Herbert W Armstrong

   Matthew 10:28 [Mark 10:28-29], "Peter began to say unto him, 'Lord, we have left all and have followed you.'" It's stated in the form of a statement here, of course, in the scripture, but obviously it implies a question, judging from Christ's response. Peter seems to be asking, "What's going to come of all this? Where does this come out, Lord? We've made some big sacrifices. We've left it all behind. We've given up businesses and family and friends. Where does this go anyway?" That's a fair question. Christ didn't chide Peter for asking the question. He didn't say, "Well, don't worry about it. It'll come out fine in the by and by." He got right to the point in verse 29."Jesus answered and said, 'Verily I say unto you, there is no man that has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time.'"

   So Christ begins — did I say Matthew? Is that what you're still turning around? Don't you know I mean Mark when I say Matthew? Turn to Mark 10. And verse 30, I'm sorry. There's an equivalent passage in Matthew, but it's not in the 10th chapter, is it? Anyway, Mark 10:30. The point that he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, so Christ spoke of some present rewards that are considerable — houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands — that we experience in God's church, opportunities being welcome in distant places where brethren will take you into their home and make you feel like a long lost relative, longtime friendships such as we heard Mr. Howe commenting on in the announcements that we build up in God's church, brothers and fathers and mothers — with persecutions, though, he adds. And then finally, in the world to come, eternal life.

   So we answered the question two ways. The first concerns our life now with its many rewards and blessings, the relationships we have in God's church, the opportunities. And that could be a whole marvelously inspiring sermon all by itself, but it isn't. The sermon I have for you today, which concerns the second part: "and in the world to come, eternal life."

   What's that? You know, those two little words convey a great deal of meaning, but the meaning is lost on many people. And it is, it isn't the easiest thing to grasp what eternal life in God's kingdom is all about. One of the instructors at Imperial School was telling me that a teenager over there in one of his Bible classes was asking him this last semester, "Well, Mr. Halford, if, if we don't really want to live forever," and I think she was implying, if we get bored, "uh, can we die? Would it, would it be OK if we just kind of wrapped it up at some point?"

   Now that's the teenager's misconception of what eternal life is all about. And it fails to comprehend what God has in mind, but eternal life is difficult to grasp, and there are dimensions of our reward that are so sweeping in scope and so great that it is hard for our physical natural minds, particularly, to grab on to it and to be motivated and inspired by it. But the gospel reveals significantly and substantially what our reward is.

   And this morning I'd like to go through certain passages of scripture. And to begin with, I'd like to go through certain passages of the Incredible Human Potential where God has used Mr. Armstrong to reveal the nature of this reward to us, because, brethren, our natural human tendency is to get focused on this life, its immediate blessings and opportunities, or its trials and difficulties, and to not stay focused on the goal of the reward of the kingdom of God and eternal life.

   In this book, The Incredible Human Potential, we have, as far as I'm concerned, the fullest revelation of the nature of our reward that you have available to you. It builds on the revelation of the New Testament and fills in the details considerably in our 20th century language. And Mr. Armstrong does, under God's inspiration, reveal what the incredible human potential really is.

   In chapter 3, "The Incredible Human Potential at Last Revealed," and I say again what I've said before, you may have heard me say, I'm afraid many people just never really got the message of this book. Didn't treasure it, didn't see it for what it is. Now I'll just tell you, if you don't have one very well marked, dog-eared copy of this somewhere in your library with passages you've been over many times, then you've probably missed the point and you've probably made the mistake of assuming you knew everything that was in here.

   I admit I made that mistake for initially for about a year. And I didn't appreciate until about a year later when I began to get into this book exactly what is here, and it is again, as far as I'm concerned, the fullest revelation of the potential that God has in mind for mankind that has ever been put to pen, and there is obvious evidence of divine inspiration. And I would frankly be shocked if sometime in the future large passages of this book aren't holy scripture. That's my own personal feeling, that's not church doctrine. But it stands on a par with scripture in terms of the insight into our reward.

   And Mr. Armstrong asks on page 22 of this book, "What is the most necessary of all knowledge to know?" And he gets right to the point. He doesn't just raise the question, he gives the answer. It is the knowledge of what man is, the knowledge of why he is, the purpose for which humanity was put on earth, and the knowledge of the way to achieve that purpose, which he explains in the next paragraph, both science and higher education and religion have all rejected. They don't know what that purpose is. They may phrase the right question. The big question of the philosophers over the centuries, the biggest philosophical question of the ages, is "What is man? What is he?" But they don't have the answer, and they can't have the answer because it hasn't been revealed to them.

   But Mr. Armstrong goes on to give the answer. On page 23, at the bottom of the page, there's a section entitled "The Vast Universe and Man." And he begins to do what others, including David, have done over the centuries, and that's look to this universe for clues as to the purpose and destiny of man, which I'm sure God intends. He intends us to lift up our eyes on a clear and beautiful night and look up into the heavens. We've seen beautiful full moon here recently and the planets distributed across the skies in a rather breathtaking manner here throughout June and July. The sky has been very beautiful.

