Herbert W Armstrong

   Not so. I'm going to talk to the kids, yes, but I'm going to talk to everybody who is here, who can hear my voice and understand what I'm saying. Now, when I put it that way and say, well, I'm going to talk to the adults too, there may be some of you here who think, well, that's silly. That's a silly question. What do you want to be when you grow up?

   What's he talking about? You know, I'm 30, I'm 45, I'm 60, or I'm 90. What's he talking about?

   Well, at the risk of sounding impertinent, I ask you again: what do you want to be when you grow up? Because, brethren, we are living and training and being trained by God for something very, very special. We have not grown up yet.

   In fact, we've not even been born yet. We've been born once, but we have not been born into true life. Because this life is merely a training ground. It is merely a shadow of real life, which is life in God's family, life in God's kingdom. Now, we tend to be able to understand the physical life a lot better than we do the spiritual, because we are physical, we are human, we see and hear and think through the senses, and we are tied to the physical.

   And so we can understand, you know, we understand human birth, we understand what it's like to grow up and go through the childhood, adolescence, the problems of young adulthood, of marriage, career, middle age, unlike Mr. Armstrong, who seems to go on and he just skips over some of these things, going on perhaps into being a senior citizen.

   And we understand those things. But what do you want to be when you grow up? Because we are God's children.

   We are God's sons and daughters, and He's dealing with us, begotten sons and daughters. But nevertheless, very, very precious to God. And He's doing something with us.

   And we're being trained for jobs in the kingdom of God when we come of age. But what Jobs. Have you ever thought of that?

   I think every converted person in this room has thought and wondered what job am I going to have in the kingdom of God. I certainly have. I've thought about that, wondered about that, maybe even worried about it a little bit from time to time.

   Do you know? I don't think any of us in this room knows what our specific job is going to be in the kingdom of God. God has kept it that way.

   We just do not know. I don't know what my job is going to be. I have no idea.

   I have some ideas of some things I'd like to do in the kingdom of God, but I don't know what I'm going to be doing. How many of you are looking forward to your job?

   I'm not asking for a show of hands, but you ask these things of yourself. I think some of you have asked them already. How many of you are looking forward to the job you're going to have in the kingdom of God?

   What if you don't like it? What if you don't like the job that God gives you? What then? What are you going to do? What are you doing now? Are you happy with your present job? Some of you are, some of you aren't. Some of you are square pegs and round holes. Some of you really are not happy with your job.

   You do it, you work at it, you go to it 40 hours a week, you accept your pay, you try to do a good job, whatever. How many of you don't like your job today? What if you had to work at the job you have today forever?

   How would that grab you? You know, do you like your job well enough to think, hey, that's fine, God? That's terrific. If that's what it takes, if that's the job you want me to have, then that's fine. Forever and ever and ever. I'd like to go down here to the factory and make widgets.

   Or, whatever it is, I'd like to go down here to the service station and pump gas. Or I'd like to drive nails into boards forever. There are probably a few in this room who are square pegs and square holes.

   There may be more than I am aware of. I really don't know. Because I know a lot of you, but I don't know most of you. But you know. And would you be happy? Do you suppose, brethren, do you suppose that there is a possibility that you might get stuck in a job that you don't like? Think about that one. What if you get stuck in a job you don't like?

   What do you want to do in the kingdom? What do you feel qualified for? Do you feel qualified for a big job in the kingdom? We read that we're going to have rulership over two cities, five cities, ten cities, or whatever. And I think most of us, that's a little frightening because we're not trained, we think.

   We're not experienced. We're not versed in city government. And maybe we've been a little concerned about some of those things.

   What are your responsibilities now? Are they large or are they small? And if they're small, now do you feel like perhaps your job in the kingdom is going to be insignificant?

   Because what your job is now and what your responsibilities now are rather limited, rather small. Have you worried about it? Have you thought, well, you know, I've been in this job, I didn't even get a high school education. I had to go to work when I was 12, 10, 8, whatever, support the family. I didn't get the training.

   I didn't get to go to high school. I didn't have a college education. I've got stuck in a particular area of work, and it's rather small, unimportant.

   Consequently, I suppose my job in the kingdom is going to be small and insignificant. Is that true? Is that a valid concern for any of you? Have any of you thought about it? Anything like that? Maybe you haven't.

   Maybe I'm bringing up questions in your mind here that you never thought about before. Are you looking forward to the kingdom with a certain amount of uncertainty, maybe even apprehension, because you simply do not feel qualified? Have you lacked a certain measure of success in this life, and consequently that causes you concern for the next?

   Well, brethren, I mentioned. Before, I don't know what I'll be doing in the kingdom of God. I have no idea. But I'm not worried about it. Why not? There's a very good reason why not.

   Because God has taught me some things in the last about 18 years that He's dealt with me that have encouraged me and inspired me. And I'd like to share some of them with you. Because I think you might find it encouraging in your own life.

   You see, for the first two-thirds of my life, I didn't even know what I wanted to do in this life, much less in the kingdom of God. That wasn't even a concern of mine. I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I had no idea I had no goal. I had no purpose. I had no sense of direction.

   I had no idea what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do in this life. So, I'd like to rehearse for you this afternoon for a little while some of my life, some of my experiences. I won't go into all of the details.

   And I hope you won't feel like that I'm up here tooting my own horn or anything. I'm just going to tell you some of the things that were extended to me as opportunities, some of the things that happened in my life. But the main point I want to show you, and carry this on over into the spiritual area and into the kingdom of God and what our responsibilities are there.

   I want to try to demonstrate to you how God finally took my life and squared me away in this life. And I think this gives me hope and faith and even anticipation for the future. And as I said, as I relate these experiences, I hope neither to brag nor to complain, but merely to explain. And I think that if you will hear me out, you'll come to see what I'm driving at.

