Herbert W Armstrong

   Here's the only ray of light piercing the foreboding gloom in the news of the world today. Today's news portends nothing but greatly increased world catastrophe coming, a rapidly accelerating disturbance and chaos in world conditions. Every indication of today's news points toward worse and worse times ahead. And I have said this time and time again, there now exist weapons that can lay waste an entire continent in one night. And the only hope of averting such a catastrophe is that the nations cry out to God Almighty to intervene and to stop it.

   Now, listen, my friends, that's not some fanciful imaginary future possibility. That's the present stark stern reality. That's the fact. It's about time we wake up. I tell you, my friends, in such a world, it certainly behooves you to wake up and to ask and to find out what's going to happen. You know that God Almighty is working out a purpose here below and everything is working out on schedule. There is a definite plan, there is a definite time sequence, there is a definite time for many of these things to happen, and everything is going right along according to schedule.

   Now, I don't mean by that, that God is causing the things that Russia is doing or causing the evil in the world. No, but God left mankind to his own devices. God himself ruled that man must be a free moral agent. God made us that way. God, who rules in his high heaven, God, who is the sovereign ruler of the whole universe, as well as this earth, has said to mankind, "I set before you life on the one hand and death on the other. Life comes from God's laws, God's government; death comes from going our own way. And there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, the ends thereof are the ways of death."

   Now, God said, "I set before you life on the one hand, death on the other. Go our own way, we're going to have death. Accept the government of God voluntarily, the way of God, the laws of God, let God rule us, let God guide and direct us, we'll have life." And God said, "Choose." Of course, he said, "Choose life." But he told us to choose. God ruled that we shall be free moral agents. And man has always chosen the way that seems right to a man. The end thereof are the ways of death, and that's what we're bringing on ourselves.

   And now the scientists tell us that it's possible to absolutely annihilate human life from off the face of this planet. My friends, are we blind? Can't we wake up and see where we're headed? Now, God Almighty has revealed what's going to happen. He has revealed it in the prophecies. Jesus Christ foretold these times. I think I gave it to you in the preceding program where he said in Matthew 24 verse 22 (Matthew 24:22), "Except those days," speaking of the days just ahead of us now, of the great catastrophic events that we're heading right into, "except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved alive." We're coming to that. Our scientists tell us it's coming. But Jesus added, "For the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." In other words, God will step in and cut short the days of man's volition, of man's free moral agency to go ahead destroying until he destroys himself and commits suicide of the entire human race.

   Now, when is that going to happen? What is the next event? Where are we now? What is going to happen? You know, my friends, that one-third of your Bible is prophecy. And do you know that about 90% of all of that prophecy is referring to our time in which we live right now and of the events immediately ahead? And most of the world is so heedless, so careless in such a time as this that they're paying no attention. I want to tell you, my friends, that many of the prophecies have not been understood until now. It's a good deal like in Daniel's prophecy where Daniel heard what the archangel was telling him and he wrote it down in a book, but the prophet himself who wrote this very prophecy didn't understand it. Then it was not for him. It was not for his time. Listen, I read this so many times. I want to read it again. I want you to get it. Listen, Daniel the 12th chapter, the eighth verse (Daniel 12:8). And Daniel says, "I heard, but I understood not." He didn't understand the words. He wrote them down though. I'm reading them to you right now. And then I said, "Oh my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?" And he said, this archangel, "Go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end, the end of the age."

   We're in the time of the end of the age, my friends. That's now, that's for us. The words have been closed and sealed up. These words, my friends, were not for Daniel's understanding. They were not for the understanding even of the disciples of Jesus Christ. In that day, Jesus Christ, speaking to his disciples, said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see the things that the prophets of old wanted to see and couldn't." He said many prophets, holy men of God, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of old, as Peter says, they were holy men. And Jesus said that many of these prophets desired to know the things that he said to his disciples, "You can see and understand now," but they could not know them. But "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear." But now these things were not open to them. Knowledge, my friends, is opened up progressively.