   And as Mr. Armstrong writes in this Book of all books, God reveals Himself as Creator of all, not merely the earth and man, but the entire limitless universe. The Maker of mankind is also the Creator of all. "On a clear, cloudless night, one may behold the star-studded sky. Is it possible," he asks, "there is an unrealized connection between the galaxies with their mighty suns, their planets, and man? Is there some connection?"

   He writes on the next page, "In this true story of the incredible human potential, I deem it well to look into the Creator's overall purpose." Interestingly, God created this universe before he created man. What I've come to call the real estate was already out there. Maybe the people weren't living in those galaxies yet, but they're out there and God did not create them in vain. They're out there for a purpose, and the very existence of the universe does suggest, imply the purpose for mankind.

   And then on page 26, he comments that the ancient King David of Israel wondered about the stars and was inspired to tell us God created them. David was inspired to write, and this is from Psalm 8, it's probably you already know, he puts together three passages of scripture and with those three unlocks the heart and core of man's destiny and the incredible human potential.

   Starting with Psalm 8 where David writes in the first verse, and you can turn there and follow along. I'll just read it here out of the book. "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set your glory above the heavens." And then later in verses 3 and 4, David writes, "When I consider your heavens," as he must have many times as a shepherd boy growing up under the stars, slept out under the stars on countless occasions, saw that giant Milky Way, the whole galaxies displayed above him, the changing planets and the moon, the full moon, the changing seasons. He said, "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, I asked myself, what is man that you are mindful of him?"

   Same question. The big question of the ages. What is man? Where is this going? What's the connection between man and the creation out there? "It may be," Mr. Armstrong writes, "that King David was not given the revelation of the real connection between man and the stars of outer space, for he continues, quote, 'For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!'"

   Mr. Armstrong comments David here limits man's dominion to the present, that which God gave mankind in the creation of man, the solid earth, the earth's atmosphere, and the waters and the sea. That is the dominion man has now. And indeed he does. Man runs this planet right down to its animal life and plant life. He can rearrange whole mountains if he chooses to, to build a road. He has dominion over this physical earth, and that's as far as David develops the thought in the book of, uh, in the Psalms.

   But then, as Mr. Armstrong points out, when you come over to the book of Hebrews, the writer of the book of Hebrews is inspired to follow with something radically different. Something to happen in the world to come, that Paul is speaking of. Not the world today, the world tomorrow, of which we speak. "This revealed knowledge of God's purpose for mankind, of man's incredible awesome potential staggers the imagination. Science knows nothing of it, although frankly, science fiction kind of dabbles with the theme of the universe but always postulates that man will be physical in his attempts to get out there and rule or explore it, which is not the truth. No religion reveals it, so far as I know, and certainly higher education is in utter ignorance of it."

   And then he quotes from these passages in Hebrews in chapter 2. Let's turn there. Which builds. This is Paul's New Testament commentary on David and then today we have Mr. Armstrong's present commentary on both. It's interesting. God has a progressive revelation of truth coming down over the centuries and the millennia. We happen to stand today in that point in human history when that revelation of God's plan and intent has never been fuller or more complete. It's a tremendous blessing, brethren.

   So, David is being quoted in Hebrews 2:6, when Paul says, "But one in a certain place testified, saying," and we know that was David in the 8th Psalm, "'What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour, and did set him over the works of your hands.'" Has that happened yet? Are we glorious? Are we honorable? Well, let's read on. "You have put all things in subjection under his feet,'" end quote.

   And then Paul continues to comment, "For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him." But then he has to add the obvious, "But now we see not yet all things put under him." No, man doesn't rule the universe. And frankly, there are a good many things even on this planet that man does not rule. Man doesn't make the weather, he can't stop droughts. He can't stop flooding and too much rainfall. And more critically, man doesn't even rule over his own nature. Man can't stop wars. Man can't stop crime, man can't stop drug addiction, broken homes, scarred and unhappy family relations. There are a good many things outside man's grasp, and of course, an additional factor that man doesn't even know is that man can't overturn the unseen spirit ruler of this world who governs and directs and controls the events and even shapes man's nature, and that's Satan the devil, of whom man is ignorant and that's just the way Satan wants it.

   So no, he does not rule all things yet, but that's what God has in mind. What we do see, however, while we don't see man in honor and glory and dominion, we have a prototype in Jesus Christ, who was made like man, a little lower than the angels. The margin properly has that earlier in my Bible, "a little while inferior to." There's a time element here, temporarily inferior to the angels, not permanently so, for the suffering of death, and he, Christ, has been crowned with glory and honor by means of the resurrection from the dead. God has given him all power. Jesus said, "All power has been given unto me in heaven and in earth." He's got it. Hebrews chapter 1 says that he governs the universe by the word of his power. He's in charge of the whole universe and sustains it by his power.

   So there's what the Bible really means when it has the expression "glory" and "crowned with glory." And we, brethren, are destined to be crowned with glory and honor, even as Christ was. But our minds have a hard time grasping that. We're not very glorious. One of the comedians has a line you're familiar with. Rodney Dangerfield, isn't it? "I don't get no respect." At this time we're not used to having a lot of honor, praise heaped on us, a lot of power, a lot of might. We just don't have that. We don't really deserve it yet, and we couldn't handle it if we got it in most cases. But we're building toward that, and Christ is already there.

