Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, for one thing, when you start driving your car and you take jeopardy in the hand, what if you have an accident while you're driving that car? As I found out, one of my students that I had taught in Big Sandy, I just found out this past week he was killed in a dump truck accident. Never had been baptized. Now what's going to happen to this guy? You know, he went through Ambassador College and never was baptized. Now, he didn't go four years, but what happens to someone, you know, you have an opportunity to be baptized?

   And the greatest thing that can ever happen to a human being — you have the begettal of the God family right in you. Can you imagine that? Instead of just being a temporary mortal who can just have your life snuffed out in an instant, you know, as you sit here in the flesh, you don't have eternal life abiding in you unless you have God's Spirit. You're a mortal, physical, temporary being. And you could get out here racing your car on the way home and have an automobile accident, and what would happen to you? Well, you'd be dead for 1,000 years. You're gonna miss all the excitement. You know, you're gonna miss all that 1,000 years, every Sabbath you come together. If you look ahead to that Sabbath, that 1,000 years, and yet without God's Spirit, you don't have eternal life abiding in you. You're not assured of any resurrection, except the resurrection to judgment after the 1,000 years.

   Now, when you think of conversion, you know, Mr. McNair always tricked his Comparative Religion class over in England. He'd say, "I'd like to see the hands of all of you that are converted." And of course, you'd never know when he asked the question whether to raise your hand or not because you're not sure what the right answer is, you know. Well, if we ask that here, see the hands of everybody that's converted. Well, I'd hope nobody raised their hand because you're not converted. You're being converted.

   You know, what does the word "convert" mean? Well, it means to change over. If you convert an automobile, a convertible, you put the top back and it's a topless automobile. It's a convertible. But if you're converted as a human, you're changed. You're not human anymore. You know, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So when you're converted, you're changed over.

   Now, what is the human being changed over to? You know, what do you mean, conversion being changed over? Well, you mean changed over from physical to spiritual, because that's God's purpose for man. You know, you're not going to change over from having two eyes to one eye. You're not gonna change over from having one head to having two heads. You're going to be one head and two eyes when you're a spirit being, just like you are today. But you are not going to be made up of flesh and blood. You are not going to be made up of human character, human weaknesses, human frailties when you are ultimately converted. You'll be a blob of spirit, if you want to put it that way. You know, you'll be a 5'11" chunk of spirit. You'll have spiritual hearing and spiritual sight and spiritual taste. You know, those parts won't leave, but they are not physical. They don't age. They don't — you know, you can hear less and less as you get older and older. Your taste buds finally get less and less, and you don't have an appetite to eat as much. Thank God for that. But you know, as you age, as you change, you're changing over, you're wearing out, you're running down.

   But you know, what do you mean, conversion? How do you qualify for baptism? I remember one elder's son who went to Big Sandy, and he'd been down there at college for a year. Some of his buddies got baptized, and he thought, "Boy, I wonder why they're getting baptized. They just, you know, they're gonna miss all the fun." Well, you get baptized, you got to walk straight and narrow. You can't do all those things that sound like they might be fun. And when you're baptized, boy, you're committed. You know, once you're baptized, that's it, boy. You burnt your bridge behind you, and that's it. You know, that isn't true at all. Can you show me anywhere in the Bible that says once you're baptized, that's it, you're committed? I mean, you're — you burnt your bridge behind you. That's not what it says. You know, the Bible says, "To him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it's sin." It doesn't say, "To him, it's baptized." It says, "To him that knows to do good."

   Matter of fact, it also says in another scripture which we'll read a little bit, if you're once enlightened — that's the first step. When are you once enlightened? Baptism? Oh no, no, that's not when you're — what's enlightened? You ever noticed that phrase? Maybe we ought to turn and read this back in Hebrews 6.

   There are different things that motivate different people to baptism. You know, some people are motivated because they are just sick and disgusted and fed up with their wretched past. But if you haven't had that bad a past, you, you know, you can't come to repentance and conversion too much that way. So some people come at it more of a mechanical way. They say, "Well, now look, the Bible says if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   Now, you know what that means? That means you can come with your folks and sit here in church every Sabbath. You can go to the feast every year. You can pay your tithe when you get your job. You can go through all the physical rigor of living God's way, but until you have the Spirit of God, you are not a Christian. You are just not a Christian. Now, you might be with us, and the church is your family, and you're a part of the church even when you're young people. But you're never a Christian until you have the Spirit of Christ. I mean, that's what it says: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   Now, that really motivates some young people. They say, "Well, I just don't feel like I am with everybody else, you know. I go to church, I know it's right, I've never done anything about it. I just gone along with it. It's Dad's and Mom's religion, and I have sat there, and I've heard the preacher, and I listen. I believe it, but I've never done anything. I just floated, just gone along with it, just go ahead and take it for granted and never commit yourself, never get serious about it."

   You know, there's a lot of difference. Notice here in Hebrews chapter 6 (Hebrews 6:1): "Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ..." Now, first of all, he's gonna tell you what those principles of the doctrine of Christ are, and then he's gonna tell you that once you lay this foundation, then you go on. "Therefore, leaving these principal doctrines, let's go on unto perfection."

   Now, is that what you're striving to do as a Christian? You know, you who are baptized, you who have laid the foundation, you who are grounded in the principles of the doctrine of Christ — the Christian life is growing, overcoming, going on to perfection. You know, we used to picture that the longer you're converted, the bigger percent spiritual you are and the lower percent physical. And maybe right when you're converted, you're 99 and 44% carnal. You're human and you're fleshly. But you know, after you've had God's Spirit for five years, you ought to be maybe 75% carnal and 25% spirit. But you know, after you've had God's Spirit for ten years, maybe you ought to be 50/50.

