Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, greetings, friends. This is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. And now we're going through one of the prophecies in the Bible. Now we're going through prophecies that tell us what is going to happen in the next few years from now, the immediate present, and the immediate future and the time that you're going to live into and to live through, you know, if you could only see the future.

   Well, let's look back a little bit. Supposing that 5 or 10 years ago, you could have seen the future and have seen what has happened since, you think you might have changed your plans a little bit. I've heard a lot of people say, well, if I could only have my life to live over and could know what I know now, I certainly wouldn't live it the way I did. I would plan it differently. Of course, once in a while you hear someone say they'd plan it just the way they did, but not very often, not very many of us think we've done everything just right and we'd do it just the same way all over again. Now, do we?

   Well, you can know the future and what's going to happen in the world. I don't mean your own personal private doings and life. But I mean, the things that are going to affect your life, the things that are going to really strike you and are going to change your life because your life is going to be changed. There are events that are going to take place in the world. They are going to affect the United States, they're going to affect your community and your town where you live, and they're going to affect your life and you can know about them.

   Now, approximately one-third of all of the Bible is devoted to prophecy and most of that, at least 90%, to the events of the immediate present and the immediate future and the time that you are going to live into and to live through. Of course, who has ever understood prophecy? Well, the answer is that no one understood it very perfectly or very well up until a few years ago because the prophecies mostly have been closed and sealed until now. But now God's time has come. This is the time of the end, knowledge is increasing, people are running to and fro and so on. And this is the time when, according to the prophecies, the keys that have kept the doors locked would be discovered. And now we can put those keys in the lock and we can turn the lock and we can open the doors and the doors of prophecy are opened and you can understand.

   And so now we're taking one of the specific prophecies, the book of Jeremiah, we're going through it, not every bit of it, not word for word and chapter by chapter even necessarily. But we're trying to get a good deal of the message of Jeremiah as we go through. And we're up now to the 32nd chapter. And first, I'm going to take time to show you this.

   So many people seem to think that the Ten Commandments came from Moses and that there were no Ten Commandments and no law of God at all until the time of Moses. I think I told you before that back about, let me see. It was in 1933. I remember it was perhaps about August of 1933. I was visiting a certain town along in the southern part of Oregon and it happened to be on a Sunday morning. And so, I had decided to go to two churches. There were two churches cat-a-cornered across from the same general corner cat-a-cornered across from each other. And I don't remember, but I think one was a Methodist and the other is a Christian church. I don't remember. But anyway, they were just some of the well-recognized denominations. So, I took my Bible and I went into one of the churches or the Sunday school. Then I intended after Sunday school go across the street to the other one for church service. And I looked around, I was a stranger there and I told you this before and I'm going to mention it again because it has a purpose right now and what I'm going to say. So, I found a men's Bible class and I walked over and sat down and there must have been about 12 or 15 men in the class, I suppose. And I noticed I was the only one there that had a Bible. Nobody else had brought a Bible with them. Well, they had their lesson sheet or quarterly and I guess they called it, and I noticed that the lesson was on how the people received the Ten Commandments from Moses.

   Well, the teacher didn't seem to know his subject very well, and he was quite confused, and he started to talk. And after about two or three minutes, he couldn't go any further. And he said, you know, I just, I don't feel that I'm confident to teach this class. He turned to me and he said, "Mr., I don't know you, but," he said, "I know that you could teach this class. Would you take it over and teach us?"

   Now? How did he know? Well, unless God put it in his mind and perhaps you don't believe anything like that. The only explanation I would have is that I'm the only one that's had a Bible. I don't know whether that was enough though, but he had apparently been talking around. All right, until I came and then he was just suddenly so flustered, he couldn't talk. And he asked me if I would teach the class.

