World news and the prophecies of the World Tomorrow. And greeting friends. This is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. If there were not positive assurance of a better world tomorrow, this mixed-up chaotic suffering world would be hopeless, indeed. And I repeat, nothing but world government can now save humanity alive. We have come to the place where human beings have invented such horrifying weapons of destruction that it is now possible to annihilate human life from off this planet. You know, I think we're very negligent. We like to ride right over things, get them out of our minds and forget them, play the ostrich like a foolish ostrich, stick our heads down on the sand and imagine these things are not so. We are threatened with atomic destruction at any time. And in our so-called civilian defense, we are woefully unprepared. We're not awake, we're sound asleep. Now, world scientists tell us that nothing but world government can save humanity alive. Well, thousands are astonished at the message you hear on this program. And do you know why? It's because it is the same message that another brought to this world 1900 years ago. And they were astonished then at his message, why does nearly everybody believe that the Bible says exactly the opposite of what it does say. Why is it that nearly almost nobody ever heard the real gospel of Jesus Christ brought and proclaimed and taught his disciples the gospel that God sent by him. Now, once again, we're going back into the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, going through the actual history of the life of Jesus and seeing what he taught and the example that he set and he said that he has set an example that we should follow his steps, that we should do as he had done. Now, here we are in Mark, the first chapter and the 21st verse, it was after John had been put in prison, that Jesus had come into Nazareth where he had been brought up or rather into Galilee. I should have said, preaching the Gospel of God and saying that the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand repent ye. He said, and believe the gospel, what gospel, the gospel he preached the Kingdom of God. It's the gospel of God, the gospel that God had sent by him and he spoke faithfully, the things that God Almighty told him to speak and sent him to speak. Now, here we are in verse 21, the first chapter of Mark (Mark 1:21). And they go into Capernaum, he had been, you know, up in Nazareth where he had been brought up, the people up there wouldn't believe in him. They had very little to do with him and he had to escape to even save himself from injury or perhaps death. But now he is on the way to Capernaum and he's coming into Capernaum here now in verse 21 and they go into Capernaum and Straightway on the Sabbath day, he entered into the synagogue and taught. Did he set an example? Was he wrong or was he just doing something under the Old Testament that was abolished? My friends, what is the Sabbath day in the New Testament? I don't mean the Old Testament. What is the Christian Sabbath? The New Testament Sabbath. That's been a great controversial issue. And if you want to settle it as it is in your Bible, right in for our free booklet on the Sabbath and open your Bible and read what you find there and you will find the truth. Now, the mailing address, I'll give it to you now and then again in 25 minutes at the close of this program is Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California. Why don't you get an envelope right now? Because you may not have time when the program is over. Something else will take it out of your mind. It will leave your mind. You'll forget about it before you get it done. Get that envelope and a pen or pencil ready right now. So, you can jot it down if you haven't already done so, at the close of the program and get that letter in the mail immediately, the next thing you do put it where you won't overlook it and won't forget it and get this booklet. And then also get on the mailing list for the Plain Truth magazine. I'll tell you more about that at the close of the broadcast. I know you're going to want it. There's no subscription price. All you have to do is show enough interest to send me your name and address and to show me that you want it and you may have it. Now, they were astonished at his teaching. I want you to notice that he entered into the synagogue and taught and they were astonished at his teaching. Why? He didn't teach the same thing the preachers of that day did. Now they had their various denominations, then the same as we have today. There were a number of denominations there in Palestine. There were the Sadducees, there were the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Samaritans, and undoubtedly there were others. They weren't teaching the message. He did. He taught the message that God had sent, his message came straight from God. And when they heard God's message, they were astonished, my friends, that's what I preach. That's why so many are astonished. You know that that message was smothered under, within less than 100 years, do you know that the organized groups came in and took over and that there were only just two nineteen-year periods that the early apostles and disciples of Christ were able to proclaim the true gospel that God had sent by Jesus Christ. And that Jesus had taught them and proclaimed in which they were permitted to carry that gospel to the world in any organized manner whatsoever. After that, it was just an individual here and there and they were scattered that is history. Have you ever looked into the history of the true church? It's almost obscure from the end of the history of the historic portion of the Book of Acts for almost 100 years. And when you finally find a few glimpses into what was going on in the so-called Christian church, it was something entirely different than the church we found in the Book of Acts and in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it had turned to different teachings, different beliefs. Maybe you wonder why you believe what you do and think that it's all Christian. Do you know my friends that you are practicing a lot of things and customs that you think are Christian customs that are as foreign and as strange to the Bible as they could possibly be, that have only originated in paganism and come out of heathenism and they have been embraced and you're calling them Christian