluntary, desirable thing.

   The husband loves his wife because she's submissive, and the wife submits to her husband because he loves her. That's the way it ought to be. That's the way God intended.

   And be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children lest they be discouraged.

   So there's the family situation in a nutshell, the way Paul gives it here. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands.

   Children, be obedient. Fathers, don't be too tough on the kids. That's what it's all about.

   Of course, the doing part sometimes is a little harder than just reading it like this. Then over in I Timothy, over in I Timothy chapter 2, I Timothy chapter 2. Now, the husband is under Christ. Christ is the head of the husband.

   But we know that there's government in the church, so that we're all under authority. It isn't that the wife is under authority, but the husband isn't. We're all under authority, and we all have to learn to be responsive to the authority that's over us, even if it seems like the authority over us is wrong.

   We have to learn to be responsive to that authority. Now, for years in the church, you know that there's been some confusion. And over the years, there's been a lot of confusion.

   We've had doctrinal confusion with doctrinal committees. And sometimes I've had to wonder, who else believes what I've been taught? You begin to scratch your head and wonder if anybody else believes what you were taught. And over the years, I've asked myself that question.

   I've wondered sometimes. And there have been occasions when, you know, when things over us were not biblical, were not being done in a biblical way, and there was confusion and wrong decisions and that type of thing. I've searched the Scriptures.

   I remember talking to some evangelists back in 1974, who since have left the church, who at that time were questioning many of the doctrines that I'd been taught and believed in, and laying on all kinds of accusations about Mr. Armstrong and so on. And I asked the question, well, what I want to know is this. Let's say, for example, all these accusations are true, and all these things are wrong with Mr. Armstrong.

   Where can you show me in the Bible what I'm supposed to do about it? That's what I'd like to know. Now, what I find in the Bible is the example, say, of David. Saul actually, literally, was throwing spears at him, trying to kill him.

   How did he go running off to Samuel, saying, Samuel, this guy needs to be fired? Let's get rid of this guy. You know, some wonder, well, why didn't some of the ministers go to Herbert Armstrong, even though they were threatened with being fired and that type of thing? Well, it's because we couldn't find any Scripture that told us to do that. God has placed someone over me, and I'm going to support that person as long as he's over me, because I have faith in Christ that he's able to oust somebody if he needs to.

   And I also know that Christ has patience, he has tremendous mercy and love, and he's hoping that we'll all repent and learn the lesson, and be faithful, loyal subjects of the government of God. So that's part of the reason. Now, sometimes in a local church area, a local minister makes a mistake.

   You know, back in January, I'm speaking frankly, I always do. Back in January, we got a letter from Mr. Armstrong, and he said, I have appointed Mr. Cole to be the administrator, and he instructed him to cooperate with the receiver. Then a few days later, Mr. Armstrong, if it was from Mr. Armstrong, you know, later on we found out it was, we get another letter that says, Mr. Wayne Cole has been disfellowshipped, he's been fired, and we're fighting this receiver.

   Now, for years there's been tremendous confusion down there. You know, the sound of the trumpet from Pasadena has not always been loud and clear. I think you know what I mean.

   We don't know if they were sounding charge or sounding retreat. I didn't know if it was mess call or pay call or what it was. In January, I was a little confused.

   I didn't know which letter is right. And some others were confused. I know some of the ministers maybe at the time expressed a little bit of their confusion at the time, and certain members then got upset about this.

   There's nothing wrong with going to your minister when you're upset about something and talking it over with him. What is wrong is trying to get your minister thrown out of office. David did not do that, and I can't find any examples where people did that.

   And as I said, I know that Jesus Christ is able to remove us if he feels we need to be removed. I believe that with all my heart. I shudder and I tremble to be disloyal because I don't want to be removed.

   I don't want to be taken away. I don't want to be cast off. I don't want my one-way ticket to read hell.

   I want it to read kingdom. That's where I want to go. So be a little careful when you're picking on your minister.

   Because Jesus Christ, you know, why does God allow the problems that we have? Why does God allow things to happen the way they do? Well, it's the same reason back there with the children of Israel when God was selecting them as his bride. He wanted to see what they would do about it. He said, what do you do about it? Well, I think most of you are proving that.

   You're here, you're loyal, you're supportive, and you love Mr. Armstrong, you love the work. And I'm not just praising Mr. Armstrong. Last year one of the ministers gave a sermon and at the end he was kind of throwing his support to Mr. Armstrong.