   You know, it takes time to get rid of the flesh and put off the old man and overcome and grow and change and develop. It's all a part of being converted. That doesn't begin until you start to realize the two ways: physical and spiritual. You realize there's the way of God's Spirit and there's the way of the flesh. That's why Paul in Galatians makes that plain. He said the works of the flesh are manifest — they are obvious, they are apparent, they are visible, they are known. The works of the flesh are manifest, and he lists them. But, then he says the fruit of the Spirit — notice the contrast — the fruit of the Spirit.

   You can't do that, you know, until you're converted and have God's Spirit. You can't even keep the law in the spirit. You know, can you expect young people who aren't even converted to keep the Sabbath spiritually? The best you can say is they don't break it physically.

   You know, you stop and think, as I've talked to young people over in Big Sandy, and they wanted to be baptized, and I said, "Now wait a minute. Look back over the years you've been in the church." You say you've been in the church ten years, and about two-thirds of all the young people I talked to over there had been in the church ten years. That's dangerous because they could be baptized and not really be converted. They could just go along with the church to keep with their parents. They could go along with the church to escape tribulation ahead. Those are invalid. If anybody is baptized for that, they hadn't been baptized.

   I remember a lesson I learned that way in Kansas City. This man had learned about prophecy through a man that he worked with, and boy, that scared him. He could see that what this man told him was going to happen in the world was happening. So he began to go to church with that guy because he realized he could see through scripture what was coming in the world, and he didn't want that to happen to him.

   Don't you remember in the Bible when John the Baptist went around preaching? And some people came to John the Baptist, and they wanted to be baptized. And remember what John the Baptist said to them? Now, normally, I remember back when I was first going into the counsel about baptism, and I was at college, and I went into Rod Meredith, and I said, "Well, I want — I'm — I should be baptized." He said, "Well, we'll get together and counsel about it." I thought, "What are you talking about?" You know, I've been used to people trying to talk me into being baptized for 20 years, and here I was telling him I should be baptized. I was ready, and he said, "Well, we'll get together and discuss it." I didn't want any discussion needed. I knew I was ready to be baptized. I told him so. And well, we got together.

   And you know, I kind of got offended because he started asking the questions. And I thought, "Well, what in the world is going on here anyway?" Listen to this: here I want to be baptized to be a Christian, to have God's Spirit, and he's giving me the third degree. What's going on? But you know, I finally realized that a person can come and want to be baptized, but there are conditions. There are qualifications.

   And you know, John the Baptist, when these people wanted to be baptized by John the Baptist, you remember what he said? He said, "Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Now, you don't assume that is a true statement down through time since John the Baptist. You don't think people all the way down through the ages of the church have wanted to be baptized for the same reason as back in John the Baptist's day, do you? The people, out of a realization of what's coming and the desire to not have it happen to them, to escape it, want to be baptized to escape the wrath to come.

   Oh, I've baptized people like that. I should say dunked them. You know, I might as well have been having a water fight and just run up and jump on his back and dunk him under the water because he wasn't baptized. It didn't take. You know, he was just dunked. So that's not a reason for baptism — to escape the wrath to come.

   Now, there are other means of baptism. You take, for example, when Jesus was baptized. You remember John the Baptist said, "Well, Lord, You don't need to be baptized." Why, he said, "Lord, I have a need to be baptized of You." And you remember what Jesus said? Jesus said, "John, suffer it to be so, for thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness."

   Now, you don't suppose some people have been baptized to fulfill all righteousness? Now, Jesus was because He never committed any sin. He was the Son of God, and He came down and lived sinlessly and died for everybody else's sin. But with Him, that's different. But you know, there are actually a lot of people who've done the same thing. How do you do that?

   Well, the way it's explained: a person begins to hear the program. They begin to get interested in their Bible. They take booklets and start looking through the Bible, and they find out that, well, look at that — here's God's way of life. Here's the Sabbath day. Here are the Ten Commandments. Here are these scriptures you live by. Well, look at this — you shouldn't eat that. You should begin to keep the Sabbath day. And so they, one by one, begin to start doing what they've read is righteousness out of the Bible.

   Then they come to baptism. They get the water baptism booklet. They read through it, and they say, "Oh, look at that. It is essential. Yes, it is essential. It's immersion. Look at that. The word 'baptizo' in the Greek means 'make fully wet' or 'immerse in liquid.' OK, it's essential, and it's by immersion. OK. Oh, I see. Yeah, OK, I want to be baptized."

   No, no, because when you look up the word "baptism" in your Bible, there's a word you're gonna always find with it: repent and be baptized. Repent and be baptized. So you say, "Well uh oh, look at that. Before I can be baptized, I got to repent. OK, I repent."

   Oh no, no. You know, you don't do that either. You know, when you come to conversion, it is not a biblical subject you can check through with a Concordance and say, "Oh, I see that's biblical. OK, OK, I'll do it." No, no. You know, when you come to conversion, when you come to repentance, you've got something different.

   Now, it might start in your head with the knowledge of the right way and the knowledge of the wrong way, and you begin to quit going the wrong way and start going the right way. But that's only a part of the experience because conversion is a process. It has a beginning, but it takes time. And it is not a matter of doctrine or knowledge that you can just see that's biblical and accept that is true. It's an experience you go through.

   Now, notice these pictures here then in Hebrews 6. The principles of the doctrine of Christ — we should know them, prove them, lay them as a foundation, and then go on to perfection, as it says. And then, as the Greek word really says, we're not laying again and again and again. Now, you know, that's what some seem to do. They lay again and lay again and lay again. They don't just lay this foundation and then go on, but they keep laying again and laying again and laying. In other words, they are not growing in truth. They're not learning more things. They just accept a few basic things and stop there.

   Now, that's what Paul unto the Hebrews said you can't do. You do lay the foundation, but then you go on to perfection. You go on from there. You don't stop after you've laid the foundation.

   All right, look what the foundation is: repentance from dead works. OK, you got two main key words there — repentance from dead works. All right, let's stop and take a look at those words then. What does the word "repentance" mean? Well, you can look it up in the Greek language, and that means turn around and start going the other direction.

