Herbert W Armstrong

   God put before Adam, the first man, his way and his purpose in man and what man's ultimate fantastic potential really is. But Adam had to resist Satan, and he didn't do it. He rejected God. Well, I'm coming to that a little later.

   God first put angels on this earth. Very few people realize that but before man, angels had inhabited this earth. But as you will read in the second Peter, the third chapter, in the fourth verse (II Peter 3:4), the angels sinned. Now, apparently, there were one-third of all the angels put here on the earth, at least a third of them sinned. And that probably was the number put here on the earth at that time.

   But God intended the angels to develop character. He had informed them of his way, of the truth of the way to perfect character, which is a way of life. He intended the angels to work with the materials in this physical earth. And incidentally, as I've mentioned in previous programs, the angels were created even before the physical universe, before there was any physical universe, any earth or any sun, any stars, any planets anywhere.

   However, when he created the earth, the angels shouted for joy because it was to be their home and it was beautiful as far as it went. But it was, I said it was not complete. And just as in man, man was complete as a physical being. But the spiritual creation is still going on in human beings, at least in a few. But God intended the angels to work, the materials in the earth to improve, to beautify the earth, and to have that part in the created process by finishing what God had created as far as it went.

   You know, I like to compare it to the unfinished furniture. And I imagine that in New York City that at least if you're in a city of any size, whatever, that you have an unfinished furniture store where you can buy unfinished furniture. Now, it's very fine furniture, maybe. I have purchased furniture there and sometimes you, you get furniture, the finest of woods, the finest of craftsmanship and design. But you finish it yourself, put on your own varnish or polish or paint or whatever. And of course, if you are a master craftsman, you can do that yourself, you save a little money, but God created things that way.

   He created the earth that way, he intended the angels to add to what he had done and to have their part in creation. Now, I might say while I'm at it, that he intended man to do the same thing and we have not done it. What has man done to this earth? We have polluted everything that man's hand has been able to touch everything of God's creation that we have touched.

   We've polluted the atmosphere of the air. We've polluted the waters of the rivers and the lakes and the seas and the oceans. We have polluted the soil that produces the food we eat. We have degenerated everything that God has let us have anything to do with when he intended us to impose it. You know, most people don't realize these things and you just look at it from the vantage point of today's world and you don't grasp these things, well, for the purpose that God had in mind for the angels.

   He knew it was necessary that they worked together in harmony and peace. And we might say teamwork. And so God placed over them his government. That government was based on the law of God and the law of God is based on the one word love. It is the way of outgoing concern, the way of helping and assisting and cooperating instead of the self-centered way of getting, of taking, of taking away from others and of destruction. It's the way of construction and building up.

   But as I said the angles rejected the government of God, they became resentful. And so they rebelled. And as a result, the government of God was no longer being administrated or observed on the earth. Now, God had set on the throne of the earth over the angels, a super archangel named Lucifer, I've mentioned this time and again, in preceding programs, this Lucifer was the he was a super archangel. He was the highest type of being that God can just create at one creation.

   But he also turned away from God's way. And therefore the holy and righteous character was never built with any. Instead, he turned to the other way, he turned to the way of vanity of lust and greed of hate toward others, the way of self, vanity and of jealousy and envy of competition and strife and destruction. And consequently, he became known as Satan.

   Now, his original name, Lucifer, means shining star of the dawn. It means one who brings light and truth, but instead of bringing light and truth which God had given him, he fed his angels on just the opposite, on resentment and bitterness and on rebellion. And so there was a rebellion as a result of that, something that I know and that God has revealed and that I imagine there isn't one person in 10 million that knows or understands all of the planets like our planets, like our moon, like the planets of our solar system, like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and so on, have gone into a state of decay.

   Now decay is not an original created state, decay is something that has had to happen by deterioration. It takes time to produce decay. So it is not the way God created it originally, I knew that if we ever got cameras down on one of these planets, what we would find. I know when a man of my own name, Armstrong, first set foot on the moon and there's no relation by the way to me. Although I received a number of telegrams of congratulation because some people misunderstood it. But uh as far as I know there's no relationship whatsoever but Neil Armstrong found and others who have gone there have found that it is waste and empty and is just a hulk of deterioration and of decay and will not sustain life. I knew that the same thing was true of the others.

