Herbert W Armstrong

   Does the Bible make any sense in the space age? Do things like taxes, economic disorders, chaos, riots, crime, divorce, drugs, the alienation of youth, international calamities, earthquakes, the obliteration of the nation's capital city in Nicaragua— all of these many far-flung and different problems of different intensities, personal problems in sickness and health. Do all of these things have anything whatsoever to do with the Bible and vice versa? Does the Bible talk about our day?

   You know, when you look at people's religions, you have to tell yourself it doesn't make any sense whatsoever if the Bible doesn't deal with today because if the Bible is only a religious talisman, if it's only a series of beddy-bye stories or a collection of sayings by sages, seers, would-be reformers, and do-gooders, well-doers, way back in the old days of a tiny struggling nation of Jews who were visionaries who tried to bring about vast social reform, religious reform by writing dire predictions of pestilential problems, you know, coming upon the people as a result of their sins, being pled with by sword, fire, and famine, and windstorm, and hail, and the like, and promising hail Columbia as a consequence. People have this attitude. Many religious people do. Many religious people will write to me when I talk about biblical prophecy, when I take sections of the Bible and show how it does apply to our day which we live right now. And they'll tell me now, come on, Garner Ted, you know, the Bible was just written by a group of men, you know that it was just a group of human beings that maybe their memories had failed a little bit, and they wrote it the best way they could. And it's come down to us today, an ancient old series of documents. But you don't believe all that stuff, do you about Noah and the Ark, about Jonah and the whale, two naked people in the Garden of Eden? Do you really believe all that stuff? People will ask me or ask each other today. Well, what about it?

   The Bible itself challenges its readers to prove its pages. It says, "Prove me now here with." Now that's God, someone talking as if he were God. Is it God or is it a man? It's quoted as being the first person saying that God says such and such. Now we know that a man wrote it. But can you prove that that man was guided, that he was influenced or in some way controlled by a God? And that what he said is accurate?

   Well, there's one thing for sure, since the Bible itself claims inside itself to be the word of God, since the prophets themselves claim that they wrote not of themselves, but they were sometimes virtually forced against their will to take a prophetic message and to put that message down to, well, the writing materials were different. But as we say, pen and ink, in this case, probably vellum or sheepskin or some other substance, they themselves didn't volunteer for the job. They predicted all sorts of things, many of which have not yet occurred.

   So, you're left with this simple choice since the Bible has many prophecies in it. Since many of the books of the Old Testament are prophecy throughout, since much of the New Testament is also prophecy forth, telling of future events which have not yet occurred, seeing on ahead in time, you're left with this simple decision. If those things have been proved to be wrong, if they didn't happen the way the Bible said they would, if you cannot demonstrate that there is one accurate prophecy in the Bible, then you've disproved it. But if you can see that in the past, there were prophecies written hundreds of years before the events occurred, that those events did occur on time as the Bible predicted and that there are many prophecies in the Bible which have not yet been fulfilled, even now, today, you're left with another simple choice, either they are going to yet be fulfilled and they will be fulfilled on time. Now, the Bible is a collection of fables, of beddy-bye stories, of lies, of cherished tradition, of would-be reformation attempts, Jewish poetry, literature, scholarship, etc. Does the Bible talk about our time right now today?

   Well, let's try this one on for size. Ezekiel 38 chapter, believe it or not. Here are some names that you can find on modern maps just like they are in some cases spelled identically. In other cases, you can find the tribal names, and you can find etymological derivations of names which have given rise to the names that are labeled on big modern cities.

   Now, in the 38th chapter, the book of Ezekiel, there's a prophecy where Ezekiel, the prophet, is told to set his face against God. Now, you know, our modern language sounds uh comfortable to us. I never forget, Sir Winston Churchill's speech when he talked about the great peoples and the Great struggle in World War Two against Adolf Hitler and the insanity of a new dark age when he talked about the Belgians, the Dutch, and the pose and on and on. And it struck me as I listened to that as a teenager at these strange phonetic sounds, we say the word Dutch. But you know, it's, uh, have you ever had the experience of repeating a word or a name or a sound in the English language? It might be a fairly commonplace everyday name that you're familiar with. But you say it over and over and over again and it begins to sound weird. The repetition somehow gives it a strange flavor.

