Herbert W Armstrong

   One-third of the Bible is prophecy. That is the forthtelling of future events. But when you think of prophecy, you nearly always think of the idea of an angry God who has commissioned a lot of gray-haired old men of ancient antiquity to shout and yell in the public parks on the street corners of the cities of Samaria of Israel of Ancient Judea and Palestine about fire, hail, windstorm, tornadoes, national and international calamities, dire predictions of disaster, threats from an angry God who was envisioned and sitting up in his armchair in heaven with his big long, flowing, white mane and his beard fairly shaking with indignation and with anger because we human beings are down here having a ball and that makes him mad. And so he's threatening us with unimaginable punishment as a result of all of our innocence and all that we're doing is so much fun and so great and so good for us.

   Or maybe you hear a scholarly discourse, kind of a dry pedantic talk from someone that sounds like a disembodied college professor. Or it could be a ranting, raving, sobbing, screaming, quote sermon. That sounds more like a tantrum than a sermon. You know a religion is a kind of a funny thing. I get tempted every now and then when I see Flip Wilson doing his brother Leroy bit to do the same thing because it's so funny to me. As a matter of fact, brother Leroy is not so far-fetched. We were talking about such a thing that exists. Now, Flip must have seen at least a dozen types like that, that talk in that tone of voice that whip their audiences up in some kind of a fervor as a result of endless mindless repetition. Maybe you've heard that type of thing. Maybe you've seen some of it. You can hardly escape it if you drive across the American Southwest at night. Now, just tune on your car radio and then just casually just hunt around the dial and about every other dial spot or so you get a combination of western and country-western music or rock and then you get these evangelical types, the ranting, raving, sobbing tantrums that pass for sermons in some quarters.

   And I think that a lot of this takes its toll on people. I think that religion becomes more and more like politics to a lot of us people have had it so many times. They've been taken so many times by politicians but they're pretty well convinced there is no such thing as an honest politician. Maybe they've got a point there. I don't know many, however, feel the same way about religion. And I think that just like in politics, many people make the mistake of blaming it on the country or on the system instead of the individual who himself is perverting the system and maybe help ruin the country. And in the same way in religion, many blame it upon God. They blame it on religion in general because of the many dozens of different machinations that masquerade in the guise of God's word of the Bible with every conceivable accent, every conceivable range of human emotions from the dry scholarly pedantic discourse to the reigning screaming wave, the maniacal explosion on stage or in front of the television camera.

   So a lot of times people have shied away from religion because it has been presented to them in such a completely unpalatable form. When you look at the Bible, the King James Bible is, let's face it, difficult to read. We're not really accustomed in modern-day America to reading things that say, "Thus, say us and therefore say and forsooth. And thereafter, and uh moreover, the dog you ever heard about him? He's a dog, men. Moreover, the dog lick Lazarus' sword. Anyhow, I think when people turn to the Bible once in a great while, somebody decides to read a little bit of the Bible. Maybe he's in a motel and he picks up the Gideon Bible. It has been left there by one of the Bible societies or the Gideon and he reads it and he can't understand it. I mean, even in the book of Psalms, it's kind of difficult to understand. It's rather strange language we don't speak today like they did in 1611 in England. And so most people don't go into a Bible store and avail themselves or a gospel bookstore. They sometimes call it unfortunately. Much of what is found, there may not have anything to do with the gospel. Most people don't know what the gospel is. But if they go into that bookstore and they buy a modern English version, they would find that it's simpler to read.

   But the only problem with this is they may not know; they may not be enough of a scholar to go to some of the Greek and the Hebrew in an exhaustive concordance, which after all are just like a dictionary of the Bible that lists every single word and its original root meanings in those languages in which it was written. And they may not realize that some of these expanded, these enlarged, these modern English language versions, though easier to read, can lead into some misconceptions and inaccuracies.

   We were talking here in the studio about one of our number who had seen a, particularly interesting take-off, kind of like Brother Leroy the other day. I don't know if it was about prophecy or not, but he was asking his congregation to get lots of action from the congregation. Did the good Lord want that our pastor should prosper? And so on, they were going on and on. Oh yeah, give me an Amen. And uh, did he say that we would be born up like on eagles' wings? Amen. You know, did he not take Elijah for a ride in his own private chariot? Amen. Doesn't the Lord have his own chariot left it for the chariot and so on? Took up a congregational collection for the Cadillac and he had all of this business about God wants us to prosper. Does he want me to drive around this dirty old dude? Let's hear it for the Cadillac.

