Herbert W Armstrong

   And greeting friends around the world. This is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. A world of law. That's what this world's only hope is according to the elder statesman of today, a system of world government subscribed to by all nations, a central governing authority governed by law. This is the only hope for peace. So, they tell us today. But what have we done in the past in actual practice with law? How does the average person react to law? How could nations subscribe to one law to order to authority and especially to one central governing authority?

   Sidney J. Harris, a noted newspaper columnist, has written, in any discussion of world problems, in man's space someone sooner or later is bound to proclaim, "Well, if we would only obey the decalogue, everything would be fine after all the Ten Commandments are still the best rules to follow." Yes, someone would say this but then what would be the reaction of people to such a statement yet if we took such a man seriously said Mr. Harris and questioned him on only one of the Ten Commandments just taking a sample. What would be the result? "Thou shalt not kill," a plain flat statement without qualification or modification? What does our friend say to this? Does he accept it completely and unequivocally or does he try to get around it in one way or another?

   First of all, he'll probably say that we have a right to kill in self-defense, even though the decalogue does not say "Thou shalt not kill" except in self-defense. And next, he will insist that a nation has the right to kill enemies in a time of war. So finally, what does the commandment, when you get right down to the basic roots of it, "Thou shalt not kill," amount to, that is so far as people are concerned, not so far as the commandment is concerned, well it amounts to whatever we want to make it, he wrote. Nobody but a crank today takes the commandments, literally nobody but an oddball thinks you can really live by them and apply them. And hardly anyone seems to believe they are binding upon Christians today.

   Well, he went on to write that nearly everyone believes that under certain conditions, it's all right and proper to kill. So, the trouble is with the Ten Commandments, he said, is not that unbelievers [inaudible]. It's that even believers do not believe it, do not agree on it, do not act upon it. A simple sentence of four one syllable words, "Thou shalt not kill," has confounded Christendom for 2000 years. For the bloodiest wars of all have been religious wars, he wrote. Yes, four little words, one-syllable words, theologians and doctors and people of great degrees down through the centuries have not been able to accept those words just the way they are. Of course, everything would be fine, he said, if we follow the Ten Commandments, it's not even we try to follow them and fail. It is that confronted with these four plain words, we interpret them as we want to, for we've made our own 11th commandment. "Thou shalt follow the decalogue only until it hurts." So, it said Mr. Harris in a newspaper column that's pretty accurate, we need to listen to it because it's pretty truthful. That's just about exactly the way most people react to law, obey the law, if it is expedient for you, if it's all right for you at that time, under those circumstances in that place.

   Well, then as one great leader said, we will have wars as long as we have human nature and until human nature is changed, we will still have war and the threat of war. Well, here's really good news for a change, human nature will be changed and a central governing authority will be set up a world-ruling government governing and ruling by a definite system of law that government is coming to this earth, it will enforce disarmament, it will give wise and just trade agreements and settlements and equitable settlements and fair ones arbitrating in disputes between member nations and that government and how it's going to function the laws by which it will rule where its capital city is going to be, who is going to be in it, who will be on its leading committees and so on. The ones who will be in charge that government was proclaimed to this earth nearly 1900 long years ago because it's in the gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the gospels of your New Testament of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus brought the good news for our day in this space age that most of you have not really looked into for yourselves.

   The good news of a coming world-ruling government, not of man, but of Almighty God, not allowing man any longer to kill by rule of law. And of course, if you have the power to make sure that there's no murderer trying to perpetrate a murder. So, if some person thinks he's justified in killing in self-defense, then you've got a law which is perfect and you've got a situation where you have perfect controls where you have a perfect system, perfect order, perfect peace, and harmony. And that's exactly what Jesus said is going to come.

   So we've been in a series on the World Tomorrow program looking into the gospels going through them, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, word for word literally and looking into every single facet of these amazing books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these books that 50 some odd percent of American Christian and today can't even name for you in order. These books that most of you have never really looked into for yourselves have not really studied into to find what they do say. Is it any wonder that most of us have not known that Jesus Christ came, proclaiming a future world-ruling government showed of whom it is to be composed, showing where it's going to be, whether on this earth or all, but in heaven somewhere, what will be its laws and precepts by which it will rule and exactly what will be the conditions among nations between nations and within nations on this earth during that benevolent reign of the Kingdom of God showing you approximately when it's going to be set up. The exact series of events on this earth right here and now that are going to affect Indonesia, Japan, China, Australia, South America, and the United States, Great Britain, and Northwestern Europe.

