Herbert W Armstrong

   Certainly the youth, as Mr. Foster was bringing out, even though they are not perhaps baptized members of the church, nonetheless, they are a special part of God's church with all of us today. I'd certainly like to extend a hearty welcome to everyone and certainly give my appreciation to the inspiration all of you have been to everybody else at this Feast of Tabernacles.

   Like most of you, I was a little apprehensive coming to perhaps a big city for the feast, but I think this has been one of the most smooth running, enjoyable, friendly get to know your brother type Feast of Tabernacles that I've ever had the opportunity to attend, and it's been great to shake a few hands and renew a few old acquaintances from people we've met in past years in different church areas, and it's been a great experience for these first 5 days that we've had here during the Feast of Tabernacles this year.

   I would like to contrast what you saw on the stage a few minutes ago, where we had the opportunity to see small children, and there's one thing about small children, they are genuine. There are no errors, no hypocrisy, there's no putting on any fronts. What you see is what you get. You would all agree with that. All right. You, you look at those children in that setting.

   Now contrast that with a commercial I heard on the radio while I was driving into Cobo Hall, the first part of the feast, and I was listening to radio station WJR Detroit, one of the major stations here in the area. And they were giving a plug for Washington State apples. Maybe some of you heard this commercial. And they had hired the son of Will Rogers, who I believe was one of the homespun comedians of past decades, and the Washington State Apple people wanted to get him to make a commercial that he could plug the virtues of Washington State apples and get you to buy their product.

   So he proceeded to say how delicious a red delicious Washington State apple was, how when it was cold and crisp it would snap and crackle in your mouth and it was just so delicious. And how the yellow delicious Washington State apples, you could put them in your pies and they would just, you know, just bake up so nice, they would just melt in your mouth. Just absolutely the perfection of what they ought to be.

   And then he made a profound statement. He said, "Now I know that this year is an election year, and I don't expect you to believe a thing I have said." Now think about that a moment. He came right out and said that. He said this is an election year, and I don't expect you to believe a word I have said. So you go to the store and you buy some of these fine Washington State apples and try them for yourself and then you'll know I have been telling you the truth because you tried them yourself.

   Now we can laugh about that statement on the surface, but frankly down deep, it probably makes you mad. Because he's right. What can you believe in an election year?

   I don't know how many of you had the opportunity to see the debate between Ronald Reagan and John Anderson that took place a number of days ago now, and they of course were debating everything from inflation to the economy to the defense and so on and how our nation was faring, and of course they took their potshots at Jimmy Carter. I listened to most of that debate because I wanted to hear how they would answer specific questions that were given to them.

   And I remember one of the reporters or one of the people they had selected to ask the questions would say, "Now, Mr. Reagan, you have proposed spending more money on defense. You have proposed spending more money on this, and yet you are proposing this tax cut. Now, Mr. Reagan, how do you propose to balance the budget?" And then we proceeded to go around the bush, you know how I mean? Around the bush and get nowhere. The answer was revealing because it had no specifics of how he was exactly going to do that. He just thought it would all work out and then Mr. Anderson had his chance and he would go around the bush, but no specifics on exactly how he was going to do that.

   Well, you know, when you see, I don't know whether it's just sincerity and these poor men just don't have the answers and they try the best they can, or whether it's what we would call politics and just plain hypocrisy. But you know, I want to direct that commercial and that hypocrisy that we see around us, contrasted with what we saw on the stage and direct it to our youth in God's church today. Because if there is one thing that turns off a teenager or a young person quicker than anything else, it's hypocrisy. It's somebody who makes them a promise and then doesn't carry through. It's someone, a parent, a teacher, a Y.O.U. coordinator who says we will do such and such or we promise you these things, and then they don't do it. And if you want to lose credibility with anybody, but with particularly a young person, just promise them things and then don't follow through.

   And yet many of you that are teenagers sitting here today have heard sermons for the last 4 days. And now we're entering the second half of the feast. These sermons have all been directed to the kingdom of God, what it will be like, how we will fit into it, and so on and so forth. But many times I have had teenagers come to me and say, "Well, it's nice to hear about the world tomorrow, but how do I fit into that world tomorrow? Where is my place?"

   You see, the sermons too often that we as ministers give, and I will certainly include myself first and foremost in this because we direct them to the baptized membership and we answer questions that baptized members would pose, and we talk to an audience as if everybody here was baptized and I know I do the same thing myself and perhaps it has to be that way. But what about you as the youth in God's church? What promises has Jesus Christ, the future president, if you please, of the world tomorrow? What promises has he included in his political platform, again, if we want to use that expression, that are going to mean something to you as the youth in God's church?

   What I'm going to do in this sermon this morning is take perhaps a little different approach, and I am going to go over if we can use the term, and I want to use it very loosely, the political platform that Jesus Christ will institute in the world tomorrow that will affect the youth of God's church. Because he has made some promises that he is going to fulfill that the youth in God's church and the youth all over the world, I think, are going to be very happy when they are instituted. So follow along with me. Turn to the scriptures. Listen to what I have to say, and I think you will see on this youth day that the world tomorrow holds many very fine promises for you which will be kept.

