The World Tomorrow, Ambassador College presents Garner Ted Armstrong, bringing you the plain truth about today's world news and the prophecies of the World Tomorrow. And greeting friends around the world, this is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. Why is the United States the most violent nation on the face of the earth? You know, the most violent people on earth are not the savage tribes of the African Congo or the primitive inhabitants of the Australian bush country. Do you know that no other nation on the face of the earth has a worse record than the United States for murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, shrugging, muggings, carnage on the highways, and all assorted forms of violence? You know that in no city of Europe are adults afraid to walk alone after dark. I was surprised in driving along some of the country highways and lanes over there. And from time to time, my wife and I would see perhaps even a young woman walking along a country road and of course over in Europe and in England, they don't have anywhere near the kind of lighting in the streets in the cities and even out in the country as they do in this country and by the same token, the automobiles don't use the same kind of lighting as we do in this country. Most of the streets of the large cities in Europe all have a very dim kind of lighting and all the automobiles use only what we would call parking lights as they drive along. So the streets aren't anywhere near as brightly lit over there as they are in the United States. And still here are young women, even children and adults walking in all parts of a very dimly lit city in England and in Europe. Well, why, why should it be so totally different in the United States? You know, there are more killings annually in the city of Houston, Texas than in all of England put together. Now, is there a reason for it? Is there a reason why the United States leads the world in violence and crime and carnage and murder and rape? Yes, there is a reason and it is revealed in your Bible because the United States is identified in the pages of the Bible. And even if it weren't, there is an overall prophecy in the New Testament of your Bible that describes exactly what most people would be like and what major nations would be doing right now today, that describes the very national character of great countries that describes the very standard by which human beings would be living today. In a recent article appearing in a famous syndicated column, a writer was saying that large cities like New York and Chicago have a higher homicide total in most European countries. And went on to ask these questions. I want to quote some of it from Mr. Sidney Harris. U.S. record for violence. A syndicated column appearing in a large newspaper. What odd combination he asked of elements has created in us, this throbbing need for violence. We have somehow bred a national character or a lack of national character in which violence seems to play the dominant motive. He said it isn't the poverty of our masses. The rest of the world has much more poverty, much more glaring contrast between rich and poor. It isn't our sons. Our sons are prevalent throughout the world and ours are by no means the worst. Our lack of respect for human life. Our raw violence is to me, a more sinister aspect of our nation's development than any of the political or economic changes that are so deplored by professional deplored. He said we cannot see it in ourselves but nations like individuals can never see themselves as they really are or as they appear to others. End quote. He said a great deal more and it reveals exactly the national character and the problems in the United States of America today that led Attorney General Robert Kennedy to say if we do not on a national scale attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective of their own, they will destroy us, Yes, the attorney general of the United States spoke out about crime. So personally that he said, revealed in this statement published in a large newspaper that crime may destroy the United States of America, our cities are becoming veritable jungles. Our highways are cemeteries. Our crimes of violence have doubled since World War II and as one writer said, perhaps it's time, we began quit looking at ourselves as peace-loving people because our statistics of sudden death seem to suggest we're involved in a civil war in the towns in the woods and on the roads killing each other at such a threatening pace. Well, isn't it about time we began to look at conditions as they really are and to come to understand why and to come to understand what is going to happen to us and what the future holds? Just where are we headed? Do you know the answers are revealed in Bible prophecy? You know, the United States and Great Britain, the Commonwealth of Great Britain and the Empire are identified in the pages of your Bible. You need to write for this booklet The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy and come to understand. Many of you have heard that announced in the World Tomorrow program, dozens and dozens of times and you haven't written in for it yet. So do so right away. And find where we are identified in the Bible. Notice how even in the New Testament, not mentioning one nation or another, but talking about men, yes, just humankind in general. The Apostle Paul said to the young evangelist Timothy in II Timothy three in verse one (II Timothy 3:1). "This know also that in the last days..." Now there have been a lot of people on soap boxes talking about the end of the world. There have been people burrowing underground in caves expecting it. There have been people standing on their front yard waiting for Jesus to return and so on. We know that. Satan has paved the way by all the clever counterfeits to try to, of course, discredit the real work and the real message and the real truth of the Bible and of the work of Almighty God by leading the average human being to scoff at the real warnings of the Bible by merely discarding that in the light of all of the fakes and all of the various weird sects and groups that have stood afar off on some mountain waiting for the end of the world. But nevertheless, be that as it may, could anyone in his right senses deny that we are living in the general time of the end, the time of which the Bible speaks in so many dozens of prophecies at the very climax at the end of the age for the first time in human experience, we're living in a time where human annihilation is a possibility. And if we're not beginning to be alerted and beginning to avert it, which it looks like we're not, it is not only a possibility but a probability, but your Bible shows God is going to cut it short and not permit it. But now notice how this prophecy said men, yet humankind will be lovers of their own selves. Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, showing our frightful rate of juvenile delinquency and of child crime, unthankful. Not really grateful for the blessings we've received, unholy without natural affection, just like beasts or animals toward each other. Truth breakers, not good to our word in our business practices, are among our neighbors or friends, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Oh, yes, ridiculing with tongue-in-cheek those with principles and morals saying that's chicken, that's no good. You don't want to live that way. What are you fanatical? What are you religious or something? You mean you believe in living by the Bible? Why? Why people would think you're crazy for doing that today? As I cited before on this program, the example of a woman who admitted in a courtroom trial, which was trying to determine whether or not she was a fit mother who admitted to the judge and the jury and the two psychiatrists who were there to examine her cause, that she was rearing and training her children according to the word of God, the principles of the Bible. And do you know that those two psychiatrists tried to have her adjudged insane? Yes, in the United States of America, God's country, the country where we print in God, we trust, we might claim to trust in Him, but we sure don't want to live by his laws or believe his word. Here was a woman living by the laws of God training, teaching her Children according to the inviolate the sacred, the Holy Word of God. And here were two young upstarts who had been through college and studied a lot of senseless idiocy and books who thought they were psychiatrists and couldn't evaluate their own minds. They were so demented and darkened. They didn't know what they were talking about and with their tongues wagging, they merely said that she ought to be judged as being insane because you see, the poor woman had committed the terrible crime of believing the Bible and of attempting to live by it, oh we ought to hang our head in shame as a people, we call ourselves Christian, but are we really? Now, you know, we need to hear some plain talking once in a while. We need to take stock of ourselves. We need to have someone once in a while tell us a little bit about what we really are like and what we're doing in this country. Recently, a very leading pastor who was speaking before a session of a church's World Peace seminar said this and I quote, and he's a leading figure in Western religion. He said, "I know of no pastor who feels completely free to speak his convictions. He must tailor what he says to what he judges will receive acceptance by a highly nervous society." What a pity. What a pity it is that those who will depend upon men to pay their salaries and those who will depend upon boards or unions or groups of men and other human beings must then satisfy those individuals by preaching what they would like to hear. On this World Tomorrow program, you won't hear that kind of preaching. The Bible indicts us for our stench, our horrifying national crimes and our sins and Almighty God's command to his true ministers is, "Lift up your voice like a trumpet and show my people their sins." We might claim to be Christian. We're kidding ourselves. The average man among us is about as Christian as the average Jackrabbit. Now we might be well-intentioned, but most jackrabbits are well-intentioned and we're all so fearful like the average Jackrabbit. It looks like today too, aren't we? But we are not anywhere near as Christian as we like to kid ourselves to be leaving. No, we're the perfect picture of II Timothy three verses one through six and seven (II Timothy 3:1-7). Even as the Apostle Paul wrote, saying we would be traitors, heady that is self-willed, high-minded in verse four, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. If you had your choice, an hour of Bible study or the journey of the movie, which would you take? If you had your choice, learning, searching, looking into, underlining, marking, and studying into the word of God and sitting before your favorite TV serial, which would you choose? If you had the choice to do something really good for a friend or a neighbor, to help him out, to sit up with a sick person, and maybe going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon, what would you choose? What is the average person choosing by his daily way of living today? But every kind of a sensual thrill and pleasure he can possibly avail himself of in frantic busying race to try to satiate that vast gnawing empty spot in his middle he doesn't know how to feel, trying to get satisfaction, trying to get something, trying to get happiness. He doesn't even know how to define it. He's searching in no particular direction for. He knows not what, wondering why he's frustrated and ends up feeling empty. Yes, here's a nation on a tremendous pleasure binge, a nation where in just some of our major cities, for example, in New York and Chicago, we have more crimes yearly than in many major European nations as a whole. Almighty God said to Ezekiel, make a chain for the land is full of bloody crimes. And God says he's going to punish us for it. He labels our nation. He shows exactly what that punishment is going to be. Let's notice now, in chapter three of II Timothy, and in verse five that he said, not only are we lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God on a pleasure binge, but he said, having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof. What does that mean to you? It means exactly what it says. It means we have outward form and ceremony. It means we profess with our lips. It means we print on our dollar bills. It means we say we are Christians, but we deny the living powerful God and the living dynamic Jesus Christ, who has been alive these more than 1900 