   And verse 10 (Hebrews 2:10) says that God is bringing many sons to glory and has already made the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. So we see the prototype, we see the captain of our salvation. We see what God has in mind in Christ, and we are to be sons who inherit all things.

   Mr. Armstrong asked if we're really willing to believe what God says when he says all things. He says that he has decreed the entire universe with all its galaxies, its countless suns and planets, everything will be put under man's subjection. This is something that goes beyond any Star Wars sci-fi theme, because this is something at a much higher level.

   We are to be, as the 8th chapter of Romans says, and that's the 3rd passage of scripture Mr. Armstrong expounds in this chapter, joint heirs with Christ. Let's turn to that passage right now. In Romans 8, we could pick it up in verse 14 where it says (Romans 8:14), "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Now, we are already God's sons, begotten now to be born then by the resurrection. And verse 17 continues (Romans 8:17), "And if were children, we’re heirs; we are God’s heirs. Heirs of God." We're going to receive our inheritance from him, "and we are joint-heirs with Christ." So whatever he has inherited, we're going to inherit, "if so be that we suffer with him," because the suffering is essential for the development of our character and the character is essential to the attainment of this reward, "if we suffer with him, we may be also glorified together."

   And Paul's whole attitude towards this magnificent process is revealed in verse 18 when he says (Romans 8:18), "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Not to us as if we see it distantly. And some churches picture it, staring up at the face of God and looking at the beatific vision of God's glory while we ourselves are much inferior in glory. That isn't it. The glory is going to be revealed in us, and someday you and I are going to be glorious spirit beings in power and with capacity and greatness and scope that goes so far beyond our wildest dreams and imagination that we have difficulty conceiving of it. And that's just the problem. To put it in the vernacular, it blows our minds, you know. It's just past what we can readily grasp.

   And yet we must try to grasp it, brethren, or we're not going to be motivated by it, and we're going to have our minds slew off into the physical things of this life, which can seem very important and very attractive. And they can pull us right away from this reward. Paul didn't let that happen. He said the sufferings of this present time aren't to be compared. Some people do compare. And they say, "Oh, I just can't take this. I've had it. I just can't take any more of this," and they quit and they throw in the towel at some point in time, and they count the sufferings of this present life as too great a price to pay for life in God's kingdom. It's happened, and it can happen to you if you get your mind off this goal.

   And you can get focused on your trials. I'm reluctant to call them petty little trials because when you're having them, they don't seem petty or little, I realize, but by comparison to the greatness of this goal, they are petty and little. I don't mean to disparage you and I know from my own trials in this life that they seem very strong at times and severe. They seem like crises and they are, but this is the right attitude. They really don't compare and I want us today if possible to capture what is the right attitude. This is a, a beautiful verse to reveal the attitude we should have toward our reward.

   These are the 3 passages that Mr. Armstrong puts together so well here in this, I believe it is the 3rd chapter of the book. And then it goes on to talk about this whole physical creation in verse 20 (Romans 8:20), properly translated from the Revised Standard Version, being subjected to futility and the bondage of decay and confusion, the way it was when God recreated the face of the earth. Tohu and bohu. It had fallen into bondage and decay and corruption and confusion, largely because of Satan's rebellion. Something had happened in the history of the universe to make it that way. God did not create it that way initially, but it's going to be delivered from that.

   Verse 21 says this universe (Romans 8:21), this universe this physical creation is going to be delivered from its lifeless, scarred, broken, fragmented state in which we see it today in many cases, with remnants of planets that seem to have been blasted and shattered, spinning around in orbits that are devoid of life. Delivered from the bondage of corruption when God reveals the glorious liberty of the children of God, and that whole creation is, as it were, Paul writes here, just groaning and travailing in pain until now. It's like some kind of a blasted, shattered ghetto on the wrong side of the tracks with all the houses with their windows broken and no paint on the walls and weeds growing up on the lots. It doesn't look very good. Oh, it has its beauty. I wouldn't say the universe doesn't have its beauty, but it's not in its final state of perfection.

   And this whole creation isn't just groaning and travailing in pain, but we ourselves, verse 23 (Romans 8:23), which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we too are waiting for our sonship, as it should read, when we experience the redemption of our bodies, when our bodies are changed to match the scope and the magnitude, the size, the distance of the universe, which right now, of course, they don't. We aren't equipped to experience the vastness of the universe in this present frame.

   So Paul understands this, and Mr. Armstrong today as God's apostle understands that the physical universe suggests the answer to the question "What is man?" He writes at the bottom of page 32, "Jesus' gospel was the kingdom of God. What I am showing you here is that Christ's gospel of the kingdom actually includes all this knowledge here revealed, even the whole universe is to be ruled by us, who with God the Father and Christ become the kingdom of God."