   Now let's pose a question at the beginning of this sermon. Let's take children that are from, say, 7 years of age up to 17. And I, I will include the seven year olds as children and the 17-year-olds as young adults. I don't want to offend anybody before I get started here. What is the one thing that you spend most of your time doing other than sleep? If you are from 7 to 17, there is one thing during the week that occupies more hours than anything else you do other than perhaps sleeping. Now think about that for a moment. I think you know what it is. You go to school. You are a part of the educational system of our country.

   Maybe you leave for school at 7:30 or 8 o'clock in the morning. You get home at 3, 3:30, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, depending on how your school system is set up. Now a second question: Are you pleased with the hours that you spend in school? Or is school to you a problem, a burden, a drag, something you wish you could do without? And if you ever ask yourself why it is a problem, a burden, a drag, if it is?

   Because I know there are many children, my own included, many teenagers who will make the statement, "Do I have to go to school today?" And they will get a stomach ache, they will get a headache, they will get anything they can get, just not to go to school today. Why don't young people like to go to school if they come up with those reasons?

   Well, I can think of a few reasons. Let me give you a little example that happened to my wife. Now my wife last year had a little, just a kind of a little part-time thing she did once in a while. She was on call in the Akron school system where we live there in Ohio as a substitute teacher. And she had teaching credentials from, you know, going to college before and she hadn't used them in a while and she applied for a teaching certificate in the state of Ohio and it was granted to her, and her name was put down among many other names as a substitute teacher in the Akron public school system.

   And I well remember this one day when she got a call early in the morning and she was asked, "Can you come and substitute in a 5th grade classroom at a particular school?" So she said fine, she got dressed and she got a little material together and I dropped her off over at the school system and then came back to pick her up later in the day. And, and, and she looked like she was on drugs, you know, like she was having withdrawal symptoms. I couldn't figure out what what is the matter with my poor wife. And she got in the car and she just stared straight ahead. I said, "Honey, how did your day go?" She didn't say anything. And then gradually she turned over and looked at me with this frown on her face and she said, "I will never substitute again, ever. I am done. I am finished. Never again will I ever do this."

   And then she proceeded to tell me what had happened to her day. It started out when one little girl came up to her and said, "Now, Mrs. Swaggerty, I want to tell you something about this classroom. Whatever you do, don't leave the room and leave anything behind, because if you do, they will steal it." That was the first thing this one little girl told her.

   And then a little bit later on, another little girl came up and said, "Mrs. Swaggerty, I need to go to the bathroom. Can I go to the bathroom?" So she let her go to the bathroom. She came back in about 10 minutes and her total personality was altered, and my wife got the impression that this 10 year old had gone to the bathroom for the specific purpose of popping whatever she popped, and she came back and was just an absolute total personality change. Uncontrollable. And she said all she did that day was just try to maintain order. Nothing could be taught.

   And this was probably a cross section of the way any average 5th grade class would teach a treat a substitute teacher, and it left a little bit to be desired. Have you ever wondered as parents and as teenagers, young people, where did the discipline go? Where is the learning process, where is the quality of education? Is there even any use of going to school anymore? And many parents have thought maybe a better thing to do would be to have their children go on a correspondence course or send them to a private school or some place where our children could learn something.

   Well, Jesus Christ makes all of you that are young people and your parents a promise. One of the promises in his platform is that in the world tomorrow, education is not going to be what it is today. Turn back to Isaiah chapter 30. Let's notice a very brief statement about teachers and about education that is made in the book of Isaiah. And we're going to milk a little meaning from this verse, or these two verses.

   Isaiah 30 and beginning in verse 20 (Isaiah 30:20-21). Breaking into the chapter here, it's of course talking about the millennium and some of the things that God is going to do. And he says, "Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not your teacher be removed into a corner anymore. But your eye is going to see your teachers and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way to walk you in it when you turn to the right hand or to the left."

   Now we have used that scripture, of course, and I think the main context is there are going to be spirit beings everywhere present. And human beings are not going to be allowed to get that far out of line until a voice is going to come from behind them and say, "Wait a minute, don't do that. This is the way you walk in it." But if they are going to be doing that to adults, how much more in the classroom setting? How much more to the young people, are they going to be given firm guidelines? Is there going to be discipline in the classroom? Is there going to be education of a quality nature? And are young people going to be given an education that is both uplifting, inspiring, educational, and something that's going to be beneficial to them in the long run? I think we can certainly look at that and realize that God is going to do that.

   Now I have talked with many teenagers and counseled with them. And one of the things, as Mr. Foster alluded to in his sermonette, that they have to fight harder than anything is what we call peer pressure. Peer pressure. In other words, a peer group is a group of individuals who are the same age, the same station of life that you are in. If you are a 15 year old teenager, your peer group would be the, maybe the sophomore class that you attend with, or the juniors or the freshmen or wherever you know you meet.