   Well, I said, now, I haven't studied your lesson and I don't know what this Quarterly says. And I'm quite sure I couldn't teach according to it anyway because I said, what I've seen already is enough to show me that it is an error. Now, if you want me to teach what your Quarterly says, I, I'll have to beg off. I said, because it isn't true and I can't teach a lie. But I said, if you want me to teach what the Bible says about the subject, if you want to know what, where the Ten Commandments came from and how the people got it, I'll be glad to explain.

   Well, yes, they said they would like to know. Yes, they wanted me to take the class. Well, the teacher sat down and I moved up in front and stood up in front of them. I opened the Bible. I said, well, I'll throw the Quarterly away because it isn't true anyhow. And I said, let's turn back now into Exodus the 20th chapter and let's see where the people got these words. It says here, "And God speak all these words saying I am the Eternal thy God."

   Well, now, to whom did God speak? Just to Moses or to all the people? Well, I said, let's turn over a little further while we're at it here over into the book of Deuteronomy. And so, I turned on over and over here we find that God spoke all these words to all the people in congregation. And here it is in the fifth chapter, Moses called all Israel. And he said, unto them, "Hear O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I speak into your ears this day that you may learn them and keep them and do them.

   That's the statutes and judgments, the Eternal, our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Eternal made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even with us who were all of us here alive this day, the Eternal talked with you, the Eternal talk with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire. Now, the Eternal God didn't talk to Moses. He talked to the people. Moses says, "I stood between you and the Eternal at the time to show you the word of the Eternal or the Lord as it is in the King James for you were afraid by reason of the fire and you went not up into the mount."

   Now that's all in brackets. I stood between you and all of that down to this word "mount," but here's the way it goes, leaving the brackets out. "The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire saying I am the Eternal, thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Thou shalt not make thee any graven image and so on."

   You find all the Ten Commandments there. They were not to bow down to any graven image and they were not to take God's name in vain. And they were to keep the Sabbath day holy, keep it holy. God made it holy, and he told them to keep it holy, then "honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, neither shalt thou steal, neither shalt thou bear false witness, neither shalt thou desire or covet."

   Now, after the words of the Ten Commandments, these words, "the Eternal spake unto all your assembly." The people got these words from God himself with his very voice. They didn't get these Ten Commandments from Moses out of the midst of the fire and of the cloud in the thick darkness with a great voice. And he added no more and he wrote them on two tables of stone and delivered them unto me. Well, you know, they were a little bit surprised because they're Quarterly written by some man who didn't know very much about the Bible apparently and written in there that the people got the Ten Commandments from Moses.

   Now, a lot of people think that there was no such law at all until the time of Moses. You read, if you want the Bible definition of sin, you'll find it in I John 3:4, that sin is the transgression of the law. And the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 7:7 that a, and Romans 7:14, that he would not have known what sin was except by the law. And then he shows it's the law that had that Commandment. "Thou shalt not covet" in it and that's the Ten Commandments. Well, that's the 10th of the 10. And then he said that that law is a spiritual law. Now all have sinned beginning with Adam. Then did Adam break the Ten Commandments? Now, so many people say, well, there weren't any Ten Commandments to break until Moses because people seem to think they got the law from Moses. No, they didn't. My friends, they got it from God and Adam got it from God. Now, then you think, I don't know what I'm talking about? All right, I'll bring you a broadcast pretty soon. I'm going to show you, I'm going to take about three different broadcasts to show you that every last one of the Ten Commandments was in full force and effect and that it was sin to break any one of them between Adam and Moses. And prior to the time that the people heard the voice of God giving them the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai.