   Now listen again in the fourth verse (Daniel 12:4), the angel said to Daniel, the prophet, he said, "But now, oh, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book that Daniel was here writing that I'm reading to you now, even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased." Daniel didn't have the knowledge of what it meant. Now, at the time of the end, knowledge is increased. God reveals knowledge progressively. Today, a great deal of spiritual knowledge has been revealed and opened up that we can know that even the disciples in Jesus' time could not know. You and I can know more than they could. I tell you, my friends, you have to be willing, however, to accept right that you didn't have 50 or 100 years ago, or it's impossible to know these things because they have not been open to human understanding until very recently.

   I wonder if that begins to show you why men have not understood the prophecies. The Book of Revelation has never been actually understood or understandable to men until now. Now we can understand it.

   Well, what is next? We've been speaking more or less in the last few months off and on about prophecy. Matthew 24 and verse seven (Matthew 24:7). Let's go back to the beginning of this. Before I've gone over it so many times, we have many new listeners now that weren't listening last time I went over this some time back. Jesus was sitting up on the Mount of Olives, which is just east of Jerusalem, Palestine. It's just a short walk up there, about a miles walk. And his disciples came unto him privately saying, "Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?"

   Now, what did he mean by the end of the world? Today, people scoff and ridicule the idea of the end of the world. You know, people have been setting a date for the end of the world for a long, long time. There was a man by the name of Miller that had quite a movement back in 1843, and people sold their possessions and everything, went up on the housetops, and got ready for the end of the world. He set the exact day in 1843. It didn't happen. Well, they were quite disillusioned. Well, the man discovered that there had been no year zero, and he had miscalculated it by one year, and it should have been the date 1844. So, the people spent one whole agonizing year preparing for the same date in 1844. And when it came, why many of them had sold everything they had because there was no use keeping it. And I don't know why they sold it, what they wanted with the money if they weren't going to be here anyway. But they did. As I understand the story, they went up on the housetops, they waited all day long when that day came, but the end of the earth didn't come, the earth was still here. They expected the second coming of Christ and Christ didn't come that day, and that's over 100 years ago, and he hasn't come yet.

   Now, my friends, does that mean he's never coming? No. The end of the world is not the end of the earth's existence. I think I went into that in a recent broadcast. The difference between the earth and the world. The word here is "aeon" in the Greek language in which Matthew wrote this. And it merely means age, the end of a certain time limit. God has set a time limit. God has allotted 6000 years for men on this earth to go their own way where he said that men choose. God made us choose. You have to choose. God will not choose for you. God will not make you do His will, neither will He make you go the other way. You must choose which way you go, whether you go the way of God or the way of old custom, tradition, your own impulses and desires, the way of the carnal mind. Now, there's a 6000-year for that. And at the end of the 6000 years, God is going to step in and intervene because God foresaw that at the end of this 6000 years, mankind would invent such heinous destructive weapons that we could annihilate civilization from off the face of this earth. If he didn't step in and intervene, God is going to step in and take the government away from men and take our self-rule and our volition away from us. Why? Because if He didn't, there wouldn't be a human being left, there wouldn't be a human life left on the face of this earth.

   You know, my friends, a lot of people will ridicule and they scoff. Peter said that in the last days, there would be a lot of scoffers. They'd come along saying, "Oh, where is the promise of His coming? Where is the promise of His coming? Why ever since the foundation of the world, everything continues just like it did." Well, that's what a lot of people believe. A lot of scientists believe that. And yet the very scientists come out and tell us, some of the leading scientists in the world, that it is now possible to annihilate human life from off the face of this earth.

   God help us and help us to open our minds to understanding. But Peter said, "Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day," not that a thousand years is one day, but as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is patient, long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. For the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the thief in the night comes when you least expect him. You don't know when he's going to arrive. In which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and also the works that are therein shall be burned up. That is coming later, a thousand years later. That isn't the end of the earth, however.

   Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, the dissolving of elements by fervent heat, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, now is that the end of everything? Listen. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. All the earth is going to be renewed. It was destroyed once by a flood; it's still here. It's going to be destroyed in a similar way by fire, but it will cool down, the earth will still be here. And my friends, you have a chance of eternal life and you can still be here too forever and ever and ever. The heavens are God's. The earth has he given to the sons of men, and he's promised this earth as an everlasting possession to Abraham and his children. And if you are Christ's, you're one of Abraham's children and heirs according to the promise.

   Herbert W. Armstrong will return in a moment, but first, this offer concerning literature of related interest. Have you ever thought that you'd like to be a president or a king with the wisdom, power, and authority to solve the problems of the world? Our monumental problems of inflation, energy supplies, military jostling, and population explosions stagger the imagination. Is it possible that anyone can solve them? Write for a free full-color booklet, "The Wonderful World Tomorrow - What It Will Be Like," and see the promises of a new world coming. Man has envisioned and labored for utopia but failed to bring it about. Why? Write for "The Wonderful World Tomorrow - What It Will Be Like" and get the answers. Read about a future government unlike any you've ever known. Also, read about how you personally can have a part in that soon-coming government. Wouldn't you like to be a king with the power to solve all of man's problems? You can, write for, "The Wonderful World Tomorrow - What It Will Be Like." Send your request to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123.

   Now, if you can just understand what God reveals in the Bible, it's certain it's going to happen. He doesn't say this earth is going to blow up and not be here anymore at all. But he did talk of the end of this age, and in this particular place, he's merely talking about an allotted time. And the very age it's talking about here is this 6000-year age, and not even the time that Peter was speaking of there that I just read to you, which is at the end of another age that we call the millennium, which is a thousand-year period that is coming after that.

   Now, they said to him, "What shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world or the consummation of the age?" And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name." Now, to come in his name means to come as a minister of Jesus Christ and to say that you are a minister of Jesus Christ. Many will come in his name. They use the name of Christ, saying, "I am Christ." He didn't say that they'll come saying they are Christ, that these men themselves are Christ. Oh no, that isn't what he says. He said they would come in Jesus' name, saying that Jesus is the Christ, telling people about Jesus, preaching a gospel about Jesus, telling all about him and how great he was, deifying him, worshiping him. And yet he said, "and shall deceive many."

   My friends, is it possible for one to come in the name of Christ, to say, "I am a Christian, I am a messenger and a minister of Christ," and yet deceive people? Is it possible to teach people to worship Christ and still deceive them? Do you know what Jesus Christ himself said over here in Mark, in the seventh chapter of Mark's Gospel? Listen. "Howbeit," Jesus said, Mark 7 verse 7 (Mark 7:7), "in vain do they worship me." Here are people that really worship Him. Can you worship him without accepting him as savior? Can you worship Christ without acknowledging his greatness, his power, even his divinity? Here are people that worship him. And he said, "In vain do they worship me." How? "Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Instead of God's doctrines, they're teaching the commandments of men. Instead of obeying God, they're obeying human impulse, human tradition, human customs that have been set up on this earth. Instead of fearing God, they say if they find God's will, "Well, what would people think if I would do that? Well, that isn't the way people are doing today." If they find that Jesus set a certain example, that the Bible commands a certain thing and the people aren't doing that thing, what is the first thing people begin to think? What do you begin to think? Well, you think of your friends, you think of the crowd you've been going with. You know, people like flattery. They like to be well thought of by other people. Oh, I tell you, they just love flattery. They go around flattering people. People come and flatter me when they want to sell me something. Yes, sir. They just tell me they don't know how I'm doing the things that I do. They say, "Oh, the faith you've shown. My, my. Yes, sir, you've just done wonderful." They laud me to the skies. They're trying to sell me something. It doesn't work with me, I can tell you that, but it does. You know, people like it. They just swell all up and they smile and they just bask in that sunshine of vanity and egotism and oh, how they love it.