   And whatever this group does, there is enormous pressure exerted on you to go along with what the group wants to do. And if you don't go along with it, well then you're square, you're a chicken, and you are four letter words that I am certainly not going to repeat up here that all of you I'm sure are used to. And maybe you do have a desire to go God's way, but every place you turn, it's more peer pressure to go the wrong way.

   And yet did you know that in God's world tomorrow, education is going to be something where peer pressure will work to your advantage? Maybe you never thought about it that way, but Jesus Christ is going to, of course, let the knowledge of God spread out over the world as the waters cover the seas. And everybody is going to be a member of the church. And when it comes time to go to the Feast of Tabernacles as a young person, instead of having perhaps to make excuses because you don't want to come out with really where I'm going for these 10 days, everybody else will go. They're going to shut the school down. We all attend the Feast of Tabernacles. Maybe we'll have the meeting right there in your school auditorium. And we'll all be at the Y.O.U. dance and all of your friends will be at the activities that the church is putting on, and there won't be a peer group trying to push you the other way and call you square and chicken in every name they can come up with because God's way will be extant everywhere.

   Notice Isaiah 11. A scripture that I alluded to. And let's read it. Isaiah 11. Verse 9. And this again is breaking into the context of one of the chapters in the Bible that talks about the coming kingdom of God. And it says in Isaiah 11:9, that "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, in other words, everywhere my kingdom is extant, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Everywhere God's truth will be. Now that's a promise. God says it's going to happen. Jesus Christ as the future president of the world, says that this is the way it will be, and those of you that are youth in God's church can do with my life? Am I gonna be a mechanic? Am I gonna be a teacher? Am I going to be, what, what is my job going to be?

   But how many of you as youth have had the frustrating experience of trying to find a job? You know it's bad enough for your poor parents trying to come up with a job or something that they can do to earn a living, to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Much more if you're 16 or 17 or 18 or 19 or 20, and I don't know exactly what the statistics are, but the last time I looked that unemployment among teenagers was running at the rate of 50%. That means 1 out of every 2 young people who wanted to find a job could not come up with a job. And it's a frustrating experience. You want to do better, you want to make a place for yourself. You want to earn a living. You want to be a productive part of society, but everywhere you turn, the door slams in your face.

   Now Jesus Christ is going to make a promise. The promise is that the problem of unemployment is going to end. Because he is going to make a promise or two that I'm going to turn to in a moment that shows you will have a job. And you're not only going to have a job, but you're going to have a slice of the pie where you can have a piece of property to call your own. You can have a home to live in. And you can have a little stake in whatever nation or area that you might find yourself dwelling in. And that's more than the governments of this world, I'll tell you for sure can promise you today.

   Let's go back in our Bibles to the book of Micah chapter 4. I want to show you what to me is a very interesting section of scripture. We've of course had several ministers that have turned to this already. But in Micah chapter 4, back in the minor profits. Let's start reading in verse 3 of Micah 4. And it talks about Christ judging among many people and rebuking strong nations afar off and instructing them to beat their swords into plowshares, and also their spears into pruning hooks, nation not lifting up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

   But notice verse 4 (Micah 3:4): "They, referring to the peoples of the world, they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it." Notice the word "his." It's going to be yours. You're going to have a little stake in the real estate of whatever country you live in, and you're going to have a vine and a fig tree and a backyard and a garden and a little acreage and some property that will be yours. And you will be able to call it your little space of the earth, so to speak, and Christ says nobody's going to come along and take it away. The real estate man is not going to come and foreclose on it because you have back taxes that are due. Somebody's not gonna come along because of an urban planning study and say we want to run a freeway through your garden, you'll have to move. I'm sorry. That won't happen. You will lay claim to that and it will be yours to use for your benefit.

   If you look at this United States that we live in today, have you ever wondered why it is that we have such a problem with unemployment? Why can't we find enough productive jobs for people today? Now I'd like all of you that are adults to think about this, of course, too, because it affects all of you as well. Why don't we have enough jobs to go around? Why 7 or 8 or 9% unemployment and growing all the time?

   Well, if you look back at the way this nation has drifted over the past few decades, you will notice that back at the turn of the century, as my memory serves me, there were probably 50 to 60% of the people in this country who made their living by agrarian means. They were farmers or close to the land. It was a society that was spread out. The big cities were not that big. The urban centers had not grown large, and so on. But now in 1980, we have only 5 to 6% of our population who actually make their living from the land. The other 95% of us have been shoved into large urban areas by and large, and here we're stuck.

   Now that I think is one of the great contributing factors to our problems today. And when you have a million people or so as we have in the Detroit area, or maybe 8 or 9 million people as are in New York City, or 20 million people that live within 50 miles of Times Square. You have people that the least little thing that comes along throws enormous numbers out of work, and we have unemployment going rampant.

   But when we return in the millennium to an agrarian society, when everybody has a little piece of property, when it's more of the home industry, if we want to call it that, then the problem of unemployment is not going to be the factor that we see around us today. And this is what Jesus Christ says he is going to do.