years and who is about to return to this earth? We deny his existence. And some of the leading minds, question mark, in the United States is saying there's no longer any use or purpose in a so-called Divinized Father figure such as the God in today's technological age. As one noted atheist said, we can dispense with the idea of a God entirely. We don't need to creep into the arms of a sanctified Divinized sort of a grandfather to protect us from our fears and our perplexities of today's terrible tumultuous time in the sixties when we were wondering about world annihilation. He said, "God is merely an excuse that is invented by human beings for the spiritual tranquilizer." Oh yes, we even deny the very existence of the God that gives us every breath of air we breathe. We deny the existence of the God that gave us this great country and the freedoms we enjoy, that gave us the freedom of choice. And then put that choice before us and said, Choose, choose either my way, the right way, the good way that will bring you everything you really need and ought to have and want that is good for you. Or else, choose your own way, go ahead, eat, drink and be marry, you know, live it up as people usually misinterpret that scripture, live in a way that seems to be right the way that seems normal, the way that comes naturally and what have you got? Two and two equals four. We've been living in a way that comes naturally the way that seems normal and right and good. And what do we have? More divorced than ever before? Getting to every third home in the United States of America today? Out of the vast, sprawling, more than 180 million people, nearly every third home today has been broken by divorce and remarriage. I dare say, you know, several people, personal acquaintances and maybe you are such a person involved in or engaged in a divorce or about to be divorced or who just recently got divorced and remarried. You know, many such individuals yourself personally, the chances are. We lead the world in chronic diseases and sickness it seems. And today we're the most overfed and undernourished nation on the face of the earth. How many people do you know who are sick? How many people do you know who just recently had an operation? How many of you know, who are in the hospital right now? How many deaths in your close circle of friends, your own family just recently? How about your own health? Are you in good shape? Is there anything wrong with you? We're a nation of absolutely sick people. And we don't realize it's a result of broken laws. We've broken the laws of the home. We've broken the laws of the land and we've broken laws of food and of diet and of health and God gives us these laws in the Bible. The Bible is a guidebook, a handbook, a manual on how to live and how to be happy, how to have abundance, how to have everything we really need. Oh, yes, we thump it, we pat it, we put it over on the stand and put a doily over it and a vase with a rose in it. We carry it with a white cover in our weddings and put an orchid on top of it. We sell them by the millions and there are more Bibles in the United States than there are people. We claim to be a Bible-believing country. Well, maybe we are, but we're not very much a Bible-obeying country are we, you know, the average church-going American couldn't even tell you the names of the books of the Bible. And most of them can't even tell you the names of the first four gospels of the Bible. Only one out of 100 of today's divinity students studying to be your ministers believe Jesus Christ is going to come again. People deny the virgin birth. They don't believe Jesus was resurrected. They want to teach and to preach about a person whom they call a liar, a failure and an impostor. How on earth can anyone sound very effective when he's preaching about a person in whom he himself cannot believe, perplexing isn't it? God said verse five II, Timothy three, we would have a form of Godliness, but we would deny the power thereof. And he warned from such turn away. He says to those who are his true servants, those who have truly been converted, who had the very spirit of God for this sort, he said in verse six, are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning. Yes, studying and researching into every new facet of knowledge, looking into every new technological discovery, pooling of knowledge, learning new things ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. How many books have there been written about the Bible? How many countless millions of hours of research have gone into trying to decipher the Bible? How many languages have been deciphered and into how many languages has the Bible been translated? How many polygraphs and diagrams? How many commentaries, how many books about different sections? How many, all of these various volumes that would fill whole libraries that have been written after tremendous studies involving whole lifetime, merely trying to understand the Bible and yet today, nothing but confusion, nothing but differing sects arguing. People who kept the Bible under their arms as nothing but a lot of spiritual arguments, one against the other. Why all these denominations in the United States and around the world? Now we have an article on that for you if you'd like to write in for it. Why All These Denominations? It's like the little fellow, you know, we have a student in Ambassador College. He's not growing up and not even a boy, over in the area in which he lived, which I believe was Canada. It was time for him to go to Sunday school, of course, you don't find Sunday school was mentioned in the Bible. But at any rate, he was following the customs of the time. So it was time for him to go to Sunday school and he decided he would walk. So he started out down the dusty road and pretty soon he heard the noise of the automobile behind him. It turned out to be an old Model A Ford or something of that nature. Here came a farmer neighbor of his and, and said, "Do you want a lift?" He said, "Yes, sir." So he hopped up in the car and the fellow drove him down to the church and let him out and then started to go on and he said, "Well, where are you going?" He said, "Well, I'm going on down the road about another mile to my church." You know, as the door slammed and the car disappeared in the bust of the road. This boy thought to