Herbert W Armstrong

   And greeting friends, this is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. Where are we now in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy? What's the very next event to occur from now? And what will happen after that? When will the second coming of Christ occur? Are there other events to happen between now and then? Or could it happen just any minute now? Could the second coming of Christ occur even yet tonight? Could it occur immediately and unexpectedly when you at least look for it? Let's look into that again.

   Jesus himself was sitting on the Mount of Olives just a mile or a little less from the city of Jerusalem, from the heart of the city of Jerusalem. His disciples had come to him privately and they had asked him of these things. He had been telling them that the temple was to be destroyed. He was talking about an invasion and a captivity actually, that happened in 70 A.D. but the disciples came to him. They believed that the end of the age was to come immediately that, that Christ would, he had told them he was going to heaven, he had told them that he was going to go up to heaven and that if he went, he would come again. You'll read that in the 14th chapter of John's Gospel, but they didn't really comprehend it. They knew some of these things and yet they didn't understand.

   And, you know, Jesus himself had said that he had taught them many things. They didn't then understand because they had carnal minds. And Jesus said, when he, the spirit of truth has come, the Holy Spirit of God would open their minds and would bring to their remembrance, the things that he had taught them. And of course, then they would come to understand because so much of what he had taught them was spiritually discerned spiritual knowledge that a natural carnal mind cannot understand. So, at this time, they didn't understand all of it. They thought that the Kingdom of God would immediately appear.

   It was because they thought that, that he gave them the parable which you find in the 19th chapter, of Luke showing that he was going to heaven and to return. But even then they thought it would be still in their lifetime, they thought they would see it. They didn't realize it was going to be some 1900 years in the future. So, they had asked him, when will these things be and what will be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world. And we've been going into this, the past two or three broadcasts or even more than that in this daily series. But I want you to get this now.

   They had asked him two things, the sign of his coming and the end of the world. And as I have explained, it means the end of the age of this pattern of society that is built on the earth now. Now, he has shown them that there would be many false preachers that would come in his name. They would come as the ministers of Jesus Christ, you read to them too. In II Corinthians 11, they were actually the ministers of Satan, but they claimed to be the ministers of Christ. They claimed that they were the ministers of righteousness, but they actually taught unrighteousness or disobedience to God. They were men that are foretold all through the scripture.

   Isaiah talked about them and said that they would be the people that would preach what the congregations would want when the congregations would say, don't preach the truth, but preach deceit, preach the soft and smooth things. Otherwise, of course, the people wouldn't pay the preachers their salaries.

   You'll find that in the 30th chapter of Isaiah, I think it's about the eighth to the 11th verses (Isaiah 30:8-11). And Ezekiel had said in Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel had mentioned how the preachers would be feeding themselves instead of their flocks. In other words, feeding themselves with the kind of clothes they wear and the, the things that money will buy material things as Ezekiel's prophecy makes plain. He said, you cloth you with wool, you fed yourselves, but not the flock and showing that the church would be scattered into many different denominations and many different beliefs, all scattered, scattered away from the truth.

   And that they wouldn't be healing the sick. You know, they don't believe in that anymore. They say go to the doctor and take his drugs now. But Jesus healed the sick. The apostles healed the sick, the apostle Paul healed the sick. And God's command is if you're sick, call the Elders of the church and let them pray over the sick, anointing them with oil and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise them up as they've committed sins, they shall be forgiven. You will find in the Old Testament that one of the kings of Israel died. He was condemned under God's condemnation because there was no God in Israel to heal him. And he had gone to the medical doctors of a pagan nation outside of Israel because medicine had come from outside of Israel. We get it today as a matter of fact, out of Egypt, I don't mean to condemn everything that is in medical science, that's not the idea at all.