   Notice the book of Amos, also in the minor prophets. The Book of Amos chapter 9. And let's turn to verse 13 of Amos chapter 9. And we'll add a little bit more to what we have covered. Amos 9. Starting at verse 13, it says (Amos 9:13), "Behold the days come, says the Lord," and here we have a restatement of what we read. "Micah nearly that the plowman shall overtake the reaper." There's going to be prosperity, the treasure of grapes, him that sows the seed, and the mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills shall melt.

   And he says, "I will bring again from basically captivity my people of Israel," and what shall they do? Well, they're going to build some waste cities all right and inhabit them. But they're also going to plant vineyards and drink the wine. They're gonna make gardens, they're gonna eat the fruit of it, and it says, "I will plant them along their land or upon their land, and they will no more be pulled out of their land, which I have given them."

   And what you're going to see is all the enormous areas of this country and of this world that are lying waste, that are deserts, that are mountains, that are swamps, that are areas that really can't support much for growth, are going to be made to bloom as a desert, are going to be made productive, and are going to be parceled out so that everybody can have a little share of the real estate, and we all can enjoy our own piece of property, and we're not going to be stuck in the big cities as we are today.

   Now, I in no way want to undercut what Mr. Foster was saying earlier in the feast about cities because there are going to be cities in the millennium. But if you were to do a further research into the Bible about cities, you're going to see they're set up entirely different than cities today. You're going to find statements that we have cattle grazing in the cities, statements that there are going to be gardens in the cities, statements that there are going to be farmlands right in the city.

   Now how would you like to go out here on Michigan Avenue and find cattle walking up and down the sidewalks? It wouldn't work, would it? Because cattle can't graze very well off of concrete. But you see, if you were to take whole city blocks and make them pasture land, if you were to take more city blocks and plant fruit trees, and if you were to take more city blocks and make them parks, then you see you would have a place for the cattle and place for the animals and place for the children and place for everybody.

   So again, a job, property, a slice of the pie, some employment, something to do, a piece of land I can call my own. These are things that the politicians promised to people today, but they're not delivering because they don't have the wherewithal to make good on the promise. But Jesus Christ, the future president of this country and the whole world, with some of you ruling with him, will make good on the promise. And that's something that he says he will do, and it is going to be done.

   Now there's another thing that I alluded to that I think all of you young people want to see done. You want to be treated fairly. The fact is, there is nothing, as I mentioned before, that gripes a young person any more than if he feels he has not been treated fairly. Just out of curiosity, how many of you, and you don't have to raise your hands, have ever come to you or your children have ever come to you as a parent, and they have complained that they have not been treated fairly, that their brother or their sister or somebody else got more allowance or they got to stay up later at night, or they got to do this or they got to do that, they gripe, they complain, they bellyache and you are ready to go, "Ah, you know, shut up. I can't stand any more of this." And then you, you, you had a big scene. I'm sure any family has had that occur.

   Now, sometimes your children were probably selfish and they shouldn't have been making the complaints they were, but at other times maybe you as an adult, were not treating them fairly. And maybe they had a legitimate gripe and maybe you should have thought through a little bit more before you made decisions and said you have to do this and you have to do that. But I am telling you that teenagers will pick up immediately if they feel they're not getting a fair shake and if justice is not being meted out equitably.

   I know one of the greatest eye-opening experiences for me in the last couple of years has been being the Y.O.U. coordinator in the Akron Church. Because how did we pick the cheerleaders and how did we pick the basketball team and who got to be the officers and who got to do this and who got to do that and why did they get to do this and why didn't I get to do that and was that fair and this person is getting it over me and so on and so forth. And then of course when the parents see that their children aren't getting a fair shake, the parents jump in the middle of it. And I say to myself, I was ordained as a minister, not a youth counselor. See. But of course being a minister is being a youth counselor as well.

   But fairness, we all want fairness. Well, you know, again, one of the political promises, again, to use that term loosely, that Jesus Christ says will take place is that there will be fairness and justice in the judgment system, in the courts, in whatever you want to say, things are going to be done in a fair way.

   Let me give you an illustration that's kind of humorous, at least it was to me when I heard the story, but it wasn't to the fellow who had it happen to him. Just to give you an illustration of the way justice works in our society today. There was a man who I knew many years ago in New Jersey who had been given a speeding ticket. He had been caught by a radar unit doing 30 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone. And the officer wrote out the ticket. And told him that if he wanted to protest the ticket, he would have to appear in court and so on and so forth.

   Well, this man said, "Well, maybe I was doing a couple of 3 miles over, but boy, this is awful picky. I'm gonna go see if I can't go to court and get out of this." So he, you know, made his appointment for his day in court and sat down in the courtroom. Now, if ever you appeared in court, you will know that many times you have to wait your turn and sometimes you can get an education sitting waiting and hearing other people have their cases tried before the judge while you sit and wait.

   And he says he was sitting there and they brought somebody forward who had been convicted of pushing drugs. You know, a felony. And the judge, you know, read the riot act to this guy and then said, "All right, we'll put you on probation." Let him off. Somebody else came along and they've been guilty of, of some other heinous thing. I forget what it was and the judge read them the riot act, but he let them off too. Then somebody else was guilty of drunken driving and he said, "Well, we'll be merciful to you this time, we'll let you off too."

