Herbert W Armstrong

   This morning, I guess it was Mr. Keesee that was talking about some of the jokes relative to marriage. And in fact, I've got a book, "2,000 Insults," and there are quite a few in there about husbands and wives and what have you. But one I remember that seems to point up, unfortunately, what often happens in marriage. They say marriage is just like a three-ring circus. Some of you may have heard it, but anyway, they say first there's the engagement ring, and then there's the wedding ring, and then there's the suffering. And that's the one that people seem to wear the longest in so many marriages.

   Maybe tomorrow, I believe Mr. Keesee will be letting me take the announcements, and I can mention just a little bit about Ambassador College. I don't want to take the time to do that today, and I'll try not to take too much time from the sermon tomorrow, tomorrow morning. But I would like to tell you a little bit later just about Ambassador College. Everything seems to be coming along very well with the college, and we ask your continued prayers for the college.

   Well, brethren, I'm sure a number of you saw the Democratic and Republican conventions that were held fairly recently. I wonder how many of you might have heard some of the closing remarks. They were made by Senator Barry Goldwater, in which he, after he had made the remarks in his typescript, he departed from the text and he ad-libbed some words. And he said that there were powerful forces, both within this nation and without the nation, that were seeking to destroy America. And he mentioned, and I'll give his exact words, he mentioned, he said, quote, "This might be the last Republican convention, and in two weeks, the last Democrat one."

   Now, what did he mean by that statement? Well, I think you know Mr. Armstrong has written fairly recently saying that time may be closing in on us. The storm clouds are gathering as they were before World War I and especially before World War II. Commenting on Senator Barry Goldwater's statement, I think it was the following day anyway, on August 5th, I guess it was this very year, the Pasadena Star News had this statement. It said, "Could this be our last election? Barry Goldwater sounded the ominous note at the convention, inferring that four more years of Carter could bring the destruction of America."

   But it doesn't matter who is president of the United States. It doesn't matter that much because God shows that oftentimes the people who are in high positions in this world's government, in this world's politics, that the people who sit in the high positions of governmental authority are not saints. They may profess to be born again, but they're not saints. They don't know God, they don't fear God. They're more concerned about power. They don't in any way whatsoever begin to comprehend God's way. And so again, Senator Barry Goldwater seemed to imply that he thought the United Nations or the United States might not exist as a viable nation four years from now.

   Now, the fact is, brethren, we don't know whether we have six months, a year and a half, three years, or what, until the storm clouds burst forth on this nation, and not only on this nation, but on the whole world. And even though this is a joyful feast, and we're told to rejoice before God for seven days, I want us to take a little time this afternoon. Let's see, I have nearly quarter past the hour. I want us to take a little time this afternoon to seriously reflect on the meaning of world conditions. And I want to see how many of you are obeying the command, a simple command of Jesus Christ that I'm going to read. And then I'm going to try to leave one thought, just one thought with you this afternoon from the sermon. If you forget everything else, just remember one thought.

   Turn with me first of all to Luke, chapter 21. And Christ has been talking about the great tribulation. Now maybe I can go back and comment on that a little bit later. But in Luke 21, after talking about the great tribulation and the heavenly signs of Christ's coming and finally the glorious appearing of the Messiah to rule over this earth, Jesus Christ says in verse 36, Luke 21 (Luke 21:36), "Watch ye therefore, and pray always." And he then said they were??"his disciples, his followers, the Christians??"were to pray for two things. But he says pray always, or as Moffatt has it, pray day by day for these two things.

   Now, what two things did he tell us to pray for always or day by day? He said, "Watch ye therefore and pray always." Number one, he says “that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass.” And he had previously described the horrible events culminating in World War III or the Great Tribulation. He said to “pray firstly that they would be accounted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass.” And secondly, he said “to pray that the Christians would be accounted worthy”, or let's say, “would be able to stand before the Son of Man, that is to be accounted worthy to stand blameless without spot or without blemish before Jesus Christ at his second coming.”

   Now there is a command to pray always, every single day for two things. One, that we might escape the tribulation, and two, that we might be found without spot or blemish or let's say worthy or acceptable to Christ, that we would stand before Him, not be ashamed of his coming and fall as it were before Him, but stand before Him.

   I would like to ask you at the outset of this sermon, how many of you think you can honestly say that you carry out Christ's command, that you obey this command? Let's say even three-fourths of the time, three out of four days out of the lets say out of a four-day period. How many of you think you even that you remember to pray, as Christ said, that you might escape and secondarily that you would be blameless, that you would be able to be accounted worthy in his sight to stand before him at his second coming? Could I see the hands of those that believe you even pray three out of four days? Pray for those two things. Could I see the hands? I'm just curious. And be honest, I'm just curious. Most of you I know don't, so you, if you don't raise your hand, you don't need to feel too embarrassed. You've got a lot of company.

   Well, how many of you feel you even pray half the time, one day out of two, that you might be accounted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of Man? How many of you do you think you even pray half the time? Well, again, can I see your hands? It looks to me like maybe one out of 50, maybe one out of 75, maybe one out of 100.

   So what I want to do this afternoon is to impress upon you this command of Jesus Christ. That he said we were to watch and pray always that we might be accounted worthy to escape these things and secondarily that we would stand before the Son of Man at his coming.

   Let's ask a few questions though. Will there be an escape before the tribulation? That is where we, the church, escape before the great tribulation springs upon this world. Is there a way of escape? Why would God make a way of escape? Or to put it differently, why would God not make a way of escape? If you knew what God shows is going to happen on this earth, you would want to escape it. You would certainly want to escape it. Because it isn't going to be pleasant.