   Now, I thought Brother Leroy was just put on. He's not, he's real. I mean, Flip version is a put on, but Flip must have seen at least a dozen of those people. Now, he gets away with a little bit of an ethnic tone to it because I think basically Flip Wilson is an honest comedian and I think that he is one of the funniest that I've ever seen. But he also, he puts religion right about where it is when you're talking about that particular type of religion.

   I don't forget the story about the one that was up there. Who is saying this congregation, I prone to gossip. This congregation, I prone to commit adultery. This congregation, I am prone to steal. This congregation, am prone to bear false witness against its neighbor. This congregation am prone to lie. O Lord deliver this congregation from the prone.

   Well, religion is kind of like politics. I've heard speeches that just doubled me up when I was listening to politicians. And the last election struck me like that. I listened to speeches from both parties. I watched both conventions. I listened to one speech after another and I tried to listen with a rational, logical approach and I really got a big kick out of a lot of what I saw and what I heard; it's a strange world in which we live where increasingly it's difficult to tell the politicians and the religionists apart.

   Politicians are noted for making tremendous predictions, you know, just unlimited promises, oaths and promises about what they are going to do. If elected, they're going to do this or that instantly, they're going to do the other in good time. And almost immediately after the election, sometimes even prior to the inauguration, many segments of the society are led to believe that it was all just the same cheap, dirty old series of endless maneuverings, manipulations of the audience and that the audience is really the sucker after all.

   I don't know how people feel when they go out of a religious meeting where they've gotten all hepped up temporarily by the antics of someone who is raving, slobbering, screeching. And I say this advisedly because that's the only terminology I can put on some of the things that I have seen both as a comedian does caricatures of these things and some of the things that I've actually seen and heard, some of the ads that I see in the Saturday church page and so on, in person.

   I don't know how they feel when they go out and they count their money. And what did I do that for? You know, the people feel the same way about a thing like that as they do. Maybe if they hit the tables pretty heavy in Las Vegas and run away a loser, I, I don't know, but I think it's worth looking into this fact that one-third of the Bible is prophecy and a great deal of that prophetic. One-third prophesied, there would be false prophets, falsely prophesied.

   Would you recognize a picture of Jesus Christ? Millions would? But almost nobody knows the man; the Ambassador College publication entitled The Real Jesus shows how the traditional renaissance paintings of Jesus are diametrically opposed to the dynamic, masculine, powerful Christ described in your Bible.

   The man from Galilee is shrouded in mystery. Millions disagree on the manner of his birth, his message, his family. Why, and if he died, his resurrection, and where he is now, the Christian world is confused about the true Jesus. But now you can discover the real Jesus. You can prove what he taught, how he lived, and who he is from the pages of your own Bible. You'll see why the traditional Sunday school picture of Christ is not the real Jesus, write for this surprising booklet, your copy will be sent free of charge when you request The Real Jesus. Send your request to Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO Sydney, New South Wales.

   Jesus Christ of Nazareth was a prophet. Most people talk about Jesus as a wise man, a good man, a man way beyond his time, a man with very gentle, humble carpenter-like teachings. Oh, they talk about the Lord; they talk about how he has done this and that for them. Very few people seem to realize that Jesus came with a dynamic message about the world news on beyond his day and down into ours that he absolutely pinpointed the trends, conditions, and circumstances which would exist. He wasn't dating anything with regard to year and month and day, but he did talk about trends and conditions, and you could not understand the prophecies of Jesus Christ in context until the day in which we live—this time in which it is possible now to annihilate all of humankind, that is in Matthew 24 verses 21 and 22 (Matthew 24:21-22).

   But in this very same prophecy, the very first thing Jesus did before unveiling all of these many sequential series of events, one overlapping the other, each compounding the other until they became in their total sum collection the greatest combined series of problems humankind had ever known. That's the age in which we now enter or into which we enter, that we are now beginning to experience bigger problems of more of a global nature that threaten not just one little country or one government or one portion of the country or one state but now would threaten all of humankind.