   My friends, if you've got that in your nature, you better get rid of it. It's your enemy, that kind of vanity. Now, the first thing you begin to think if you see some commandment of God that you don't want to obey and you don't want to obey God because men aren't going the other way, the first thing you think of, now, isn't this true? Just ask yourself, the first thing you think of is, "Well, what are all these people going to say that I've been going around with? What's my crowd going to say? My club, even my church or anybody else, whatever it might be, my group, my family, my friends, what are they going to say? My business associates, what are they going to say?" And so that's one reason people don't do what God says. They do what people are doing, and they have the commandments and the traditions of men. Jesus said, "Laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men." Are you doing that? I want to tell you, my friend, you probably are, and you don't realize it. It's time for you to wake up. And he said unto them, "Full well, you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition." Worshiping Christ in vain. I want to tell you that can be done. It is being done.

   Now, do you realize that many come in the name of Christ who are not actually ministers of Christ? I wonder if you can realize that. Do you ever turn over here to II Corinthians, the 11th chapter, and see what's in your Bible? II Corinthians 11 (II Corinthians 11:1-4). Now, Paul here is saying to the church at Corinth, he's correcting them a little bit because they needed it. "Would to God that you could bear with me a little in my folly and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that's Christ, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." You see, the church is supposed to be similar. The church is to be married to Christ, and it must keep itself clean and unspotted from the world. How do you get away from the world? Your sins are blotted out by the blood of Christ, and you're made clean through the blood of Christ. Then you must keep yourself unspotted from the world, that you may be presented a chaste virgin to Christ. But he said, "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

   My friends, listen. You think that can't happen to you? It probably has happened, and it's time for you to wake up and snap out of it. "For if he that cometh preaches another Jesus..." Do you realize it's possible to preach the name of Jesus Christ, but to preach a different Jesus than the one that was preached by the apostles, a different Jesus than the one you find in your Bible? Listen, my friends. The Jesus of the Bible is one that said, "Of myself, I can do nothing." He said, "The Father that sent me gave me a commandment, what I should say and speak." And he said, "As he has commanded, so I have spoken." The Jesus of the Bible said, "I have kept my Father's commandments." The Jesus of the Bible said, "If you would enter into life and be saved, keep the commandments of God." Is that what you're hearing today? Is that what you've been brought up to believe? You look at the Jesus of the Bible. He said, "I have kept my Father's commandments." And then again, he said, "I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done." That's the Jesus of the Bible. What is the Jesus that a lot of you have been believing in? The Jesus that did away with his Father's commandments? Jesus apparently must have been like a smart alec young man of about anywhere from 18 to 21 today that knows so much more than his father. His father is an old fogey. I've mentioned to you before how I was that way. And I think a lot of you, if you're past that age, have been that way or some of you young men listening to me are that age. You better be careful that you don't know more than your father. I used to know more than my father. And I've told you before on this program that those of you that have been listening a long time know how when I was about, let me see, 20 years of age, my father and the rest of my family moved from where I used to live then in Des Moines, Iowa, out into Idaho. And then from there, they moved to Oregon, and I did not see my father again until, let me see, I must have been 31 or 32. It was 11 or 12 years. I have to figure, I think I've mentioned it on the program before, and I forget now. Anyhow, when I was past 30, and we moved out to the West Coast and came to Oregon, and I saw my father again. You know, I was astonished how much my father had learned in that 11 years. He had learned so much more than I had that he knew more now than I did. But you know, 11 years before, he didn't. I felt sorry for my father. I really did. I knew so much more than he. I looked down on him. I felt sorry for him. You know, I guess we have to go through that age. Well, was Christ a smart alec young man that knew more than his father and did away with his Father's commandments? Is that the Christ you believe in?