   God is first of all Creator, but God is also Ruler. He's going to rule this universe, but he's not going to do it alone. He is the Educator who reveals knowledge beyond and outside the scope of human mind of itself to comprehend. And then this key paragraph on page 33, "Put together all these scriptures I have used — Psalm 8, Hebrews 2, and Romans 8 — and you begin to grasp the incredible human potential. Our potential is to be born into the God family, receiving total power. We are to be given jurisdiction over the entire universe."

   Now I just have to interject at this point that I know over the years I've heard people take exception with that and say, "Well, I don't really want total power." And maybe that's the thought that maybe some of you have. Not all of you identify with the exercise of power. Power is a concept that is foreign to your thinking in many cases. Others of you may identify with it, and not everybody who does does so for the right reasons. But God uses His power wisely and well, and it takes power to bring about the kind of changes that need to be made first of all on this planet and then in the universe.

   And it is selfish, frankly, to say "I don't want power. I want to just be on my little limited scale and do my own little thing and kind of have a little work bench in a shop in the back of the garage and, you know, make toys for the kids," as I heard one man say on a baptizing tour years ago. "I wouldn't care for any power. I just want to be kind of a little person in the kingdom." Well, I can partly understand that. Because God has not called people who are used to the exercise of power, but brethren, believe me, what God wants to get done can only be done by spirit beings exercising power.

   The kingdoms and powers of this world have to be toppled. The governments have to be reduced to ruin, and then God's going to have to put in place another government that can and will exercise the power to make the course corrections that are necessary. And we'd better want that, and if we don't want it, I repeat, we're being selfish and blind to God's purpose. It takes power to make the kind of changes that need to be made. There isn't a force on the planet that can make those changes unless God intervenes. It's going to take power to stop human destruction and annihilation. Great, awesome power, because the forces that can bring about that kind of destruction and utter annihilation of all life are awesomely powerful. We're going to have to have power greater than the multiple millions of tons of nuclear warheads that are already stockpiled in silos and nuclear subs ready to go off just that quick. For example.

   All right, let's get back then to what he writes here. What are we going to do then when we get this power? These scriptures indicate that we shall impart life to billions and billions of dead planets. Life. God is the life-giver. He is the Creator of life, and it is life that gives this majestic planet its beauty. Be it plant life, herbs, grass, flowers, trees that on this campus and in lovely parks like Lacey Park or up in the mountains or down by the ocean or out in the desert beautify the landscape and make it so magnificent. And then the animal life, the bird life, the life in the seas, it's that to which most of us are drawn. You know, what do artists paint pictures of, but life. And the beautiful effect it has on this planet.

   The moon doesn't have that kind of beauty. Mars doesn't. No planet in our solar system has the beauty of this planet Earth. It just sparkles like a jewel because of life, because of the life-giving properties of things like oxygen and the processes that God alone knows. Man can go to the moon, yes, and man can destroy himself off this planet, but you know what man can't do? Make one thin blade of grass. One dichondra leaf, you know, one single-celled amoeba. Much less a rabbit or a mouse or a pigeon, you know, man can't do it. Let's keep things in focus. Man doesn't have the secrets of life. God does. And he's going to impart life with all of its beauty to this universe, and I think most of us can be inspired by that, and we're going to be a part of that process.

   Mr. Howe mentioned River Glen. I like to go up to River Glen. I love to get up to the mountains, breathe that fresh pine-scented air, see the mountains up there sometimes snow-capped. I don't believe that they are this year because it wasn't that much snow, but many a time old Mount Baldy or San Gorgonio, it's just beautiful in the early spring or early summer, I mean, with the lovely snow-capped peaks. All the beauties of that place, stream flowing down through it with the trout. My daughters like to get out there with the line and occasionally they connect and catch a nice trout up there. That's beautiful. Life is beautiful and you know our minds can encompass a River Glen. I wouldn't mind having my own little River Glen or maybe, you know, just expand a little bit that whole little valley up there. Let's get rid of some of the other camps. Can your mind envision that, just to own that one little valley up there at River Glen? My mind can go about that far and then it kind of fizzles out.

   I wouldn't mind at all being the governor of California in the world tomorrow if that's open, if that spot's available. I love California. I think it's a beautiful state, has magnificent mountains, ocean, bays, deserts, you name it. California has the most productive, prolific state in the union in many respects. Sure, man has scarred it in various ways and places. But it still stands as a magnificently beautiful state with Yosemite, the high Sierra, all the way into the deserts like Joshua Tree or where we were recently on vacation out at Salton Sea. Lovely things to do and places to go here. Yeah, I can almost picture California as my reward. I could get into that, as we say. West Coast, throw in Oregon and Washington, maybe. I've been up there. I can kind of picture what it's like from here to the Canadian border. So sure, that's fine, you know, take it from one border to the other.

   Well, what about the continent? North American continent. Ooh, overload, zap. Somehow my fuses just all blow at that point. I can't quite stretch my mind to whole continents, much less whole planets, much less whole galaxies. But God's mind can comprehend it, and when we have God's mind, we'll be able to get on top of it, but I've shared with the students a concept that I think helps a little bit. You know, especially young men like to have custom-made things, be it cars or motorcycles. They don't like it the way it comes out of Detroit. They have to lower it or raise it or take off fenders or put on extra lights or extra mirrors or extra mud flaps or whatever, you know, take something off a muffler, put one on or two on. They, they want it to be a customized car. And we do the same thing with our homes and our clothing. We like custom things that are handmade.