   I'm talking of this earth literally not just some vague pink fluffy cloud of theological arguments but this literal earth on which we live. And so, Jesus in the gospel showed the exact series or sequence of events which would lead to the establishment of the government of God on this earth not by man, but by Almighty God for man and showed also how we ought to be striving to have a part in that government. Do you know the only promise Jesus Christ ever held up to a Christian is co-rulership with him over nations? Do you know that even in the parables that Jesus gave that are listed in your Bible itself, he talked about those who would be over one city or two cities or five cities or ten cities that he talked about government rulership, that he talked about people in positions such as mayors, governors, kings, viceroys, presidents and the like, that he talked about those who are going to sit on his right and on his left in the Kingdom and he told how to qualify to occupy an office in that Kingdom.

   And yet most of you have thought that the idea is that we've sort of been born into a world where life is like a one-way train ride. And at the end of that ride, there is an automatic switch that's already been set even long before you were born. That is going to either hurtle you up into heaven or is going to plunge you down into a hell. And that the decision is not yours necessarily. It's been made up way in advance. Many people believe in a sort of a fatalistic point of view. They believe they are predestined to be lost or saved before they were ever born. So, they shrug their shoulders and say, Ho hum. So what? It doesn't make any difference how I live because God knows how it's going to come out anyhow. But that isn't true. The Bible does not uphold it. You need to write for our booklet that explains this, gives you the scripture, shows you where you can prove it in your own Bible. The booklet entitled, Predestination, Predestination. Whether or not a person is predetermined, predecided, predestined to go to hell because you know, they just aren't and the Bible proves it. We can be thankful for that.

   Or you thought that maybe nearly everybody goes to heaven. It's like the one man said, as I mentioned before in the previous program, where are the graveyards for all the bodies whose souls, if they were souls went to hell, all of the headstones, I can read say they're up in heaven and all the funeral services say that's where they're going. Yet. The preachers are shouting every single weekend very vociferously that people are in great danger of going down to hell. Now, which graveyard do they put those bodies in? They sure don't say it on the grave markers.

   Well, that's just a little aside, but it's just a little minor point to illustrate the point I'm making that, is it really true after all? Is that real theological doctrine? Is that in the Bible? Is that a fact? Can you prove whether or not you have a soul? You can't smell it, taste it, hear it, talk to it, feel it. You can't discover a soul in the test tubes of a laboratory. You've never seen your soul. You can't take it out and look at it. You can't talk to it and get an answer. You've never seen anybody else's soul either. Nobody's ever seen a soul. Nobody's heard of a soul and heard one speak or say something.

   Now we have a lot of vague, weird, lofty long-winded theological ideas about souls that people sort of get together and speculate about the sense the body with the soul was partnered with its bad deeds and so on. Therefore, it isn't just that the soul should suffer apart from the body. So, people figure out this is the way to get around that gigantic stumbling block in the Bible of a resurrection because the resurrection is pretty tough to answer when you've got bodies being resurrected. And yet you have souls departing those bodies going to one location or another or maybe several platforms in between, depending upon the financial circumstances of your relatives.

   And that then you've got to take those souls and put them back into those bodies and do the whole thing all over again. And it sort of makes you scratch your head because it sounds a little bit impractical. And you like to think of God as being a practical God as being a logical God is making sense and yet most people don't think the Bible does make sense. They don't get any sense out of theology, the religious ideas they've had, don't make sense to them.

   But God says of all things he does make sense that his mind is balanced. It's logical, it's normal and he presents things in the Bible if you would look into it for yourself in a balanced, normal, logical fashion and manner. And it's just as plain as it can be.

   So, the great stumbling block in the New Testament of the resurrection of the dead is gotten around by saying, well, if that soul has been up in heaven, I guess it plunged back into that cancer, ridden, that body down here that died by horrible burns or being crushed by a falling wall or maybe being shot to death or something else. I guess it plunges back into that body if you can find that body.

   Now, of course, people that are buried at sea and swallowed by fish and people who were reduced to gas and ashes infused into a great nothingness at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People who are burnt to death and their ashes scattered all over the sea. Like various notable persons have had done to them at their own request. Where are you going to get their bodies? You know, that would be quite a problem gathering all those ashes together.