   So, when you see names in the Bible, such as Gog, the land of Magog and the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, Tubal. And these are names of areas of peoples of tribes of human beings that became nations and racial definitions and limitations are given. It sounds strange, doesn't it? Well, when you look in the original, you find that there is a different rendering of this here, this Magog or Magog is also rendered Rosh. Now, there were people who were called moguls, moguls Magog that might ring a bell. We hear of Mongols in Mongolia today. Now, that's a strange-sounding word, isn't it Mongol or Gog? Well, I suppose that's strange sounding to us because we don't have any nation that is labeled Gog today. But you've got nations labeled Mali and that sounds kind of strange nations label Japan funny, isn't it? In the Bible? It talks about Javan JAVAN and you have the island of Java and the Japanese and the islands of Japan and the Japanese. It's strange, but you can go back into the 10th chapter of the book of Genesis, the Tables of Nations as it's called. And you can find where names that are used clear back there are found today. It's interesting when you look into where some of those people migrated to and you wonder about the derivation of such names as Alaska. You ought to look into that. Find out if there's any connection between Elisha in the Bible, Elisha, he wasn't a prophet. This occurred back in the 10th chapter of the book of Genesis, the Table of Nations.

   But let's look at one prophecy, identifying here peoples that are called Meshech. Now, Meshech gave rise to the term Moskva, Muscovy, Muscovite and from this term comes the capital city of Russia, Moscow, believe it or not. Originally, it was pronounced or spelled Moskva. And it's a derivation of the word from the Bible, the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, as well as the 10th chapter of Genesis. Meshech Tubal gave rise to the city of Tobolsk. That's right. And it says prophesy against these peoples. So here is a general broad prophecy against the peoples of the Russian areas. The Russians. Now there are many that buy the Russia and Azerbaijan and Georgia and White Russia and so on. Many as they call the Soviet Socialistic Republics.

   Now it says here that God is against them for some reason, behold, I am against you O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech, or Moskva and Tubal or Moscow and Tobolsk. The names that were given to those areas and I will turn you back and put hooks into your jaws and we bring you forth in all your army clothes with all sorts of armor, even a great company with butlers and shields. Now, it's written in ancient language when people use the ancient kind of military weapons that are long since hanging up in some museum somewhere. Oh, don't museum curators wish especially with some of these oriental places. But now is it talking about something that did happen anciently or something that is yet to happen in the future? We'll take a look as we read through it and see, we're just getting one case in point now out of the Old Testament of the Bible, a book that most of you probably have never read much and you may never have even heard quoted. You probably wouldn't even know exactly where to find it in the Bible, the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, which is 100% prophecy.

   Oh, there is teaching and education and there is admonition and correction in it too. But there are prophecies throughout the book of Ezekiel. It talks about modern nations, it says Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them. Now the margin shows that there is a word called Put, Put or Put, however people would want to pronounce it. And also, that the derivation of the word Ethiopia is Kush. Isn't it strange that we have the Hindu Kush mountains? The pay not the areas over there of some of the very precise locations of what we call Persia and Ethiopia, the tiny nation next to Eritrea. Well, not a tiny nation, Eritrea is smaller but Ethiopia in northeastern Africa and Kush Kushites. Well, those peoples are the same people as they always were and it shows Gomer and all of his band, the House of Togarmah the North Quarters and all of his band and many people with you.

   So, it's talking about a conglomerate of brown peoples of oriental or yellow peoples, all of them allied together in a giant military complex of some sort, identifying them by their ancient names, implying the peoples of India, Pakistan, the Persian areas past the Middle East and also Russia. And it is saying in verse eight that it's a prophecy that has to do with the latter years and it describes an area into which these combined forces are going to be making their way where their influence is going to be felt. And the final great battle is described in this 38th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. The question is, is it up to date for our day? And even though these names are found in modern-day maps and by modern-day cartographers, Moskva, gave way to Magog, Magog, Mogul and Meshech gave ways to Moskva or Moscow and Tubal to Tubalsk, identifying indelibly the areas of Russia and certainly Kush is identified, Persia is identified, Libya is not because that is Put and that has to do with the same people over in the Indian and well the Subcontinent of India as well as Ethiopia, not modern-day Libya and North Africa. And that can be demonstrated by the historical proofs that you can amass on the subject.