   And somebody wrote him a letter, you know, how come you're praising Mr. Armstrong and not praising God? I told the minister, look, don't worry about it because you weren't praising Mr. Armstrong instead of praising God. You were praising God all the way through that sermon. And at the end you just said a few words of support about Mr. Armstrong.

   We get it from all sides. But because the widows pray for us, we can handle it. God gives us the strength to be able to handle it.

   Now, what do you think Satan is doing now? Where do you think he is and what he's doing? Is he in the Associated Churches? I think he left them a long time ago. Is he in the Church of God International? I don't think so. You know where he is? He's planning his next move against you and against me, against the church.

   He's a plotter and a schemer. He never gives up. He loses a battle, he starts planning the next battle.

   Now, of course, he's involved in the skirmish with the state of California. But he's also looking beyond that to the next battle. He knows he's not going to win the war in California.

   The whole war will not be ended there. But he will kill off a few people. Which is his aim.

   So not only is he fighting the battle in California, but he's also planning the next move against the church. And usually it's against personalities. He may come up with a new gimmick or a new twist.

   I'm sure he's trying awful hard. But that's where he is and what he's doing. Now, we should be as faithful and as loyal to the people over us as we expect our wives to be to us, speaking as men.

   See what I mean? If you're not faithful and loyal to the people in the government over you, how can you expect your wife to follow anything but that example? That's the problem there. I Timothy 2:11, Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

   It also means let the men learn in silence with all subjection when the government of God is in operation in their lives. Rather than rattling off, what you should do is go to the Bible.

   Now, I remember receiving a call from somebody when a lot of the stress was taking place about in February or whenever it was. And I asked her the question, you know, well, what should you do about it? See, what does the Bible say you should do about it? Well, she started studying her Bible. And I was very proud of her and pleased with her.

   She called me back the next day with the right answers, you see. Matthew 18, prayer, trust God. I thought, well, that's wonderful.

   That's wonderful. Of course, I know that thousands in the church do that. And that is just great because that's what God wants.

   That's what He wants. We are here to get to know God, see. And God allows a little friction here and there and maybe a mistake, an error.

   Because people are human and people can repent and do repent. And also He wants to find out what the rest of us are going to do about it. Are we going to take the law in our own hands? Are we going to go to Mr. Armstrong and say, well, the whole congregation is holy.

   Why is it that you have the government all by yourself? See, when people start talking to me in those terms, not those words, of course, because those are infamous words, I step back because I don't want the ground to open up on me. I said, for not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man but to be in silence. Now, there's a scripture that says that if a woman has a question about something, let her ask her husband at home.

   You know, is God a male chauvinist? Not to usurp authority or to teach the man. So we don't have women teaching the man or having authority over the man except in some of your homes. And then we find that some women have usurped authority over the man and they are running the house and the man is kind of a mousy character.

   I remember years ago visiting some people back east one time. I pulled up into the driveway and the man was standing on the porch kind of motioning for me. You know, this was the right place.

   And my assistant and I got out of the car. It may have been Boyd Manciniere. I don't know if it was him or Jim Napier at that time.

   And all of a sudden, here comes his wife out of the house hurling these epithets at us, cursing at us. And she just ran us off. And her husband, I looked back at her husband and he was just going like this.

   What can I do? She's the boss, you know. Adam was first formed, then Eve. First formed, then Eve.

   You know, God said it was not good for the man to be alone. I'll make a companion suitable for him. Then God formed all the beasts and the flying things and whatever in the air and He paraded them all in front of Adam.

   And Adam named them all. Whatever Adam named them, that's what God called them. But there was not found a companion suitable for Adam.

   And so God took his rib when he was asleep, made a woman out of it, closed up the flesh. He woke up, he brought her to the woman and Adam said, This is it! That's from the paraphrased edition of the Bible. He looked at all the dogs.

   And this was it. Well, that's how I felt the first time I laid eyes on the woman who became my wife. I said to myself, this is it.

   And sure enough, it was. She had said that about me. We got married and after the honeymoon we got to know each other.

   But we've been blessed or lucky or whatever it is because our marriage has taken, as they say, it took. The marriage took. And we're together and we're just deliriously happy.

   And this year has been a fantastic year. Of course, I think the changes in the church have helped even our marriage to improve because our lives have improved We just had more joy this year than we have for many years. Adam was first born, then Eve.