   As World War II was infinitely more horrible than World War I, with more suffering, more destruction, more deaths. Fifty-five million people perished in World War II. About 10 million, I guess it was, perished in the concentration camps. Around six million perished in Auschwitz in Austria. Many of them perished as a little puff of smoke up the chimney of the incinerators where they were burned and their bodies were used as ashes to fertilize the crops. Some of them had their very skins torn off and they were used as lampshades. And a lot of other things. Their hair was used in mattresses.

   You younger people probably haven't heard much or read much about the concentration camps, the death camps, or the extermination camps, as they were called, that the Nazis built in World War II. And the Japanese committed almost as many atrocities. And yet World War II, with all its horrors, according to the Bible, is going to be like, let's say it was like a picnic in comparison to what God says is going to come to pass on this earth in what we call World War III. God says all the earth will be affected in a very horrible way, as I will show you in a moment.

   Does God's word say where his church will go, where will it flee, to what place will it escape? Does God say who will be protected during this time? And let's ask another question which some of our enemies, some of the former ministers who departed from God's way, have thrown up at us. Are we the Worldwide Church of God, are we preaching a fear religion because we teach that God's church will be taken to a place of safety before the Great Tribulation? Are we in fact teaching a fear religion because we teach that the church will flee before the tribulation?

   And another question which some have asked, and especially one prominent minister who was formerly a very lead minister in this church: Couldn't God protect his people right in their own homes? Right in this evil world and not have to cause them to flee to a place of safety?

   This afternoon, brethren, we're going to take a quick whirlwind tour through various scriptures, and I'm going to show you number one, that there will be a great tribulation. Number two, I'm going to show you that God's word declares that His church will escape before the great tribulation. That is that many in God's church will escape. But I'm going to show you that the Bible shows some people are not going to escape. Some people even in the Church of God, and the Bible shows that Satan is going to go out and martyr them and pick them off one by one, one after the other. It's like the Jews who saw the handwriting on the wall in Germany and Austria before World War II. Some of them fled, fearing the worst, and others stayed behind, and once the curtain fell, it was too late. And about six million Jews perished in just about that many years of war in Europe.

   We're going to look at the Bible and see what the Bible says on this subject. Okay. Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 24. Now here in Matthew 24, Jesus Christ says that we were to preach the gospel to all the world for a witness and to all nations. And then he said the end would come. Matthew 24:14: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come," the end of this age, as he had said previously.

   Brethren, do you realize??"and by the way, if later on you get the new Envoy, the college yearbook that will be made available here at the feast, I think tomorrow evening or tomorrow sometime. Anyway, as one article in the Envoy shows this year, this work, the Worldwide Church of God has sent out and will send out by the end of the year, about 50 million books, booklets, articles, magazines, Correspondence Courses, and so forth. Fifty million. There's no impact by any church or work on the face of the earth. In fact, this is the most mighty, the most powerful work that has ever existed on the face of the earth since the days that God put Adam and Eve on this earth, not because we are so great or we are of anything of ourselves, but because God has opened up the means in rapid transportation and worldwide instantaneous communication. God has made it possible for us to reach vast audiences, as Mr. Armstrong, I believe, has already reached, and this work has reached well over 100 million people. Christ and the apostles and all the prophets of old never reached anywhere near that many people as this work has reached with the gospel of the truth, the good news of Jesus Christ's second coming.

   Now Christ talks about the abomination of desolation to be set up in Palestine. Verse 15. I can't go into that, but Daniel 11, the latter part, shows that this European power, the king of the north and the great false prophet in an unholy alliance, they're going to move their capital right down to Jerusalem, Palestine. It says in the area called Mount Zion, between the Dead and the Mediterranean Sea in the glorious holy mountain. But Jesus Christ in describing these days, says in verse 20 (Matthew 24:20-21), "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day."

   Now this was a prayer that the disciples were to offer before they fled. I guess it was in about 69 A.D. when, according to history, the disciples fled Jerusalem. But that was only an end time, that is, that was only an early forerunner of the end time prophecy, that is fulfillment of this prophecy when God's people worldwide are undoubtedly going to flee the big cities, flee target areas that God has pre-marked or marked out beforehand, are going to be cities that God will allow as Sodom and Gomorrah to go up in flames.

   So according to this, Christ didn't tell his disciples to sit tight. He said pray that your time when you flee, your flight would not be in the winter. That would be very difficult to flee when it was cold, or it says neither on the Sabbath day, and of course that's the rest day and you couldn't rest if you had to flee.

   Notice verse 21: "For then shall be great tribulation." That is great trouble, great pain and agony and suffering. Great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And Christ says it's going to be so terrible that except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh, not one human being would be saved. But for the elect's sake, the church's sake, the chosen ones' sake??"the word elect means the ones who have been chosen and who have been called out of the world??"for the sake of God's church, then, those days shall be shortened. But not only that, the church is going to flee. That is probably the majority in the church, and some are going to refuse to flee. Some are going to say, "Well, look what happened with Jim Jones and some of his people when they fled," and Satan has already prepared the way for the doubting Thomases, for the skeptics, and for the lukewarm people so that when the time comes, that they're going to be afraid of what their friends and relatives and others will say when God's church is told that the time has come to flee.

   Now when will we flee? To what place will we flee? How will we be taken to such a place? And exactly who's going to go to that place? I hope to answer as many of these questions as possible this afternoon.

   But first, before we go back to some Old Testament scriptures to see, to show you some parallels, let me read from a fairly recent article written by a former minister, a high ranking minister, in which he had written an article entitled "You and the Great Escape." Now this minister, he is well known as one who ridiculed God's apostle even when he was a member in the church, and he ridiculed God's servant in various, so far as various teachings of this church. And this minister did not believe when he was a minister among us and even openly taught against the church fleeing or escaping, and I've heard him and others have heard him, even most of the ministers in this room have heard him ridicule the idea. And it's not an idea, it is a fact that God says his church is going to escape before the great tribulation falls like a trap on an unsuspecting world.