   Now, an interesting thing is that in Pasadena almost within sight of Ambassador College is what we call a JPL or Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is operated in conjunction with California Institute of Technology, although it is a government operation, United States government and there is where the unmanned spacecraft were built, which have gone to. Well, I think they've had one very close to Jupiter, but we, we did land one on Mars.

   Now, the people over at JPL, all the scientists there were very friendly toward Ambassador College and toward the Worldwide Church of God. So they were glad to make an arrangement that the very first photographs coming after the unmanned spacecraft had landed on Mars that the first photographs being sent back would be transmitted over to the Ambassador Auditorium and shown on the Ambassador Auditorium screen.

   And now the scientists over JPL just saw a, a little small screen at some kind, but we had a big screen up on the stage. Some people had sat in the auditorium all night because it was expected to appear a little after five o'clock in the morning. Well, I went to sleep and I slept but I set an alarm to waken myself at four o'clock. And I arrived over there just about five minutes before five and I was just in time, right on target as we say, because the first pictures coming from Mars, I saw on our own screen, in Ambassador Auditorium about seven minutes after five o'clock in the morning.

   And what did we see? Just the same thing we have on the moon. Everything is waste and empty. Everything is degenerated and everything is decayed. Now, it could not be the state in which God originally created it. And I, I don't know whether your mind ever dwells on things like this, but mine does. I want to know all I can know about God and about the things he has done.

   Herbert W Armstrong will return right after this message. T minus 10, 9, we have ignition sequence start the engines… Space exploration is not a product of chance, 2, 1, 0, we have commit, we have lift off, with the successful launch, takes planning, design, thousands of highly skilled technicians and millions of man hours we too are on a spaceship, spaceship earth with its life support systems and fuel supplies. Earth is far more intricate than any conceivable human scientific achievement. How could the marvels world we live in possibly come to exist by blind chance? Find out how the total planning and design found on spaceship earth is one of the strongest proofs a creator God exists. This information and more is given in the free booklet. Does God Exist? Be sure to request your free copy. Does God Exist? Ah Huston you're looking good. Send your request to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111. Pasadena California 91123. That's Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111, Pasadena California 91123.

   How did these planets become decayed? It is not an original created state. Can't be. There is no way at all to explain it except that the angels were put here to qualify as the proving ground, to qualify for them if they would work this earth and improve it and finish it and beautify it that they would go to other planets all over the entire vast universe. Now, our solar system in which some of the planets I mentioned are located and our sun is only one little very small part of the Milky Way, which is our galaxy.

   Now, there are, well, I think scientists don't know how many galaxies but many, many galaxies. It's just so vast and so great that the human mind will hardly conceive it. But God is so great that he created everything, created all of that, and he created it for a purpose, and he created it to be used, and yet these planets have never been used.

   Well, as I said, this earth was the proving ground for the angels then and is a proving ground for man now, to learn how to be a creator with God and to have our part in it, we don't do the whole thing God did, but we add our part to it. Now, when we come to the church, you're going to see the same thing that God raised up apostles to carry the gospel message. And he added the church to assist them and to have their part in it by backing the apostles. I'm coming to that a little later.

   So anyway, when the angels sinned that kind of destruction came to the earth, and I feel that what is indicated, but what God does reveal in the Bible indicates that the same thing happened all over the entire universe to all of the planets everywhere and even planets that our astronomers cannot see.

   Now, it was that the only way to produce multiple millions of beings with God's character that would do this kind of job that God wanted done would be for God to reproduce himself. Of all the beings that God had created. He only. And when I say he, that included the one called the Word, which was a person and the one who was God and the Word was with God. And there were two different persons and they had always existed, they were self-existent. There never was a time when they didn't exist. And of course, your mind can't go back that far. Mine can't. And if yours can, I think it goes back a little farther than mine can, I can't conceive of it? No beginning, no ending.

   Now, the Word later became Jesus Christ and as Jesus Christ, he became the Son of God. But originally he was not a Son of God because he had coexisted from eternity with God.