today. Did you know that? It's about time we blew the dust off our Bibles and began to see what is really in it. Now, they were astonished at Jesus' teaching. Of course, they were. And of course, you're astonished at that same teaching today. All right. Let's listen. Now, let's open our minds. Let's get rid of prejudice, which is a barrier to the entrance of truth into the mind. Let's see what is true and what God has sent for mankind. Now, Jesus taught them as having authority, not as the scribes and straightway, there was in the synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit. Now, this was a demon inside of the man and demons are fallen angels and angels are spirit beings that have been separately and individually created by God Almighty. They are on a slightly higher plane than the human plane. Human beings are the highest thing that we can see or consciously know we cannot see or know consciously any form of life or being that is higher than human life. And yet my friends, nothing less than human life could have produced the human mind. It took a higher power, a higher intelligence to produce the human mind and all that it can do than the human mind itself. Your mind cannot produce anything superior to itself, just can't do it and nothing less than your mind could have produced you. So we know there is a higher power but you can't see that higher power. And there is nothing that we can see. There is nothing that we can consciously know and all knowledge naturally and consciously only comes to the mind through the five channels of the five senses. And there is nothing that can be transmitted to your mind through any of those five channels that is superior to just the human being and the human mind. And yet we have revealed in the word of God that God has created angels and some of the angels who had the principle of free moral agency and had the ability to disagree and to turn the other way from God to rebel against God, who is the supreme ruler of the entire universe and who began to reason that God was wrong and that his way is wrong and who became perverted in all of their ways. They are now called demons. They're not even dignified with the name angel any longer. They are perverted in all of their ways. They are spirit beings and spirit beings are invisible to human eyes. And here was a man that had one of these spirits inside of him. It possessed him. It took charge of his mind, it took charge of his mouth and his faculties. Straightway, there was in the synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit. This was an evil spirit or a demon. And he cried out saying he used the organs of speech of the man to speak and cried out through the mouth of this man and said, but it was the spirit doing the speaking. "What have we to do with thee? Thou Jesus of Nazareth, art thou come to destroy us. I know thee who thou art the holy one of God." And Jesus rebuked him saying, "Hold thy peace and come out of him." And the unclean spirit tearing him or as the marginal reading is convulsing him until apparently the man went into convulsions and was frothing at the mouth. Actually, it was the spirit inside of him causing all of that and of that consternation and confusion as the spirit had to obey what Jesus said. Now notice Jesus is an authority. He spoke with authority and he rebuked this demon saying, "Hold thy peace and come out of him." He didn't say to the man come out of yourself. He was speaking to the demon inside of the man. He didn't talk to the man and say, "I think you've got a demon and you let me cast it out." He spoke to the demon and said, "You, you demon come out of that man," and the unclean spirit convulsing this man and crying with a loud voice came out of him. And they were all amazed insomuch that they questioned among themselves saying, "What is this a new teaching? With authority he commandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey him." Of course, they had to obey. And the report of him went out straightway everywhere into all the region of Galilee round about, you know, that Jesus gave his disciples power over every power of the devil and his demons. I wonder if you realize that there is one power though that Jesus did not confer and many I fear overlook that and do not understand it. It is a principle of God since God is the supreme governor of the entire universe and the ruler over all that is that government and positions in government must be respected. Now, in this universe, God has allowed for his purpose that is being worked out. God has allowed certain mutiny and certain rebellion and disobedience. He allowed the great archangel to become Satan, the devil. He has allowed angels to become demons. He has allowed human beings to rebel against him and to do the thing that seems right to them and the way they are swayed and influenced to do by the invisible power of these spirits. God has allowed it because God is working out a purpose and very few seem to understand that purpose and what it takes to work that purpose out and what a great marvelous purpose. It is very few seem to understand that at all. And yet my friends, even though those who rebelled against God and are in an office of power and authority abuse that office and use the power of that office for a wrong end and a wrong motive, the offices of God and there could be no office, no station of power or authority except of God and the office must be respected. Now you read over in Jude the next to the last book in the New Testament that even the Great Archangel Michael in disputing with Satan, the devil did not dare to bring a railing accusation against him because of the high office that he held. I've mentioned that a number of times, God expects us to respect authority. God tells us that even all human government is not God's form of government, even though it is a usurpation of authority. God allows it and there could be no office and no power except of God and God commands us to respect those in office. He tells us to pray for our rulers. We should pray for the president of the United States and for governors and rulers and every real Christian who understands that surely will do it. That doesn't always mean that they are doing everything they ought to do the way it should be done or that they are performing God's will. Sometimes they're doing the very opposite, but the office is an office that must be respected. And I have known of some knowing