   Okay, let me read a little bit. This person says, he wrote in this article, "If we're obedient to Jesus Christ's commands," he says, "we're just as secure even if we are living in a home surrounded by incredible plagues and troubles, as were those Israelites on that awesome and turbulent night so long ago." He means Israelites in Egypt.

   Well, what this minister didn't say here though that is misleading is that the Israelites in ancient Egypt were in the land of Goshen. They lived in a land apart from the rest of Egypt, from the Egyptians. The land of Goshen was where they settled, and God plagued the land of Egypt, except the land of Goshen where the Israelites were living in a separate land. They were not living in the land inhabited by the Egyptians. So that is not a correct parallel.

   This person goes on to say he doesn't believe that the Israelites stayed in their homes that night as they were commanded like Mr. Armstrong has always taught us. He says, "In the wee hours, wee morning hours following that incredible scene," that is the destruction of the firstborn, "the most massive escape in the history of the world took place. Somewhere between three and five million men, women and children left the land of Egypt that night."

   Well, that's not true. They didn't leave Egypt that night. They left Egypt the following night. It says on the morrow after the Passover, it says that they left Egypt on the 15th, not the 14th, the night on which they took the Passover. And it says they went out of Egypt by night, and God had told the Israelites, when you put this blood on the doorposts and on the lintel overhead, he said, "Let none of you go out of his house until the morning," and they stayed in their homes that night after they took the Passover. And then the next day they got their belongings together and they all came together at what is now Cairo. They came from the far corners of the land of Goshen, and they congregated on the daylight part of the 14th at what is called in the Bible Rameses, and they departed from Rameses on the following night, not the same night. That's just another little detail this former evangelist of the Worldwide Church of God got mixed up trying to contradict Mr. Herbert Armstrong.

   But now let me read you one final statement before we get into the Bible, what he says. "The death angel that will stalk this land during the great tribulation," and that part is true, there will be a death angel given power to stalk this land. In fact, the whole world. That's what the Bible says. He says, "The death angel that will stalk this land during the Great Tribulation will see very clearly the blood of Jesus Christ that is sprinkled on your heart. He will pass over your house just as surely as the death angel passed over the Israelites so many centuries ago."

   Well, remember, the death angel passed over the whole land of Goshen. And the plagues didn't fall on the land of Goshen, a separate land, a land apart from where the Egyptians were living. So in that sense it's not a true type of people staying in the world and just being in your house in the middle of New York City or Los Angeles or Houston or Saint Louis or Kansas City, when those cities go up in atomic blast.

   This minister concludes by this section by saying, "God is able to protect you right where you are," end quote. Now, I don't think anybody, brethren, would argue with that point that God is able to protect you right where you are, but that's not the point. In the Bible, if we accept the Bible as the word of God, in this book right here, the Bible shows that a great tribulation is coming and God Almighty commands us to flee before the great tribulation falls on this world, before the black thunderclouds burst forth upon all nations. And there will be horrible wars that will make World War II seem like a picnic. We don't know precisely when it will come, but it will come. It's just a matter of when.

   I want to show you then, let's go back to Genesis chapter 6, and we're going to go through this very quickly. In Genesis chapter 6, it says the earth, it was very corrupt. Verse 5 (Genesis 6:5-7): "God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And God said in verse 7, "I will destroy man." But he found Noah was a righteous man, and in the 11th verse, "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence."

   The nations are arming to the teeth today. There's violence in many parts of the world, homosexuality, marital infidelity, lying, cheating, drunkenness, drug addiction, you name it. The whole world is becoming one gigantic Sodom and Gomorrah. "And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

   And so God said that he was going to destroy it, and he did. But before God destroyed the earth, God sent his prophet Noah. God told Noah what was going to happen, and Noah went out preaching to the world, and for 120 long years, Noah told the world, "God will destroy this earth." While Noah had hired undoubtedly a number of men to help him and his sons and others to build a big ark, undoubtedly out in the middle of a desert someplace or out in the middle of, on a piece of dry land. People, they walked by, they jeered.

   And of course when the rains began to come after Noah and his family had gone into the ark, they were taken into their place of safety, which was an ark. And through the waters that destroyed the earth, they were lifted up above the civilization, and they were saved while the whole world perished. They were taken out of the world in an unusual manner.

   But a closer parallel to what is going to happen in our time. The closest parallel I know of in the Bible is found in Genesis chapters 18 and 19. I'll just have to go through it ever so quickly. In the 18th chapter of the book of Genesis, we find here were two angels, actually three??"two angels and the Lord that appeared to Abraham. Abraham entreated them. Two of the angels, that is the two angels, went on to Sodom and Gomorrah. Where the Lord said, "Go down, see what's happening there and deliver Lot and his wife and family."

   And then we read here in verse 17 of Genesis 18 (Genesis 18:17-20). "And the Lord said," that is unto Abraham, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" That is that thing which I'm going to do. "Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him."

   Then notice, he said in verse 20 he told Abraham, "And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous." They were sinning horribly. God said, "Therefore, I will go down now. I myself personally, I, the great God, the Lord, the ruler of the universe, I will go down and see that it is for myself, whether they, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is coming to me. And if not," he says, "I will know."

   And then you remember how Abraham, when God told him this, he was worried about his kith and kin, Lot and his family. He said, "Well, Lord, would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?" And he finally got down to saying, "Lord, if there are only 10, would you save the city?" And God said, "Yes, if there were only 10 righteous people in this city, I would save it." Well, you know what happened? There weren't 10.