   And the guy thought to himself, "Oh boy, I've got a, I've got a piece of cake here. When he sees all I've done is go 5 miles over the speed limit. I got it made. He'll let me off. I'll get out of this ticket."

   Well, the judge had him come before the bench. And he looked at it and he said, "Hmm, going 30 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone. You know, I've got a name for your kind," he said. "I call your kind creepers. That's right. You're the kind that tried to just barely creep over the law. You try to push it as far as you can go and take advantage of it just a little bit because you think you won't get caught because you only went just a few miles over. Well, I'm telling you what, I don't like your kind because our society can do without your kind to try to creep around and do a little bit better than what they're supposed to do. I'm gonna make you pay the full fine of $75."

   He was dumbfounded. He let the drug push her off. He let the drunken driver off. He let this guy off and he gets me for 5 miles over the speed limit. So he's, he's told to go back and see the court clerk and pay his fine and he's mumbling to himself as he leaves the bench and he says, "I can't believe it. They let the drug addict off, they let this off, they let that off."

   And the judge says, "What was that you said? Come back here. He says one more statement for you and it will be contempt of court and that'll be 5 days in jail and a $300 fine." Well, at that stage of the game, of course, he said, "Yes, Your Honor," and zipped his lip and went back and paid you $75 fine and was happy to get out that easy.

   Now, let me ask you a question. Was that justice? You let a drug pusher off, we put him on probation. The drunk driver, we don't do anything with him, you know, and I obviously this was one day in court and I'm not saying all drug pushers get off and all drunk drivers get off. But you get the guy that goes 5 miles over the speed limit, 30 in a 25, and we throw the book at him. And yet that is the very thing that goes on in this society day in and day out and day in and day out that totally turns off the population. It, it really does. It turns off the population and it's why Jesus Christ made the statement he did back in Matthew chapter 5.

   Let's go back there, Matthew chapter 5. And maybe you'll understand this verse a little better because it's a very wise statement that Christ instructed all of us as Christians. Matthew 5:25 says, "Agree with your adversary quickly while you are in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you will be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you that you shall by no means come out of there until you have paid the uttermost farthing."

   In other words, Christ says, settle out of court. Don't take your chances with the judicial system of the society you live in, because you may find yourself in big trouble. And then of course if you're somebody who's made a whole history of crime, you may not even have even your hand slapped.

   And I'll give you another live example that happened right here at Cobo Hall a couple of nights ago. I guess some of you had the misfortune of staying late that evening, and apparently there was some kind of a dance or a rock concert or something that another group was putting on in another part of the complex here. And I had, you know, gone out of the roof parking lot relatively early and I only saw just the beginnings of this, but I guess there were people that were throwing beer bottles down the staircases and there was broken glass everywhere and they were walking up on the ledges upstairs, you know, on the roof parking lot because they were stone drunk and you know they were they were going to the bathroom over the edge and one thing and another, I mean it was just a debacle.

   And one of our members walked up to a policeman and said to the policeman, "Why don't you put a stop to this? Why do you let this kind of thing go on?" And the policeman said, "Hey, look, what do you expect us to do? Arrest everybody. We haven't got room in our jails to hold them." In other words, unless they're killing somebody, we won't do anything about it. You know, they can break all the beer bottles they want and they can, you know, go to the bathroom off the roof and they can parade around and they can walk the ledges and they can make a nuisance and a hazard for everybody, but until they kill somebody, we can't arrest them. Because we don't have any room in the jails to put them.

   Again, you see that sort of thing happen and it just turns you off. You say, what's the use? Why bother? Is this justice? And I know adults, we see it, our young people see it, we all recognize it goes on, but Jesus Christ says a statement in in Isaiah 11, a promise that he makes us that this sort of thing will not go on in the world tomorrow.

   Notice Isaiah 11:1, "It says there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots," referring of course to Jesus Christ, "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And shall make him a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears."

   In other words, he's not gonna base his judgment on just hearsay and gossip and so on. "But with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, and he shall smite the earth with a rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And it says righteousness shall be the girdle of these loins and faithfulness, the girdle of his reigns."

   Now notice the qualities. We find righteousness, we find judgment, we find equity, we find understanding, we find meekness, we find many good qualities here. Those are going to make up the judicial system of the world tomorrow, and we're not going to have the fiasco that palms itself off as justice that we see in our society today. I think that's a very great thing to look forward to, and of course the receivership would have never taken place in our church if it wasn't for the politicians and the judges who could be bought and who hungered for power and wanted to make a name for themselves. If it hadn't been for those individuals in our society, we would have never had the troubles that we had. But because those elements exist, we had the problems in our church that we did.

   Let's address another issue that I think is something that you teenagers are going to rejoice when this day comes. I have briefly mentioned it once already in the sermon, but I want to take more time to dwell on it. And that is in the world tomorrow, everybody is going to think alike. What is that going to mean to you as a teenager when there is only one religion in the world tomorrow? How many problems for you is that going to solve?