   Now, in our society today, brethren, too many people end up as adults and live out their entire lives as victims of circumstances. They don't plan their lives, they don't go to college and take particular courses. Many of you here, life has merely happened to you. You didn't plan to be where you are today.

   You didn't plan to be in the job that you have today. And many people, and I dare say there are several here in this room, end up in jobs that they don't like. And they're trapped because you become married, you're in some maybe a dead-end type of job, you become married, you have a child, you have another child, you have another child, the rent is due, the groceries have to be bought, the utilities have to be paid.

   The mouths have to be filled with food, and you're stuck. It's virtually impossible to break out of the rut. And you didn't plan it that way. That wasn't what you wanted to be when you were 16, or 14, or 18. It just sort of happened to you. And we become victims of circumstances.

   And I was no different. I floundered around in life from false start to false start. And maybe I can start with just graduation from high school and just give you a little bit of an insight into my life and what happened to me and how God took hold of my life and changed my life dramatically and gave me hope and gave me a goal and gave me a purpose and yet even gave me a measure of success. And I hope that you'll find it encouraging because I think some of you have floundered in the same way I have. I think many of you will be able to identify with this.

   I think it can encourage you and give you hope for the future because God is working with you, and God is going to work with you, and God can help you, and God can change things, and God can give you what you would really like to have. I graduated from high school just before I was 17 years old. I started to college in Salsa University.

   I grew up in Oklahoma in the oilfields of Oklahoma. My father always worked in the oil fields. And of course, a father always wants his son to be better than he is.

   He wants his sons or his daughters to accomplish more, to be more successful. I don't think a father, virtually ever, maybe there are some instances, I don't think a father ever is jealous of a son who excels and exceeds what his father has been able to do. I think that is the dream and the hope and the desire of every father.

   And it certainly was with my dad. He didn't have a college education. He had a pretty good job out in the oil fields.

   But he wanted me to go to Salsa University and take petroleum engineering, which at that time, back starting in 1952, TU had the best petroleum engineering course in the world. I don't know whether that's still true or not. But, you see, somebody else was planning my life for me.

   I did not want to be a petroleum engineer. I went because my father was paying the way. And after two years, I quit.

   And I went on to do other things. I went from there, I went to work on a drilling rig at the roughneck in the oil fields of Oklahoma, working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, 80 to 90 hours a week. And I tired of that pretty soon after a few months.

   The Army was breathing down my neck. I was going to have to face the draft, as many young men did back at that time, and it's been reinstituted now, or at least the registration for selective service.

   So, my buddy and I decided: okay, they're going to get it anyway. I was 19, he was 20, or I was 18 in 19, one or the other. And we decided that we go down to the post office and talk to where the recruiters were and talk to them.

   We thought we were men already, we didn't have to prove anything, so we just counted the Marines. We didn't feel that we had to go through the Marine Corps to prove anything. One way or the other.

   We didn't want to go into the Army because that's what we were trying to avoid by not being drafted, you see. So we talked to the, I think there was a Coast Guard recruiter there, we talked to the Navy recruiter, we talked to the Air Force recruiter, and we said, well, hey, let's just go for a laugh, let's go in and talk to this Army recruiter and just see what he's got to say, you know, just for a laugh just before we go home. So we went in there to talk to this guy, and this guy was a real snake oil salesman, let me tell you. I've been looking for him ever since. And he sat us down and sized us up as a couple of country boys, which we were, with a fair amount of native intelligence, but not all the sophistication in the world.

   And he was a salesman. He'd made a good used car salesman. Maybe that's what he was in civilian life. I don't know. But he sat us down, he began to weave and tell us about this special branch of the Army called Army Security Agency. Well, you know, this began to sound interesting.

   It began to sound like cloak and dagger. It began to sound intriguing. And it began to almost sound as if we'd be wearing civilian suits, you see.

   We wouldn't be the dogface out here walking up and down with the rifle and pulling guard duty and sitting in the trenches and shooting over the top at the enemy and this kind of thing. It was special, it was different. So the very thing we were trying to avoid, we ended up doing.

   Now, I didn't intend to do that when I went in there. You see, I was sort of a victim of circumstances. I walked in to talk to this guy, and lo and behold, I come out of there.

   I'm a GI. I've signed on the dotted line. Now, we were trying to avoid this.

   We were trying to avoid signing up for two years or being drafted for two years, so we signed up for three. Really smart. See?

   And that's the way my life went. I sort of was victimized from time to time by circumstances, by things not really of my choice, though I chose to do this. See?

   The guy didn't put a gun to my head. He didn't give me a hammer lock, but he sold me something. So I went into the Army.

   Finished basic training down Fort Chappie, Arkansas, was sent to Fort Devons, Massachusetts. Thought they would send me through the code school there. And before I got into the Army, I didn't even know they had a code school there, you see, until after I'd come out of basic training.

   So I went there for a few days, pulled guard duty a time or two, KP a time or two. And then they announced: look, we want all of you to go over to this particular building. They don't tell you anything, they just tell you to go.

   They don't say what's going to happen after you get there. So they sent us over to this particular building and. It turned out we were going to take a battery of language aptitude tests.

   Now, see, again, here I'm in the Army. I didn't really intend to set out to be in the Army. Now I'm sent over to this building. We take these tests. It turns out I make a good score on the test. They call out my name, ask me to stand up.

   I'm 19 years of age. And they say, okay, choose which language you want to study. Well, my eyes rolled up in my head.

   You see, Because they were about to send me to the Army Language School, which I'd never heard of before I went to Fort Devons. I hadn't planned that. I hadn't determined: look, I want to go in the Army and be an Army Security Agency, and I want to study a language and come out a translator.

   So they stood me up and they said, Hey, choose. I'm 19 years old. I'm from the country in Oklahoma. Choose from these four: either Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese. Russian or Korean? I thought, my word.