   So in Genesis 19, these two angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot entertained them and it says here, verse 4 (Genesis 19:4), "But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, they surrounded the house. Both young and old, that is young and old men, all the people from every quarter. And they called unto Lot and said unto him, 'Where are the men which came into you this night? Bring them out unto us that we may know them.'"

   Now this was just no casual greeting they had in mind. The Moffatt translation words it very plainly, because in the Bible terminology, in the King James language, the truth is often hidden by the obscure words used. In Genesis, I think it's chapter 4 about verse 1, it says "Adam knew Eve and she conceived." It's a word that means in that sense to have sexual knowledge or carnal knowledge of. And so when these men said "that we may know, we men may know these two men who came to visit you," what they said is "we're sex perverts, we're gonna come and rape these men." And so the Moffatt translation says, "bring them out to us that we may rape them."

   And you know that America is filled with homosexuals? Some say it's one in six, I don't know what the exact number is, but I know there are a lot of male homosexuals, a lot of female homosexuals. I'm sure some of you, unfortunately, have been mixed up in that type of thing and have repented of it and have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. But one in six, I think the last I heard. Much of San Francisco, a great large number of people living in the San Francisco area are known to be homosexuals and have a great deal of political clout. And have to be pandered to by the politicians if they want to get in office because it's known that so many homosexuals live in San Francisco.

   Recently, America has received many of the sweepings of Castro's prisons, and many of them are known to be homosexuals and all sorts of criminals. And so America is getting the sweepings of Castros or Cuba's prisons and another influx of homosexuals to further degrade and corrupt this nation. And God is going to allow it because our sins have reached into heaven and God said "enough." God said "too much." "I won't let it go on forever." And God in His word prophesied that our people are going to suffer as few have ever suffered.

   Now let's notice though in Genesis 19 what happened. Now finally, in verse 12 (Genesis 19:12), the men said unto Lot, "Hast thou here any besides? Son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place. For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Eternal, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it."

   So Lot went out, and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and said, "Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." But they, but he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law. They paid no attention, they just jeered.

   "And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, 'Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.' And while Lot lingered," he hesitated, he fumbled around, he said, "Well, let me get, you know, go back and get my socks or my toothbrush" or whatever he had. He was lingering. "Let me take a few things with me," and the angels were looking at him. "Lot, come on! We don't have much time." And while he lingered, "the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city."

   "And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said," the angel that is speaking to Lot said, "Escape. Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed."

   Well, I won't read it. This word "escape" is used in three or four more places here. You read the rest of it. Lot and his family were told to escape the city before it was destroyed. That's the way God saved Lot and his family, not in the city, but by taking them out of the target area before the Holocaust was to strike Sodom and Gomorrah.

   And so, we read in verse 23 (Genesis 19:23), "The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar." Zoar was a little village some distance from Sodom and Gomorrah. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

   I think in the coming escape, when God's church escapes, I think there are going to be some carnal people that go along with us whose hearts are not right and they're going to be looking back figuratively and spiritually, and God is going to see that they drop by the wayside. Any who look back just like Lot's wife looked back, her heart was still in Sodom and Gomorrah, wicked as though they were.

   So Abraham got up in the morning. In verse 28 (Genesis 19:28), "he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Here was a great smoke, a great piller of smoke, like an atomic bomb and the mushroom cloud going up over a city that's been blasted. That's what Abraham saw. But God took Lot out of that city beforehand. And brethren, the Bible shows that in the days to come, God is going to take His people out of the areas, the target areas that God is going to destroy before the Holocaust comes.

   Let's go over to Luke 21. Now Christ had prophesied certain things. And he says, now we don't know. We don't know exactly what the sign will be. Quite frankly, brethren, we don't know when we are going to escape. Will it be six months from now, one year from now, three years from now? We don't yet know when, to be perfectly frank. We don't yet know the place to which we will escape. And furthermore, we don't yet know exactly how we're going to get there. But brethren, we don't need to know those things yet. God will reveal those things when the time comes. If we are right in His sight, if we are just, God will make it clear. He led Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah just briefly before he destroyed those cities.

   Now Christ says in Luke 21:20, "And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is near." Now brethren, this prophecy had a twofold or a dual fulfillment like nearly all prophecy, as an early fulfillment and a latter fulfillment. The Roman armies came down in the area of Jerusalem, if my history is correct, in about 66 A.D. The Roman armies then in '69 A.D. withdrew. You can look this up in various histories. The Roman armies, the Roman legions had tightened their grip around Jerusalem in the middle and late 60s. But in 69 A.D. for some reason, the Roman armies withdrew from Jerusalem. And the Christians who believed Christ, they knew this was a sign that they had better head for the hills. And they got out of there.

   History says, Gibbon's Rome, in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire says they went to a little city northeast of Jerusalem on the east side of the Jordan River, a little city called Pella. That's what history says. And they escaped. But according to other sources, some of the many who had heard Christ's words didn't heed, and the Jews didn't heed, and Josephus says that their blood was slain on the temple steps and ran like water down the steps of the very temple, the house of God, and hundreds of thousands, at least scores of thousands were butchered. And many scores of thousands were led away captives into all nations.

   But that was merely a type of what Daniel 11 shows is going to happen when the armies of this beast power move down into Egypt and take over Egypt and take over the Suez Canal and take over parts of the land of Israel, and it says that they're going to set their capital in Jerusalem in that area, and that's probably the very time when this is going to happen.

   "When you will see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is near." Jerusalem is a burdensome stone, as Zechariah 12, I guess it is, shows. The nations have all got involved with it. God says all those nations that get involved with Jerusalem will be cut to pieces, and I think there were about 14 nations that moved their embassies into Jerusalem recently, and when the Arabs threatened them, they said, "If you don't move your embassies out of Jerusalem, we'll cut your oil off," and all the nations, I think without exception, moved their capitals, their embassies rather, right out of Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv.