that the devil is the father of all liars. He's a liar and the father of it as the Bible says, and they speak disrespectfully of the devil. And yet the devil occupies a high office. He isn't going to occupy that office very much longer. Jesus Christ conquered him and is qualified to take the office away from him and the devil has been disqualified and Satan is going to be removed. But as long as Satan is in that office, my friends, we should not speak disrespectfully of the office. And yet I find ministers who will profess to have authority over demons, speaking in that manner and disobeying God themselves by speaking disrespectfully of the office. Now, you might be a Protestant and think the Pope at Rome is absolutely all wrong, but you should never speak disrespectfully of the Pope at Rome. He sits in a very high office whether you agree with it or not, my friends. We must be very careful how we speak of such a man in such an office because he could not sit in that office if God Almighty did not allow it. I wonder if you realize that. You know, Hitler had deceived himself into believing that he was a man of destiny. And do you think that Hitler ever admitted in his own mind that he was an arch-demon of some kind doing evil and wrong trying to harm and destroy everything? Oh, no, no human beings don't do that, my friends, they deceive themselves into thinking they are right. And I have no doubt at all in my own mind that Adolf Hitler actually believed he was doing the right thing. I don't think he always believes it, but I think he managed a form of self-hypnosis or psychology until he had himself pretty well convinced that he was all right. No man wants anything else on his conscience. And so we should realize that, but he was also in an office of great power. Now, it doesn't mean we shall respect what the man does or condone what he does if he's doing wrong or anything of the sort. But there should be that respect. Well, now Luke's account of this, which is in Luke four and verse 35 (Luke 4:35), is that the demon had thrown him down in the midst and came out of him. Now, let's carry on here in Mark the first chapter. Now we're up to the 29th verse (Mark 1:29), straight away when they were come out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's wife's mother or his mother-in-law lay sick of a fever and straightway they tell him of her and he came and took her by the hand and raised her up and the fever left her and she ministered unto them. And at even when the sun did set, now notice he had entered into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Then in that afternoon, it apparently was a morning service. And that afternoon, they went out of the synagogue over to this house, Jesus visited with them, he healed Simon's mother-in-law. And at even when the sun did set, now God's days end at sunset. And when the sun set that night, the Sabbath day was over and the first day of the week had come and at even when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were sick and they were possessed with demons. Now, why did they wait until the sun set? Because the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious denominations of the time had followed a tradition that they themselves had developed the tradition of their fathers and had gotten away from a lot of the law and the commands and the truth of God and had gotten into what is called Judaism. Now, I presume my friends that you have thought that Judaism is the religion that Moses gave to the Israelites way back there in the days of Moses. Is that what you thought? You have been wrong. Judaism is a perversion of that religion. Judaism is the religion that had been developed after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. After the return back to Palestine from the Babylonian captivity. You know, when they had been taken to Babylon, they had been taken up to Babylon for a certain reason, the Jews had been conquered, they had been invaded in the land of Judah and had been taken captive and had gone to Babylon as slaves. And after 70 years, they were allowed to go back. Some of them and rebuild the temple and reestablish the worship. Now, at the time, they went back to reestablish the worship and it was under the direction of the ministry chiefly of two men, Nehemiah and Ezra, each of whom wrote a book in the Bible in The Old Testament. And we read here in Nehemiah the 13th chapter in the 15th verse (Nehemiah 13:15), where Nehemiah writes that, In those days I saw in Judah some treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and lading asses and also wine grapes and figs and all manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I testified against them in the day wherein they sold vitals. There dwelt men of Tyre also there in which brought fish and all manner of ware and sold on the Sabbath under the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. And then I contended with the nobles of Judah and I said unto them, what evil thing is this that you do and profane the Sabbath day. Now listen, did not your fathers thus and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet you bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. You know, a lot of people today say, well, I don't think it would make any difference what day we keep, at all as I can see any difference. My friend, so far as a human mortal is concerned by himself, I suppose that no human being could see where it would make any difference. But, you know, God is the supreme ruler of the universe. And God is the one who has eternal life to give and God gives it to those who will live it happily. And God has set laws in motion, physical laws of chemistry and physics, and also spiritual laws that regulate our human relationships and that have to do with that elusive thing we call happiness and joy and the good feeling of really being good to be alive and everything that everybody wants. God set the laws in motion that regulate all of that. And the first point of God's law is that we shall love God and have a contact with Him. And if you shut yourself off from God in contact with him, you have shut yourself off from everything that might make life worth living. Do you know what's wrong in this world? Do you know why people are empty? Do you know why people are restless and discontented? Their lives are empty and they have to find a pastime just to fill up the time because they're so bored with life