   Listen, down here a little later in the 13th verse of this 11th chapter, II Corinthians (II Corinthians 11:13), Paul says that such are false apostles, the kind he's been talking about here, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. Oh, they come in his name, don't they? They talk about Christ. They must tell you to worship Christ. Otherwise, how could they come in his name with a religious message? And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. He's a deceiver. Satan doesn't come and say, "Look, I'm a devil. I have horns, look at my horns and the tail and the pitchfork I have out here." Oh no, that's not the way the devil is. He doesn't look like that. The devil comes as an angel of light. It says here that Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. And the devil comes and tells you that black is white and that darkness is light. And he says that God's way is evil. Don't do the way of God. God's commandments are not good for you. The devil says that God's commandments are a yoke of bondage and Jesus Christ came and freed you from all of that. The devil tells you that he doesn't want you to follow the commandments of God. He tells you, "Do what your conscience says. Your conscience tells you what sin is." That is the so-called light that he tries to give you.

   Therefore, verse 15 (II Corinthians 11:15), it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness. Oh, they come as the ministers of righteousness. But whose ministers are they? They're the ministers of Satan the devil, his ministers, Satan's. But they transform themselves as the apostles of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said back here, "Many, not the few, the many will come in my name, saying that I am Christ," telling people that I am Christ, and yet deceiving the many. I want to tell you, my friends, deceived people are innocent of it. They don't understand that. They're sincere. Of course, they are. I want to tell you, my friends, there are millions of people today that are deceived, but they think they're right. There is a way that seemeth right to a man. They're going that way. It looks right. You know, they're not insincere. They really think it's right. Oh, I tell you, people that are even deceived about their Christianity today, of course, they're honest. Of course, they're sincere. You are, my friends. I'm quite sure you are, but you could be deceived.

   You know how to tell? Well, one way is to listen to me, but listen to others too. Because how do you know that I'm not a deceiver? A lot of people will tell you that I am. All right, there's just one way for you to find out. Don't believe those people and also don't believe me either. You look in your Bible. If they speak not according to this word, it's because there is no light in them. Then look to the fruits of the life and to the work, and that's the way you can tell whether they're of God or whether they are not. You ever see a silver dollar? You know, I think I mentioned on this program not too long ago that we hadn't seen many silver dollars lately and that a lot of people haven't, but you can take a silver dollar and you can ring it, and it rings true if it's good, and if it isn't the genuine, if it's counterfeit, it doesn't. And you can sort of tell when a thing rings true. Blow the dust off your Bible, as I said about 10,000 times, and look into it for yourself. And you can see.

   Well, I see that second hand is up there on the clock. Oh, I'm just getting started. I wanted to tell you a whole lot about what's going to happen, and I'm going right on to that. Where are we now? What's going to happen from here in the next program? But listen, I just have one minute. I want to tell you this before I leave the air. If you are to attain to the glory that is your potential destiny, to really fulfill the tremendous purpose for which you were put here on this earth, you must not only surrender unconditionally to God in real repentance and receive Jesus Christ as personal Savior, you must be converted, that is, changed by continual overcoming and growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You must, as Jesus Christ said, actually live by every word of God, that is, by every word of the Bible. You need to come to really understand the Bible, but you need help. At last, you can enroll for the Ambassador College Bible Course by correspondence and study it in your own home. If you want to really understand the Bible, if you are willing to set yourself to devote a half hour or more every day to the study of your Bible with this wonderful Bible study course, then we will start sending you the lessons by mail. We're not charging any tuition; we mail it to you without charge, trusting God by faith to supply the need.

   I'm quite sure that you have never seen a Bible course that will even compare with the Ambassador College Correspondence Course. But the one textbook, remember, is your Bible, and you will have to be willing to devote sufficient time to really study it if you hope to comprehend and to clearly understand it. And it is non-denominational. There will be no request for money whatsoever. Just tell me the call letters of the station to which you're now listening and send your request then to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111 in Pasadena, California. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, just 3 ones, you can't forget that number, Pasadena, California. And so now this is Herbert W. Armstrong saying goodbye, friends, until tomorrow and daily on most of these stations.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong, sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God. For literature offered on this program send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. The World Tomorrow broadcast is also seen on weekly television. Tune in every Sunday night at 11 p.m. on TV 23, in addition to joining us every weekday evening at 10:30 here on WSLR Radio.