   Jerusalem is a focal point. It's like a firecracker waiting, or more like a bomb, a time bomb waiting to go off. "When ye see Jerusalem encompassed with armies or surrounded by armies, then know that the desolation thereof is near."

   Notice what Christ said in verse 21 (Luke 21:21-28). "Then let them that be in Judaea"??"and just pray the Lord can protect you right in your home. Nothing is too great for God. Is that what he said? Read it again. My glasses I guess need changing. "Then," Christ said, "let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains." That's what it says. They were to flee. They were to escape to the mountains. "And let them which are in the midst of it," that is of Judaea, "depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled."

   "And woe"??"now that word woe means misery and grief and trouble??""woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people," the very wrath of Satan the devil upon this people and of various other nations. "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."

   And you can go to Jerusalem as many of us have, and the Gentile Arabs are still right there controlling the mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and that whole area, the temple site and many other strategic areas. They are still in control of it. They're still there treading it down, and the Jews haven't dared to chase them out of there. Because this prophecy has got to be fulfilled. They're going to remain there undoubtedly until Jesus Christ returns.

   But notice what he said in verse 25, "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing, notice that, having heart attacks, failing them for fear," out of stark terror, "and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken."

   "And then after this great tribulation period, then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass," he says, "then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth near." And he says, in other words, the kingdom of God is just about to be established.

   But before the glorious second coming of Jesus Christ, when he comes in the clouds of heaven on a white horse with millions of angels following him as his warriors, according to Zechariah 14, before that burst of divine glory appears on the scene, there's going to be the most traumatic, horrible events take place on this earth that will ever occur in the history of the world. Men fainting for fear. That's exactly what the Bible says.

   Now before we go back, just do a few more scriptures very quickly, I want you next to??"I just want to show you the state of the arms industry. I want to show you just a little bit of how the world is arming itself to the teeth.

   "Three times in recent months, a countdown toward nuclear devastation has begun in the Air Force's dimly lit combat operations center deep beneath the Rocky Mountains." I'm reading from U.S. News and World Report of June 23rd this year. "On each occasion a computer reported that Russian missiles had been fired at America, placing U.S. bomber and missile crews on instant alert. Jet engines roared and navigators plotted courses toward preselected targets in the Soviet Union."

   We were getting ready to blast the Soviet Union with our hydrogen and nuclear weapons, and we could blast Moscow and all the Russian cities off the face of the earth, and they can do the same thing with us except they've now got more nuclear might than we have.

   [Tape Flipped]

   In fact, for years, people have referred to the atomic stalemate or the nuclear stalemate of massive weapons that America and Russia have. They've referred to this doctrine. It's known as MAD for Mutual Assured Destruction. They can destroy us, we can destroy them, and I think it's rightly named because indeed it would be mad for anyone to start war and to have to live through the consequences.

   Here's an article in Time of August 25th, showing our Secretary of Defense Harold Brown with entitled "Rethinking the Unthinkable." The unthinkable is that a nuclear war could develop on this earth.

   Brethren, do you know how much we're spending? In our military today we're spending, I believe the latest budget goes up to about $150 billion. The United States is spending to build more horrible weapons, indescribable weapons, and they say Russia for years has been spending far more than we have, even though she earns a lot less and her wealth is much less than ours. She's spending a far bigger percentage of her income, of her GNP, gross national product, on military weapons. And by 1985, it's estimated that the U.S. will be spending $225 billion for arms to destroy, super weapons, that type of thing.

   In fact, I've got an article, I don't have time to read it, showing the horrible types of new weapons, death rays, laser weapons. And just to describe one of these weapons here, I'll read one paragraph. "In theory, at least, lasers," and there are other weapons that they mention here, the X-ray weapons they call them that are even worse than lasers. But "in theory, at least, lasers could destroy enemy missiles with beams that travel," that is beams of light that travel, "at or near the speed of light."

   You know how fast that is? You know how fast light travels? So fast that light would travel around the earth 7 1/2 times in one second. It says that these beams, these laser weapons, instead of shooting a bullet, they just send forth this light, these pulsations of energy of light. It will destroy something.

   "In the time it takes an aircraft flying at twice the speed of sound," what is it, 740 miles per second or 640, I forget, but anyway, at about 1500 miles per hour. An aircraft's flying that fast, it says, "In the time it takes an aircraft flying at twice the speed of sound to move slightly more than one-eighth of an inch," just that far, "a laser travels a mile. Whoever gets into space first with operational lasers will obtain strategic superiority there and perhaps everywhere, literally in a flash."

   In other words, if you could put your sights on a weapon that you couldn't even see over the horizon. Anything at least that you could put within your sights of your weapon, that they could destroy it in a flash just like that. This laser beam would go out in just a split second would destroy anything.

   Then I've got an article here regarding stealth aircraft. These aircraft that are invisible to show you what we're developing. Then America has, brethren, already developed and could have it operational undoubtedly most any time if we really wanted to speed up. We developed the horrible cruise missiles. Now the cruise missiles they say are so deadly that we could take a football field in Moscow or Leningrad or one of the Russian cities, and that we can hit the bull's eye with our missiles, with our cruise missiles that will go in under the radar system. Apparently they're undetectable by any known defense system. And they have a guidance system that can go around mountains and up over. It hugs the ground, and that we could hit, they say, even a football field in Moscow or in any city in Russia, and they say by fine tuning them you can make them so accurate you'd not only hit a football field, which would be perhaps a little bigger than this thing, but you can make it go between the goalposts. And we think these are marvelous weapons.

   Now the Russians have already exploded a bomb they think in the range of 50 megatons, that is 50 million tons of TNT, the equivalent. You know how big that is? No, you don't. I don't either. The mind boggles. Try to comprehend it.