   Now, you can just hypothetically imagine somebody being buried at sea, eaten by a shark. The fisherman catches the shark and you eat his liver. That person becomes a part of you. Now, is God going to take a few inches of your flesh and then make it a part of somebody else's flesh? Well, it's answered for you in the Bible in I Corinthians 15. That, that body which shall be is not the one that was planted. It is a literal virtual recreation just as God made Adam from the dust of the ground. There is going to be a great resurrection. But is it a fact that souls are going to be put back into bodies? Well, you sure need to write for that article on, Is There An Immortal Soul? Do you have a soul or are you a soul?

   Now, God said that he made Adam of the dust of the earth. He made Adam with his own two hands. He reached down took clay or that is just dust, red clay. It means red mud, fashioned and molded almost like a sculptor, the form and the shape of a man and then he breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life and Adam became a living soul. That's what your Bible says. He became a soul that nowhere says God breathed a soul into Adam or that Adam had a soul, but that Adam became a soul was a soul and that you and I are souls and you can even read of dead souls in the Bible.

   And you can read in Ezekiel 18:4 and Ezekiel 18:20 that the soul that sins, it shall die. And then the very first words that God spoke to Adam, where Adam, you are a clod in a sense, I mean that jokingly. But the word is Adam, dust, thou art. And the word dust in the Hebrew language meant red mud, red clay. Adam, you're a bunch of dirt. You came from this earth. You are air-breathing, food-eating, water-drinking, earth-bound creature. And I've given this earth to you to inherit and you're supposed to dress it and keep it and work here. Manipulate, rule, govern, make things bend to your will. As long as you follow my laws, make your environment, your ally instead of your enemy.

   But Adam as they say fell and he didn't really humpty dumpty might have but Adam didn't. Adam just made the wrong choice and followed his wife in an ill-advised decision, which was sin, which disobeyed his only parent, which was covetousness or lust taking something that didn't belong to him directly against the commandment of his own Father. So, he disobeyed his only parent, he stole. So he broke four of the Ten Commandments directly. And if you break one, you're guilty of all James says in the wages of sin is death.

   And so, the very first words out of the mouth of God, to Adam were out of dust, thou art. You are a clod, you're dust and unto dust, you shall return. He didn't say unto dust shall by body return, but you will go somewhere else. He said unto dust shall you? And he was talking to the conscious man, whoever Adam was, whoever the you was. He said you are going to die, not that your body will die and you will remain alive.

   Well, you need to write for this article because it is a real shocker, but it will enlighten you and it will sure ease your mind with regard to the state of the dead and maybe a lot of your loved ones along with them. It sure will. If you have a friend or relative, a neighbor, a blood relative, someone who perhaps was a drunkard or someone who was a real derelict, a real cad and who died in that condition. And you've been worried and concerned about him wondering where he was. I'll tell you where he is. He's in the grave and he's going to be resurrected.

   And if he never really understood, if he never just had it presented to him, if he never really knew the true facts, he's going to be given an opportunity. That's what the Bible says. Revelation 20 verse five says (Revelation 20:5), so the rest of the dead live not again until the 1000 years were finished. And then it's going to come a time of judgment and judgment in your Bible is not a sentencing. It's a time of trial, you read in I Peter 4. That judgment must begin today on the house of God. If it first begin in us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God.

   And so, judgment is today on the church and judgment is trial testing. It's the bringing forth of the evidence and the witnesses, it's a time of life, it's living a certain way and being judged as you do. It is not the ultimate final sentencing. So, write in for that article on the soul, do we have one? Is there an immortal soul? And the article also on, Is Heaven the Reward of the Saved. As I said earlier, the only promise Jesus ever gave to Christians is co-rulership of literal nations with him on this earth, not standing on cloud nine and plucking a harp and I can't stand harps anyhow.

   Well, now I guess we could change our musical aptitudes as far as that's concerned if God wanted us to hear harps, but you can be thankful, He doesn't. Harps were made by man. There's nothing wrong with one, especially just a matter of choice. Some people like stomach Steinways as they're jokingly called or these squeeze boxes, accordions and things and some like violins and pianos and some think that any musical instrument is an abomination. You can find somebody that believes in nearly anything.