   And still the people knew all of those Ten Commandments, at least from the beginning. Now, there's a reason why God had to give those Commandments to them at Mount Sinai and I'll give it to you when I come to that program. And I'm going to show you the difference that a lot of people don't see between the great spiritual law, which it is sin in a spiritual sense to transgress the penalty of which is eternal punishment. And that punishment is death for all eternity. And then the physical laws that were given through Moses that had to do with physical things only. Well, they had to do with animal sacrifices, just physical thing. That's not a spiritual principle. And with various religious ceremonies and rituals and with meat and drink offerings, the burning of candles, different washings, all that sort of thing that is entirely a separate and a different law. All came from God. Of course, a lot of people get into a great argument about the law of the Lord and they can quote and show you that the law of Moses came from the Lord and this one place called the law of the Lord. Why? Of course, it is anyone of you know the Bible you know, that I wouldn't be talking about these things to you if I didn't know the Bible, my friends and you know, some people when they've been taught by men and they don't know what the Bible says, they think, I don't know the Bible because they suppose that the Bible says what men have taught them, who didn't know anything about the Bible. Well, why don't you blow the dust off your Bible? Why don't you read it for yourself? Why don't you find out you find out that you're really getting the real Bible on this broadcast.

   And so many people think that in Romans and Galatians written by the Apostle Paul, of course, that he completely did away with the Ten Commandments and with all of the law of God. Now we're going to go through Romans and Galatians and we're going to see whether he did. But now for the present, we're into prophecy for a little while and here we are back in Jeremiah now. And we just completed the 31st chapter. The 30th chapter tells about an invasion and a captivity that's going to come on us if we don't turn to our God and really repent. And the 31st chapter goes on with more about it and tells then how Christ is coming again in a second coming and is going to save us from the land of our enemies and he's going to take off the yoke that will then be on our neck and then how he's going to make a new covenant with us and all that new covenant. And that has not been made yet. It's a thing that's, in fact, it's one of the first things that Jesus Christ is going to do when he comes again.

   Now, listen, my friends, I've been showing you that twice here in the book of Jeremiah. It has shown us in the prophecies that the time will come when people won't say anymore, how Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. But they'll speak about how Christ of whom Moses was merely a type had brought the children of Israel out of Babylon in the Great Exodus far greater back to Palestine once again at and after the second coming of Christ. And so that's what it's talking about.

   Now, listen, Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and before they were thoroughly delivered. Now there, of course, coming out of Egypt is coming out of sin that is in time and entering into the land of Canaan or Palestine was the type of our entering into well God's rest. And a lot of people would think it means heaven, but it doesn't, it means the real true millennial condition or the kingdom of God, which is a little more even than a millennial condition too incidentally. However, they were part way in Mount Sinai and the Old Covenant was made with Moses the mediator.

   Now that was a marriage covenant and it married Israel to Christ, believe it or not. Yes, it was Christ. And when he died, he freed Israel from that marriage because there had been a divorce and now Israel is free to remarry him according to the law. Well, Christ is coming again, and this time Christ is going to lead his people out of Babylon and Christ will make a New Covenant and it is not going to be made with the Gentiles. We spend about two programs I think in going through that. But with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. And what it will be is that His law will be put in our minds and our hearts and our inward parts that couldn't very well be if the law was done away either, could it? No, it means that his law will be in our heart.

   Now, you know, sin is something that Jesus said comes out from a man's heart. Sin isn't something that you take in, into the stomach as Jesus said in the seventh chapter, Mark, it's something that comes out of the heart and what's coming out of the hearts of men now? The transgression of the law of God, defiance against the law of God because that law is not in our hearts. But when He puts that law in our hearts and that law is there, what will come out of our hearts why obedience to the law, the law will be there and the law is love and love is the fulfilling of the law and what will come out of our hearts, the fulfilling of the law, how by the love of God shall have brought in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God coming into us and fulfilling the law of God and coming on out of us in love and worship and obedience to God and in love and service, and kindness and goodness to our neighbors, helping and serving.

   It's giving. It isn't getting. And yet my friends, you know, we are actually told to seek something for ourselves and it isn't wrong. It's just more blessed to give than receiving. You have to receive in order to have anything to give. And yet we are supposed to really seek a reward. And if you will be on the giving instead of the getting side, though, great will be your reward. And you know, when you get your reward, they talk about people having gone to their reward, someone who died to say, well, he has gone to his reward, my friends, if any of you know of any scripture in the Bible, it says that any man has already gone to his reward and already received his reward, I want you to write me a letter and send that scripture to me because I don't know where it is.