   Now we dropped these blockbusters on Germany in World War II, and we would destroy a block and we thought, "Wow, the super bomb." Then America came out at the end of World War II with the A-bomb, fatman, that we dropped on Hiroshima and we destroyed in a flash 80,000 people in the whole city, with a tiny little bomb that today is a firecracker in comparison with the huge hydrogen bombs.

   Now a hydrogen bomb of 50 million tons. Is, well, just look at this. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only 20 kilotons, that is 20,000 tons. That's the size of them, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT being exploded. That was the size of the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now they've got one, not 20,000, but 50 million tons of TNT. And you can't imagine what that would happen if it dropped over here near the lake. Well, you know, all the way up to Eldon and I guess, halfway to Springfield and the fallout and all the rest, you wouldn't have anything left. It would knock out New York, Moscow, Los Angeles, any city, and for miles around, and there wouldn't be any life survive except maybe a few rats deep down in some holes in the bowels of the earth.

   I must not take any more time to show you some of these nuclear weapons. I've got a chart here though that shows how many nations now have bombs, and now it's Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Canada, South Africa, West Germany, and Sweden. They believe also have bombs as well as the U.S., USSR, Britain, France, China, and India, and they say they believe that the following nations now are working on the bomb: Pakistan, Iraq is now fighting against Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

   We are arming, that is the nations are arming to the teeth, to the hilt, and they're going to use these weapons. And that is the kind of an age in which we live. In an age of super weapons, and now I think you can begin to understand a little bit why Christ says to watch and pray always that we might be accounted worthy to escape these things that shall come to pass.

   Brethren, I won't have the time to turn back to Ezekiel 5 and read this, but I'm just going to tell you what's in this chapter. It talks about in verse, I guess it's verse 12. Anyway, in Ezekiel chapter 5, and one of the verses there, pardon me, no, it's in verse 4, it mentions that all Israel is included and brethren, we intend to come out pretty soon with some research to show that we have proof that the Anglo-Saxon Celtic peoples migrated from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, and the books in the British Museum of the histories that I searched out when I was in England proved this, and we can show you how they migrated across northern Europe over a period of centuries. As the prophecies had said, that they would be scattered and sifted through the nations.

   We are our nations. The Anglo-Saxon Celtic descended nations are the part of the peoples of modern Israel. God says our people are going to be destroyed, our nations, because of our sins. Ezekiel 5, he shows that one-third will die of pestilence and of famine. He said a third will die by war, by the sword, and he says the remaining third will be scattered into the winds into all nations. Figure 225 million people in America today. You take one third of those left and that'll show you what you've got left.

   That's the same time spoken of in Matthew 24, a time of trouble such as never was, never shall be. It's the same time spoken of in Jeremiah 30, time of Jacob's trouble. And if you'll read Jeremiah 30, Jeremiah asks the question. He says, "Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins holding his stomach like a woman giving birth to a child?" And he says, "all faces are turned to paleness." It's the same time that we read up in Luke 21, when men are having heart attacks, their hearts failing them for fear. It's exactly the same time.

   Isaiah 47 also shows the destruction of Israel. And it shows the Catholic Church, the woman there, the daughter of Babylon will be the religious power that will ride the beast, that will be working in cahoots with the military power in Europe. In Daniel 12:1 says there will be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time, nor ever shall be. Same time. Daniel 12:1, God says he'll also send Michael, the Archangel, finally to deliver his people.

   In Ezekiel chapter 14, let's just go through this very quickly. Ezekiel 14:13, "Son of man, when the land sins against me by trespassing grievously"??"I've got some statistics I'd like to show you, but time doesn't permit. To show you how many people are living, I think is it 2 1/2 million living in wedlock? I mean out of wedlock here in this nation. To show you the horrible statistics of this land.

   That each year of the nation's 10.3 million young women, 15 to 19, that his ages 15 to 19. It says half of them have had premarital sex. It says that very, very few are virgins by the time they're marriageable age. It says one million teenage girls out of every 10 get pregnant each year. In 1977, it says statistics, a study even then showed that 600,000 unwed teenagers were giving birth each year, and there are a lot unreported too. And these, it says the sharpest increase were under 14 years of age.

   The venereal disease, it says, is rampant among adolescents, accounting for 25% of one million reported gonorrhea cases every year, just gonorrhea alone, not to mention syphilis and the other venereal diseases. This is an article if you want to read the article Newsweek, September 1st, 1980. This same month, an article in Newsweek. I've got a lot of other shocking statistics.

   Our nation is sick. One in four will get cancer. That means about 1500 of you here, according to the law of averages, will get cancer sometime in your life, and a far greater number will be claimed by heart attacks because of the horrible foods and the poisons and the sprays. The air we breathe is polluted, the water we drink is polluted, the food we eat is polluted. And crime is rampant in our cities and immorality is everywhere. That's the kind of an age we're living in.

   "Son of man," this is Ezekiel 14:13, "when the land sins against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it." And God says "though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness."

   And then in verse 20, this is repeated three times I believe here and in verse 20, "though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Eternal God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; but they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness."

   God had a purpose for delivering Lot's daughters. He had a purpose for delivering Noah's sons, because God was going to preserve posterity, I'm trying to say, on the earth. But this time God says if your sons and daughters are undoubtedly, putting all the scriptures together, it means that they're at that age that they're mature enough to be accountable. They're not going to be taken to a place of safety and escape with you just because you're righteous.