   All right, what do you turn around from? What do you turn around to? And how far do you have to go in the right direction? Now, you know, you got a key there because when has someone turned around and started going the right direction to the degree that they need to be baptized? Now, let's say you don't know the answer to that, and you're gonna be explaining this to people yourselves in a few years, so you ought to really be sure you're learning how to talk with people about what all this conversion and repentance and baptism really is.

   OK, how do you know when someone has turned around and gone the other direction far enough to be baptized? Now, you've got to do that. Now, I know some people — you know, some people, the biggest problem they have about baptism — I remember one young girl I baptized over at Big Sandy College. And she came in, and she was really uptight. She was a junior, and she was all keyed up and all uptight. And she came into the office and started to talk, and she got up and started walking the floor, bawling, walking the floor, bawling, walking the floor, bawling.

   And you know, she said, "Well, I — you know, I just — I'm so frustrated. I'm so disappointed. I'm so disgusted, and all that. I know what I ought to do, and I want to do it. So I get a hold of myself." I said, "All right, now listen. You're gonna get a hold of yourself. You're gonna get down to brass tacks. You're gonna start praying and start studying, and you're gonna get yourself in line. And when you get ready, then you're gonna be able to be baptized."

   She said, "Well, you know, I began to study, and I began to pray, and I began to get my life in line." She said, "You know, I have a bad moodiness, and I've got to watch that. And I've got a bad tongue — I've got to watch that. So I start to get a hold of myself, and boy, I'm just encouraged. And I begin to think it won't be long now. I begin to get inspired and think, 'Well, look at there, you're gonna be able to do it.' And then as soon as I begin to get encouraged, flop — down I'd go, fall on my face. And I'd get moody, and I'd lose my tongue, and I quit praying, and I'd quit studying. And I'd get all disappointed and disgusted and downhearted and dejected and despondent and depressed and all. Well, I'd flounder around on the bottom a little bit, and then I'd grit my teeth, and I'd grab myself by the collar, and I'd say, 'All right, come on here now. You're going to do it this time.' And so I'd bear down on myself, and I'd start praying, I'd start fasting, I'd start studying. And I'd start getting a little better control of my tongue, and I'd get my moods in better control. And I'd start to think, 'Well, boy, great. Now you're going to be able to do it this time.' And you know, you can get baptized. All you got to do is just come right on up to this level, and then you can be baptized. Flop — down I go again."

   And you know, after she bawled and told her sad story, and I said, "Well, you know, it's kind of obvious to me what the trouble is." She said, "Oh yeah, what's that?" I said, "Well, you're just trying to do God's job for Him. And you know, let me tell you what you're telling me. You're saying, 'Now God, when I get myself up here, then I'll let You take me from there.' I said, that's not it. That's not it. So when you realize down here where you are, then you ask God to help you."

   I said, "In the first place, there is a scripture that says it is God who wills and does in us of His good pleasure. Did you notice anything different there? It isn't you set your will. You draw this standard — when I'm praying so much today, and when I'm reading the Bible so much today, and when I'm able to control my tongue to this degree." I said, "My, oh my. You know, the Bible says the last enemy — anybody who controls their tongue — you're gonna wait forever if you wait on that to be baptized."

   "And here you are trying to say when you get control of your mood and when you get control of your tongue." I said, "I've never seen anywhere that those are standards for baptism. Now, all you've got to do is know what sin is. You've got to know what's right and what's wrong and begin to turn away from the wrong and turn to the right. How far do you have to go? So here you think you're gonna have to wait till you get control of your tongue and your mood before you can even be baptized. You're saying you're gonna have to wait till you can make yourself pray a half hour a day and study a half hour a day for how many days before you can be baptized." I said, "Would you show me that in the Bible?"

   Well, she realized her mistake. And we went out and baptized her that same — probably in the same hour. You know, she was a totally different person from that time on. But it's surprising to me how much people expect to lift themselves up to a certain righteousness level and then let God take them on from there. That's a mistake. That's a mistake. You don't do that.

   Notice here in the Hebrews chapter 6 again what he says: repentance — turn around and start going the other way — from dead works. Now, what are the dead works that you turn around and go the other way from? Well, you know, that really depends. That really depends on your background.

   I grew up in the Baptist church, so what were dead works I had to repent of? What were dead works I had to turn around and go the other direction from? Well, what did I think as a Baptist made me a Christian? You know, what was it that makes you Christian? Well, I thought it was not dancing and not drinking and not swearing and going to Sunday school and keeping Sunday and not lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery. And you know, there were conditions like that that I felt were what made a Christian a Christian, contrasted with somebody else.

   Well, you know what I found out, though? I found out those things aren't really biblical Christmas. You know, keep Christmas — that makes you a Christian? Why, it doesn't either. Keep Easter, and that makes you a Christian? Keep Sunday, and that makes you a Christian? You know, what is it that makes you a Christian? Well, first place, having the Spirit of Christ.

   Well, I had to repent from dead works because I thought all of those Protestant things I'd been taught that were Christian — I found out those weren't biblical. Those weren't teachings out of God's word at all. Those were traditions of men. Those were historical Christianity. Those were accepted Christianity, but they weren't biblical. So I had to turn around and go the other way, and I had to repent and ask God to forgive me for all of those man-made traditions I kept instead of following God's ways.

   But now, what if I'd have grown up as a Catholic? What if I had grown up as a Jew? What if I'd grown up with no religion? You know, what if I had grown up as a Muslim, and all of a sudden I'm told, "Repent from dead works"?