   You know, my computer is going bananas up here. I'm trying to decide. What a choice. See? But this thing that the recruiter had said, you know, he made it sound like we're going to be cloak and dagger. And I thought, well, they're allowable to drop me behind the lines someplace.

   Things are allowed to heat up over in Korea again, they'll drop me over there, or I sure don't want to be dropped and parachuted into Russia. Things are kind of quiet in China now.

   Take Chinese Mandarin, I told the sergeant. Next thing I knew, I was on an airplane heading for, now this was just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I was on an airplane heading for Monterey, California. Just the way I planned it. And that's the way my life went.

   I sat out there and took Chinese for five days a week, six hours a day of classroom instruction for 48 weeks. About 1,400 plus hours of classroom instruction in Chinese.

   So I come out of that class. I'm a Chinese translator. Just the way I had it planned.

   Next thing I know, I'm on another plane. I'm sent out to Fort Meade, Maryland, back and forth across the country. And I go to work out there for the National Security Agency as a Chinese translator.

   This big, huge agency out there at Fort Meade. Along about then, something good happened to me, though. Oh, I'm getting ahead of the story. That's all right. I'll get to that in a little bit. But I worked as a Chinese translator for the rest of my hitch, about two years.

   While I was out at the language school, I had a chance to take some tests. Again, we were sent down to the auditorium and told, there's going to be somebody down there to talk to you, and sure enough, there was a captain. He was a graduate of West Point. And he was giving us a sales pitch and telling us, hey, we're going to have a battery of tests and interviews and things like this. We want as many of you as possible to come and try them because we have some, we can send you to West Point through a regular Army system without an appointment from your senator or whatever.

   So, again, another very smooth-talking salesman. He was selling West Point. So I decided, well, why not? So, I went and took the test, passed them. There's a battery of tests, took half, three-fourths of the day, very rigorous physical examination.

   Then I found I'd passed those things, so I found myself seated in a little cubicle of a room with three graduates of West Point who were sort of interrogating me. It wasn't an interview, it was sort of an interrogation. And here I'm 19, almost 20 years old, and here's this lieutenant colonel who had been on the Corregidor Baton depth march.

   His hair was snow white, he was not that old but the things he'd been through. There was a captain and there was a first lieutenant.

   And they sat there and shot questions at me. You know, I'm here, this country boy from Oklahoma. And they're asking me about West Point.

   And I passed. I was accepted. I was going to be sent to West Point.

   And I thought, well, hey, this is getting out of hand. And what the guy had said was, you see, this salesman, this captain, he had said, look. Because he knew we were all in there under arrest.

   We didn't want to be in the Army. Most of us didn't. We weren't career people.

   But he said, look, you can go to the point, get your four-year engineering school out of the way, get your degree. Then we'll only keep you in for four more years, and then you're home free. You can go back to civil life, have that good education at the expense of the United States government, and it's all taken care of.

   So that sucked me in. You see, that's why I went through it in the first place. But the longer I thought of it, the more I thought well, look, you know, I've got con twice now. And if I go through West Point and get out, they will probably talk me into staying in the service. And I don't want that.

   I do not want to be a career military man. I don't want to stay in the Army. I just want to get in and get out.

   So after I'd gone through all of these things, had passed the test, my company commander and the first sergeant of my company. Thought the sun rose and set in me. They were so proud of me, they were popping their buttons off, you see, because somebody in their company had qualified to go to West Point.

   And they thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Until I screwed up my courage and went in and told them, look, I'm going to pass. And then they were looking at somebody with a net to throw over me.

   They thought that really I was the village idiot. So I went from high in their esteem. Way down to the bottom.

   You see, I had to live with that and deal with that from then on. But I turned it down. I went out into NSA, National Security Agency, worked there for the two years, got out after my hitch was up, went back to Oklahoma, worked on a Highline crew.

   And then I got a call from the agency asking me to come back after about nine months, saying, Hey, you got your same job, same desk, same people, same section. But it was about twice the pay, and finally, I could wear the civvies. He said, Because all through the time that I was in the Army Security Agency, I had to wear the uniform, of course.

   So I decided, sure, I'm not doing anything here. Might as well. And this was the story of my life. I just went from one job to the next, to the next, to the next. I was sort of without a purpose. I was. No goal. Trial and error. Had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

   But somebody would call, the opportunity would present itself. I'd say, fine, that sounds good. The grass is always greener, and I was always looking for something else. Well, went back out there. I'd been out long enough that I had to go back through the indoctrination program, take the polygraph test, and all of the indoctrination they put you through for about a week.

   Sat down in this little classroom-type thing with 40 or 50 other people. Had an indoctrinator, I guess you would call him up there at the front that was talking to us. And in this row that I was sitting on, on the end of it, was this very lovely young lady.

   And right next to her on my left was a Marine Sergeant. And then here I sat. I don't know who else was over here or anything. I don't know who else was in the room. But that first day, that's the way we sat down, and here was this young lady that was very lovely. So I was leaning around.

   I wasn't even listening to this indoctrinator too much. I was leaning around this Marine Sergeant, flirting with this girl, you say, trying to smile and be friendly and let her know that I was interested, which I was very much.

   After that first session was over in the morning, I invited her to coffee. We dated for a year and we married, and she's my wife of today. And that's something that's very good for me. It helped me. And I look back on that's a good thing that I stumbled on to. But I was just stumbling through life, you see.

   I worked at the National Security Agency. I had an opportunity to take a management training program there, about 18 months of intensive training to put me through it. And some of the other young men in the agency.

   But that wasn't what I wanted. I didn't know what I wanted, brethren. I had no idea what I wanted.

   And I was very frustrated. At one point, there, about this time, I was beginning to get an ulcer. My stomach was beginning to eat a hole in itself.

   And I had to deal with that. And what I finally decided to do was, I sat down, had a little talk with myself, and I said, look, you're killing yourself because of worry and because you can't control certain things.