   But aren't you thankful that all eternity is not an empty nothingness kind of wafting along through ether of space. Plucking on a harp, making up beautiful music, sort of shuffling through old dog-eared sheets of music and wondering. Oh, no. What do I play for the next million years? It just doesn't add up, does it really? It just doesn't add up. It doesn't, to me, I can't figure that that really sort of is hard to come to understand.

   And aren't you thankful that's not in the Bible? That God holds out for you a busy existence of work of endeavor, of constructiveness of changing and altering people's lives and minds of building, of making wrong things right and crooked things straight of straightening out the world of getting rid of poverty of economic collapse and disaster of bad weather of nations struggling frantically in arms races of religious prejudice and bigotry and of racial bias and prejudice of the injustices. The rank total injustices on this earth. Isn't that more worthwhile than shuffling through sheets of harp music for a few million years on end, I should say so.

   Well, you write for this article on, Is Heaven the Reward of the Saved? and find out once and for all for yourself. Now, we've been in a series of programs and we've come to John the eighth chapter for the last several broadcasts. Now let's pick it up in verse 51 (John 8:51), the place to which we had come last time where the Pharisees who were remembered the religious leaders of the day, they were the spiritual people.

   Jesus was looked upon as a competitor. He was looked upon as some type of an upstart who was coming along to tell them some things that they were supposedly all knowledgeable concerning, they knew better than he did. They looked upon him as just a young man that came along making fantastic claims yet deep down inside, they really did know better.

   Nicodemus admitted that he said so in John the third chapter, he came privately at night to Jesus and said, master, we and he was a representative of the leaders of that day, probably a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a leading Jew of the day. He said, we know you are a teacher come from God. Yes, we know it. He said, but what was their attitude? Verily I say unto you, Jesus said in verse 51 if a man keep my word, he shall never see death. And he meant the second death, obviously because in the Bible, you read, it's given to all men to die once, but he would never see death, not permanently, it would never come to him. It would just be looked upon as asleep. And that's why the Bible speaks of the first death as a sleeping condition, a temporary thing that is going to be terminated by a resurrection.

   The Jews said unto him. Now, we know that you are demon possessed. They accused him of the word devil is an unfortunate translation. There's only one devil, it means demon. And that was a blasphemous accusation then notice what the Jews said and Jesus did not refute it. Abraham is dead and the prophets, now, not very many people believe that statement today, Jesus did not refute it even though the Jews spoke it and Abraham is dead, you know, and so are the prophet, they are dead. And so is David and David is both dead and buried. Said Peter in the second chapter of the book of Acts and his tomb is with us to this day.

   And he said in that same chapter, David is not ascended into the heavens, literally saying that. But now, wait just a minute again. David was a man after God's own heart. A type one of the greatest types of Jesus Christ himself inspired to write in the 22nd Psalm and then on into the 23rd Psalm, the very thoughts and the very words of Christ as he was on that pale, that stake as he was being crucified.

   David was a direct type of Jesus Christ. He is the root out of Jesse and Jesus is of the seed of David. David is to be the king over all the nations of Israel in ruling during that millennial reign of Jesus Christ. He's one of the greatest figures in all the Bible, one of the greatest prophets of all time. And yet your New Testament says, spoken by the Apostle Peter in his own words, after Jesus Christ was dead, buried, resurrected and risen again. After everything that had been nailed to the cross had been nailed there. After everything that was now New Testament doctrine had been ushered in.

   Now, they were in the New Testament dispensation, the dispensation of life of grace, of peace, of truth, of mercy.

   Now they were totally into the New Testament era. And Peter said, "David has not ascended into the heavens." And this was after Jesus had died, had been in the tomb and had risen again. Now, some people thought they sort of got a great big theological argument going and men way back in history, sort of added to it and embellished it and others came along and deleted from it and edited it and added ideas that are wrong. They built up a great big huge doctrine that I know I've got it. I know where all those saints and prophets are. They're sort of in a suspended animation. They're all here in a dark corner someplace, sort of kept waiting, kind of in a state of limbo someplace. And when Jesus goes down into the tomb, he's going to sort of have the key to unlock their particular cavernous place, the dwelling where their souls are sort of wandering around in the blackness and then he'll take them up to heaven with him. Then, then why is it that after Jesus had gone to heaven Peter still had the courage to say that David is not ascended into the heavens? And so there you are again, one of these inexplicable opposites between what the Bible says, which is clear, true plain, which does make sense, which really adds up and which is beautifully true. And of course, what many of us have grown up assuming and taking for granted. Thy word is truth. Jesus said, and the truth shall make you free.