   Now, maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe, I don't know the Bible. My Bible says that when Christ comes at his second coming, which is yet in the future, but it's going to happen in your lifetime and mine, we're the generation that is going to live into it to see it. And when he comes, his reward will be with him. He's going to bring that reward when he comes, he is going to bring the reward for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and righteous Abel and all of those men. And he's going to bring the reward for you if you are a real Christian. And yet we talk about people having gone to their reward. That isn't a Bible expression that isn't according to the Bible, that's strictly against it. It's strictly the other way.

   Well, the New Covenant will be made to the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And then we found down here that Israel will still be here. If the ordinances depart from before me, from the sun and the moon in the sky and the stars and so on, then Israel will cease from being a nation and then behold the days come verse 38 sayeth the Eternal, that the city shall be built and the Eternal from the tower of Hananel under the gate of the corner. He's talking about rebuilding Jerusalem and about our going back to Palestine and about the glorious time in the happy peaceful world tomorrow that's coming after the second coming of Christ. He's going to make a New Covenant with Israel and Judah.

   You will seek for the sins of the Israelites or the Jews, the Judahites and you won't find them, there will be none, because he's coming to take away sin from Israel and Judah and so all Israel shall be saved. But right now, most Israel is blinded spiritually and can't see the truth. We're drunk on the false wine, the false doctrines that have emanated out of this modern Babylon, my friends and Christ is coming to deliver us out of this Babylon and to take us back into the real truth as well as back to Palestine once again.

   And now we come to the 32nd chapter of Jeremiah, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Eternal in the 10th year of Zedekiah, the king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now we're getting right down to the time of the siege that is to come against Judah when the armies of the Chaldeans are to come down against the Jews and take them captive and take them as slaves up into the land of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah has been warning them that all this warning my friends is only given as a type of what is to happen to us now, because there's a principle of duality in the Bible and that is one of the keys by which God has locked up the doors of prophecy.

   But he's given us the key today and we can unlock the door and open it up and understand prophecy. And to understand that you have to understand principle of duality that applies to prophecy and how the very thing that was happening literally to them then is only a type and a foreshadow and a forerunner of the far greater event that is to happen to us now. Just as Moses brought them out of Egypt in that Exodus, that was only a type of the duality principle of the far greater Exodus. When Christ is going to bring us out of Babylon and restore us now to real peace, spiritually, that was all physical back there. Now, it is spiritual in God's redemptive process.

   But in the fulfillment of these prophecies just as they sin. So, have we sinned and just as they went into a captivity? So, are we to go into a captivity and just as they were delivered out of a captivity in Egypt? So, are we to be delivered out of a captivity when Christ comes to take the yoke off of our neck? Now, we're coming to a little local history here for a little while back there, 604 B.C. in the 10th year of Zedekiah, the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon for then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem and Jeremiah, the prophet that was 604 B.C.

   And Jeremiah, the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison which was in the king of Judah's house for Zedekiah. The king of Judah had shut him up saying wherefore dost thou prophesy. Now the king shut him up for telling the truth. He foretold the truth. I wonder if someone's going to try to shut me up for preaching the truth to the people of America and to the people of the whole world today. Listen, Zedekiah, the king of Judah had shut Jeremiah up saying wherefore dost thou prophesy and say, thus says, the Eternal behold, I will give this city under the hand of the king of Babylon and he'll take it instead of heeding, instead of repenting, instead of averting what was coming.

   Zedekiah, the Jewish king, shut the prophet up and thought he could escape the wrath of God and the sentence of the great God by doing that. My friends, I speak to you by the authority of God Almighty. And I'm telling you what's coming on America. You can't stop it by anyone trying to shut up my mouth. Of course, it can't be shut because God has opened the door and he says, no man can shut it today. So, I'm not afraid of that. But let me tell you my friends the shutting of Jeremiah's mouth didn't stop it. The invasion came and Zedekiah was shut up in prison himself first, he shut up God's prophet.