   I said, this is crazy. There's no reason for me to eat a hole in my stomach and die. I'm going to quit worrying.

   So I did. Now, human nature being what it is, I went from worrying too much, eating a hole in my stomach, to the other ditch of not worrying about anything, becoming virtually totally irresponsible, but my stomach problem cleared up.

   And again, I have other problems, financial problems, you know, and all kinds of things. But I didn't have the stomach problem. The juices weren't squirting, I wasn't eating a hole in my stomach. Since coming into the church, I've had to swing back more toward the center. But thankfully, I learned a lesson, and I still don't worry about things.

   If I can handle them, if I can do them, if I can take care of them, then I take care of them. If I can't, I'm not going to eat a hole in my stomach. And that's something I don't know how to explain that to anybody else, how that happened. Well, you see, I had a very checkered career, very checkered life. By the age of 25, I had literally had over 25 different jobs.

   Now, I started working for pay for money when I was 12. So you say, well, that's 13 years, that's about two jobs a year. I was really on the road to success, let me tell you.

   My work record was getting about like this. People didn't even want to see it. They didn't even want to look at it.

   Now, by that time, brethren, I knew a lot of things that I didn't want to do. About 25 of them. I had tried them, and I knew, hey, I don't want that for a career.

   Some of them were good opportunities for somebody else, I figured. I didn't want them. But, brethren, I still didn't know what I did want to do.

   Because I had no goal. I had no sense of purpose. And if God hadn't called me, I truly believe I would still be out there banging on doors, quitting jobs, a rolling stone, rolling down the highway.

   You know, I'd be on my 90th job now or whatever, and still searching. I went on searching. I remember very well in Portland, Oregon. I was about 28 years old. And at the time, I was pushing a broom for the SPNS Railway in Vancouver, Washington. I lived in Portland.

   I drive across the Columbia River, go over there, and push the broom. I was good. I'd become very good at pushing a broom. That's honorable labor. Doesn't pay very much. And, you know, that was fine.

   My wife was working. She was supporting about half or two-thirds of the family, and I was pushing the broom, you see. That's where I had come to.

   I had two years of college, I was a Chinese translator, I'd worked in civil service, I'd done all these other things, and I was pushing a broom. Nothing wrong with that, but I was going downhill. I wasn't going up at all. Still had no goal, no purpose. Pushing a broom was alright with me.

   I didn't care. It was honest labor, and I was doing it. And my wife got sick. She had to quit work. All of a sudden, I was in trouble because what I was making. Pushing a broom was not supporting the family.

   Simply wasn't. So I went to my boss and talked to him about it. He said, Boy, you know, we hate to lose you.

   I was a good broom pusher. But he said, we can't pay you anymore. He said, my hands are tied.

   I said, I understand that. I just wanted to tell you I had to quit. So I sat down in Portland, Oregon, and at the time I didn't know it, but God was beginning to work on me.

   So, you see, I'd always cocky. I was always, though I had a lot of insecurities inside, I had this facade of cockiness. And I always said, hey, I can go anyplace, any time of the day, any time of the year, any place in the United States, and I can get a job.

   Because, see, I didn't care what I did. I really didn't. Haul garbage, shovel manure into the wind, work as a carpenter, work on a freight dock. I really didn't care. I didn't have any kind of pride that way. Up working with my hands, and I love to do that.

   I enjoy doing that. And many, many of the jobs I've had have been just that. But I had to do something. You see, I was getting older. I was 28 years old. And I remember sitting down and asking myself, what am I going to do with my life?

   Because I'm going to walk up to a prospective employer sometime. He's going to hear about or see my record and he's going to run screaming. And every year older I got, the more frightening that question became: What am I going to do with my life?

   And I didn't know. So I sat down and took stock, and I decided, well, look, Buster, you better sit down and determine what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Whether you like it or not, you better get lined out and do something. So I agonized over it. I got out sheets of paper. I really did. Pro and con. I made a column down the middle, and I would decide. I finally decided I just work in a trade, you know, plumbing, carpentry, whatever.

   And after agonizing and soul searching, I decided: okay, I'm going to be an electrician. I will go into the union, become an apprentice, serve an apprenticeship, come out an electrician.

   Eventually, I'll get my own company going and I'll work for myself and I'll be an electrician. So terrific. This is the first time in the entire length of my 28 years that I had ever sat down and done this. Now, that might sound incredible to some of you, but I think some of you still maybe haven't done that. I don't know.

   But I hadn't. I just had not done that. So, a great burden was lifted off of my shoulders. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I finally know what I'm going to do. I have a goal. I have a purpose. I finally have determined what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. So I went out to talk to some electrical contractors to see which one of them wanted me in an apprenticeship program.

   You know what I found out? In Portland, Oregon, the union was full. I could not be an electrical apprentice.

   Now, you talk about getting the rug jerked out of you and the wind taken out of you after all of that soul-searching, 28 years of sort of spinning my wheels. Then I go and I think. Well, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about in the first one.

   So I had the book, phone book out. I was out of work. The rent was due. You know, we didn't have any groceries. It's pretty desperate. So I went and I knocked on another contractor. I just went and hit them, you know, cold. I said, Look, here's who I am. Here's what I'd like to do. I want to become an apprentice. I want to work for you. I want to learn the business.

   And on and on I went. I'm sorry. We'd like to hire you, but we can't.

   So there I was, back to square one. Still a victim of circumstances. Even after I planned it all out, there was nothing I could do. It was out of my hands. The union was full. They would not hire me. They could not hire me. So I finally got a job driving a delivery truck, which was fine. I was glad to get anything.

   And it was a job, and I had begun to listen. This was in the latter part of 1962, I believe, and I had begun to listen to the Broadcast, read the Plain Truth Magazine. And I'd begun to realize the Sabbath was Saturday from Friday, sundown to Saturday, sundown.