   Now I'd like to tell you an experience that happened to me when I was being called into God's church and show you some of the troubles that I went through just so you teenagers can realize that I've been through some of the hard knocks that you've had to go through. When I first heard the World Tomorrow broadcast, I was only 15 years of age. And it took a little bit of time to make an impression on my mind, but a year later, by the time I was 16, I was beginning to be convicted of the truth of God. And I began to see that look, this means me. I ought to do something about this knowledge that I know.

   But I loved to play sports. I like to run track. I like to play baseball. I like to play football. I came from a small town high school where everybody knew everybody and you couldn't get lost in the crowd, and I've been a member of the football team for 3 years, and it came to my senior year and I just turned 17 years of age, and I said to myself, I shouldn't be doing this. Because of course I was going to have to play on Friday night. That's when all the football games were scheduled. And yet I knew that the Sabbath day was a day that even I as a 17 year old, ought to observe, and I said to myself, I shouldn't be playing football on Friday nights.

   But here are my friends. And they were playing football and here were all these pretty girls that I wanted to impress, see. And the cheerleaders, and here was the ra ra ra and here were the pep rallies and all the other things. Could I disappoint my friends? What would they say to me if I told them I can't play football this year because I'm going to observe the Sabbath? You don't think I didn't go through some agony. You don't think I didn't wake up in the morning with a knot in the pit of my stomach wondering how am I going to face the issue, how am I going to bite the bullet. This is going to be a humiliation that I can never live down, I said to myself. Why did God have to call me now? Any of you teenagers ever have that experience?

   You probably said to yourself, Why didn't God leave my parents alone for a few more years until I got to be 19 or 20? Then he could have called them. See then I would have been done with high school, wouldn't have to worry about peer pressure, the Sabbath, or anything else. I'd have had it made. Well, I was in the same boat. But I'll confess to you I was a chicken. I was weak. And I said to myself, I just can't face it. And I went ahead and went out for football anyway.

   But God had something else in mind. He let me go through the first couple of 3 weeks, which were preseason conditioning. And then we had the first game of the season Friday night. Guilty conscience and all, I went out and I was a starter on the football team. And 3 plays into the football game, this guy came out of nowhere and put a block on me that all but wrecked my knee. And I was on crutches because of strained ligaments. I was happy I was on crutches because now instead of having to tell people I couldn't play football on Friday night because of keeping the Sabbath, I was a hero, you see, because I was on these crutches and everybody could see I was injured.

   But unfortunately for me, it healed too quickly. And 3 weeks later I was walking around well and could throw the crutches away, and now I was faced with the same dilemma again. And I didn't have nerve this time to tell them what the way it was, so I was back at practice again and then it was homecoming night. Now, you know, I, I can't tell the coach I can't play on homecoming night. Well, the opening kickoff, the opening kickoff, that's what it was, wham, same knee, worse off this time. Oh, did it hurt?

   And I said, "God, I understand. I will not play anymore. I will bite the bullet. There will be no more Friday night football games or Saturday afternoon track meets. I am convinced. I don't want any more punishment because I know next time you will be breaking my leg off and hitting me over the head with it. I quit. That's it. I'm done."

   But it took some convincing to give me the willpower to resist the peer pressure, to resist the peer pressure. But young people in God's church, the days of peer pressure are just about over. They're just about over. It's almost done. When you're going to have to have to worry about the stigma of embarrassment about going to the feast, or about not playing on Friday night or being made fun of because of one thing or another that might come up with regard to your religion and what you believe in.

   Turn back to the book of Zechariah chapter 14. One of the last books of the Old Testament. Zachariah 14. And we want to look at verse 9. Verse 9 of Zechariah 14. Very simple verse, but filled with meaning. Zachariah 14:9 reads, "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day shall there be one Lord and His name one." In other words, we're not going to have 3 or 4 or 500 different kinds of Christianity. We're not going to have all kinds of oriental religions and Middle Eastern religions and atheists and agnostics and all the other kinds of isms and religion that we find in our world today.

   There will be one Lord with one name, with one system of worship, with one church, with one Sabbath day, with one set of beliefs, with one set of holy days, and that's what everybody will do. And instead of peer pressure working against the young people of God's church, it will be one of the greatest forces going in your favor. That'll be a great day. It's going to solve a lot of your problems and make life a lot more pleasant to live, and that's a promise that Jesus Christ makes to you. He will see that it's going to come to pass, and there is absolutely nobody or anything that will keep him from doing it.

   But let's talk about another area in the last 10 or 15 minutes that I've got here that I think will be even more good news for the young people of God's church. You know, I like to be around teenagers from this point of view. That teenagers, if I can use the expression, are so young and alive. Have you ever noticed that they are filled with energy. They are in the prime of their health. They are vibrant. They can go and go and go, and nothing makes them stop.