   But you know the hardest one of all? What about kids that are born in the church? You know, what if I were going to talk to my 24-year-old daughter, and I said, "Look, you've got to repent from dead works"? She'd stand there with a blank face and look at me like, "Repent from dead works? What are you talking about?" I'd say, "Well, you know, look back down your life. You kept the Sabbath, you kept those holy days, and you've not eaten unclean foods, and you've obeyed God's law and..." Boy, you know, she'd kind of stand there dumbfounded. And how would she understand I'm telling her to repent from dead works?

   But you know what? Doing all those without God's Spirit, when you're talking about eternity, when you're talking about receiving God's Spirit, they are dead works through there. You know, God isn't going to reward you for all those years you kept the Sabbath physically. You got the physical reward for doing it when you kept it physically. And if you're talking about spiritual reward, if you're talking about salvation, then you've got dead works.

   I remember one young guy that went to college. He was a — his dad was a deacon, and his wife was a deaconess — his mom, his dad's mom, not his wife. He was just a young college student. But anyway, you know, he — Passover was coming on, so he started thinking about needing God's Spirit. You know, he wanted to be like everybody else in the church. He wanted to be at one with everybody. He didn't want to be kind of an outsider just sitting there among us. He didn't want to be different. He wanted to be one with everybody else. So he wanted to be converted. He wanted to have God's Spirit. He wanted to be living the Christian life and getting ready for God's kingdom.

   So he'd heard a lot of sermons about repentance and about human nature and about burying the old man. And you know, he began to take God's Ten Commandments. You know, the Bible says God's law is the mirror, and it points out the dirt on you that you use God's Spirit to wash away. Now, he's grown up every day of his life in the church, so he took the Ten Commandments: never did do that, never did do that, never did do that. Well, everybody's done that one. Never did do that, never did do that.

   You know, if anybody else had taken the Ten Commandments and looked at them, boy, you get whacked on the eye and slugged on the cheek and hit on the chin. And you go down that line if you're very old when God starts converting you, and you really get hit right and left by the Ten Commandments. And then when you go into more of God's law, boy, look at the other laws that really hit you about the tithe and the Sabbath and the holy days and the food laws. And I mean, the law is the mirror, and it shows up all of the dirt.

   But you know, what if you've grown up all your life? Now, we have to be careful here because you remember there's an example Jesus gave where a rich young ruler came and said, "Good Master, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?" Now, you don't suppose people have done that since? Do you suppose that that's the once-only happening, that that never happened but that one time? Oh no, that happens all the time. That will happen this year in the Medlin of church. That will happen last year in the Medlin church. There will be somebody who will come up like that rich young ruler and say, "Well, oh Bill Smith, about time you got a hold of your life. Don't you get yourself turned around and start committing yourself and begin to go God's way? You need God's Spirit. I mean, you're just a mortal, temporary being. You could get snuffed out in life and be dead for a thousand years."

   So let's get down to brass tacks, and let's get with it. And you might come and say, "All right, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?" And you know what Jesus answered? Jesus said, "Well, what do you call Me good? There's none good but God." But He said, "If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."

   And you know, that's what I tell young people at college, and they sit there and say, "Yeah, and what else is new?" Because they've been doing that all along. You know, you say, "Well, look, if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." They say, "Well, what do you mean?"

   Well, let me ask you this: What does the fourth commandment say? "Thou shalt not break the Sabbath"? That didn't say that. Fourth commandment is not a negative law. The fourth commandment requires commitment. It requires initiative. It requires action on the part of the person. The fourth commandment says, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." It doesn't say, "Remember every Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, don't break it physically."

   No, no. All the reward you get out of doing it that way is while you are doing it. You get rested, and you get to be with the family, and you know, you get reward physically out of keeping the Sabbath in the flesh. But you know, without God's Spirit, you can't keep the law in the spirit. Until you have God's Spirit, you can't begin to write the new covenant in your heart. Until you have God's Spirit, you know, you can't even taste the good word of God. You — wait, we'll read a little further, you're gonna find out. Or you might know a certain amount of God's word before you're converted and have God's Spirit, but you don't taste the good word of God till after you're baptized and have God's Spirit. Then you taste the good word of God.

   Well, I remember this same young guy. You know, he took the Ten Commandments, and he couldn't find anything to indict himself with in those ten. He read them — they did the opposite. They kind of made him feel righteous and good. "And what good thing must I do to enter into life then?" you know.

   Well, I just said, "You know, you don't confess your sin to men, but I said between you and God, why don't you think in your heart, what's your worst sin?" Well, you know, there weren't even a few seconds went by, and he said, "You know, I don't mind telling you. This has been burdening down on me and condemning me and eating away at me." He said — and as he looked at the Ten Commandments — he said, "You know, I haven't honored my father and my mother. And if I should get killed, I don't have eternal life in me. I'd be dead for a thousand years. I wouldn't even have a chance until a thousand years. But you know, I hadn't honored my father and mother. Well, I'd tell them I was going one place, and I went somewhere else. I tell them I was doing one thing, and I was doing something — I’d tell them I was with somebody, and I was with somebody else. I've been a fraud and a hypocrite. I've stolen their trust. I've lied to them in action. Why, what a rotten dirt. What a carnal flesh. What a rebellious, disgusting human."

   And you know, he was really giving himself the third degree because he knew a part of repentance is the feeling of "O wretched man that I am. In my flesh dwells no good thing. That I'm a worm and not a man," like Jacob and David said. So he had understood — he read the Correspondence Course — and he knew that the old man, you're supposed to just be so fed up and disgusted with that old man in the flesh, you just want to bury him in a watery grave. That's really what you're doing when you're baptized.

   You know, you're not just burying your mistakes. You know, what if you were? We'd say, "Hey Bill, bring your laundry bag full of dirty clothes, and we'll stuff those in baptism. That'll fix your mistakes." That's not what you do. But isn't that typical of humans? You know, we always deal with the effects and never get to the cause. Why did you do all those dirty deeds you're burying? You know, all those things you did wrong that you bury — why did you do them? If you don't get the guy that did them — you get him back up out of that watery grave — he's going to do them again. So that ain't it. You know, you got to bury the old man. You don't bury your mistakes. Oh, you bury your mistakes all right, and the penalty for them, but you go beyond that. You bury the old character that caused them. Then you've really got the cause.