   And I realized that I should keep it. So when this guy hired me on Monday, I talked to him. He was driving a delivery truck delivering carbonic gas, it's liquid CO2 in these cylinders.

   And he said, we'd like to have you, we'd like to hire you. He said, there's only one thing bad about the job. He said, it's seven days a week.

   And you're on call 24 hours a day. I said, I'd like to have the job. I didn't tell him that I was not going to work from Friday, sundown to Saturday, sundown.

   I said, I'd like to have the job. So he hired me. So I went home and I prayed some of the most fervent prayers I've ever prayed. You know, in my uneducated way, I didn't even know too much about praying. But I had come to learn that there was a God. I believed him.

   I believed the Sabbath was true. I believed what I was beginning to see and read in this word. It was clear to me. I had read it before. I'd taken stabs at it, tried to study it, tried to start in one place or another, and it never made any sense. But all of a sudden, the light came on.

   And I realized, hey, I've got to keep the Sabbath. I cannot work for this guy. But I was desperate for a job. I didn't lie to him. I just said I'd like to have the job. So I went to work on Tuesday. Tuesday evening, I prayed about it. Wednesday evening, I prayed about it. Thursday evening, I prayed about it.

   No, I'm sorry. I came in on Thursday and I said, Look, Mr. Heil, I said, I know what you told me about this job.

   He said, It's on call 24 hours a day and it's seven days a week. I said, Look, I will work for you six days a week, as near to 24 hours a day as I can. But I said, from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, I simply cannot work.

   And this guy was a sort of a hard-bitten, self-made electrical contractor. I half expected him to get up and bodily throw me out of his office, you know, because he had a half-interest in this refrigeration company.

   But he sort of squinted and he looked up at me because I had told God, I said, God, I know you're real, and I know you want me to keep the Sabbath. I said, I need this job. I need a job.

   But I said, If you want me to have this job, then you turn a screw in this guy head, you know, if you keep this job for me, if you don't want me to have this job, then I'll go down the street and find another one.

   And, you know, I had butterflies in my stomach. I didn't go in with the same kind of faith that I have now, but I believed God, brethren, and I believed the Sabbath was the Sabbath, and He meant what he said. I sort of put him to the test.

   He said, Try me, prove me now here with. And I did. I said, Look, here it is, God. I've done all I can do. I've worked as hard as I can for the man and tried to impress him with the fact that I am going to work hard for him and will be a solid, stable man employee, but I said, You're going to have to do the rest.

   I went in there. Mr. Heil sort of squinted, and he looked up at me from behind his deak and he said, Okay, we'll work something out. And that's how hard it was. That's how easy it was.

   You see, he'd already told me. He could have said, Look, you so-and-so, what do you mean? I told you. You came in here and under false pretenses and you've taken the job. I told you what it was going to be. He could have got very, very indignant, thrown me out of there. I half expected it. But I was going to go down the street and get another job because I had become to see, brethren, like a little tiny baby that looks up to his father, that there really is a God and He loves me and He can take care of me.

   I've been living that way ever since. Now, He called me then into His church there in Portland, Oregon. I was baptized, had the chance to go to Ambassador College. Now, in a sense, I was still a victim of circumstances, except God had now taken a hand and begun to work with me. And He had begun to give me a goal and a purpose.

   And I began to see that, hey, there really is a true church. I had been to other churches. I had been to churches all over the map. And for the most part, it was strictly a social thing. Usually I went to the church where the pretty girls were. That's how religious I was. You see.

   I didn't care anything about religion. I didn't care anything about listening to sermons and sitting there and getting involved in Bible studies or Sunday school classes or all of this stuff that held no interest for me. I didn't hear anything in these churches that appealed to me.

   It just didn't. And I'd lived, you know, for 28 years that way. But this began to be real. I started attending the Portland, Oregon Church, began to hear Mr. Carlton Smith and Mr. Fred Kellers, who was an assistant who just came out from college at that time, preached.

   Yeah, I used to sit back there in the crowd in the audience, and my mouth would fall open because people during the Bible study would bring, you know, the deacons and the ushers would bring these questions up from people in the audience and drop them in this basket. And Fred Keller is a young man, younger than I, about 10 years or whatever, five or six or eight years. He would reach down in there, take one of these out, and begin to expound it.

   I thought, my word, that's fantastic. How did he do that? You know, I'd want to get the thing home and study it for a week, and I still wouldn't have had the answer. And this was God's church. There was something different here.

   There was a spirit that was guiding and directing. There was a unity. There was a warmth and a friendship and a camaraderie.

   And there was a godliness about these people that I'd never seen any place before. And now my life began to have a sense of direction and a purpose. Not to come into the ministry, but just to be part of this church and part of this work and do whatever God wanted me to do.

   In whatever capacity, whatever he wanted me to do, that's what I wanted to do. Now, I thought I would be a church member. I would stay there in Portland, Oregon. I would work. I would grow in the church. I would serve, help the widows, do whatever was necessary, mow lawns, paint houses, pick up songbooks, do whatever was necessary.

   I really didn't care, but I had a purpose. Now, there was a reason for living. There was a goal. There was eternity stretching out ahead of me. There was God's kingdom that was being explained to me in a picture painted. And it was clear and it was real.

   You would have thought that it was a different individual because, like I said, I was never interested in religion. You know, I used to smoke four packs a day, Mr. McCrady.

   I didn't get up in the middle of the night to smoke one. I was still out there. See, I was still up.

   That's when I smoked the fourth pack. And I used to brag that I could drink anybody under the table. That I could do this and do that, you know, sort of a braggadocious, push-shouldered type of an approach.