that they don't know how to live. It's because they're shut off from God and the things that God could give which alone can ever satisfy. Now, the second point of God's great spiritual law is thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But a lot of people overlook the first point, thou shalt love the Eternal, thy God with all your mind and heart and soul and strength. And God has set laws in motion to regulate that very thing. And God set the Sabbath Day apart and made it holy, my friends. And maybe you don't see where it makes any difference. But God set the day apart that points to him as your God and your creator so that you would know whom to worship and who is the true God and never worship idols or the sun or the stars or something else that is not God, that we would always worship the supreme intelligence and the supreme ruler by virtue of being creator. God is also ruler. I want to tell you that every nation that ever lost that sign that God gave them to know who he is, has also lost God and has had to take something that is not God in that natural longing of the human heart to find God and to find that which will fill that void and that emptiness in the human soul. And they have found something else. They have sought everything for God. They sought the sun, the moon, wood and idols and idols made of stone and of marble. Things that can't move, can't think, can't talk and tried to make them out as a God. God is the maker. God is the one who thought out and designed your mind. He is the one who is life and has life to give and imparted life to you and gives you the ability to think and to plan and to do everything. And you know that God is a spirit and God intended you to need his spirit and he made you to need it and you'll have to keep in contact with him to have it. Now, these people cut themselves off from God by disobeying him on this point and it did make a great difference to God. And here he said, did not your fathers thus and did not God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet you bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. Now Israel, the ten tribes of Israel had changed God's day from the very beginning and they were driven out and became lost from view and are known even to this day as the lost ten tribes. Now the lost ten tribes are found. And if you want to know who and where they are write for our booklet, The United States in Prophecy, you better write for that booklet. It's free. It's an attractive booklet and there is no charge. It's the most amazing thing you ever read. The lost ten tribes are found, write in for that booklet, but Judah had kept the Sabbath and yet they profaned it. That is they had kept the right day, but they profaned it and you'll notice that that is the reason that they were driven out. That was the reason that both Judah and Israel were driven out into slavery and captivity for breaking God's Sabbath day. Now, when Ezra reminded them of that, they went back to keeping them, do you know what they did? They became so strict in the way they kept it that they added about 65 various regulations of human devising that God never gave them were never given through Moses of do's and don't. And they made God's Sabbath day instead of a blessing as God had intended it. And instead of the Sabbath being made for man, they turned it around where man apparently was made for the Sabbath according to their strict man-made rules. That's what Jesus swept aside. Now in Jesus' day, these people had been taught that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. And you know, they rebuked Jesus repeatedly for that. They claimed he broke the Sabbath. He didn't, he only broke their Pharisaical rules, the traditions of the elders as he called it, making the law of God have no effect by their traditions. That's what Jesus wrote. And that's why they didn't bring these people to him until the Sabbath day was over. They thought it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. It wasn't. If you find an ox in the ditch, you're going to let him be there and suffer. I should say not. Jesus said, pull him out. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So in the evening when the sun did set, and the day ended, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were sick and then they were possessed with demons and all the city was gathered together at the door and he healed many that were sick. But in Matthew's account, in Matthew eight and verse 16 (Matthew 8:16), it says, and healed all that were sick that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah himself took our infirmities and bear our diseases. Do you know my friends how God heals the sick Jesus himself who lived in a perfect body of health took our sicknesses and diseases and was beaten with stripes and those stripes had iron chunks in them and his body was broken open in great welts and his body was broken for us. And Peter says by his stripes, we are healed and Jesus paid the penalty of breaking the laws of your physical body. He paid the penalty in our stead so we can be healed and don't need to suffer and pay it ourselves. And all my friends in closing, I want you to write in for this book that on, What kind of FAITH is required for Salvation?, do you know that millions who actually believe in Jesus Christ have no salvation at all because they trust in the wrong kind of faith. They don't know what kind of faith now we're saved by grace through faith. But what kind of faith you may be on dangerous ground and not know it. It's a wise thing to check up and know if you're right, this will only verify it and then you'll know and if you're wrong, you better find out before it's too late. Write in for this booklet on faith telling you what faith really is. What is faith? Why don't you have it? Why can't people work up the faith? Why don't you get an answer to your prayers? This will tell you and it will help you. It will do you a lot of good. It will really help and you have never read anything like it. There's no charge, whatever, I'll be happy to send them to you, write down the call letters of your station and send your request then to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111 in Pasadena, California. Herbert Armstrong, Box 111 Pasadena, California. Until tomorrow, then goodbye, friends. 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 requests 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.