   Well, you know, as I mentioned to him about his biggest sin, and he told me it was dishonoring his father and mother, and I said, "Well, that's really a beautiful attitude to have when you really realize how you dishonored your father and mother. You defrauded, you've deceived them, you've tricked them. Here they are Christians. They trusted you. They believed in you. You lied. You cheated. You stole their confidence. You're a hypocrite, which is probably the worst thing condemned in the Bible. I said — it's great to see a person feel repentance that vigorously over one thing. But I said, you know what? Your repentance towards your folks — I haven't heard you say a thing about your sin against God."

   "But let me tell you what your worst sin is. Didn't Jesus say the great commandment in the law is to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might? Now you're gonna sit here and tell me that is the biggest sin?" It is too. That's the biggest sin of all of us. Don't have time for God. Don't really care about what God says about something.

   You know, a lot of times we kind of wish somebody else had been converted, and we could be out there playing ball on the Sabbath and watching TV games on the Sabbath. And you know, eating good old catfish and decorating that Christmas tree and, you know, hunting up those Easter eggs. And sometimes I kind of wish somebody else had gotten called. You know, "God, why me? Why don't You call me? Why don't You let me alone? Let me have fun for a while and call me." Well, that's a misconception totally, I'll tell you.

   But you know, as I mentioned to that young guy, I said, "Now you look, 52 times a year you broke the Sabbath day. You didn't keep it holy. You didn't study and pray. You didn't do on the Sabbath day what your folks were doing. Oh, you came and sat in church because you had to. You came and sat in church, but you didn't get anything out of it like they did."

   "So now you stop and think about the feast. Why do you like the feast?" Well, depends on how old your kids are. You ask them that sometimes — why they like the Feast of Tabernacles. First, first place, they get to miss school. Now, if they're younger, that's it. That's the first reason — they get to miss school. Second thing, they get to go to some nice place like Jekyll Island, Saint Petersburg, Florida, Tucson, Arizona. Boy, that's another real reason. Then they get to have money, you know, to eat — eat the best. Boy, they eat the best during those days of all. They get to stay at a nice place. And you think about all the reasons that anybody humanly, physically likes the feast.

   Then you go to somebody that's converted, somebody that has God's Spirit. You say, "Hey, what do you like about the feast?" And three times out of four, they're gonna say, "Well, you know, you get to hear as many sermons in one feast as you do a fourth of the year all together — every Sabbath put together. Boy, I mean, that is a spiritual feast. You get all kinds of sermons from all the different ministers from all over."

   Boy, that's great. Hopefully that's still your main reason. And if it isn't at the feast, it didn't — you know, if it didn't, you kind of lost your tracks, lost your way. You kind of gotten sidetracked spiritually, and you're off on the physical, see.

   What else do you like about the feast? Boy, you get to see all those church brethren. You get to just get away from the world and spend eight days with other church people. You get to travel with your family over and travel with your family back and get to be there together. Boy, that's great. That's wonderful. Well, yeah, you stay in a motel, you get to go to a nice place, but you know, if we kept it out here in the sand dunes, you'd keep it spiritually — you'd still look forward to it.

   You know, if the place of safety happens to be Petra, and you're over there in those sand caves, and what — it's gonna be fun? That's gonna be great? Anybody that went and came back bad-mouthing a place of safety and saying horrors, "Who'd ever want to go there?" was looking at facilities instead of the purpose for being there. You know, can you imagine all of us being away from the world for three and a half years, studying, working together, being neighbors, being taught God's way? You think that'd be bad? And even if we did have to sack out on the sand in a cave, even if we did have to get fed by manna or ravens, you know, it isn't the comforts of where you are — it's what you're accomplishing, really, that's going to be valuable.

   Well, we all have sin to repent of. You know, some mistakes people make too when they come to repent. You say, "Well, all right, before I can be baptized, I've got to repent. OK, I can see that. It's all the way through the Bible. I looked up repentance. I mean, it's plenty of places — repent and be baptized. OK, what have I got to repent of?" Well, repent of sin. "Well, what is sin?" Well, sin's transgressing God's law. "Oh, OK, I got to repent of transgressing God's law." Then you take the Ten Commandments and the law like a mirror, and you'd see what all you got to repent of.

   But you know the danger there? What about young people that have grown up? How long have they lived to have sin to repent of? You know, what if one of your kids is a junior in high school, and they want to repent of sin? What have they got? What have they got? Well, they'd have to be like that guy that went to college. They'd have to whiplash themselves over one thing, maybe dishonoring their father and mother.

   But you know, that isn't really what you do when you — you don't catalog your sins for repentance and baptism. When you're standing there getting ready to be baptized, one guy's got a list there about 48 things on it, and the other guy's got one or three. The other guy's got 16 pages. You know, we kind of think that though, because there's a scripture that says, "He that is forgiven much loves much, and he that is forgiven little loves little."

   Now, what does that say? You know what they accused Paul of teaching? "Let us sin so grace can abound." In other words, the more you sin, the more you're gonna love God when He forgives you for all that. So let's just get with it, man. The more sin you commit, then the more you love God when you realize He forgave you for it. That's kind of a weird attitude to take, but that's what they accused Paul of saying — "Let us sin so grace may abound."