   What about your own custom-made planet? Can you get into that? What do you like on a planet? What appeals to you? How'd you like to design a mountain range? Or a valley with a beautiful river meandering through it. And some highlands and some lowlands and some tidelands. And some beautiful things like the Monterey Peninsula up there. Have you ever seen that up there north of Carmel? Magnificent setting. Some say the most beautiful meeting place of the mountains and the sea anywhere on this planet. But what's your idea of a beautiful landscape? How would you like to put that together?

   I don't think that's the first thing you'll do in the world tomorrow. I think first of all, you're going to have to take a course in Life 101 and start with single-celled amoeba and kind of work up from there, you know. I don't think you'll be ready to go right off the bat, but given a few hundred years of good teaching and coursework and a few laboratory hours, you know, putting together, you know, a few things like granite or sedimentary rock or whatever it takes, how to build soil, I think we'll be up for the task at some point to impart life to billions of dead planets.

   I don't think I want to start with billions. I want to start with just one, see how the first one goes. But as a team, we are going to extend out into this universe and do what is spoken of here. "As life has been imparted to this earth, this earth is the prototype of the universe just as Christ is the prototype of the plan of salvation. We shall, as God directs and instructs, through this creating, and we shall rule throughout all eternity."

   Revelation 21:2 shows there will be no pain, no suffering, no evil, because we shall then have learned to choose God's way of good. And this line especially appeals to me. And this gives a sense of what the reward is going to be like and feel like. It will be an eternal life of accomplishment. No, we're not going to get bored. We're going to accomplish things with the time that stretches out before us. And let me add with the relationships that we're forming now. Constantly looking forward in super joyous anticipation to new creative projects, and still looking back also on accomplishments with happiness and joy over what shall have already been accomplished.

   Sadly, many people today don't understand the satisfaction that comes from accomplishment because they haven't accomplished very much. I think one reason Mr. Armstrong can write about this with such feelings is that in the course of his life, he has accomplished a great deal. Under God's direction and not just by his own power as he's quick to point out, but he has had a hand in building buildings such as this, campuses such as this and Big Sandy's and years past Bricket Wood. He knows the joy, the thrill of satisfaction of seeing a little hand-mimeographed magazine reach a subscription of 7 million, things of that nature. And those must be deeply satisfying acco

   That is the mind of God. Christ said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I have been working." They are workers, planners, designers, creators, rulers of that creation. And they do accomplish things that are magnificent. And that's the mind of God that we must strive to match and to have.

   Our age is not distinguished in its accomplishments today, unfortunately. Ours is an age where individual accomplishment is rather rare and exceptional. In some respects, I think the entrepreneurial individual achievement and ambition and drive and hustle of the turn of the 20th century has largely been lost in the post-World War II era, and people just are nameless faces in the crowd that don't in many cases distinguish themselves very much in terms of accomplishment. In fact, the whole age tends to have sayings that just run exactly counter to production. Take it easy, no sweat, be cool, you know, those types of things. Be mellow, laid back, kick back, back, every, every, you know, saying, "Don't work too hard," seems to suggest you ought to be lazy, you ought to accomplish nothing. It's not cool to hustle, to work, to achieve, to accomplish. That's a great lie that Satan has foisted off on a whole generation.

   And so sadly many people don't know very much about the thing Mr. Armstrong writes of here, accomplishment. It doesn't occur to Mr. Armstrong that we would be bored in coming eternity or want to check out on the plane at some point because he sees how it will be. And he adds, "We shall never grow tired and weary, always alive, full of joyous energy, vitality, exuberant life, and strength and power."

   Let me tell you, that will change the quality of the existence more than our minds can envision. Because frankly, at this point in time, we are often tired and weary. Sometimes when you're giving a Bible study on Friday night and you see all those sleepy faces and droopy eyes, and you're trying hard to stimulate and prod people, you realize it's Friday night and they've just put in a week's work and they're dragging a little, but they're faithful and they're coming to hear God's word expounded and you're there to teach it, but we show the evidence of being human beings in this flesh who do grow tired and weary, and that colors our attitude.

   I noticed in myself that projects and tasks that seemed just overwhelming when I'm tired at the end of the day. "Oh no, do I have to do that?" When I'm rested, maybe the next morning after a good night's rest, piece of cake. Let's go get them. Roll up your shirt sleeves and be about it. But our attitudes rise and fall with our energy levels.

   Anyway, Mr. Armstrong's final comment on this that I'll read today here, "What a potential. What a potential! Can our minds begin to grasp it, brethren?"

   In the time that I have left this morning, which is about to become this afternoon, I'd like to just go through some additional scriptures about our reward that reveal God's attitude toward it and what ours should be. Let's start by turning to Revelation 5:12. We read that we are co-heirs with Christ. Here are lines that had been captured in song in the Messiah. And you'll probably recognize the melody as I read the words. They are songs that are being sung here in Revelation 5 as well, so it's fitting that they should have been set to melody.