   And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. She allowed herself human reasoning and experimentation. And her husband, not being the leadership type, did not control her.

   Now, some of you men are a little bit mousy. Now, it's not that you should rise up and attack her. It seems like some guys, they sort of take it.

   They just sit back and take it. They don't make a big deal out of it. They just try not to have a big problem because they only have two ways to go.

   Either they accept it and do nothing or they kill her. And for some guys, there is nothing in between. Well, you fellas have to learn that there is something in between.

   I remember a man complaining to me years ago in another area about his wife. She was running the household, and he would call me several times. And I would tell him, look, you've got to take control of this situation and just make some decisions.

   But he said, well, she might leave me, she might do this, she might do that. I said, look, if you're firm and make the decision and you're not nasty about it, she will appreciate it and love you for it and respond to it. And that's all it takes.

   That's all it took. Just to be firm and do what's right, do what you know is right, and then your wife will respect that. If she doesn't, then she's got a problem between her and God.

   This is what God is telling us to do. It's a very important thing, very important matter. So the government of God in the church is still a doctrine of the church, for which I'm very thankful.

   I believe in God's government. I always have ever since I've been in the church. I know that there have been times when perhaps some authority has been misused for one occasion or another or for some people.

   There's been maybe too much authority or it's been blunt or whatever. And we've all had to live under it and accept it and learn from it and realize that it's for our good and go on and keep going, keep growing, keep accepting God and living with it and learning how to administer the government of God. The church has grown in maturity in utilizing the government of God, although we still make mistakes.

   But God is still there as our escape bell. He's still there as our escape bell. Now, before I forget, I want to mention this.

   Okay, you're a woman. You've got a husband. He's a tyrant.

   He's a terror, as they say, an unholy terror, see. He's a dictatorial monster. He's all these real far-out things.

   He's Frankenstein and Dracula all rolled up into one. And he tells me I have got to do this and I've got to do that and he's always berating me and chopping me down. Do I have to take all of that? Well, if your husband is in the church, there's authority over him.

   And it certainly is not wrong to say to your husband, Husband, we need to counsel with a minister to resolve some of these problems that we're having because I just can't take this anymore. And then it's up to the husband to make an appointment with the minister. Now, if the husband says, No, I'm not making an appointment.

   I'm not going to counsel with him. You keep quiet about this. Don't tell him anything.

   You know what you're doing? You're marking your ticket. That's what you're doing. You're marking your ticket.

   You're putting the X in the wrong place because that's part of the government of God, too. If the people over me do things that I think are wrong, that are harming me, I go to those people and I try to do it in a nice way. Sometimes I'll send a memo or a phone call.

   I let them know how I feel. And then I trust God with the outcome because that's biblical. That's what God wants us to do.

   That's important in our lives that we do that. And all of this is designed to help us to get to know God. To get to know God.

   Some people like the God who says, Come, let us reason together. And we'll just sit down and discuss everything and hash it all out and we'll come to a conclusion based on the input of everybody and everybody's vote. Kind of carry that to an extreme.

   Other people resent it when God says, Come, let us reason together. Why should God reason with us? He should just tell us. Others resent it when God says to send some she-bears to attack some teenagers who are mocking one of God's prophets.

   See, God wants us to get to know Him as He is in all of His characteristics and how He handles all types of problems and situations so that we can learn to respond to Him no matter what form of administration He may be using. Whether it's reasoning together, whether it's using the rod, or whether it's just setting an example. For some people, you can set them an example and they never notice it.

   They can't see it. Those are the three main areas that I see biblically that God uses to get through to us with in His government. And we have to learn to be responsive to each one of those areas because that is getting to know God.

   He's not going to marry us if we don't know Him like He did with Israel. Israel said, Yes, we know you. Yes, we accept you.

   Isn't it wonderful to know the Lord? And we'll obey you. Whatever you say, we will do. It didn't take very long for them to realize that they couldn't do it.

   Let's go through briefly some of the prophecies in the book of Revelation leading up to the time of the wedding. Leading up to the time of the wedding. Here we are, brethren, striving to learn to become the bride of Christ.

   I'm not going to read too many verses in this, but I'm going to zip through from chapter 1 to chapter 15. But I'll probably be doing more referring than I will actually reading. We are preparing to become the bride of Christ.