   Now, is that true? You know what I've seen down through the years — the further you go in sin, the harder it is for you to repent, and the less chance you're going to make it. I mean, don’t kid yourselves, we can kid ourselves. Well, don't ever believe the more sin you commit — you know, I've heard all kinds of people say, "Well, I'm just young, and I've got to sow my wild oats." Boy, you better be careful. You know, for somebody to deliberately, knowingly, ahead of time, go out with forethought and purpose and sow their wild oats — well, you might as well be playing Russian roulette. You know, you're really gambling with something mighty serious when you do that. That's just — "Sin is fun, and you got to have all your fun right quick before you get baptized, because after you're baptized, you don't have any fun." That's upside down, backwards. You know, you don't even start having fun until you're baptized, when you have God's Spirit, till you can understand things spiritually, till you can get your mind off just the little temporary physical. You know, you haven't even really begun to enjoy life.

   Let's come back to Hebrews chapter 6. Everybody has to repent from dead works, but that sure varies a lot as to what the dead works are. Now, secondly, after repentance from dead works is faith toward God. You know, once you've repented of your dead works, how do you know God will forgive you? How do you know God will take away the death penalty? How do you know He won't still make you pay the penalty for sin, which is death? How do you know He'll really give you the Holy Spirit just because you have some man stick you down in a horse trough or something? How do you know He'll give you the Holy Spirit?

   Well, He says He will. I mean, Peter said, "Repent and be baptized, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." You know, God promised that. So secondly, you got to have faith toward God.

   But isn't that kind of funny that repentance from dead works comes even before faith toward God? That's kind of odd. You know, God has to show you what sin is, and He has to grant you the character and power to begin to turn from those dead works before you come to faith toward God.

   And that's kind of funny because I look back when I was baptized. I was merely along my way in college, studying to be a petroleum engineer. Well, you know, I was just a good Baptist like any other Baptist at A&M, and all of a sudden, things started happening in my thinking. All of a sudden I started thinking, "So, you know, big deal. You're going to graduate and get this degree and go out and get a good job and make a lot of money and get married and have kids, and they can live at a high standard. And then you pass the baton on to the kids, and then they live, and they get to college and get a degree and get married and have children. And you know, it just keeps on like a relay, passing the baton. But is that all there is to it? You know, that's really it?"

   So I began to think about how empty that was. I began to be so disappointed with how empty what the world had to offer seemed. But I just thought, "Well, I ought to just jump off the roof down here, jump out the window. If that's all there is to life, and it just ain't worth it. Is that all there is to life? Boy, what a disappointment. Can you believe that God says we're made in His image, and yet there isn't any more purpose than that?"

   And you know, you can ask, "What are we going to do when we go to heaven?" Nobody ever tells you. Never was alluring or rewarding. Or they say, "Well, just sit around and look up into the Master's face all day." That wasn't much of an excitement or challenge to me. You know, that might sound kind of irreligious, but I just couldn't imagine sitting around there looking up into the Master's face 1820 billion, trillion, zillion years.

   But you know, when you begin to feel that way, and life seems empty and seems to have lost purpose and seems to be no real reason, then all of a sudden God's Spirit started causing me to — I turned on the radio and heard a radio program, and it was talking about some things I thought the Bible taught. I found out about the Ten Commandments, and I found out about the holy days, the Sabbath, Passover, the Lord's Supper. And I began to see that I hadn't believed what it taught at all.

   But you know, faith toward God comes later. First you got to know what are dead works and begin to turn away from them and begin to turn to the living works that are ordained of God, that are what the Bible teaches. And then you have to have faith toward God.

   Then notice the next one: the doctrine of baptisms, plural. That means after you're baptized in water, the Holy Spirit will come on you. Now, can you imagine — that's the greatest day in anybody's life. I'll guarantee you, marriage is not even in the race compared to that day. Because let's say you get married — boy, oh man, great — you're gonna have 50-some years of it at the most. That's all of it. Then you're dead forever. That's the end of all eternity because all you are interested in is marriage. Boy, that is trivial. That's empty compared to the real eternity.

   But can you imagine God making man out of the dust of the ground and then inviting that clod, that dirt, to have a chance to be a member of the God family and live for eternity with God's power and God's purpose and God's characteristics? And can you imagine that? Can you imagine when you go down in that watery grave — mortal, physical, human — but you come up out of there begotten by a power that can go on forever, begotten by a power that can turn you into a new man? They can get rid of that bad language and that weakness of overdrinking or lying or stealing or committing adultery or whatever. When God's Spirit begins to work with you, it's going to turn you into a new man. That's what God told Saul way back there in the Old Testament.

   But notice, going on here in Hebrews 6 then, the doctrine of baptisms — when you bury that old man, you're baptized by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit begets you. You know, when you're begotten by the Holy Spirit, there's unlimited power there. You know, all of a sudden it's just like you plugged into a limitless power, just like you took an electrical plug and stuck it into a limitless power. There's nobody, period, that can limit how much of God's Spirit you can have.

   Now, we've misread one scripture that says God gives not His Spirit by measure, and we thought that just meant that God — Christ didn't give His Spirit by measure. That's not what it says. God didn't give His Spirit by measure to anybody. You know, there isn't anybody on earth that can limit how much of God's Spirit I can draw. You know, Mr. Armstrong has likened it to an unlimited bank account in heaven. You just write checks all day long, as many as you want to write on that bank account in heaven. How much of God's Spirit you want? Have all of it that you want. You can have as much of it as you want. How much love you want to have shed abroad in your heart? Have all that you want. There's no power that can limit you. Nobody. Any one of us can have as much of God's love as we will. God doesn't give His Spirit by measure.

   The doctrine of baptisms. Boy, that's the greatest thing in any human's life when you are a mortal, temporary, physical being buried in a watery grave. You come up out of there begotten by unlimited power, begotten by the power to have the mind of Christ. You know, the power to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the power to grow up into the stature of the fullness of Christ, the power to become an Abraham or an Isaac or a Jacob. Limitless power. No other being in the church can limit how much of God's power you can draw on. No deacon or elder or minister — nobody can control how much of God's power you can have. Just limitless.

   I'll guarantee you that's the greatest day in any human's life — the day they're baptized. Because that switches you from being doomed to death as a mortal, physical creature to when you can have eternal life abiding in you.