   It reads in verse 12 that these angels who are numbered here as ten thousand times ten thousand, that's 100 million, plus additional thousands of thousands, that's additional millions, so 105, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million angels are singing with a loud voice. And maybe you think I've got a loud voice this morning and you wish I'd be a little quieter here because you're not quite awake yet. Well, can you imagine 100 million plus angels singing with a loud voice and what do they sing? "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

   That's a lot. It's about all there is to receive, and that's Christ's inheritance, but it's also our inheritance, brethren. We're co-heirs with Christ, so let's apply it to us. We are someday, by this process that we're engaged in now and will culminate in the resurrection, going to be worthy as well to receive power and riches. We're going to experience wealth that we've never even dreamed of, nor had at our disposal before, and wisdom and strength and honor. I'll point out an example of that honor in just a moment, and glory as the born again sons of God and blessing.

   And in verse 13 in the middle (Revelation 5:13), every creature responds by saying "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sits on the throne," and we too will sit on thrones and bear rule with the Lamb, the Son of God, the firstborn of many brethren, and the one with whom we are co-heirs.

   Now let's turn to Revelation 2:26. God says the same things about us. The church is told, one era of it in verse 26 of Revelation 2, that "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations." You are destined to receive power. Now, at some levels, we want, and I think especially men do. And it can be sought and used in the right way at this time. It can be sought and used in entirely wrong ways as well. Power has the ability to corrupt a great deal if it's used for selfish reasons, but power can be used for magnificent reasons and good reasons as well, if a person's properly motivated.

   Then we will be, and God will give it to us and we will rule over the nations with a rod of iron if that's what it takes. We won't just be beating people over the head with it. We'll be teaching and inspiring and guiding and leading, but where things need to be dealt with and checked and curbed and stopped, we'll have the power to do so. And that's good because that isn't happening on this planet right now. And consequently we hear about vicious, horrible things, murders and rapes and molestation of little children and things that scar the mind and the imagination to even hear about. And that day those things will be put to a stop.

   And Revelation chapter 3 and verse 19, or verse 9 (Revelation 3:9), excuse me, this verse, very difficult to grasp at this time because it runs far beyond what our minds can envision. "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan," that's Satan's churches at this time, "which think they're God's true people called here Jews, "and aren’t, God says, but lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you."

   You are destined to receive the worship of human beings. There's only one possible explanation for that verse. That verse right there proves that we are going to be God, because even angels of God are not worthy of being worshiped and anybody in the scripture that tried to worship an angel was reprimanded for doing so. Scripture right there shows that our destiny is to be part of the divine kingdom and family of God.

   I don't know what that would feel like. I know that if anybody at this time gets anything close to too much high praise, adulation or worship such as the big name entertainers and sometimes politicians and others, it seems to have a powerfully corrupting effect. It goes to their head, it feeds their vanity. They can't handle it. Fully, I just believe it. And I'll know what it's like when we get to that point, but it's out there and it illustrates what I'm saying that we are going to receive high honor and we'll be able to handle it. It won't seem inappropriate. It won't seem laughable. Today you almost laugh at the idea. It makes you chuckle. Who, me? You gotta be kidding. But then it won't seem silly. It will seem perfectly appropriate.

   Let's look now at Romans. Brethren, I don't think most people think that they can think this way, namely that they can focus on the reward, seek the reward, talk about the reward, identify with the reward. I think they somehow think, "Well, that's nice, but I really shouldn't focus on that because I'd be proud or ambitious or something bad." Let me point out something from Romans 2 and 7. It says here that to those who by patient continuance in well doing, Romans 2:7, seek for glory and honour and immortality, the rest of the thought is God's going to give them eternal life.

   We are now to be seeking glory, honor, and immortality. You should. If you're not, it is not going to serve as the impetus, as the driving force for God's kingdom. We need to be motivated for God's kingdom as the apostles were. And if we're not seeking it, then we're going to wind up seeking other things that will seem important by comparison, the things of this life. The things of what the scripture calls this present evil world are going to take on enormous importance.

   This is not wrong. It's right to seek for this lawfully, of course. Now if vanity is flawing your motivation, if you're doing it out of the big head, of course that's the wrong motivation. But if you're doing it with the intent of fulfilling God's purpose for you and all humanity, with the attitude of give and not get, of service and love and yieldedness and humility, it's not wrong to seek glory, honor, and immortality and to receive eternal life.

   Let's notice also, we already saw Romans 8:17, so I won't mention at this time about the suffering is not worthy to be compared. So let's turn to Revelation 22:12. How does Christ see it? Well, I can tell you from this verse and a good many others that could be used that he's anxious to give these rewards. He's thrilled about it and so is the Father, I'm sure, tickled like a parent about to give a special wonderful gift, maybe a Feast gift to your kids. You've been planning for this, something very special they've been wanting. And you get excited about giving it. I'm sure that's God's attitude.