   The interesting thing is that here's a prophecy about all of these combined areas under the present communist influence, if not direct domination. And it describes them coming all of them together into a tiny little country. And it says that it's for the last days, latter years. Does that mean our time right ahead of us right now? What nation will this combined force be coming against? Where will their influence be spread? What is the area that this rather obscure-sounding Bible text is talking about? Can this made to be relevant or a nice stretching thing? Let's take a look and see. The Bible is speaking rather plainly. It says in verse eight, after many days, you shall be visited that biblical language, meaning that the punishment is going to come upon them from a divine source as well as through circumstances. In verse eight, in the latter years, you shall come into the land that is brought back from the sword.

   Now, I'll pause here to tell you something about biblical prophecy. There are many, many prophecies, literally dozens of them that either directly or indirectly refer to the land of Palestine, ancient Judea modern-day Israel. To talk about the bringing back of God's people, Israel from the sword from a position of captivity. I'll just make a statement for prophecy buffs students of prophecy and it's an absolute provable one that you can demonstrate in your own Bible every single time you read of a prophecy about the second coming of Christ. The Bible talks about that, you know, it does in many places old as well as New Testament. If you find the nations or the peoples of Israel, in connection with the second coming of Jesus Christ, you find Israel in a position of captivity, its nations destroyed its cities laid waste over two-thirds of its people gone, maybe only 1/10 of its population left alive, by that time.

   There are many different views about what that means. Some people think it means the Jewish people alone. Others say that it means many other peoples, peoples that were to inherit the choicest places of the land and were to be scattered around the world. Is it that only 10% of the total Jewish race is going to be left alive by the time Jesus Christ of Nazareth arrives on this earth, the second time if you think he's coming and whether you do, or I do doesn't make a bit of difference. So far as the fact is concerned whether or not it's actually going to happen is the question not what we think about it.

   But when it talks about the land that is brought back from the sword, it's speaking about Israel. Proof? Well, right here and that land is gathered out of many people. So, they had been dispersed and scattered abroad among many people against the mountains of Israel which have always been waste, but it is brought forth out of the nations and they shall dwell safely, all of them. So, it's describing Israel having been dispersed but brought back from all nations, they are dwelling safely. Now, actually, it's describing the condition that is supposed to occur on the earth after the second coming of Christ.

   But let's say that you don't believe that let's kind of play with the prophecy a little bit. Let's let you interpret it. I would say misinterpret it. Let's let people have their own way with the Bible and just do whatever they want to with it. People have told me, oh, you can prove anything by the Bible. So you stretch this as far as you'd wish and say, well, now I don't buy this stuff about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Well, I insist that you show me right now and political sense in a geographical sense, in an ethnic sense that this prophecy applies to a realistic world, not some ethereal thing that's going to happen off up in heaven.

   Or it's going to happen later on when Christ comes back, let's not cop out and make it mean that someone might argue, let's make it apply right now today. Ok, let, it's not true. It's not what it means, but let's try to make it apply today. Is there a land in which there are people who are called Israel that has been brought back from the sword, not that biblical language, but it would seem to me that that is fair and safe to say that you could stretch it that far to say that since Israel has been a nation from the time of 1948 and having struggled through several wars to preserve and protect their borders and comparatively, at least since they're not under artillery bombardment today, comparatively since there is not a war on there at this moment.

   I guess you could describe it to say that they were brought forth out of the nations which they were Morocco, Yemen, Eastern Europe, Russia, Western Europe, the United States, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Now, when you look at the many prophecies that talk about a final end time, restoration of that area, you realize it's not talking exclusively of just the Jewish people, but of many other peoples combined that it's not talking about the time that we live in, right this instant, but a time years yet on ahead of us. But we're playing around with the prophecy.

   And we're saying, well, we demand that it apply in some way today. All right, it, it does apply in some way today though only as a type, only as a shadow, only as a typical representation of the prophecy.