   Well, the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. Now, that's a progressive picture of a Christian. When you're baptized, you have a laying on of hands, and God's Holy Spirit begets you. The next thing is that same Spirit of God raising you from the dead if you should die between now and then. And after that, living eternally as a judge, a king, and a priest, living in eternal judgment.

   Now, Paul said, "We will do this if God permit." So God might not leave you around long enough time to go on to perfection, and God might not leave you around long enough. But you've got to be striving to do that if God permit.

   Now notice, it's impossible for those who were once enlightened — notice that doesn't say it's impossible for those who were once baptized, "You burnt your bridge behind you, you're committed," oh no. "To him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it's sin." Not a matter of when you're baptized — it's when you know, when you just don't do it.

   Now, what does it do to you if you go on doing what you know you shouldn't be doing? What does it do to you if you don't do what you know you should do? Now, that's one thing too when you think about repentance and baptism, and you think about the sin you've got to be forgiven for. You know what most of us think of? We say, "Well, yeah, I remember all those things God told me not to do that I've done." That's not the most sin. That's not the most common sin. That's not the biggest sin. What about what God tells you to do you haven't done? It's a lot more often. You know, it's a lot more often you don't do what God tells you to do.

   God says, "Watch and pray." God says, "When you fast..." God says, "Overcome." God says, "Study to show yourself approved." Well, that's the most common sin, you know. You couldn't break the Sabbath if you tried to more than once a week, could you? You really couldn't. You can't break the Sabbath on Wednesday, and you can't break the Sabbath on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday. There's no way you can break the Sabbath but once a week. But what about not praying and not studying? And you know, what about not having time for God? Yeah, it's a lot more common sin — not doing what God tells you to do.

   But you know, most people when they are thinking about their sin and unleavened bread and putting sin out of their lives, they're thinking about baptism. They automatically think about what they have done they shouldn't have done. But you know, the biggest sin of all, really, as far as overcoming and as far as what you bury — it's the sin of what we are. You know, not what you've done or what you haven't done.

   You know, stop and think about that. When a young person who's grown up all his life in the church wants to know what he's got to repent of — you know, if I were going to talk to one of my daughters and I said, "Look, you need to be baptized in order to have God's Holy Spirit, but you've got to repent of sin before you can be baptized." They'd say, "Well, what sin?" I'd say, "Well, how about vanity?" Wham! Oh boy, that socked you right in the nose, you know. What about envy? What about jealousy? What about competition? What about always thinking about number one first?

   Do you ever get tired of seeing the world around you that doesn't have the knowledge of God? And you know that people get in their cars — they don't even know anybody else is around. They don't think of anybody else. Wham! Oh, they slam their door into the side of your door, throw their can out the window, take off in the dust and just bury workers in dust for 30 minutes. How many times do people ever think about other people? Well, until you have God's Spirit, you just don't think of other people. You're just in your own world, and you don't even know anybody else is around. That bothers me every day. I watch people, and they don't ever even think of other people. I even notice it there. Well, that's — you're not converted when you're that way.

   Well, remember when you're thinking about sin you have to repent of, Paul talks about the sin that dwells in our members. You realize that sin dwells in your members. And you know, when you look at the Ten Commandments, how many of them say "Thou shalt not"? See, that's sin when you do what He says not to do. But what about ones that say "Thou shalt"? You know, there are those that say "Thou shalt." It's an understood "Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." That's a positive law. That's an action law. It's not a negative law. It didn't say "Don't do this, thou shalt not do that." It's saying, "Do — do this. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

   So anybody that doesn't aggressively remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, you're breaking the Sabbath. I mean, you might not go right out and deliberately violate the Sabbath by working or buying things or doing your business. But if you don't remember it to keep it holy, you haven't kept it. You broke the Sabbath law. It's a positive law.

   You ever noticed the tenth commandment? It's neither one. You know, the tenth commandment isn't something that tells you "Don't do this," and it isn't something that tells you "Do do this." The tenth commandment's kind of dormant. It's just — you do it just by being. "Thou shalt not covet." I never heard anybody say, "Well, I got to repent. I went out and coveted yesterday." "Oh, you did? How did you do that?" "I — you know, I got to repent. God said 'Thou shalt not covet,' and I did it."

   You know, you covet just sitting there thinking, sitting there wanting the other guy's Cadillac and you your Chevy or something. You're coveting when you think you deserve better than what you work for. You know, you covet all the time. Coveting is in your members. You don't have to do a thing. It's just there all the time. You got to root it out. You got to put it out, rend it out. And it's like when you put God's Spirit in, it drives out these things that dwell in you that are sin.

   So there's sin that dwells in our members. And when young people have grown up in the church all their lives, of course they haven't kept God's ways. They've got sin there, but also the sin that dwells in their members. Boy, you watch little kids a year old. You think they don't have sin dwelling in their members? Oh yes, they do. Selfish — everything's theirs. "Mine!" Grab, fight, take it away from that other little kid because "That's mine!" You think they don't have human nature when they're one year old, two years, five years, ten years? That old human nature just develops in them and grows in them and builds. It dwells in their members.

   Why, you know, a little kid five years old has plenty to repent of. He isn't old enough to know it, but maybe he'll learn it if his parents can teach him.

   Now notice what he says here in the rest of Hebrews 6: "It's impossible for those who were once enlightened..." It never happens but once. God doesn't let you go through the process of repentance but once. God grants you repentance once. There's one baptism. You can't be baptized three times, five times. There's one baptism. There's one repentance. You're once enlightened, and that's it.

   And if you're once enlightened — you know, that happens gradually. Some people are enlightened — you know, it's fun to talk with one another about how we got converted, how we came to know the truth. And it's funny, you know, everybody comes a different way. Somebody says, "Boy, when I heard him say 'Try to count three days and three nights from Friday to Sunday,' boy, that sure scrambled me right there. I was hooked from then on because three days and three nights from Friday to Sunday? No way."