   One of the final things Jesus Christ has to say in verse 12, yes, of chapter 22 of Revelation. "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me." I'm bringing it back "to give every man as his work shall be." Elsewhere in Revelation, he speaks of giving it to the dead, small and great. Some people will have qualified for much higher rewards than others because of their works, their sacrifice, their loyalty, their service. Let me tell you, nobody's going to be unhappy with his reward when God gives it. You're going to be so awestruck and stunned and slack-jawed in amazement. I think we're all going to be saying, "Who, me?" It's going to be stunning. I don't know what kind of a shock it's going to have on our emotional system, but I would imagine very considerable when we experience the reward that God has in mind.

   All right. Then what should our attitude toward this reward be? Well, let's take a look now at some scriptures in Hebrews. How should we think of this reward? The scriptures that I've been going over should shape our attitudes and be clear indications of how we should hold this reward in high esteem. That's the way Paul consistently refers to it. He says in verse 3 of Hebrews 2 (Hebrews 2:3), "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" when God lays it out before us and offers us virtually everything he has to give save his very chief office, but the very powers of divinity and his own status as God and sons of God in His kingdom, with all that entails, what is he keeping back, brethren? "How shall we escape, if we neglect" that, "which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?" Well, the truth is we won't. If we neglect this reward, if we spurn and reject it and count other things higher by comparison, then we're not going to escape.

   And take a look at chapter 6, which really inspires me. Here's a verse that's come to have more and more meaning over the years. Paul writes here in chapter 6 and verse 10 (Hebrews 6:10), "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and your labour of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister."

   Now, frankly, many times we do forget. You can't remember every service to the saints you've rendered, every act of kindness. You wouldn't even try to. It would seem vain to do so. You've helped out people in ways that you've long since forgotten about. Maybe somebody will come back years later and say, "Boy, I really appreciate the time you..." whatever it was, help me change my tire or help me get a job or brought over that sack of groceries when we were having a hard time, and maybe you'll remember about it, maybe you won't, but God won't forget. And if he would, the scripture here says it would be unfair, unrighteous of him because he's going to reward us according to our work and labor of love that we've showed toward his name and in our ministry to his people.

   And doesn't that mean something to me after 25 years in God's church, over 20 of which have been in the ministry? You know, certain things begin to accumulate. You don't focus on them every day, at least I don't. But you know that's well over 1,000 weeks. That's not a long time as God looks at time, I realize, but for human beings, that's quite a long time. That's a lot of sermons. I suspect I've given a sermon at least half of those Sabbaths in 1,000 weeks. That's maybe 500 sermons. Easily, I would think, considering there were years when I was giving 2 a day. And how many counselings? I don't know, thousands of hours of counseling, hundreds of baptisms, I'm sure well over 500 baptisms in different places all over the country and right here at Ambassador College. All kinds of classroom lectures.

   I don't say this to blow my own horn, that's not my point. I just mean that these things have their reward and speaking for myself, let me say I want that reward. I don't want to throw it away at this point. It's been my life. I have invested my entire adult life in this program, and it would be sheer folly to throw it away, as I have seen some do who have thrown it away for baubles and trinkets and trash by comparison, petty things so they could go pursue their own career in real estate or higher education or whatever they stumbled into after they threw away the great reward God was offering them. What folly.

   Those things aren't going to have the reward that we've been reading about. That reward is here and now. Christ would say of that, "Verily I say unto you, Ye have your reward." You picked up your paycheck. You got your title or your degree or whatever. That's your reward and that's all you're going to get because that has no part of my purpose and I'm not rewarding those things which were just for self and had nothing to do with my plan.

   Revelation 3:8 says "Hang on to what you’ve got, and don’t let anybody take your crown." There is a crown of honor and power and glory being prepared for each of us and we're told not to throw it away. Don't throw it away, brethren, for some foolish silly thing, as we've seen so many do.

   And now let's go over to chapter 10 and verse 35. Notice how many times Paul employs this concept in his writing. Even your attitude, not just your works, but your day to day attitude has a reward. Paul says in verse 35 (Hebrews 10:35), "Cast not away therefore your confidence," a positive, confident, hopeful, optimistic attitude, "which he says has great recompence of reward."

   The work, the church needs people who are confident, positive in their orientation, goal-oriented, who are full of that kind of confidence that some have expressed, including Mr. Armstrong, when he says, "I've read to the end of the book and we win." You know, that's a statement of confidence. Whereas other people take a negative view, and their speech is always characterized by the word problems. "We got problems. There's problems here. What about this and what about that?" And they see things negatively and they tend to surmise that things are going to go bad and wrong and they're pessimistic and negative, turned off. And that doesn't have any great reward. There's no future in those kinds of attitudes.

   The attitude we can't do, we're going to lose, like the 10 spies who brought back the evil report back in Moses' day as opposed to the two that had the positive report. He's just the attitude factor which Paul says is going to have a great recompense, that means repayment of reward. Now you don't go around thinking "My attitude's going to be rewarded someday." Most of us don't, but it will. Someday God's going to say, "And for your good attitude over 20 some years of being a Christian, this galaxy is going to be thrown in on the deal just for good measure," or words to that effect. "Well done, good and faithful servant. You illustrated a magnificent attitude of faith and courage in times of crisis and trial. You were an inspiration to many by your smile, your hopeful outlook, your positive support, and your loyalty. Have this for your reward." There's an attitude. I mean a scripture that tells us about attitude and its reward.