   We notice then and back in John three and 13 (John 3:13), you see that no man has descended into heaven. Jesus said that. So, write for our booklet on Enoch and Elijah, which certainly covers the same general subject as to Abraham. Is he really dead? And what about David? Where are Enoch and Elijah? That's a booklet we have for you, free of charge on the subject.

   Now he said, and thou sayest or the Jews went on talking here rather if a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death. You greater than our father Abraham, which is dead. They believed it them, didn't they? And the prophets are dead. Whom do you make yourself? Jesus answered. If I glorify myself, my glory is not yet. They thought he was an independent, they thought he had no power, no authority. They wanted to see some man made credentials. He was supposed to join the organization, but you can't join the true church of God. God must put you into it.

   Now, there is such a thing as a church, surely, local congregations, surely there is a body having organizations members, a ministry, surely there has to be a church. Peter was given the second part of the great Commission. Feed my sheep, feed my flock. But how does a person become a member of that church? While you read at the end of that second chapter of Acts, the Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved. And that's the answer they are called. And then when they accept that call, they're added because God does it. So, puts it on the positive side that it's God that's doing the adding to the church. Not a person just saying, "Hm. Now I wonder which one of these would be the best and then choosing one for himself." But God adds to the church daily such as should be saved according to his own words.

   So, Jesus said, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It's my Father that glorifies me, of whom you say that He is your God and you have not known Him. But I know Him. And if I should say, I don't know Him, I would be like unto you a liar, but I know Him and keep his word. And that was the difference between the two. They preached His word, but they didn't keep it. They talked about it, they were supposed to uphold the law but Jesus not only knew the Father, but he kept his word. And you read back in I John two and verse four (I John 2:4), he that say I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

   And so, he said, your father, Abraham rejoins to see my day and he saw it and was glad and the Jews said therefore unto him, why you're not yet 50 years of age. And if you see Abraham, they thought that was a big joke. And Jesus said, verily, I say to you before Abraham was so that is before he was born. I am. And there again is one of the great proofs that the Jesus Christ of the New Testament was the Lord of the Old Testament, the great God, the YHVH of whom you read. The one who made Adam the one who created the world, the one who gathered Israel out of the land of Egypt. The one who talked to Abraham, the one who did all that to read about in the Old Testament was the one who became Jesus Christ of the New, came down to this earth to reveal the Father. And this was what they didn't understand. And it's what many people don't understand even today.

   But it's all through the New Testament. Read the first chapter of John, the first chapter of Hebrews, I Corinthians 10:4, Colossians 1:18, and read this scripture right here, "Before Abraham was, I am." Now, what did they do? Oh, they were real law-abiding people. You see, it was the precept they had, just as I mentioned at the beginning of this program. Obey the law until it really bugs you and you can't stand it anymore, and then go ahead and break out and give way to human emotion. Obey the law as long as it is expedient for you. And when it becomes sort of inexpedient, as far as the desire that you have, then you can, of course, disobey it. That's their belief. That's what they thought. And people haven't changed much.

   So, the great spiritual leaders, the religious leaders of the day, stooped to the earth and took up rocks like a pack of little juvenile delinquents and tried to stone him because they couldn't stand the truth that he spoke. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Well, I've got to break off right there for lack of time. We come to a logical point to break at the end of this chapter. So, we'll pick it up right there next time. Be sure not to miss a single program in this series and going through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Remember the booklets I've announced already on, "Where are Enoch and Elijah?" The article on the Soul, the article on "What is the Reward of the Saved?" And if you haven't yet gotten your first lesson of the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course without tuition, without any kind of follow-up, without charge, and write for it as well.

   Now, that's a lot of literature, a lot of things to remember, but it's all absolutely free. No one's going to call on you. No one's trying to get something from you. We're just trying to give you literature free of charge. And all you need to do is send your name and address to Herbert W. Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California. And so, until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong. For literature offered on this program, send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California, 91123. Or you may dial this toll-free number, 800-423-4444.