   All right, verse nine (Ezekiel 38:9), You shall ascend and come up like a storm. Who? Well, Rosh, Moga or Mogul, Meshech, Moskva, Tubal, Tubalsk. So, it does show an alliance with Oriental peoples and the Russian peoples, the areas of the Middle East on over east of there. And it says you that conglomerate of nations shall ascend and come like a storm. You shall be like a cloud to cover the land, you and all your bands and many people with you thus says the Eternal God, it shall also come to pass and at the same time shall things come into your mind? You'll think these evil thoughts, you will say I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. I will go to them that are at rest that can't really apply today because there is no peace, no real being at rest in modern-day Israel.

   So, as I say, I know through extensive biblical study and research that this does include a time that is yet to occur on in the future beyond us. But we're playing around with it as we say, for the moment that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates to take a spoil to take a prey. It's talking about the area of Ancient Palestine and it is saying this, that the forces allied with Russia are going to be moving into the Palestinian area of the Middle East. That pressure influence military power is going to be felt in that area as a vehicle will be Russia and her allies. Now just think about that in the context of the day in which we live right now.

   A big Russian fleet is in the Mediterranean, Russians have supplied all of the enemies of the little nation of Israel. Russia is spreading her influence throughout the Eastern half of the world, all of Asia, certainly the subcontinent of India, of the two pack of Bangladesh and Pakistan as it is now the areas of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt has not escaped Russian influence even though Russian technicians have been kicked out of Egypt, that doesn't mean Russian presents and Russia influence is not still there in a very important sense.

   It talks about covering that area like a cloud. It talks about going into an area where a little nation exists that has been brought back out of all peoples and where they dwell safely. There is more of a literal fulfillment of this prophecy yet to occur. But isn't it interesting that the setting for that final literal fulfillment is already in existence right now that you can read of it practically daily in your newspapers?

   That here is an absolute unmistaken identity of who are the peoples of God, Magog, Meshech and Tubal of who are the peoples of as it says, Persia, Kush and Put or Ethiopia and Libya, which are modern mistranslation. But you can find where those are Gomer, Togarmah. Where are those people that are identified even by the tribal names? And they're going to come from the East country it shows. Many of them combined together into a tiny country in what is called the latter years, a place that is at rest where they have been brought back as refugees from all nations.

   And when that occurs, it says in verse 16 (Ezekiel 38:16), you shall come up against my people of Israel. You can't mistake what that says, as a cloud to cover the land. It shall be in the latter days and I will bring you against my land that the heathen may know me when I shall be sanctified in you O God before their eyes. It talks about God taking a hand by divine miracles and putting a stop to it at the last moment when if he did not, the nation of Israel would be utterly obliterated.

   Interesting at least, isn't it? But here's an obscure portion of the Bible. You probably have never heard about before in which peoples are labeled by name, by tribes, by ancient names, even by the names that still claim to some of their cities. And is talking about a very realistic situation where that influence is going to threaten in the Middle East and saying that God is going to take a hand to prevent it. Interesting, you say? Yes.

   Also, absolutely prophetic and absolutely true. Almost everyone seems to understand that many of the books of The Old Testament are prophetic in nature. The prophets such as Amos and Obadiah Jonah, Naam Mica Ezekiel, Daniel and Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, which I've already mentioned one of these prophecies. They understand that these are prophetic in nature. People have heard about strange, many-headed beasts and monsters, about eagles and lions and oxen and about whirlwinds and about tidal waves and fire and brimstone. They've heard all sorts of dire predictions about wars, global disasters, famines, the rise and fall of Kingdoms and Empires.

   But what many don't seem to realize is that The New Testament is also a very heavily prophetic series of books that the Apostle Paul has many prophecies in his writings. So did Peter about a time of the end, Jesus himself was a prophet Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. Let's take a look at Matthew 24, just briefly, Jesus was in Jerusalem. We just completed a series on the Life and Times of Jesus and what that looked like, what those buildings looked like, what the Temple was like, the kind of a glittering beautiful area that was where Jesus lived and worked and where his prophecies were spoken and the disciples came to show him the buildings of, of the Temple.

   There were 1200 huge columns surrounding some of the outbuildings around that Temple. And it took three men to link hands to be able to stand and you know, to touch hands around one of those columns, 1200 of them huge big columns of solid stone quarried out of solid granite marble, many other fabulous stones. And Jesus said, you see all these things verily, I say to you, there shall not be one stone left here atop another that shall not be thrown down. They have dug down to what is called the Herodian era.