   But now on over to chapter 11. Well, excuse me, let's go first of all to chapter 12, and we'll back up. Let's go to chapter 12 since we're talking about the positive. Let's cover it first. Chapter 11 and verse 24 mentions Moses, begins, did I mension, ok we’ll still have it in the right order. Chapter 11 and verse 24 mentions Moses chose to suffer, verse 25 (Hebrews 11:24-25), "affliction with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Why did he do that? He was the number 2 person in the whole kingdom of Egypt at that time. "Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt," which he had and which were in great abundance at that time.

   And then this key phrase, and this is really a key phrase I want you to focus on in this sermon. For why did he do that? "For he had respect unto the recompence of the reward." Moses had a vision of what God was offering just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did, and the apostles did and Paul did, and others today do clearly. He had a respect for that payoff, that reward that was coming. And that was what kept Moses right on the track, and he wasn't dissuaded by anything that came along. He knew it was going to prove well worth it to make these sacrifices.

   But let's contrast that now in chapter 12 with an attitude we better avoid. And that of course is Esau's. Here's the man with just the opposite approach. He was a fornicator we're told in verse 16, and additionally, he was a profane person. Some versions, modern versions translate that secular, and that is an adequate translation of the word profane, even in the modern sense, secular. Human, worldly in his perspective, he saw things physically. He didn't see the value of a great promise of a future kingdom and descendants that would number as the stars of heaven and land and fortunes, "and so for a morsel of meat sold his birthright." Gave it all up for something immediate in the here and now. "Promises, promises," he said, "Give me mine now, fix up the bowl of soup."

   "And ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: he had to be rejected because he didn't have respect for the reward and he didn't qualify for it. And "he found no place" to get it back, "even though he sought it carefully with tears." It was too little and too late. He kissed it all goodbye. And some have done that, and others will do that between now and the end of this age. And they'll not be able to get that reward back when perhaps at some point in time they begin to understand what they've forsaken.

   One last scripture from Paul. We heard part of this Philippians 3 passage in the sermonette, but let's go back just a few additional verses in contrast to Esau's attitude now with Paul's, just as we did with Moses. The great men of God saw that reward out there on the horizon, a shining city, a beacon of hope, a goal for which they had visions. And so did Paul when he says in Philippians 3 that he didn't want verse 9 (Philippians 3:9-10) to obtain just his own righteousness by the law, self-righteousness, but he says in verse 10 "That I may know him," Christ. To know him. Not just in this age, but as Paul says elsewhere in I Corinthians 13, to know him even as we are known now, in the kingdom to enter into that kind of intimate face-to-face personal relationship with God, to know God totally and fully, "and the power of his resurrection."

   Paul said that's what he wanted to experience, to know the power of the resurrection. No doubt he had seen Christ in some type of glorified spirit being form through those many visions that he received. He had a hint and a sense of that just as the other apostles did who saw the transfiguration on the mount, and he wanted that, brethren. He writes plainly about it. This obviously inspired the apostle Paul to do the work that God called him to do. He wanted to know the power of his resurrection.

   What is that going to be like? What would it be like to experience a resurrection? Is it something like being shot up in the space like these astronauts are on a Saturn 5 rocket with hundreds of thousands of pounds of thrust going off behind you? I don't know, maybe that's a human analogy that helps illustrate it to feel that kind of power surging from within to know that you have life forevermore and power and creativity and not just the physical powers which I'm sure will be magnificent but also the mental powers, the powers of mind, of memory, of character, of creativity that just go so far beyond what we've got now. We've got little hints and clues of what it must be like to be God, but then we're going to experience it fully, to know those things.

   Paul said in verse 11, he adds, "If by any means I might attain the resurrection of the dead," even if it involves, as he says in the intervening phrases, suffering or death, doesn't matter, whatever it takes. That's what he was willing to pay to achieve that resurrection and to have that reward.

   Brethren, my point is that God can't and won't reward anyone who despises the reward, who neglects the reward, who can't see its value, who won't put forth effort to achieve it. Christ said, "You strive to enter in at the strait gate: because some people will just speak to and won’t be able. They won't put forth the kind of effort that clearly this apostle did and our apostle does today.

   I repeat, God is sharing with us all that he has to offer, brethren. He's not holding anything back, sonship in his family with all the honors and powers that entails. He's going to share with us his divine prerogatives as the ruling family of the universe throughout all eternity and the entirety of the universe with his Son and the rest of the saints who will be similarly exalted. And if we can't respect it and seek it and keep clearly focused on it, then we simply don't qualify for it.

   So in conclusion, let me just urge you to show God by your daily lives and your prayers and your service and your works that you do understand and appreciate what he has used his apostles then and now to reveal to us through the gospel. Brethren, have proper respect for the recompense of the fabulous reward that God is offering us.