   And if we had God set up on a day as we will have in the near future when Christ does come again to set up the kingdom of God. And when we have God's way on earth and God's government, there will be, I'm quite sure physicians, but the function of a physician will be quite different from that, which it is now. I don't think we'll exactly adopt the idea that a lot of us have heard about as coming from China. By the way, I don't know that I've ever heard that absolutely verified. But you probably heard the story that in China doctors are paid to keep people well, they don't get paid when the people are sick.

   Well, at least that will be the function of the physician to learn the real cause of sickness and disease and teach people how to observe nature's laws, the laws that God set in motion that regulate your human physical body so that you will not get sick. But, you know, I have talked to a number of physicians. One I remember mentioned to me a few years ago, he said we physicians have been so busy having to treat sick people that we haven't had much time to get around to studying what made them sick or studying the laws of nature so that we could help them to keep well. And however, that may be the case in any one individual, he may be that busy. But I think it's sort of an indictment against the, the profession as a whole, don't you? They, they, they should teach people more how to live, how to obey the laws that God set in motion.

   And most of all, because it's about 90% of the whole cause of sickness and disease about food and diet and what to eat and what not to eat. We're eating so many things that should never go into our stomachs. We're so careful what kind of gasoline we pour into the stomach of our automobiles. It's gas or fuel tank. We're very careful about that. You wouldn't think of putting sand and grit in your gasoline or fuel oil or something in the gasoline tank. Would you have an ordinary passenger automobile?

   That's the trouble with a lot of us. We treat our stomachs like that and we don't run physically very well and we don't seem to know why we eat all kinds of grease. And again, I'm going to say to you people in Texas, you sure love the grease down there. And I hope you don't get angry at me, but you're injuring your own stomachs, not me when you do it. And God says thou shalt not eat the fat that's in your Bible. Well, you better study your Bible a little more about that. And the starches and sugars the starch that we have today, it's not a natural product. It comes from flour mills to make bigger profits in the mill.

   So, they can take nature apart and, and take away the 12 alkaline reacting elements that you need to build bone and muscle and flesh and tissue and skin and all that sort of thing. And they give you just the carbohydrates that only produce excessive energy more than your bloodstream can take and more than can be normally burned. And it is artificially or unnaturally eliminated through the kidneys and sets up all kinds of toxins and poisons and diseases in the human system and also sugar. This refined sugar, they took the name refined. You know, when people are refined, they're supposed to be cultured and very nice and very gentlemanly.

   Well, that isn't really the meaning when you talk about sugar being refined. Actually, it means that just the opposite, the good part of it has been thrown away and they leave only the starchy acid part and you wonder why you have so much stomach trouble. Well, that's the way it is and it's about time we got a little of that knowledge.

   And God's ministers today are really if they really do have the truth and preach his true gospel. They're so busy with the spiritual gospel that we don't have a great deal of time either to tell you about the physical laws and about the food you should eat and things like that. I devote very, very little time to that because my calling is to preach, shall we say Christ and Him crucified. And when you preach Christ crucified, you must preach why he was crucified. What have we done that he was crucified for us? You know, we talk about whether the Jews crucified Christ or whether the Roman soldiers did actually you and I did all of us because God would never have allowed it and Jesus would never have allowed himself to have been crucified at the behest of the Jewish people of that day. Those Pharisees especially and never would have submitted to let the Roman soldiers nail him up to the cross if you and I had not sinned.

   And if he hadn't known in advance that we would. And if Adam had not sinned and if everyone who has ever lived, had not Abraham, Abraham was a righteous man. He kept God's commandments and statutes and, and everything. Although most people think God didn't have any commandments or laws in those days. But if you read the fifth verse of the 26th chapter of Genesis (Genesis 26:5), you'll find God did have His commandments and that they have been in existence since Adam and that Abraham kept them and sin is the transgression of the law and sin began with Adam.