   At the same time when Jesus walked those streets, when he spoke these words, and we see one stone after another that is on top of the other, just as they were, they've been eroded badly. They don't have the glittering marble facade that they may have had anciently, but they are still atop one another. So technically and quite literally, every last vestige of this prophecy of Matthew 24 has not yet been fulfilled. Not literally if you're going to take it as an allegory, you can say, well, figuratively, it was when all the top stones were thrown down and the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus, but not technically and not literally not been fulfilled yet.

   So, the question is, is the Bible technically and literally to be taken as accurate or is it just a kind of a scatter shot of vague statements that you can kind of worm around and alter and pervert a little bit and put your own interpretation on them and not accept them any way you like? Or is it the divine inviolable and sacred word of God? Jesus talked about a time in which human annihilation would be a potential. He was a prophet, he was a newscaster looking beyond his day to our time. Those stones are yet to be thrown down.

   That tremendous avalanche of combined nations are yet to descend with fury into the Middle East. The Middle East is the Fulcrum the very focal point of much of world problems of the future according to prophecy. Is that going to prove out, is it going to happen that way or was it just some collection of SAGES and seer who wanted it to come out that way? Because people wanted to believe in a religious talisman, you look at the Bible prophecy.

   If it's your thing, your hang up your bag, what you're doing when you're to this religion bit or is it a practical everyday guide about global circumstances, trends and conditions that affect us right now? Here today it's the latter and I intend to prove it to you. You need these magazines, the Plain Truth magazine, a different one every single month to keep you in tune with what's happening in world conditions in the light of prophecy.

   And also, the booklet, Is This The End Time? This new booklet, Is This The End Time?, goes right down the line on this subject I have been doing and shows you from the Bible as well as from current conditions that are extant on the earth that we are living in the time of the end. But it's approached from a perhaps different point of view than you might think a completely objective point of view, asking the Bible to prove it to us one way or the other.

   The Bible characterizes the end time as being a time when certain great global trends, certain discernible conditions would be expanse. Are these conditions just exactly as the Bible lays them out conditions that concern you and me right now today. Are they right now on the earth? Are they a living part of your day-to-day news?

   The approach it is taken is brand new booklet very little advertised before, Is This The End Time? Is to take the challenging prophecies of your Bible and put them to the test to superpose over these prophetic statements of the Old, as well as the New Testament, the conditions that are expand upon this earth right now at this present time. What about Daniel's statement, that knowledge would be increased and many would run to and fro what about the statement that the prophecies of the book of Daniel would be concealed cloaked and would be hidden from human understanding until the time of the end.

   What about knowledge doubling, the knowledge explosion? Is that really happening or is it just some pet theory of ours? I've shown recently that present knowledge is doubling at a fantastic rate that it took hundreds and hundreds of years to double from the time of Jesus Christ until 1750, 1750 years. And then by 1900 it had doubled again in just 150 years, that it doubled again between 1900 and 1950. That it doubled again between 1950 and 1960 from 50 years to only 10 years.

   And that now they are claiming eventually human knowledge is going to double every three months at the present time. They estimate that knowledge, the knowledge output and technical fields, science, medicine in miniaturization and specialized technological and scientific fields. That man's output of knowledge is doubling at the rate of every two and one half years. Now, a prospect like that is rather mind-boggling, rather confusing.

   But let's take a look at just one field right quickly, the field of medical science. What about medical science itself on the shelves of any large medical school library? You can find up to 6000 different journals. The average journal containing more than 50,000 words, that means every month, over 300 million words of new scientific fact being published in just the biological and medical sciences alone.

   And remember that 2000 of those journals weren't even found on those shelves only four short years ago. And knowledge really is doubling. We're in the midst of knowledge explosion and the Bible itself said we would be in the midst of the knowledge explosion. These and other proofs are going to be found in this booklet, Is This The End Time?

   Be sure to write in for the Plain Truth magazine. Remember, it's absolutely free of charge, no price. We'll send it by return mail as soon as we receive your letter. So, send a request to Box 345 Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box, 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.