   But he began this sequential series of events by a warning and that warning was this. It's in verse three (Matthew 24:3), the very introductory statement Jesus made in the prophecy that is called the Olivet prophecy and it was on the mount of Olives right across the Brook Kidron from the city of Jerusalem. And they said, "Tell us when shall these things be?" It said there would not be one stone left on another in Jerusalem; it would not be thrown down in the buildings of the temple there. And as I said in the last couple of programs, that hasn't happened yet. So technically, the details of this prophecy are yet to be fulfilled.

   Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that no man deceive you." Now, I would like to say, "Take heed that I do not deceive you and take heed that no one else does, listen to anyone with an open mind." You don't need to be bigoted or prejudiced. And I don't mean to imply because I find some religious antics rather humorous that a person should be put down because of either an ethnic or racial or linguistic or an educational background. I am not saying that because a person is unable to use the English language correctly that he is unbelievable or that he's necessarily inaccurate. I do sometimes question the style of presentation merely because I cannot see that justified in the Bible that other people would even take exception to that remark. But then I know people that might take exception to a remark about the time of day. So you have to sooner or later say that there are such people in the world. That no such thing as common ground for discussion. But Jesus said, "Take heed that no man deceive you." That means anybody. The Bible says beware of men. That's what Jesus said. For they will turn and orange you. He said, "Don't cast your pearls before swine." He talks about the chicanery of humankind that is out to cheap, to get to grasp, to steal, to appropriate for itself, the backbiting conniving, cheating, machinations, manipulations of politicians of leaders in corporate industry and business of people in the supermarkets from the neighborhood kids that are robbing yours of his lunch money is well known to everyone.

   Now, we as a people, we as human beings, have been had by the politicians, so long, so many times, we got callouses about that deep. The only place those calluses don't protect us is in our wallet when it comes to taxation time or the person comes around to decide what our home is worth and what they're going to levy against it or the school tax or the gas tax or the luxury tax or the state withholding tax, which is not true in the state of California and so on.

   So people do feel rather jaded when it comes to politicians. Why couldn't they at least have the same caution when it comes to religion as they do in going down to pick out an appliance as they do when they go to the supermarket to check prices or to squeeze the tomato, which they shouldn't do before they buy it. But you know, it says, let the buyer beware. That's a good slogan for the present-day consumer. What with all sorts of mislabeling, you know, for a time there, they had us to the point, as one famous comedian said recently, in the labels that are on packages where we were just barely beginning to believe the lies and now they're gonna take those away, and we're gonna start wondering all over again what the package really says.

   Really labeling the packages when they put all of these various chemical ingredients is an exercise in futility anyhow because most housewives don't know what on earth those ingredients are, what they do, what they mean, what their potential harm or beneficial effects might be.

   So Jesus said, and this is his warning. Take heed that nobody, no man deceives you for many shall come in my name. Now, that's like saying many are going to come appropriating my name, my credentials, my title. They're going to say I come in the name, and then they may pronounce it in some funny way, but they'll always come out with the English version somewhere or another, no matter how they pronounce it. Of Jesus Christ of the Lord, you hear people that seem to sound like they and the Lord have got an exclusive relationship, but there's only one human being. The Lord spends most of his time watching. And that's that one man.

   I remember one lecturer, a famous religionist who was very well respected in the Judeo-Christian mainstream. And he was telling me about a time, me and a lot of other people in the audience when he had been standing on a street corner in New York City in a sudden fall rain, you know, autumn rainfall came down and he said, "Oh Lord, get me a taxi." Screech, flash, oh, door open. There's a taxi. The Lord was right there. I had to jump out of his pocket. He was so handy to just do this fellow's bidding immediately when you need. I'm not sure that the Lord is a doorman, a bellboy or a cab driver for various itinerant preachers. I'm just not really sure of that in my own mind at all, but it says that many, not a few, will come in my name, saying I am the Christ.

   Now, so far, Jesus' prediction is perfectly accurate. Many are coming to you in his name. I say that I come to you in his name and saying that he, Jesus, is the Christ. Now, I guess some people could even take that to mean that in some occasions, people would claim that they are the Christ. I've had people do that. I have met various Elijas, a couple of three Jeremiahs. Have I ever met an Asa or a David? I don't think so, but I've met a Noah or two. I remember one of them when I was a little kid. He actually had a great big horn, the ram's horn or something. He toot on that thing and then make some great pronouncement, war flowing robes. You could find him down in Pershing Square.