   And here I am just hitting my mid-30s, and I already feel like I need to trade it all in on a new model. And I look at some of you out there and you're a lot worse off than I am. I don't want to insult anybody or say any names, but you know I mean you know my waist size went up a couple of inches, but it's not that bad yet. My hairline went back a little, but at least I don't reflect as much light as Mr. Williams was doing here the other day. I mean, you know, he's got a lot less up there than I do. Now I don't want to pick on any more ministers because they'll get in trouble. I just picked on him because he's already spoke and he can't come back later and get me, see, so we'll stop at that.

   But young people, you love to live, you like to do things, you like to be active, you like to, to just live life to the full. And yet I have talked with many teenagers who have had the mistaken impression that they have got to burn the candle at both ends right now before God's government gets here, because when it comes, all the fun is going to end. That'll be it. You know, it'll be just strictness, a rod of iron, Jesus Christ ruling from Jerusalem. My parents will be spirit beings and will spy on everything I do. And it'll be all over. So we better live it up now because when Christ returns, it's finished. Where did you get that impression? That is not the way it's going to be.

   There's one other fear that I would also like to address here just in a moment, and that's the fear that many young people have, and I don't know where they got this fear either. That they're in a hurry to get married. They're in a hurry to find somebody. They're in a hurry to, to, to find a wife or a husband to get attached to somebody because they feel when Christ returns, they're gonna miss out on, on marriage. And, and let's put it bluntly, they're going to miss out on sex. I mean, you know, let's just say it the way it is.

   Let's examine those few things about fun and marriage and so on and so forth. Turning your Bibles back to Jeremiah chapter 33. Jeremiah chapter 33. And I want to show you that when the government of God comes, those things which you as young people look forward to of health and security and prosperity and laughter and music and marriage and so on, they're not going to end. They're only going to be better.

   Jeremiah chapter 33. Now we'll cut into the middle of the chapter here, where it's talking about Christ and what he's going to do and some of the things that are going to happen in the millennium. And it says in verse 6 of Jeremiah 33 (Jeremiah 33:6-8), "Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them and we reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth." And so one of the promises that Christ makes when he comes that he is going to bring with him health for everybody and a cure to the diseases and the debilities that we see around us. And I am sure there are many of you that have chronic ailments, arthritis and heart problems and and maybe even cancer, you're crippled, you know, whatever the case may be, and you long for the day when you can experience health, free from pain. God says he's going to do that, but going on.

   "I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and we will build them as at the first, and he's going to bring them out of their captivity and make them prosperous, and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me and I will pardon all their sins whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against me."

   Verse 9 (Jeremiah 33:9), now pay careful attention. "And it shall be to me a name of joy." That's what it's going to be like, a praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good he says that I will do unto them. And it says they are going to fear and tremble. Why? Because they're afraid. No, they are going to fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I will procure unto it. In other words, the nation of Israel and the whole world.

   Going down a little further, verse 10 (Jeremiah 33:10). "Thus says the Lord, again, there shall be heard in this place which you say shall be desolate without man and without beast. Even in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant, without beasts," and of course that's the way they're going to come under the time of the Great Tribulation.

   But verse 11 (Jeremiah 33:110 shows you what's going to return to them. "There's going to be the voice of joy." That's right. People aren't gonna be beaten down and walking around afraid that lightning is going to strike them at any minute. There's going to be the voice of gladness because they're gonna be happy and filled with, with exuberance for life, and there's going to be "The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."

   Young people in God's church, some of you are going to fulfill that prophecy. You are going to be the voices of the bridegroom and the bride. Yours are the weddings that we're going to celebrate. You're the ones that we're going to have the party for and play the music for and have the festivals for. When you get married in God's government of the world tomorrow. Time is not running out on you. Time is about ready to open up.

   And there's also going to be the voice of them that say, "Praise the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for His mercy endures forever," and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord, for I will cause to return the captivity of the land as at the first, says the Lord. Now these are specific promises that God says will happen. There will be joy, there will be prosperity. There will be protection. There will be marriage. There will be weddings, and as other prophecies we could turn to show there are going to be children and there are going to be families and there is going to be a time of unprecedented happiness.

   So young people, be patient. Don't make a mistake now. Don't feel that, well, I better get married to somebody as soon as I'm out of high school when I'm only 17 or 18 years of age because if God's kingdom comes, I'm cut off from any opportunity. Don't make that mistake. Take time to experience life to mature a little bit, to get an education, to get your feet underneath you. And then if Christ's kingdom has not come and it's time for you to marry in its proper place, then marry.

   But if Christ returns and you wait until you're in the millennium, then you're gonna have the opportunity to marry them the same as you would now. You're going to have a chance to experience family life, to have children, and to enjoy all the fine things of marriage that your parents have had the opportunity to do and that other people around you have had the opportunity to do. Those things are not going to be cut off from you. They're going to be opened up and the way of knowledge and truth of how to really enjoy marriage to the full is going to be brought forth, and you're going to have a better time of it than your parents ever had.

   So I don't know who has passed the rumor around that in God's government in His kingdom for young people, there won't be any laughter, and there won't be any joy, and there won't be any happiness and there won't be any music and there won't be any marriage. Because those things are false. God says right here in the book of Jeremiah and countless other places we could turn to, those things will take place and all of you as young people will have the opportunity to do it.