   I'm going to read a scripture a little later, one that Mr. Kelly read, but he didn't. The scriptures are so wonderful that you can read it and get a lot out of it and read it again and get some other things out of it and continually do that. So we can use the same scriptures over and over.

   It talks about the fact that here we are preparing to become the bride. We're not the bride having children. We're not the married woman having children yet.

   But we will become the married woman having children. Millions of children. God needs a bride.

   How can He have children without a bride? How can He reap a great harvest that this feast represents without a bride? He has to have a bride. Then He can reap this gigantic harvest that's coming during that thousand-year period because we will be bringing forth children for Christ as His bride. And that will be a marvelous and wonderful experience because we will be like the wife under the husband taking care of the children as kings and priests, the true rulers, judges, having the reward that God is giving us for supervising the education, the religious training of all the children.

   Magnificent responsibility. So God is preparing us for this. Now in the book of Revelation, we start out with the revelation of Jesus Christ to John who bore record.

   And he talks in the first chapter about the message that is going to the seven churches. A message of what is going to happen from then until the return of Christ. The end time, the last days.

   We are in those days. Chapters 2 and chapters 3 are teachings, admonitions, and prophecies directed to the seven churches themselves. So we're told in chapter 1, I've got a message for the seven churches.

   And chapters 2 and 3 tell us that I've got a message to the seven churches first,see. They give us some perspective on how we fit into this because we're not perfect. We have to do something to get ready and then we can receive the other messages.

   So chapters 2 and 3 tell us the message to each of the seven churches. In chapter 4, He's taken to heaven in vision and He sees God's magnificent throne. He hears beautiful music.

   He sees wondrous and wonderful things. A magnificent sea of crystal glass. And all these unbelievable creatures that God has created and surrounded Himself with.

   And there's God Himself on His throne. Jesus Christ at His right hand. He likens some of these angels to things that He's seen on earth, animals that He's seen on earth.

   Very hard to describe. But it's a picture of magnificence and it's also a picture of a place that is extremely busy. Angels coming and going like darts of lightning.

   Thousands of them. And God able to control all of this. A master management technician, you might say.

   Managing the entire universe. Receiving messages and input from all sources and yet able to keep things running smoothly. He's keeping under control all those things that He has.

   That He has created. Now He's creating us so that He can expand His operation in the future. Chapter 5 talks about the book that God was holding a book sitting on the throne.

   A book sealed with seven seals. And an angel proclaimed and looked for someone who was worthy to turn loose those seals. To open those seals.

   And he couldn't find any human being. He couldn't find anybody anywhere to open those seals. And John said in his vision he was crying because he wanted to know what was in there and nobody was worthy to find out.

   But then someone said, oh, wait a minute. There is someone worthy. The Lamb of God.

   Jesus Christ was worthy. He's the only one who's worthy. He lived the life of righteousness.

   He died for the sins of mankind. He was resurrected from the dead. And He's at the right hand of God.

   A picture of the Passover. He's dealing with us. Picturing the Days of Unleavened Bread, so to speak.

   Putting sin out of our lives, which is an important thing to be doing all year long. Not just during those days. And then the Feast of Pentecost, which comes in the spring.

   Picturing the early spring harvest, which pictures us. We are that harvest. The bride.

   God is dealing with us. And the Feast of Trumpets, picturing His return, the Day of Atonement. And the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day.

   He is qualified to open this book. And the angels were shouting for joy and happy, deliriously happy, because Jesus Christ had qualified and was doing such a wonderful thing. Chapter 6, then, is the opening of the first six seals.

   Now, these six seals are also explained in chapter 24 of the book of Matthew. Matthew 24. You put Matthew 24 together with Revelation 6, and we can understand the meaning of these six seals.

   The first four seals are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as we've heard of. False prophets, that would start even back in the time of Jesus and continue. War, which would go on from then and continue.

   Famine, and finally pestilence. And which would not only continue, but intensify as the age drew to a close. So that we would become bombarded with false prophets until there is a great false prophet sitting in that great city, making great pronouncements, calling down fire out of heaven, and using magic and Satan the devil and his power to try to convince people that he is God and has the power of God.

   And wars will intensify, the pestilence, the famines, and the plagues will intensify right on through. The fifth seal is the martyrdom, the tribulation and the martyrdom of God's people. Now, we're told in the book of Revelation that when God takes the Philadelphia area to a place of safety, that Satan will go to make war against the remnant of the seed, which we know of as the Laodicean era.