   There are, let's see, there was one case only in my entire experience in which I recall a person. He was dressed in a light brown business suit. He had short curly hair, he was probably about 40ish, and uh he was a real, as far as I'm concerned, now, maybe other people would say that he was a real item. But I thought he was a weirdo. I thought he was a freak. I thought he was a nut. And the reason I thought he was a nut is that he walked in and announced to me that he was Jesus Christ. I said, now, uh, you're kidding? No, he really meant it. You know, he got this look on his face and I said, "You mean that your last name is Christ? And your first name is Jesus? And that's your legal name because you know, in the Spanish community, there are many people who are named Jesús or Jesus as we pronounce it in English." No, he really meant that he was the real article. We didn't even have a conversation. I said, "Uh, would you please leave?" And he didn't want to leave. He wanted to argue or to talk or to give me some great pronouncement.

   So I walked around the desk and just took him firmly by the arm and said, "Please, you know, let's leave. It's time to go." He said, "This is no way to receive me." As I propelled him out of the office, I said, "What gave you the idea I'm receiving you? I'm not receiving you; I'm ejecting you." And so he went down the stairs and off the campus, and I haven't seen him since. I haven't heard of any great miracles he's been doing. I haven't heard of any great earth-shaking pronouncements. As a matter of fact, I don't know where he went. I don't believe for one instance that he was the real article, but it does fulfill this prophecy. That and the fact that there would be many people who would say Jesus, the real Jesus is the Christ and many others maybe who would even claim they are. But the point is he said, and they shall deceive many.

   History shows there have always been wars, disease, and famine threats to local populations. Never before, however, has the possibility of total annihilation of the human race existed until this age of the arms race, nuclear stockpiles, overkills, and the hydrogen bomb. An entire generation has learned to live under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. We've heard talks not of if World War III comes. But when Jesus described the critical juncture in history when except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. He called it the end time. Our climactic age is vividly portrayed in the light of Bible prophecy in the booklet, "Is this the End Time?" Are we now living in that age?" You need to know, request your free copy of the important booklet. "Is this the End Time?" Send your request to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.

   One full third of the Bible is prophecy. You know that most of the Old Testament books are prophetic. If you've read any of them or heard much about them. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, all the rest of them, the former and the latter, the greater and the lesser as they're called in the Bible. But also in the New Testament, few people realize that Jesus himself was a prophet, but much of the writings of the Apostle Paul are prophetic. It talks about a resurrection about the return of Jesus to this earth. Is that prophetic? Is that political or religious? Is it something that people believe in their minds that they cling to as a kind of a straw of hope? Is it a spiritual well, talisman a thing, you know, like a little cupid doll or something that people can cling to in their mind or if such a thing should happen. Wouldn't that be a world news event? I mean, if a graveyard suddenly erupts and all the people stand up, walk around wondering where to go. That would be a fairly uh noteworthy event. Wouldn't you think?

   The Bible talks about that happening? Eventually? It doesn't say precisely when that's not a cop-out on my part, but it does talk about the conditions and the circumstances that would lead up to it. And the amazing thing is that included in this was that warning of Jesus that there would be a tremendous upsurge of religious interest to the point. There would even be human beings claiming they are to Christ. But believe it or not though, it sounds weird when I tell you about one nondescript man who came into my office and announces that he's Christ or maybe you've heard of a few dangling in society that say that they're this and that and the other. Maybe they're a Yogi or a Serutan Yob, which is nature's boy spelled backward, whatever they might claim to be, we can all put that down as being someone who is just mentally disturbed or someone who just has such an incredible idea of his or her own role in life. And this is something that I'd like to do a couple of programs on sometime because that is an enormous thing of tremendous significance to everybody that we ought to think about. People get ideas about their own role in life and begin to reason themselves. And there's some gigantic importance role, me and you Lord that they're going to go and do this and that and save the organization, save the world, change the country and so on. But Jesus not only said there would be some individuals who obviously would be recognized by most of the populace as being some kind of a dinging. What he is talking about here is that eventually, believe it or not, there are going to be, at least there's going to be one figure the Bible plainly says that there may be several who will appropriate to themselves, the claim of great miraculous power who will claim to either be a direct representative of Christ or maybe Jesus Christ himself and who will be just as big a liar as Satan the devil ever was.