   And I look back and I think, my word, somebody must have been watching over me, or I've got my head screwed off backwards. Some of the things that I've gotten involved in. Not religious at all, not centered or oriented that way at all. But God was beginning to change my mind and beginning to convert me and beginning to show me that religion was not for sissies. I was observing ministers who, lo and behold, were men.

   You know, they weren't some Nambi-Pandy effeminates. These guys were men. They spoke like men. They spoke with authority. They didn't back down for anybody. That impressed me.

   And my life began, as I say, to take on a different tack. Now, I went to Ambassador College, and while I was at Ambassador College, I thought, hey, boy, I just want to be in the work, whatever way God wants to use me. I just want to work for the church if I can.

   If not, I'll go back and be a church member. But this is it. This is life.

   And this is what I want my life to be. And lo and behold, I graduated after three years because of the other language training and the college training I'd had. And I was sent out as a ministerial assistant.

   And I became a minister. I was ordained a local elder at the feast of Jekyll Island in 1967 by Mr. Herbert Armstrong.

   And I was in the ministry. Now, what I'm saying to you, brethren, is this, and I hope you'll bear with me and don't get upset with me for talking about myself here for a moment. For a few minutes.

   But what I'm saying is this. I didn't know what I wanted to be. About 30 different jobs, and I had not found my niche. I didn't know what I wanted to be. But God did. God knew where I could be happy.

   I'll tell you this much, brethren. You can believe it or not, it's up to you. I did not want to be a minister. Even after I came into the church, I didn't want to be a minister. And if before I came into the church and back a few years, you'd said, Look, Jones, I want you to take a list of paper, a sheet of paper. I want you to take a hundred jobs.

   You pick them out and you put them one to a hundred in order of preference, priority, the way you would like to have these as a career. Minister would even have been on there.

   She'd come back and said, okay, make me up a list of 500 jobs. Minister wouldn't even have been on there. It would have never entered my mind to think of being a minister.

   If you'd have said, okay, here are all the jobs in the world. Now, we're going to force you to put minister on the list. It would have been way down there. It would have been ahead of Lion Tamer, I guess. There may be two or three others, but it would certainly have been down at the bottom of the list.

   Simply did not ever want to be a minister. But you see, God knew me. God knew me better than I knew myself. And God knew I could be happy as a minister. And if somebody had told me that, I'd have said, you are stark raving loony. Because that's absurd.

   I could not be happy as a minister. I'm not qualified to be a minister. I don't even want to be a minister.

   When God took hold of my life, began to give it a sense of direction, a sense of purpose, when I became involved, began to commit my life to Him, then He placed me where He wanted me. I was reading through the Human Potential book, The Incredible Human Potential book of Mr. Herbert Armstrong the other day, and I I've caught a quote in there or something that I wanted to quote for you on page 97.

   What he was talking about, the fact that this new religion his life had found merely embarrassed him. He didn't want to have anything to do with religion. And I'll quote one sentence that he wrote there.

   It says, quote, Becoming a minister of Jesus Christ was the last thing I should have wanted to do. I can say a hearty amen. That's the last thing I would have ever wanted to do.

   But brethren, young people, old people, if you're still floundering around, if you don't know what you want to do, then let God help you. Ask him for help. He knows what you can be the most, what can be the happiest doing.

   He knows what your strengths and your weaknesses are. And you know what I'm building up to. Likewise, brethren, God knows what you're going to be happiest doing in the world tomorrow, in the kingdom of God. I am not going to spend one second worrying about what job God is going to give me in His kingdom. I have no more idea than a goose, and I'm not worried about it because I know that God knows me in a way that I will never know myself in this flesh. And God will help me, and He will. Give me the job that I will find the most pleasure in doing. And he'll do the same thing for you.

   Now, maybe we're uncertain about the jobs we're going to have, brethren, because we are thinking in terms of specific job titles. And we don't even know maybe what the jobs are going to be out there in the world tomorrow. But I think we'd be better off if we think about what we would like to do or what we would like to change in God's kingdom.

   In God's family. And approach it from that aspect. I think if you do that, it can be a little clearer, and maybe you'll have a little better idea of what you would like to do.

   Let's consider just two or three here, quickly, of the things that are going to be available. What about education? Let's turn over to Isaiah, the 30th chapter.

   A verse here, a couple of verses that Mr. Norman Smith read. I'm going to read them to you again.

   Isaiah 30:20 and 21. Talking about a time, beginning of the millennium, when Israel is going to be brought back, restored. He's talking to physical people, but he's talking about somebody that's going to teach them.

   Somebody that's going to be over them. Somebody in his family. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not your teachers be removed into a corner anymore.

   But your eyes shall see your teachers. Brethren, we, how would you like to teach? How would you like to be involved in education? How do you like the education that your children are receiving in the schools right now? You know, Mr. Armstrong takes a shot at the modern education constantly.

   And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, This is the way. Walk you in it when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. This is the right way.

   That's wrong. Come back over here. That's going to get you in trouble. It'll be gently done. It'll be not so gently done if necessary. It'll be done in the right way.

   And, brethren, he's talking about some of you who are going to be teachers in the world tomorrow. I don't mean teachers in the sense of the classical sense with a yardstick in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other, standing up at the chalkboard and making lines and figures and words on a chalkboard. But I'm talking about people who impart understanding and knowledge and wisdom to people.

   Let me read you something here about today's education. This is an article that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times on the 15th of this month, just about 12 days ago.

   And it shows a cartoon here at the top. It shows some people walking along with placards. They're on strike. We demand more money. And asking for raises says, teachers are underpaid. And here are these two teenage boys standing here.

   One has a football jersey on, another, some kind of an athletic jersey. And they're standing there sort of slump-shouldered and stupid look on their faces. And one of them says to the other, Isn't that our teacher carrying the sign?

   What do you suppose it says? The other one says, Don't ask me. I can't read either.