   Now, obviously young children are not included in that. If you put all the scriptures together, I don't have the time to prove this. What is the age of accountability in the Bible? Twenty was the age that God held people accountable. Read Numbers and when the Israelites grumbled and complained, all who were 20 years old and upwards, God said, will die in that desert. Because he accounted them as being accountable. The men in Israel went into the army, were inducted into the army at the age of 20. The Levites began serving, carrying and doing out the physical tasks in the tabernacle at the age of 20, and sometimes we consider 18 or 19 or 21, but 20 is the age the Bible speaks of. So undoubtedly those who are in their late teens or certainly in their twenties, if they know the truth and aren't living it, they're not going to be spared because we as parents are righteous.

   Now then, we'll have to hurry in closing. I just want to give you very quickly just a little bit more showing you clearly that the Bible shows we are going to escape before the Great Tribulation.

   Notice here in Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3 and let's go quickly. It says, speaking of the Laodicean church, pardon me, I meant to say of the Philadelphian church. Verse 10 (Revelation 3:10), "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation." Now if you look in the marginal reference, it says the hour of trial or the hour of tribulation when we're going to have trial and tribulation. Because we have kept God's word, we obey God, we keep His holy days, his Sabbath, we tithe, we obey God. Not perfectly, we all fall short. And the righteous will scarcely be saved, but we obey God and therefore God promises to protect us.

   Now let me show you where the prophecy clearly revealed this. You'll turn over to Revelation chapter 12. Mr. Armstrong recently, in fact, even in the message to us the first evening, referred to this and he said he believed that this has happened, that it looks like it happened perhaps beginning in early '79 when the most powerful state in the Union with an $18 billion budget came down upon the Church of God to try to crush us.

   I'm gonna show you a sequence of events here that you never realized perhaps the same way. It talks in Revelation 12 of the woman. Ephesians 5, Revelation 19 and other scriptures clearly show the woman is the true church of God. In verse 7 (Revelation 12:7), coming down into the end of this age, it says "there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; it says, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

   Mr. Armstrong said this is to be fulfilled in the end time, as it happened before Adam and Eve were put on this earth, at the time when the whole universe, or much of it went through a period of destruction when Satan battled against God.

   So notice, the first thing there was to be a war in heaven. Secondly, the devil would be cast back to this earth, he and his angels. Then what would happen? Well, "I heard a voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God." So this happens right at the time. It doesn't mean the kingdom of God is here, it means it is just on the threshold, just around the corner. "Now is come the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb."

   Verse 12 (Revelation 12:12), "Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."

   The devil is angry because he knows that this work is preparing the way before Jesus Christ as John the Baptist and his disciples prepared the way before his first coming. This is the Elijah-like work turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, teaching people to get back to the laws and statutes that Moses gave Israel. And the devil was angry, knowing that he had but a short time.

   Now notice. So it says "when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth," so first there was war in heaven. Secondly, the devil was cast back to the earth. Then what happens? "When the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child." We believe that may have begun in January 1979. That was fulfillment. Apparently this scripture seems to be a fulfillment of this phase of it, but that's not all. He began persecuting the woman, the church.

   Then what happened? Now this may be a few more months, it may be a few more years. So he was going to persecute the woman. Then the next step. Step number 4, "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness." Now the Moffatt translation says "that she might flee or escape into the desert." It used the word desert. "Into her place, where she is nourished," or that is to be nourished, for 3 1/2 years, "for a time, and times, and half a time." Times and a half a time is definitely 3 1/2 years. I don't have time to prove it. But I think even other churches understand it that way.

   So the fourth point is after the devil has already persecuted the church, which he is now doing, and has sought to destroy the church, then God causes the woman to flee, to escape to a place of safety. Yes, "to the woman were given two wings, that she might fly or escape or flee into the desert."

   Now, brethren, is it not rather significant that God caused Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong to flee out of Pasadena? In 1977, if I recall correctly, just about a year and about two years before this struck. And I know I've been in his home many times in Tucson, Arizona. He lives in the desert. He's got cactus trees in his backyard. He lives in the desert there in Arizona. Now, I don't mean we're going to flee to Tucson. I don't know where, what desert. There are many deserts on the earth. But God caused Mr. Armstrong to go there, and many people wondered why. I don't know that Mr. Armstrong fully understood why.

   And then when the Attorney General with $18 billion behind him came in and pounced on this little church and called us a bowl of spiders. And said he expected us just to cave in, and he didn't realize that he didn't have a bowl of spiders. He had a cage of tigers by the tail. And now the question is how to let go.

   We believe that this may well be the beginning of this verse that says the devil persecuted the woman. And that the next step in God's church, so far as any great thing prophesied, is that God's church is going to flee. When, we don't know exactly yet. Where, we don't know exactly yet. Neither did the disciples know when they were going to flee until 69 A.D. when the Roman armies withdrew. Then they fled and they had to flee hurriedly.

   And now the devil inspired Jim Jones and even in the world in magazines, they say he was demon possessed, even other religions believe he was possessed. He was so wild, throw his Bible down and say "you don't have to go by that book," and he led, as you know, hundreds of people into Guyana. And then in his demoniacal teaching told them they should take poison and drink poison, which they did.

   Yet I don't believe that one of you would take poison if God's ministers told you to, because that's against the command of Almighty God, and you're taught to love the commands of God and you're taught to obey the command. But yet the devil did that so that when the time comes that God's church flees, there are going to be people think, "There you go again, Jim Jones all over." And he's going to make it more difficult, and it's going to take guts and courage when the time comes and we have to pick up and flee. It really is.

   So then the church flees and will be protected for 3 1/2 years, it says "from the face of the serpent," where he can't get to us. Do you ever have a snake staring in the face, or do you ever stare at the face of a snake? And I might put it, I have??"copperheads, rattlesnakes. I killed them. I love killing snakes. I really do. As a boy on the farm, more than once, I helped kill a rattlesnake or copperheads. I was once fishing around in a stream and I got a hold of this thing. I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a fish, and I found I had a cottonmouth or some kind of a snake. They're deadly, and I was trying to dislodge it until my brother told me to get away.