   You know there's one other thing that I think young people and all of us are going to be spared the opportunity of never having to experience, and I don't think it's much of an opportunity actually it's a tragedy, and that was in one of the verse that I had turned to earlier, verse 6, where we talked about health and cure. Because I think one of the greatest things that detracts from life is bad health. And the fear of getting sick and dying.

   And I don't think there is one of us out here that if I mention one word, it wouldn't send chills up and down your spine. Let me mention the word. It's a six-letter word. I mentioned this word and it gives you a knot in the pit of your stomach. The word is cancer. What does that do to you when you hear that word? Cancer. I, I, I mean it, it, it, it almost gives you the creeps. The last thing any human being wants to hear is I've got cancer.

   And yet I think by statistical averages, they figured that 1 out of 3 Americans will at some time in their life before they die contract cancer in one of its forms. And unfortunately, cancer anymore is no respecter of persons or ages. You can get cancer if you're 70 and you can get cancer if you're 7.

   As a matter of fact, I just learned during the Feast of Tabernacles, one thing to me that was an absolute tragedy, and I think it shows us why the world tomorrow is going to be such a fantastic thing is that you saw probably most of you the movie about the Young Ambassadors and you saw the vibrance and the joy and the zest for life and the merriment and the songs and the enjoyment that they gave to all of us. And I could have sat and watched those young people perform for another hour or 2 or 3. It was just a fantastic experience. But do you know that one of those young people who just months before was making that film, filled with life and energy and joy, died of leukemia.

   Now why would a young person 19 or 20 years of age have to be stricken with a disease like leukemia and die? That is a tragedy of the first magnitude. But God says in the world tomorrow that young people as well as old people, as well as middle-aged people, men, women, and whoever you are, we are not going to have to face that dilemma again because when Jesus Christ comes, he says, "I will bring health and cure." And I am going to put an end to the diseases that afflict all of us, so that we all can have a healthy body to enjoy life with and we can literally live life to the full all the years that God gives us to live.

   So young people in God's church, this Feast of Tabernacles is for you. This Feast of Tabernacles is not just for your parents. It's not something that they look forward to to end all their problems because they're getting old and decrepit. No, it's for you that are young. It promises for you a quality education. It promises for you a job, property, and a slice of the pie. It promises for you justice and fairness. It promises for you one world religion so that peer pressure won't be a problem, and it promises for you a healthy body and all the joy and the happiness and marriage and family life, all those good things that you want to partake of.

   Is God's kingdom bad? Is the world tomorrow something to be dreaded? Is the millennium that we picture here today something that young people can't partake in and enjoy as well? No young people, it holds the answer to all your problems as well.

   Let's go to Psalm 146 to close, because I think it will give us an overview of what I've tried to bring out in this sermon today. Psalm 146. It's a very short psalm, so we'll read the few verses that are in it, only 10 of them. And let's notice this song of praise that the writer was inspired to put down in print and was preserved for us today (Psalm 146:1-10).

   He said, "Praise you, the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. While I live, well I praise the Lord, and I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being." In other words, while I can draw breath. He said, "Put not your trust in princes or in the Son of man in whom there is no help." In other words, as we have heard Mr. Armstrong say before, don't worry who's gonna be elected president. Don't worry about the congressional races, don't worry about who the next political leader is going to be. Because they do not have the answers to solve our problems anyway. That's not where our trust should be.

   It says that his breath goes forth referring to men. He returns to the earth and in that very day his thoughts perish. But notice verse 5. "Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God." And as Mr. Foster was bringing out, and he quoted there from I Corinthians, young people in God's church, you have the God of Jacob for your help, and you can hope in what the Lord your God is going to bring. And you may not be a baptized member, but the God of Jacob is your God just as much as he's the God of your parents, and I think all of you ought to appreciate the fact that your God has opened up your mind to see that, and your parents have been called now.

   "That God made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that's therein, and he keeps truth forever." And I have read you, if I can put it that way again, the political promises that Jesus Christ has made and his platform will be fulfilled because he keeps truth forever. "He executes judgment for the oppressed." So if you're oppressed and if you've got problems, your day of reckoning is coming. "He gives food to the hungry, he loses the prisoners, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. He raises up those that are bowed down because the Lord loves the righteous." And if you're doing God's way, you know you've got God in your corner.

   Verse 9, "The Lord preserves the strangers," and I think most of us in this Feast of Tabernacles picture the fact that we're strangers. 99% of the world doesn't view it the way we do, and we're strangers and pilgrims in this society around us. "He relieves the fatherless and the widow, but the way of the wicked, he's going to turn upside down."

   Now notice verse 10, "The Lord shall reign forever. Even your God owes Zion unto all generations." And because of that fact, what is the conclusion? He says, "Praise ye the Lord." So whether we're old or whether we're young, whether we're male or female or no matter what our station in God's church are or is rather, but especially young people, echo the same sentiment that the psalmist had and praise God that when the world tomorrow comes, that we're picturing in this Feast of Tabernacles, your problems will be solved and the promises that we have gone over today will become reality.