   But you know, to another person, they might have said, "Boy, I'll tell you, when I learned shock Chris -mass, why on earth as a Baptist, "Keeping mass once a year for — come on, Christ mass? No way, boy. Not anymore, not for me." You know, that struck me as a Baptist. "What in the world's I, as a Baptist, keeping mass once a year? I didn't keep mass any other time of the year. Why keep Christ's mass once a year? And He wasn't even born then anyway, and He didn't even tell you to celebrate His birth. In fact, God even hid the day of His birth so nobody can know."

   But different things get to different people to start with, and I don't know what God hooked you with, but it's different from most people, you know. But you are once enlightened.

   Now notice that: "and have tasted of the heavenly gift." In other words, God enlightens you, and you're repenting, you're turning from the dead works and turning toward the biblical way. You taste the heavenly gift — boy, is that ever delicious! Forgiveness of sin, God's Holy Spirit. Boy, your made — you taste the heavenly gift, and you're made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God.

   Notice that. You know, the Bible might be bad in your opinion for a while when you're getting converted. "Oh, I wish I never had learned that. Well, that's hard." And you know, as Mr. Armstrong said, God has test commandments. So a person begins to hear the truth, and they say, "Hey, how about that? I don't have any immortal soul. Boy, that's great. I'm glad to know that. Boy, you know, God isn't a Trinity. Isn't that great?"

   You just keep switching gears up here, and you used to believe in an immortal soul, and you used to believe in a Trinity, and that's fun to learn and find out what's wrong and what's right. "Oh great, there isn't any ever-burning hell. Boy, oh great, that's the greatest of all, you know — no burning forever in hell up to your neck in hot oil and snakes crawling all around. Great, no ever-burning hell." And "Oh boy, that's great. Boy, you're just really excited about all this new truth."

   And then all of a sudden: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Uh Oh. Boy, you work six days a week. All of a sudden you don't just shift gears up here and say, "OK, seventh-day Sabbath! Hot dog, that's great! That's wonderful!" Uh Oh, you know, now you got to go to church. You can't work. What are your folks gonna think? What are the neighbors going to say? What's your boss going to say?

   So there are test commandments. Then all of a sudden tithing comes around — 10%. "And I've been going in the hole already, and I have 10%? Oh, I know I — God, surely this can't be. Please, no." But you know, sure enough, those test commandments — you gotta have faith to do those. You can't go but so far on your own, I'll guarantee. You cannot keep God's ways in the flesh very far. You look at Israel — they tried it. How much did they do? First thing they got rid of was tithing and the holy days. That's hard. Well, they didn't need to change their other doctrines because it's just a matter up in the head anyway.

   But notice here then this process: you're once enlightened, then you taste the heavenly gift, then you're made partakers of the Holy Spirit, then you taste the good word of God. And notice this: you taste the powers of the world to come. You taste the powers of healing. You taste the powers of blessing, prosperity-wise for tithing. You taste the powers of being a king and a priest and a judge and a ruler. You taste the power of freeing the world from ignorance and teaching them God's way. You could go on a long time on that one — taste the powers of the world to come.

   Now, if you go through that and fall away, there's no renewing again to repentance. There's once enlightenment. So if you sin willfully after you receive the knowledge of the truth — you know, if you know to do good and don't do it, if you're once enlightened and baptized and have God's Spirit, that's your day of salvation, and that's your only day, and that's going to be it.

   Now, you know, that's a fairly accurate picture of the process of conversion. Now, you know, you look back and see if your conversion didn't happen that way. All of a sudden, God's Spirit starts working in your mind, and you began to be enlightened. And then you begin to realize what's God's purpose for man and what the great gift of the heavenly God and plan and purpose is, and you tasted that heavenly gift. Then you began to want to be in the family of God. You wanted to get rid of the flesh. You wanted to bury the old man of the physical realm. You wanted to live by God's Spirit. You wanted to live forever in the family of God and God's purpose for man.

   So you came to the place that you said, "Well God, look, I'm fed up and sick and tired of that old man. I don't want to live in the flesh. Boy, God, if I live in the flesh, look what all I'll do." And you know, a part of young people's conversion is realizing what your flesh does. You don't have to have done it. You know, you can repent of your flesh. You could say, "God, look at this. If I don't rule this flesh, I'll go like everybody else. I'll start taking dope and ruining my brain. If I don't have Your power, God, I'll just get my brain pickled with alcohol and get out here and commit adultery or fornication and ruin somebody else's life. God, look at this old man. What does this flesh produce?"

   You know, you want to know what your flesh will do if you let it go? You don't have to have done it all, you know. You can abhor the old man and bury him just as vigorously because you know — and you know that you know — what he does. The works of the flesh are manifest: adultery, fornication. And you think about what they are. That's what anybody's flesh will do, selfish, greedy, rebellious, independent, carnal, self-willed, lust, lie, steal, cheat, kill, you know nobodies flesh is any different. Everybody’s flesh will do that if if they just let it have its way, let it go its course. If you don't have help to get your life in control, that's what it will do to you. I mean, it'll do that to anybody and everybody.

   Now, when you come to baptism, you know, it's a funeral. It's a funeral. You're so fed up and sick and tired of the old man. You've come to see the two ways: the real purpose for man, the real life of the Spirit, the real overcoming and growing and becoming like God to be a part of God's world tomorrow and the family of God, compared to just living in the old flesh, satiating the senses, following the human carnal way, die and be buried in the ground and go back to dust that's all you were taken out of.

   Boy, you know, how could anybody have any trouble choosing if you just really understood the two? You know, if you really pictured the truth — I mean, who doesn't want to be converted into a spirit being, live forever, to have God's mind and God's power?

   And you know, between now and Passover is a time a lot of people ought to be thinking about baptism.