   The Laodicean era is the church of the tribulation. It is not the church of now. This is the church of Philadelphia.

   The church of the tribulation is the church of Laodicea. Now, we can be in a Laodicean attitude, which we've talked about for years, because Mr. Armstrong has said that all the characteristics of all the churches are in any one church at any given time. But that church, as an era, will be the church of the tribulation.

   There will be a great tribulation upon the earth. The United States and Great Britain and all the democratic Israelitist nations will be taken into captivity. And it is in this captivity that God will raise up this Laodicean church.

   Now, some of us may perhaps be used to help some of those people. I don't know. I'm just saying perhaps.

   That maybe some of us will be in captivity, possibly. Not this church as a whole, by any means. Because they will need some leadership.

   And some of us may be chosen to have the honor of leading some of those people in the Laodicean church while they're in concentration camps spread around the world and also here. They're not going to transport 70 or 80 million people out of the United States, because there's still wealth in this country to be exploited and utilized. During World War II, Nazi Germany was extracting from France alone 7 to 8 billion dollars a year and using the French people to do it.

   And extracting other billions from Luxembourg and Belgium and the other places where they had taken control. And in the future, during the Tribulation, the Roman Empire will do the same thing. Many will be shipped to other areas of the world as slave laborers, but many will stay right here to be slave laborers in the United States, extracting the wealth of this nation.

   We have neutron bombs. Not everyone will be killed. Our cities will be laid waste.

   But there are also neutron bombs where buildings can be toppled or other people can be toppled, but the buildings remain intact. And some of that type of weapon is indicated even in the Book of Revelation. All right, now, when we're in a place of safety and we realize that these things are happening, we will know that our brethren, the Laodiceans, are on the front lines being killed.

   And we're going to be praying for those people. Over the years, the term Laodicean has kind of gotten a bad sound to it. Well, if you're in that condition in this church, you're in trouble.

   Your ticket is marked with the wrong destination. You see? But during the Tribulation, that will be God's church on the forefront of the battle, and we will be keeping an eye on what's happening. I'm certain we'll have some type of communication to know what's going on.

   And the two witnesses will be at work during that Tribulation in Jerusalem doing their miracles and performing the feats that they will be doing under God's direction. We will be supporting those people in those concentration camps. Many of them will wake up in those concentration camps realizing that they heard a message from this church that came true.

   And they will have hope because they will know that what we said came true to that point, and the rest of what we said will also come true. And they can have a church there to inspire them to hang on. Can you imagine the loneliness of a concentration camp? The agony of being alone during World War II and some of those places.

   I've read that the worst time in the concentration camp was Christmas 1944 because the people in those places were looking forward to liberation by Christmas 1944 and it didn't come. And many of them just gave up and died. Scores and hundreds of them, thousands perhaps, died between Christmas and New Year's because their hope was gone.

   No hope. We can provide that hope. We are going to provide that hope through the broadcast, through television, through printing materials, through whatever means we have at our disposal that God is going to utilize as we preach the gospel to this world.

   It will give them hope during that tribulation. And when they start hearing those trumpets, they're going to think, huh, there's only a year left. And this time it's going to come true.

   It's going to come true because those trumpets will sound. And we'll be listening to those trumpets too as they sound the various significant aspects of what's going to be happening during that particular time. That is part of our preparation also.

   If we spend two and a half to three and a half years in a place of safety, that's an important part of our development, preparing us for final touches. You know when a bride's going to get ready to get married, there are all these, you know Mr. Kelly was talking about all the preparations that have to be made, getting who's going to bake the cake, who's going to decorate the cake, who's going to make the wedding gown, who's going to take care of this and that and the other things. And sometimes a wedding steward may be appointed to try to coordinate all of these things, get the hall, make sure the preacher's there on time, make sure the bride groom is there on time, get me to the church on time.

   But we have to make preparations as well, final preparations. The last two and a half years or three and a half years or however long it lasts while we're in a place of safety, and we'll have a lot to do. We'll be busy over there with a lot to do.

   It'll be a very exciting time. And yet there will be hardships. I'm expecting a little bit like what the Israelites found.

   See, God carried them out of Egypt on the wings of an eagle. They went soaring across the Red Sea and into the Promised Land. Didn't they? Well, it wasn't quite that easy.

   Now, as far as God was concerned, He was carrying them right along. They didn't have a thing to worry about. Not a thing.