   And the article is rather enlightening and rather shocking. Let me read part of it. The author says, If you think a man America's English teachers have gone back to basics and are solving the literacy problem everyone began shouting about in the 1970s.

   Think again. Recent studies show that English teachers know little about the language they're supposed to teach. They get poor training in writing at college and, as a group, are bad writers.

   Many have sold out to top courses in filmmaking, visual literacy, and various other things, simply ignoring language and writing in the process. The University of Illinois researchers Arne and Charlene Tibbetts visited schools in every part of the country before writing a book entitled What's Happening to American English. Their findings published last year exposed some of the incompetence in the profession.

   We didn't know what to teach, said one instructor, so we didn't teach anything. This is an English class. An experienced teacher said of recently trained English majors, they can't begin to tell students, what to do about writing problems.

   Another said, even if the new teachers wanted to do basics, most of them couldn't. A little further in the article, it says officials in the Finellis County School District, that's the one in which we are sitting right here, announced that between 1976 and 1980, about 30% of newly trained teachers applying for jobs plunked a district literacy test, and several of them were English majors.

   Why? Most college English professors do know writing themselves. They know little about putting words on paper, and teaching writing scares them to death.

   When professors do teach writing, they usually make a mess of it. Here's what the director of writing programs at the University of Illinois and a national leader in writing instruction told teachers at a campus where I worked: quote, Now he was lecturing English teachers, and he says, nor is sentence combining always an option? I want you to listen to this carefully.

   Nor is sentence combining always an option, even if we assume a plenitude of ideational content in the writer's intention. Since semantic constraints governing the grammatically hierarchical arrangement of that content require that much of it occur as subordinate inclusions within the boundaries of orthographic sentences. You get that?

   He did come up and explain it to me afterwards. That's not all. He also talked about semantic structuration of discourse, what we used to call grammar when I was a kid, composing behaviors, and intra-sentential deployment of syntactic structures.

   How does that grab you? He told teachers to pay attention to these things and ignore the advice of E.B. White, Edmund Newman, and others who talk about things like clarity and simplicity in writing. Such gibberish is common from authorities in the business. He goes on to talk about some of the PhDs and some of the wacky, loony ideas that they come up with.

   And he says here that the National Council of Teachers of English have come to the point, brethren, where they do not even use the terms right and wrong. They do not even say this is right. And this is wrong.

   Those are the ones who are teaching our children. And they don't have any direction. We know in Isaiah, God says through the pen of Isaiah that there's coming a time when the teacher is going to say, hey, that's wrong.

   This is the right way. I look forward to that. Florida schools are really bad. If you're from Alabama, you're really in trouble. I'm not putting anybody down from Alabama. But I was told earlier this year that the scholastic ranking of Alabama in the 50 states of the United States is 50th.

   That's sad. That's tragic. What are you kids going to learn? How are they going to really get a good education? What about government and politics? Let me go through a few more scriptures here quickly.

   You know, when you look at the presidential candidates, you think, well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that one of them is going to win. The good news is that only one of them is going to win.

   So, what does God say about government and the politics of this world? Let's look over a few chapters in Isaiah chapter 59:4. He says, None calls for justice.

   Know any pleas for truth. See what's happening in the state of California today? Is there any justice, is there any truth?

   They trust in vanity. They speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.

   Verse 7, their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in their path.

   The way of peace they know not. How true, that is. And you can go on and read.

   They've made them crooked paths. Verse 10: it says, We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night.

   There's no direction, there's no leadership. There's nobody that has the guts to stand up and say, Look, this is right and this is wrong. This is the way, walk you in it, in education, in government, or anything.

   It's all what's going to get me to vote. What's going to get me re-elected? I don't give a big hang about all those people out there, except that I can use them and exploit them and get what I want for myself.

   Would you like to change government? Would you like to have a hand in changing some of these things? You know, politics makes me absolutely feel like barfing. That's a wrong way to operate. It's absolutely hideous. And I'd like to change it someday. And maybe some of you would. Maybe you can.

   Depends on what God has in store for you. Let's look over just a couple of other chapters because, brethren, in the world tomorrow, the job field is going to be wide open.

   Isaiah 61, let's look in verse 4 (Isaiah 61:4). It says, They shall build the old waste. They shall raise up the former desolations and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.

   How would you like to be involved in city building? You know, in building a city, it's going to take architects, it's going to take designers, it's going to take decorators, landscapers, there's going to have to be a sewage disposal system, there's going to have to be a transportation system.

   I'm sure Mr. McCrady could tell you about the subway system in New York. I've never been there. I've been in the one in London, and here on our vacation this summer, we were able to go up to the Washington DC area and take advantage of the new metro system up there. But you see, it's going to take city planners. Cities to me are the best example I can think of of evolution.

   New York City evolved around the world's finest deepwater port. Tampa has evolved around Tampa Bay.

   Minneapolis and St. Paul have evolved from the confluence of the Minnesota and the Mississippi rivers. Here was a natural trading spot and a place where supplies could be brought in and trade goods brought out and whatever.

   And it just began to grow. They put up a little trading shack. Then somebody built a little house.

   And then something else, you know, a little store, a little general store, and a livery stable. And it began to grow away from this confluence of these two rivers. And before you knew it, here was this great grawling mess.

   And they said, hey, we can't have this. We've got the glue factory right next to the hospital. We better have some zoning laws.

   We better quit just letting this thing grow out of hand. We've got to say, well, you can only do this in this area and this in that area. The metro system in Washington, D.C. is costing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of your tax money. Wouldn't it be so much better to put the subway system in first and then build a city on top?

   You know? Save so much money. And when the city gets full and you've got as many people, as many parks and buildings and things as you want to have, don't let it just grow into some great megalopolis.

   Go put up another city someplace. Keep the integrity of that one. Not allow it to just keep evolving.

   Well, brethren, these are some of the things you could read about agriculture, about transportation systems, about many, many things. But let me ask you this question. Does it matter?