   However, now let's see what happened to him. Thus says the Eternal behold, I will. This is what Zedekiah quoted Jeremiah saying, and I'll give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall take it and Zedekiah, the king of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon and he shall speak with him, mouth to mouth in his eyes, shall behold his eyes. That is Zedekiah shall behold Nebuchadnezzar and he shall lead Zedekiah, that is Nebuchadnezzar shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon and there shall he be until I visit him saith the Eternal.

   Though you fight with a Chaldean, you shall not prosper. In other words, you can fight this enemy, but this time you're going to lose. God was not with them any longer. God was having them punished, my friends, that's what God says to America today and you'd better heed. The handwriting is on the wall. America is being weighed in the balances and found wanting today.

   Well, Jeremiah said the word of the Eternal came unto me saying behold Hanameel the son of Shallum, thine, uncle shall come unto thee saying buy thee a field is so well, I won't read the rest of all of that there. Several verses of what Jeremiah had said and how the king of Babylon had shut him up in prison for saying it. He didn't heed the warning my friends, how many of you are going to heed the warning of God Almighty today that comes by my voice now? Not very many, not according to human nature, now if history is repeated and then coming to verse 26 and then came the word of the Eternal into Jeremiah saying, behold, I am the Eternal and the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Eternal behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon and he shall take it. Is this a God saying that or is it just some man called Jeremiah writing it in a book of ancient Jewish literature, my friends, God Almighty did it and he carried it out and it happened and the Chaldeans that fight against this city shall come and set a fire to the city and burn the houses upon whose roofs they have offered incense under Baal.

   We don't believe we're serving Baal, do we? We don't believe we're in Babylon customs, do we? We do things today and we call them Christians. We take the ways that they used to worship their God, Baal and their Sun God and their pagan heathen gods. And we adopt those same practices, and we say well, but we're worshiping the true God with these things. Let me tell you, God says back here in Deuteronomy, the 12th chapter, he says, take heed to yourself that you inquire not after their God saying, how do these nations serve their gods even so will I do likewise.

   Thou shalt not do so unto the Eternal thy God. In other words, not take these pagan things and try to worship God and say, well, as long as we're worshiping the true God, we don't see any harm in it. For every abomination to the Eternal which He hateth, have they done unto their gods. And God will not receive that kind of worship. And yet our land is steep with it and we label it Christianity today.

   And the day of accounting, I want to tell you is coming and some voice, my friend has to rise up and tell you the truth whether you will heed it or not, your blood won't be on my hands when it comes. Now, my friends, listen, you cannot understand the Bible unless you understand that that third of it, they neglected third that is devoted to prophecy.

   Now, you can't understand it unless you have the key that opens it up today. And that key is revealed in the special booklet that I have for you. The United States in Prophecy that includes also the nations of Northwestern Europe. And listen, you better also ask for the booklet on, Water Baptism. If you're now ready to surrender your will to God and you want to become one of his children.

   If you are now ready to accept Jesus Christ, as your personal savior and real living faith and a life of obedience. Then the next step that God commands you to take is baptism. But here again, the many are all mixed up, confused, deceived.

   Now, this booklet on, Water Baptism will make it all clear. You can check with your own Bible, and it will become clear now to delay getting this booklet might mean your eternity. It's the most important thing in your life right now.

   And listen, you better also ask for the booklet on Faith For Salvation. That's another booklet, Faith For Salvation. Now, just for your own peace of mind, I advise you to send in and get this booklet and read it and then read your own Bible. There's no charge for it.

   Now, I hope you've already gotten paper in an envelope, if not get it right now and a pen, first write down the call letters of the station to which you were listening and then request the booklet on Water Baptism and the booklet on Faith For Salvation and send your request to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California. So, until next time, this is Herbert W Armstrong saying goodbye friends.