   God says, Don't worry about anything. Sometimes my son will tell me that. Dad, don't worry.

   And I say, Mike, every time you say don't worry, I start worrying. But with God, we won't have a thing to worry about. It'll just be a snap as far as He's concerned.

   But as far as we're concerned, maybe there will be some hardships, some difficulties. We may go without water for a period of time. We may not have food for a period of time.

   We don't know. But you can't just walk into it saying, Well, we are worthy to escape the tribulation. Therefore, we're in good shape.

   We don't have to worry about anything else. We're all set. Now all you have to do is just take a little snooze until the bridegroom comes.

   If we're not careful, we'll all go to sleep in a place of safety instead of staying on guard and keeping busy. That is not what God wants at all. Then after the tribulation comes, what? Heavenly signs.

   The announcement of the coming of Jesus Christ, which will be about one year later. Now perhaps, on that Feast of Trumpets, there will be the first trumpet. The seventh seal, the seventh seal, if I can get this right now, the seventh seal is the seven last plagues.

   I just discussed the first six seals. The first four were the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The fifth was the martyrdom or the tribulation.

   And the sixth is the heavenly signs. The seventh seal is the seven last plagues. The seven last plagues which are the trumpet plagues.

   There are seven trumpet plagues that God himself will pour out on people. After mankind has been wiping himself out, God will begin to punish mankind. All right, the first four trumpet plagues, God begins to do damage and injury to the sea, the waters, the rivers, the trees, ships in the sea.

   He says that certain percentages will be destroyed of these things, these first four seals, or trumpets rather. When the fifth trumpet sounds, a great war will take place. A great war will be started where the Holy Roman Empire, as it will probably be called or something like that, we know it to be that, that empire will launch an attack against its arch enemy to the east, not to the west, because the west has already been conquered, but to the east.

   That is the fifth trumpet, which is the first woe. The fifth and sixth and seventh trumpets are also known as woes, the first, second, and third woes. Now you can study all this out later or you can write for the booklet all about the book of Revelation or the key to the book of Revelation and get all of this in order.

   Our chapter nine in the book of Revelation deals with the fifth and sixth trumpets, which are the first and second woes. There we are in a place of safety listening to that trumpet and somebody will have their little chalkboard and they'll be writing another piece of mark, make another mark, okay, that's number five. That's the fifth trumpet that will keep up with it.

   They will know what that means, that a great huge war has broken out. Tremendous battles are taking place. Years ago I saw this movie called The Longest Day.

   One of the scenes that stuck with me was when the actual invasion was taking place on Normandy in 1944 on June the 6th. A bombardment was taking place on a certain part of those beaches and it showed this Frenchman living in his house and all of a sudden shelling was taking place. There weren't bombs but there were shells from offshore ships.

   Shelling. And shells were falling all around his house and around in his barn. And he raised the flag and he was singing and happy in the midst of all this destruction coming down to the top of his head practically.

   He was so happy that the invasion was taking place. The liberation was finally beginning. When we're in a place of safety we're going to realize that even though all these plagues are being poured out this means liberation to people.

   And a lot of those people as I said are going to realize that as well and they're going to be happy. Finally God Himself is punishing these people who have done all this evil. And it will be a happy time even for those in concentration camps who know the truth.

   Our part is to tell them the truth before they have to go there. And that's the job God has laid upon us. The sixth trumpet which is the second woe is the counterattack.

   And that great force to the east, Russia and all of its bands and all the armies aligned with them a counterattack against the European power. And again another gigantic tremendous conflagration will be taking place so that bombs and all kinds of warfare will be used against them. Then in chapters 15 and 16 the seventh trumpet the seventh trumpet sounds and this is the seven last plagues.

   I may have made a mistake here in my details but the details aren't all that vital here. It's getting the overall picture. Chapters 15 and 16 talk about the seven last plagues.

   And the last of those plagues is the battle of Armageddon. And we know then that at the following Feast of Trumpets more than likely although it's not absolutely certain but more than likely at the following Feast of Trumpets we will be keeping a Feast of Trumpets service in a place of safety. God will bring Jesus Christ send Jesus Christ to resurrect His people to fight in the battle of Armageddon and to put down all those nations finally once and for all in a final climactic battle which God will win and all the heavenly host with Him and all the saints made alive from righteous Abel all the way down to the last person who's been converted and made ready in a place of safety or wherever they are in a tribulation if they're later seen or whatever raised up in a great army of people that God can call His own.