   So, Adam transgressed the law and the same law is sin for you to transgress today. Sin is the same thing for you and me today that it was for Adam, that it was for Abraham or anyone else. Well, in order that Abraham might be justified for the sins he had committed because his heart was right. God looked on the heart and in order that Abraham could be saved and be resurrected into the kingdom of God. Jesus had to come and die for him too and he died for you, and he died for me. But we need to learn why. It's because we have rebelled against God. We disobeyed God.

   Well, here I'm getting away from the subject. Let's get back to this. What is happening now? What's going to happen? Now, the false preachers were to come. Yes, and then wars and so on. But that wasn't the end. Then finally, World War. But that's only the beginning of the time of trouble coming to the end. Then he said, they shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you. But then he digressed and showed this in verse 14 Matthew 24:14), this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come?

   You see, Jesus had said that they would go out in his name and that those who preach in the name of Christ as the ministers of Christ would say that Jesus is the Christ and yet they would deceive the people. How can you preach in the name of Christ and yet deceive the people. Jesus himself gave us the answer to that in the seventh chapter of Mark, you will find it here were people worshiping him and the teachers all down through the time have taught us to worship Christ and to take his name and to believe on Christ.

   But Jesus said in verse seven of the seventh chapter of Mark (Mark 7:7), Howbeit in vain, do they worship me teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men, laying aside the commandments of God. Isn't that what the people are doing today? Yes, they have demanded that the preachers preach the soft and smooth things. What do they mean soft and smooth things? They mean they don't want to obey God. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is antagonistic against the way and the laws of God.

   The whole thing, as I said is a matter of obedience to God. God is a ruler. God set the laws in motion, whether these physical laws that regulate our stomachs and our bodies, or whether the spiritual laws that regulate our happiness and whether we live full abundant, happy, joyful lives and whether we're going to live the life that God will impart his eternal life to us and give us eternal life as his gift through Jesus Christ. That's the whole thing.

   Every prophet God ever sent had one message. And that was repent of your disobedience and obey God. Jesus Christ came for one reason because we have disobeyed God and our disobedience is what nailed Him up to the cross. That's why Jesus was crucified. I'm preaching Jesus and him crucified and why he was crucified. And I am determined to know nothing else among you but Christ and him crucified and why he was crucified. I tell you, you can't preach Christ crucified when you don't preach the reason of his crucifixion. It's because you and I have sinned and sin is the transgression of the law of God.

   Now, then as I say, Jesus said, that was going to happen and all of the prophecy said it would happen. And Jeremiah said that the ministers would be preaching in this day and age that if you just do what you think is all right, if you follow your own conscience, that you will be all right. That's in the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah. If you have ever bothered to read it, let me just read you a little of that Jeremiah 23 (Jeremiah 23:1), Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. He's talking of our people today. And it's a condemnation against ministers that are not preaching the real truth of God.

   And the truth of God always has to do with obedience to God. God created all laws. He created inexorable laws, invisible spiritual laws that regulate your happiness just as He created, even invisible physical laws like the law of inertia, the law of gravity, the laws of physics and chemistry. And you will read where he said that this says the Eternal of hosts. Do not listen to the words of the prophets or the preachers that preach to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Eternal.

   They say continually to those who despise the word of the Eternal. It shall be well with you. You can despise the Bible. You don't have to study the Bible. It will correct you. Yes, it will wallop you on one side and on the other of your face, it will sock you on the jaw, it will smash you between the eyes, it will correct you. It will rebuke you. It will show you where you're wrong because right is the way of God's law and the Bible sets forth that way of God's law. God's law is the heart and center of all your Bible.

   Jesus Christ came because we've broken God's law is the way for us to live, the way that we lead to peace, the way that will lead to happiness and to joy and this whole world is suffering because it strayed from that way. Now, here's one of the things that Jesus said would happen down at this end time, this gospel of the Kingdom. That's the message he brought, that's the message God sent by all the prophets. And it is not the gospel you've been hearing my friends, but he said it shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come.