   So now God set out on the most marvelous, created feat of all to reproduce himself and to reproduce himself with the idea of duplicating in humans that he would make his own perfect, holy righteous character so that we then could go and do what the angels had failed to do and what they might have done. And I have shown you on other programs that the almost incredible unbelievable potential for human beings is that we are to finish the creation of planets all over the vast universe. So vast that you can't conceive it.

   But the first purpose of God in man is the creation of holy and righteous character. And that must come from God, but it must come with our own decision and of our free will. And we must make that decision.

   Well, now, chaos and decay had come to the earth. But if you turn to the 104th Psalm, and I mention this quite often where in the 30th verse (Psalm 104:30), the Psalm was right to God. Thou send us forth by spirit, that is the Holy Spirit. God sends forth, they are created and thou renews the face of the earth. God renews the face of the earth. He renewed it after it had been deteriorated as a result of the sins of the angels and those sins that I mentioned, you find in second Peter chapter three and verse four (II Peter 3:4).

   Now in six days, God renewed the face of the earth and created man upon it. Man was created in the very image of God. He created animals each after its own kind, cattle after the cattle kind, dogs after the dog kind. But he said, let us, not me. There was a Word there, the Word that had later become Christ as well as God. And he said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. In other words, let us make man after the God kind. Man was made to have a special relationship with God that animals cannot have and a greater relationship than angels [inaudible] had.

   Now, man was made a little lower than the angels, but he was made to become even much higher than the angels. Because the day is coming when those of us, in whom by our own consent and choice God's character may be built will be judging the angels.

   But here was the perfect specimen physically of a man. But now since this earth had a ruler who now became Satan, his name had been Lucifer. And now his name has changed to Satan, which is rival or enemy or adversary. It was necessary for the man that God created, whose name was Adam to resist this way of this Satan to turn from it as well as to accept the way of the government of God before he could be used or qualify to take over that throne and to restore the government of God on this earth, which had been here over the angels.

   But Adam said in effect, well, now look, God, I heard what you had to say. I listened to you first and I know you didn't let Satan even come to me. And so after you talked to me and you explained to me all about your way and about your government and so on. And I know it's my wife who listened to Satan first. But I listened also. And I have decided that I want you to keep your nose out of my affairs, God. I will make my own mind up of what I think is right and what is wrong. I will decide what is righteousness and what is sin. I will decide what kind of God I want to worship. I know you're my creator. But I reject you as my God, I reject you as the basic source of revealed knowledge.

   And God said, well, you have made the decision Adam and therefore it is your decision, not mine. And I sentence you and those that have come from you who will be the entire human family to 6000 years of being cut off from me for 6000 years, you will have no access to me or my Spirit, my Holy Spirit, which could inculcate in you, my divine nature, which could inculcate in, in you, my righteousness and my Holy and Righteous Character. You have rejected me. And I now pronounce that sentence upon you and upon the whole world for 6000 years and listen my friends that 6000 years is not yet quite up. It almost is we're in the last generation of it. Just think of that, but God made one exception. He said, I reserve the prerogative of calling out of your world, whatever one or one's I decide that I wish to call and I need to assign some special purpose to the something I want them to do to help fulfill my purpose.

   And so it was, now the first Adam, in order to qualify to take over Satan's throne, had to reject Satan's way of get. First and then secondly, they had to accept God's government and God's way of life. God's government is built on God's law. You can't have government without a basic law or constitution of some type, every, every kind of government, whether it's the local city government, county government, state government, national government, whatever, every government is based on some kind of basic law. And he had to accept the law of God and the way of God in order to qualify to succeed this Lucifer or now Satan and restore the government of God to this earth.

   But Adam, as I said, rebelled also and said he would follow his own way and so came the 6000 year sentence on mankind. And God drove them out from the garden of Eden and sit angels with flaming swords lest any go back and take to the tree of life of the Holy Spirit of God and inherit eternal life.

   Now Adam had failed and there could be no, no one could qualify, now until the second Adam came and did qualify to conquer Satan to resist Satan to accept God's way and restore the government of God on this earth.

   This topic will be continued on the next edition in series of the World Tomorrow because of the importance of this subject and other related topics.

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   Send your request to Herbert W Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123. That's Herbert W Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Herbert W Armstrong sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God for literature offered on this program send your request along with the call records of this station to Herbert W Armstrong, Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123. That's Herbert W Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.