   Because I touched on this at the beginning, I'd like to come back to it. Does it matter how large your responsibilities are now? Does that govern, does that limit what you're going to be able to do in the world tomorrow? God's kingdom, his government, his family. Let's look at one scripture over in Luke, the 16th chapter.

   If you'll read this in your own Bible, if you'll believe what God says, I think this can be one of the most encouraging verses that we could read. As far as responsibilities and upcoming responsibilities in the future. Luke 16:10.

   We're breaking into the middle of a thought here, but the principle is right here in the 10th verse. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.

   And he that is unfaithful in the least is unfaithful also in much. Brethren, maybe you're 80 years old, you're 75, or you're 90, your physical life is virtually over. You've already grown up in the physical.

   You've already had your shot at physical life. You've either made it or you haven't. Maybe you're a widow.

   Maybe supported by the church. Maybe you don't have too much to offer this world's physical goods. You don't have much money to put into the offering basket on the holy days when it's sent around.

   Maybe you're handicapped. Maybe you're confined to a wheelchair, as some of our brethren are. Maybe you're quadriplegic and you cannot move your arms and your legs. And you cannot take up song books, and you can't paint widows' houses, and you can't do things in the church physically. And you think, well, I'm very limited.

   I'm going to be limited in God's kingdom. Is that true? Can you pray? Can you be loyal, as Mr. Cowen was saying? Can you study God's Word? Can you support His work with every bit of life that you have in you? And maybe, comparatively, what you're doing doesn't compare with what perhaps I can do as a minister. 45 years of age, a certain measure of health.

   Does that disqualify you for a big job in the future? Not according to Luke 16:10. He that is faithful in the least, in little, God knows will also be faithful in much. So you don't have to worry about that. God, brethren, is training each one of us for jobs, for authority, for rulership.

   And let me quickly read something from Mr. Armstrong's book here: Tomorrow, What It Will Be Like, pages 70 and 71, just about three paragraphs. He says, God Almighty is working out a purpose here below, and the Eternal God carefully planned every move toward the accomplishment of that purpose.

   His first promise of this happy state was made to Abraham. God promised Abraham this whole earth as an everlasting inheritance for him and his children. God promised that through Abraham, all nations of the earth would be blessed.

   At the same time, God began ensuring the efficiency and perfection of his world-ruling government by causing Abraham, Isaac, Israel, and Joseph to be trained during a lifetime in several basic essentials for top personnel in a government of perfection. And he gives about three or four criteria here.

   Let me read them. He said: First is right attitude. Further, that is the most important thing. I don't care whether you can read, write, walk, talk, hear, see what kind of talents, big, small, or what they are. Numero uno. Is the attitude.

   God can make a jackass speak. That always gives me encouragement. God's not impressed by great talent, great ability, and nobility, and wealth, and all these things.

   He's got it all. You know, we can't stand up here and say, well, God, here I am. You know, come and get me.

   I've got all this to offer. Hogwash. If the attitude is right, if it's an attitude of obedience, of loyalty, of faithfulness.

   God can take you. If you're a moldable, pliable piece of clay, He can take you and make whatever He wants out of you. I don't care who you are, I don't care what you have or you don't have.

   Okay? He said, Secondly, they were trained in knowledge of the true values. That's what we're learning in God's church.

   That's what God has taught me and is teaching me. And how God turned me around and turned me around from, you know. A cigarette, cigar smoking, beer swilling, doing everything else under the sun type of individual who had no set of values really, had no goals and no priorities and no purpose, and can turn me around and change me and show me what the true values are and give me happiness and take away that frustration and that fear that were always there before.

   He said, after that, they were trained in handling people, in wise management of people. Brethren, in your family, you're dealing with people. You're dealing with people every day.

   You're dealing with people here in this congregation, the Feast of Tabernacles. You're dealing with the people, the waiters, the waitresses, the management down at the motel and out at the restaurant. How are you doing it?

   And he said, not only the wise management of people, but of wealth, without letting it turn their heads. And then he went on to talk about The Seven Laws of Success. And maybe you ought to take out that booklet sometime, dust it off, and reread it.

   Because, brethren, there's no reason to be concerned about what we're going to be doing in the kingdom of God. If you're worried, if you're concerned, if you're wondering, stop doing so. Start dreaming.

   Start thinking about it. Start praying and studying about it. Start preparing yourself, brethren, in these areas that Mr. Cowan just told us about this morning, the basic this afternoon, rather. God will make up the difference. You know, I have no idea what my specific job is going to be in the kingdom, but I know some of the things that I'd like to change.

   And I really believe that God is going to let me work on some of them. And I know too, brethren, that He loved me. He loved me beyond what I can even understand.

   He loved me enough that He gave His most priceless and most revered possession, His Son, to come down to this earth to live. To set us an example, to live perfectly, and then to be illegally apprehended, arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, beaten brutally, mercilessly and shamefully, murdered, and crucified, to make possible our salvation, to make possible eternal life for us, to make possible a job for us and his family and his kingdom.

   Brethren, I imagine, and I think maybe he takes great delight, but I just imagine that he may surprise some of us with the jobs he gives us. I think he sort of delights now. He knows you, he understands exactly what you'll be happy doing.

   I'm looking forward to it. I suspect he may surprise me again, just like he did by making me a minster. You look forward to the kingdom, brethren, because God is going to bless you beyond your wildest imagination.

   You work where you are in the job that you have, no matter how large or small, you do it the very best you can. You pray and study and stay close to God and you trust Him. And you're going to have the most exciting future, the most exciting eternity.

   In fact, I almost said imaginable. It is unimaginable what it's going to be like. So you get ready for it. You think about it. You dream about it. You trust God.

   You look to Him because He is going to place you exactly where you will be the happiest, the most rewarded, and the most productive forever.