   They ask him when will the end of the age come. Well, that's when it will come. Now, that is being fulfilled now. That is the present fulfillment of prophecy. You wonder what is happening now, what's going to happen next? Well, that's what's happening now. Now those who are preaching it are the body of Christ. They are the body of Christ. I'll tell you why Jesus Christ was here in a human body. He said, I can do nothing of myself. The father that dwelleth in me, do with the work. It was the power of God through the Holy Spirit using his body as an instrument that did all the work.

   Now, Jesus went to heaven. He said, if he went to heaven, he would send the other comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit entered into the collective body, the human bodies of the apostles, the disciples. And they went everywhere preaching the word of God. They preached the message of Jesus. And so, they are now the body that God is using the body of Christ filled with His spirit. And wherever you find the spirit of God, my friends, you find two things. You find people that are obedient to God because the spirit of God is the love of God that fulfills the law of God and it doesn't fulfill any other law.

   It won't fulfill your conscience, it won't fulfill your heart, it will fulfill the law, the way of God laws that are inexorable laws that God has set in motion. Now again, Jesus had a commission. He said to his people, go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's the gospel he preached the way of God, the law of God. And the fact that you need the blood of Christ because you have broken that law to forgive your past transgressions of that law and to wipe the slate of the past clean so, you can now keep the law so you can be reconciled to God. So, you can have the Holy Spirit of God because now you are in communion with Him again and you can have the spirit that keeps His law that fulfills His law, the spirit, the love of God shed abroad in your heart, the love that fulfills God's law.

   His law is love. Why do people hate it today? Why do they try to argue every way they can that it's not the 10 commandments it's something else? Oh, they will argue any way they can to get around keeping the law of God. You can know a carnal mind any time, an unconverted mind, whether it be a preacher or a layman or not. If he is against the law of God, if he is using the scriptures to twist them and to argue with them that you don't have to really surrender to obey God, you can follow your own conscience, follow your own heart, follow the people, follow the religions of this world. They call themselves Christian. You know, you're dealing with a carnal mind because that carnal mind is antagonistic to the way and to the law of God.

   Now, those who are surrendered and have the Holy Spirit of God are the body of Christ and the body of Christ is doing the work of God. It's God's work on earth, this earth and they'll do the same work that Jesus did. They'll proclaim the same gospel that He did. So, I tell you my friends, the time has come for it to go out in an organized manner. And those that are the children of God are doing the work of God.

   Now there's going to come this time of Great Tribulation, but they are to be taken away and spared from it. And in verse 20 he said, but pray ye that your flight, he's talking to those that are carrying this gospel. He's talking to his own children, his own disciples here, pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. Now that did pertain literally to the time of 70 A.D. As a matter of fact, the Roman General Cestius was coming down against Palestine against the Jews in Judea in the year of 69 A.D. And those that had been listening where Jesus said that when you see Jerusalem compassed with armies as Luke's account explains it. Then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains and they did, they fled north and across the Jordan river up to a town called Pela in 69 A.D. when Cestius and his army were advancing to invade the land of Judah. But for some reason, they didn't come down to Jerusalem or even the very borders. I guess it was of Judea at the time, for some reason, they were halted there, and they stayed there.

   Cestius himself was recalled and it was a whole year later in 70 A.D. when the Roman armies did advance on Jerusalem under Titus who was then the general and they had sent another general from Rome whose name was Titus and he invaded Jerusalem and those who had not fled when they saw these armies compassing Jerusalem went through a terrible suffering and a terrible martyrdom. Well, that was a type of what is coming as our end time specifically, it happened then, but it is only to warn us of the far greater thing that is coming on us all over the world. Then shall be grave tribulations such as was not from the beginning of the world at this time, known or ever shall be and is talking about the second coming of Christ, except those days should be shortened. There should no flesh be saved alive.