   Well, we're going to be protected from the face of the serpent and like a deadly cobra standing up there, you know, we're going to be out of the way of its striking distance.

   "And the serpent," now what's going to happen? What's the next point after God causes us to flee to a place of escape? "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood."

   Now what does that mean? Very simple. If you let the Bible explain its own symbols. I don't have time to read. Read Jeremiah 46:1-8. And there, the Egyptian army came up as it says again against Israel as a flood. And in Revelation chapter 17, it says that the whore, the false churches, sits on many waters which it says represent peoples. So waters represent peoples, and when you get waters on the rampage like a flood, that's people inducted in the army that are going out to destroy like a river that's flowing out of its banks.

   And so this represents undoubtedly an army that Satan is going to command. We don't know what nation it'll be. Or a United Nations of some kind, I don't know. But all we know is that he's going to send out an army into the desert wherever God's people are to destroy them. That he might cause the woman to be carried away or destroyed by the flood.

   Then what will happen? "And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth." Maybe an earthquake, maybe a great storm of some kind, but the elements of nature that God controls is just going to cause this army to be destroyed like Pharaoh's army was destroyed. You remember the Red Sea?

   And then what will happen? The church is still secure out here in the desert. The devil has sent out an army to destroy them. They were destroyed. The devil's frustrated. He realizes he can't destroy the bride, the church, and then he is really angry. "And the dragon was wroth," that is angry, "with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed."

   Those now that he couldn't, he couldn't get to those in the desert, they're out there, they're secure. He knows he can't strike them. He tried. Now he goes back to get those to pick them off one by one, scattered throughout the rest of the world, people that were lukewarm or in some way didn't escape and didn't heed. And so now the devil went to make war with those who yet remained within, you know, his striking distance of him in the world. Those who didn't flee, and he goes to make war with the remainder of the true Christians, "of the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

   Brethren, the Bible clearly here in Revelation 12 and other places shows, and I guess I'll just have time to read one more scripture. These are by no means all of the scriptures, but let me read one more scripture in the Old Testament that says the same thing. I dare say most of you had never even noticed it. This is back in Isaiah 26, verse 20, and it prophesies exactly the same thing that we read of in Revelation 12, just cast in different language.

   Isaiah 26:20. "Come, my people," God says. Who are God's people? It's his church. "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers." Here it calls it the chambers, or it says over there, the desert into a place where you'll be protected. "And shut your doors about you," like a storm is about to come and you shut all your doors and windows, you batten down, you get ready, so the storm can't get at you. "Enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment," 3 1/2 years, just a split second in eternity, "a little moment, until the indignation be overpast."

   Whose wrath is it? Satan's wrath in the great tribulation, until the indignation be overpassed. "For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity." Because of their sins, the Sodom-like, Corinthian-like [Gomorrah-like] licentiousness in America today that we export around the world, our pornography, our Playboys, our rotten TV entertainment programs of our lust and violence that we export to all nations and a lot of other filth. Instead of showing the nations God's way. And God is angry, he says.

   "For God cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain," because the saints are to be resurrected at that moment when Christ returns and the saints are to rule with Christ, with a rod of iron. And God will reward the saints who have been slain and resurrect them, and they're going to be the governors ruling all nations for 1000 years.

   Brethren, these and other scriptures show clearly that God Almighty is going to cause His church to escape the target area, in this case our vast vulgar cesspools that we call cities with our slums and our filth and our pornography and all of our rottenness and our decay. Scabs, blotches in the eyes of God, and God is going to cause those people who sigh and cry, as we heard this morning in the sermon, for all the sins and the abominations, those people who do fear God, those people who obey God, those people who believe God.

   And just as he caused Lot and his family to escape the target area before the Holocaust struck, and just as he told Christ in the New Testament told the Christians to flee Jerusalem before that city was destroyed and leveled to the ground, likewise, God says we are to flee, we're to escape. Before this, and don't you ever let anybody else tell you otherwise.

   It's not a matter of whether God can protect you right in the midst of some cesspool. He could protect you if an atomic bomb blasted off over your head, five inches. But that's not the way he did it and that's not the way he's going to do it this time, and that's not what prophecy says. That God is going to cause us to enter into our chamber. He's going to cause us to go into the desert someplace. We don't know how, we don't know when, we don't know where. But God will open up the way as surely as he opened up the escape from Egypt to the Red Sea, and as surely as he opened up and caused the Roman allegiants to withdraw from Jerusalem in 69 A.D. and cause the Christians to escape.

   Likewise, brethren, when the time comes, God Almighty is going to tell us where to go and when to go and how to get there. Don't you worry about that.

   So if you forget everything else that I have said in the sermon, I want you to remember that Christ told us to pray for two things. You remember what they were. I'll read it again.

   In closing, the final scripture, Luke 21, beginning verse 34 to 36 (Luke 21:34-36), Christ says to the Christians, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting," with excessive eating, "and drunkenness," excessive drinking, "and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares."

   Notice this. What day? The great tribulation, as he's explained previously. Notice verse 35, will it just be on the peoples in North America or in Europe? No, "For as a snare shall it," this day of tribulation, "come on all them that dwell on all the face of the whole earth." Worldwide, World War III, horrible, unthinkable World War III nuclear devastation that will make the horrors of World War II seem like a picnic.

   And so realizing this, Christ says, "Watch ye therefore, and pray" for two things. One, "that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass," he said, and secondly, that you would be accounted ready "to stand before Jesus Christ" at his second coming.

   Brethren, when I started out, most of you admitted that you weren't praying daily for these two things. And Jesus Christ, your Savior, commands us to watch and pray always for these two things. Will you obey Him? I hope so.