   Now, he says, beginning in verse 24 to show you that it's not just people saying Jesus is the Christ and deceiving many and never anybody saying, "I am the Christ." Notice verse 24 of the same chapter of Matthew (Matthew 24:24), for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, both, and shall show great signs and wonders. Oh well, then that's not an argument. That's not a press conference. That's not walking unannounced into somebody's office and saying, "I'm the Lord." You know, this is somebody that is actually able to perform great miracles, you know, in front of audiences, obviously in front of human beings where the news media, the press, and other religions and other people get involved.

   Now, God shows that there is a spirit world that is both righteous and unrighteous. There is the devil, the Bible talks about him, what his original state was, why he fell, what was behind the entire power struggle. It has to do, believe it or not, with the way our entire universe is structured, with the way the world itself was arranged prior to the creation of Adam. It's a huge story. The Bible makes it clear but Jesus said, there will arise false Christs and false prophets, both, and some of them are going to have such fantastic power. They will be able to sway the minds of millions of people because of miracles.

   You know, some people make a kind of a religion out of belief in miracles. Some people pray for miracles. Some people say, "I want to see a miracle." You think there's one thing that could immediately capture the attention, of an audience, and would probably sway them to some deep emotional and spiritual commitment to this person. If the minister could just stand there and rise off the floor and whisk around the room a few times or if Ali's preaching, he could say, "Look at this," and magician-like, you know, except that there wouldn't be any conceivable magical explanation. It would be otherworldly and absolutely spiritual in origin that he could produce some apparition or he could cause the audience to rise. That would be even better yet. I mean, actually, you know, not stand up but float around the room. It says there are going to be great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible, now that shows by the obverse that it isn't possible. If it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

   Now, the very elect are those whom Jesus has called, those with whom and through whom he is working and performing his work on this earth today. But he says there will be signs and miracles performed. The Bible acknowledges that; that's why the warning is so important to you. Don't ever let anybody persuade you by any of the accompanying phenomena, whether it's spiritual or whether it is the trappings or the setting of a physical environment.

   There are people who will build giant altars, people who will dive in the fish bowls, people who will swim and try to walk on water. Who knows? I don't know what but all of the accouterments and the accompanying paraphernalia. The hod pods of ridiculous trivia that associates itself with religious practices from bells, feathers, salt shakers, golden gobbles, all sorts of motions and so on. Oh balderdash. The Bible claims over and over again that even though a so-called self-styled prophet has the power to produce a miracle, if his message is, "You don't need to obey God, you don't need to obey God's 10 commandments," don't go out after him. The Bible warns because that man is a lying hypocrite. Now, that's what the Bible says over in II Corinthians, the 11th chapter.

   I want to conclude with this and then I got to leave. It says, beginning in chapter 11 and verse 13 (II Corinthians 11:13), for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers, oh, the devil has ministers, that's what it says here. You ever know of one? "I'm the devil's minister." Don't believe me. Well, his ministers be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works, which is usually what they preach against.

   These and many other warnings make up a great segment of biblical prophecy. Let the hearer beware, prove it to yourself. Check up, find out, go to the source. Don't be hoodwinked by any kind of talking or preaching or the accompanying paraphernalia. Even if it's spiritual, as well as physical in nature. Write for this literature and begin to prove a few things to yourself for yourself. Is this the end of time? Can you prove it? This booklet, "Is this the End Time?" goes right down the line on this subject as I have been doing and shows you from the Bible as well as some current conditions that are extant on the earth that we are living in the time of the end. But it's approached perhaps from a different point of view than you might think; a completely objective point of view. Asking the Bible to prove it to us one way or the other. "Is this the End of Time?" Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station? That's all we ask. And nothing else you need to tell us no other information about yourself or you need just the call letters station and then your own name and return mailing address. There's no hitch to this. No cost. There is no one that is going to call on you. Your name is not given to someone else.

   The Plain Truth magazine free of charge. 52 pages, full color. Very interesting straight from the shoulder, hard-hitting articles that pull no punches at all. And all you need to do is to request it by sending your letter to Post Office Box 345 Sydney New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station, need that, that's all there is no cost but tell us the name of the radio station to which you've been listening to call letters and then send your letter to Box 345, Sydney New South Wales. Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying, goodbye friend.

   You have been listening to the World Tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.