   Then will come the Day of Atonement. The world will have been beaten into subjection sort of smashed to smithereens so to speak and prostrated in front of God. Then will come the Feast of Tabernacles.

   Now, in the Bible you find that a wedding feast lasts seven days. That's if you're going by the Bible only to determine how long is a wedding feast seven days. Jacob's wedding feast was seven days.

   Samuel's wedding feast or not Samuel but Samson's wedding feast was seven days. On the first day of the feast was the wedding which would probably be or could be on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles after Christ returns. They went who's going to keep the Feast of Tabernacles that first year? Christ and the bride.

   See the people are all still hiding in the rocks and in the caves. They don't know what's going on. It hasn't been revealed to them that the war is over yet.

   There's going to be a great celebration a great festival for seven days with Christ and His bride celebrating the tremendous wedding that will be taking place. It's just a magnificent and wonderful celebration that we'll all be involved in and it will be a magnificent thing a wonderful thing and all of our longings and all of our loneliness all of our separateness will finally become complete. We'll finally be unified with God in a spiritual unification which will be absolutely beautiful.

   I'd like to read Isaiah 54 which I mentioned a little earlier. Isaiah 54 was just an indication here of our work in the world tomorrow. Since we have Revelation 19 verses 6 and 7 memorized I'll skip that one.

   The bride made herself ready because we've already had the wedding. Isaiah 54 and verse number 1, (Isaiah 54:1-5). Sing, O barren, that did not bear That's us. We're not bearing any children for the kingdom yet.

   We're still trying to qualify ourselves. Sing, O barren, that did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud you that did not prevail with trials for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife saith the Lord.

   We are going to have more children than Israel had. Far more. Enlarge your tents.

   Make new rooms, new buildings, new cities, new areas to live because we're going to have a big family. Not only on earth but it's going to spread out to the entire universe. Verse 3 For you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left your seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

   We are going to inhabit those cities with our children. First they will be begotten, converted and begotten, receiving God's Holy Spirit, then growing over a period of time and then finally we will raise them up in a resurrection to be born into the family of God as we were. Don't fear for you shall not be ashamed, neither be you confounded, for you shall not be put to shame, for you shall forget the shame of your youth.

   Here's our youth now. We've got a lot of shame in our youth but that will all be forgotten. All the petty problems that we've had in this life will vanish, evaporate, and shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.

   And all of you widows, you won't remember that anymore. It will be gone because you will be joined with a true husband. Of course, if your husband was in the church and died in the faith, he will be resurrected too.

   We'll all be reunited, rather, with Christ. For your maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth, shall he be called. Now in chapter 61 (Isaiah 61:1), the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

   Isn't this good news that we can preach to the meek of the earth? And has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. Someday, Millie and Leo will be resurrected. And they will learn the truth.

   They will learn the truth. And their broken hearts will be mended. And they'll see that life does have meaning after all.

   And even though they died, especially her, died in abject misery and suffering and unhappiness and extreme loneliness and being cut off because of sin, she will have hope. The hope of the resurrection which we will hear about in the Last Great Day. To proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, which is what we're talking about.

   The time of God's intervention. The day of vengeance of God. To comfort all that mourn.

   And in Revelation 21, chapter 21, the book of Revelation, looking even beyond this, which will be fully explained on that last day. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.

   And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And we will have the adornment of righteousness, wearing the clothing of righteousness then. We're not perfectly, 100% pure right now.

   But we will be. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. And he will dwell with them.

   And they shall be his people. And God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

   And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

   And he said to me, Write. For these words are true and these words are faithful. You long for a spiritual union with Jesus Christ.

   God put it in us when he gave us his Holy Spirit. We're longing for that. It motivates us to grow, to change, to develop.

   We know we're incomplete. We're lacking the Spirit of God in a complete sense and a union with God in a complete sense. We need a faithful husband whom we can rely on.

   Not one who will forsake us and abandon us, but one that we can rely on totally and completely in trust, in faith. One who is loyal, faithful, and true. And we know we're going to have one, but we've got to know exactly what he's like, what he stands for, what his standards are, what his law is, how it applies to us.

   And we've got to willingly submit ourselves to him. Soon all of our longing will be filled, our desires will be satisfied, our hopes will become reality. This is the good news of the Feast of Tabernacles.