   Now, the true church and those that are being used in the very work of God that are the true body of Christ, carrying out the commission of Christ, performing the work of God of carrying this gospel of the government of God and the family of God to the whole world. They are to take a flight to a place of safety. And Jesus said here, pray you that your flight is a flight and they're going to fly. I'm going to show you that later. Pray you that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day for there shall be Great Tribulation. You see, and it's talking about this and time.

   Now you'll find so many things in connection with this that are also mentioned in connection with so many other things that you know that the main meaning of this is our time now rather than that time in 70 A.D. Now, in Luke's account, Luke explains this in the 36th verse, it's in Luke 21 verse 36 (Luke 21:36). He said to his own disciples, Jesus said, watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass. That's the Great Tribulation and the other things that will even happen after that and to stand before the Son of man that is to be standing there, changed to immortality at the second coming of Christ when he comes.

   So now the very next thing to occur, my friends, is when that flight takes place. Now, I want to show you a little more about that. You read back here in Daniel in the 12th chapter of Daniel. If you have noticed it, that at the very time of the end, Michael is going to stand up, the great prince, which stands for the children of God's people. Then there will be a time of trouble. Michael is a great archangel for our people. There is going to be then this time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even at the same time. That's that same Great Tribulation. There's never been another time like it, there never shall be. And at that time, thy people shall be delivered. Everyone that shall be found written in the book and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life, the dead in Christ shall rise, but the rest of the dead will not live until the 1000 years are finished according to Revelation 20 verse five (Revelation 20:5).

   Now then turn over real quickly to the 12th chapter of Revelation. And here you find that very thing pictured. Michael is going to stand up. Verse seven (Revelation 12:7), this is the time down in our time, now, verse six shows the Middle Ages when the church did flee to the wilderness away from the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire and the martyrdom that took place then and finally, it says here this is coming down to the very end time there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels. There's Michael standing up against whom they fought against the dragon and the dragon you read in verse nine is Satan and the devil. And I heard a loud voice verse 10 in heaven saying now is come salvation and strengthen the kingdom of our God. While you hear that salvation has been here all this time and that the Kingdom of God was set up long ago. You couldn't be more wrong, my friends, the Kingdom of God is coming. When Jesus comes, he went to heaven to get for himself a kingdom. And when he comes, having received the kingdom, he will sit on the throne of his glory. Then he will say to them on his right hand, come inherit the kingdom. We're only heirs of it now, now his reward is with him. That's when he brings salvation. People are being saved now. Yes, but they get their salvation. They get their reward when he comes, he comes and brings the reward with him. There are very few people know what that reward is.

   Now then, it shows that many love not their lives unto death. There's a time of martyrdom, a great many are being martyred at this time. But on the other hand, verse 13, when the dragon saw that's the devil that he was cast into the earth. He persecuted the woman. This is God's true church which brought forth the man child and to the woman were given the two wings of a great eagle that she might fly. She's going to take a flight, she might fly to a place prepared of God for her. She is going to fly. Now, you use your judgment whether that means airplanes or not, it doesn't say but she's going to fly. So that flight, my friends is the next thing now to happen.

   Now, also Jesus had said in connection with the World Wars and just before this Great Tribulation, there are to be famines and pestilences. Now that is the next thing. And you'll find that described in Joel, the very first chapter of Joel explains this terrible famine that is coming. We're getting four tastes of it now, but it is merely a forerunner. It is a warning of what's coming. Well, God help us to realize now that famine then is the very next thing followed by a disease epidemic. And I'm going to read you tomorrow, what is going to happen on that and how many of our people are going to survive it. I'm going to read it to you. It's going to be a terrible thing. And on the heels of that, this Great Tribulation and what it's going to be very few people know what this Great Tribulation is going to be. They don't realize what's going to happen and what is prophesized to happen to the United States. You better be listening every day as we go on to it.

   But right now, this gospel of the kingdom is going to the world, and it's going to come of flight and the time of famine and disease and then the Great Tribulation. And then we'll see what will happen immediately after that. Until then this is Herbert W Armstrong saying goodbye friends.

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