himself. Now that's strange. We're all supposed to be worshiping the same God and it's all the same day. Why, what he put himself out to go that much further down the road to get into a different building, to worship the same God for. Why did he go to a different church? Well, you know, that's a good question. That's an awfully good question. Why all these differing opinions and differing doctrines and different denominations? Here's an article on it for you, Why So Many Denominations? We'll send it to you by return mail. Absolutely free of charge. You need to understand Almighty God prophesized we would be living in a time of tremendous religious confusion that prophecy has come true. We're living in just such a time ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Let's notice how the Apostle Paul charged the young evangelist Timothy to preach and to preach, fearlessly and right straight from the shoulder, the real truth of almighty God to make it plain, to show the people, to show the nation, to show all of those who would listen the real word of God to keep at it, really show sins and crimes to show what is wrong with it. Why make some kind of a splash to become a huge success as a tremendous fireball of an evangelist? Oh, no, no. But so they could turn away from the sin and begin to live in the right way. So their lives could be made happier. Now, if that can be used as an instrument to do that for a few of you, then it will have been well worth the trouble. A lot of you need to write in for our article on just, How To Have A Happy Marriage. A lot of you may be anticipating divorce. Maybe your marriage isn't as happy as it ought to be. A lot of you wives are trying to, as we say, perhaps wear the trousers or take over the position of the husband trying to be the dominant Bose, the ruler, the leader. A lot of your husbands aren't supporting, providing for your wives. You are a lot of bloats sometimes, that don't bathe often enough, don't really work at the job the way you ought to and maybe have a lot of disgusting habits your wife would like to tell you about, maybe you're not living right. You know, it's just like anything else. If you have a job and you expect to get a decent wage, you've got to work at it. You know, if you want to have a decent marriage, you've got to work at it, that it's a job that you've got to really give, you've got to sacrifice, you've got to work at it. And, you know, there are laws that regulate just how you ought to do that. You know, there are definite laws and just technically detailed in the Bible about how to have a happy marriage in every different facet of your private life together. Every one of the most intimate things even in the Bible are laws that regulate and would give you a happy marriage if you'd be willing to follow them. We need to write for this article on How To Have A Happy Marriage and write for the booklet while I'm thinking about all these things that will help you write for that booklet on, Divorce And Remarriage and find out what the Bible says about it. So many people think it's all right. But is it really what did Jesus Christ say? If you want to find out what the very Savior of the world said about it? What does the Bible say? What does God the Father in heaven believe about it? Forget what your aunt, your neighbors think about it. What does God say write for the booklet on Divorced And Remarriage. You might be very, very glad you did. Maybe it can save some homes. Isn't it about time we began to take a look at a decadent society tottering on its last legs? And began to realize something is so drastically wrong with our country that we are standing right now in national peril and danger that the leader of the greatest law enforcement agency on the face of the earth. J Edgar Hoover, who is leader of the FBI has said that we face the twin enemies of communism and crime and he ranks crime right on a par with world communism. Isn't it about time we began to find out what our children are reading the TV shows they're watching the little toy pistols are shooting at each other? Isn't it about time we began to investigate the very roots of our society, the home, the family, the children, the husband and wife, relationships? Yes, it certainly is time. It's about time you began to hear that something is wrong with it and began to admit it to yourself. Well, he was charged, chapter four and verse one (II Timothy 4:1), of the Apostle Paul who said, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead as it should read at his appearing on his kingdom preach the word not poetry, not songs, not ideas, not just long strings of quotations from other human beings by themselves, but preach the word, the word of God preach that, that's what God says to his true servants. He said the instant in season, out of season, that means keep at it continuously diligently, summer, winter and fall. That's what you'll hear on the World Tomorrow, year in and year out, day after day after day, the word of God. He said, reprove. Yes, that means to show what's wrong. He said rebuke. That means get pretty plain, doesn't it? He said exhort that means encourage, admonish, exhort with all wrong suffering and doctrine. For he warned the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. What was that quotation I just read to you recently by the leading minister who said before a pastor's meeting before a session of the world churches rather world peace seminar who said, I know of no pastor who feels completely free to speak his convictions. He must tailor what he says to what he judges will receive acceptance by a highly nervous society. I don't, I don't have to even begin to get ready to tailor what I say to what I think will be accepted by a nervous society. No. As long as it's the truth of God, as long as it's plain and you know, it's true, there's no muzzle. So isn't about time we began to look at ourselves plainly and begin to see ourselves as we are. God said the time would come and we would not endure sound doctrine, but after our own lust would heap to ourselves teachers having itching ears, that prophecy is being fulfilled. Even as so many ministers themselves are saying today that they wish they could be different, they wish they could preach a little stronger, but they're afraid the congregation wouldn't sit still for it. Well, isn't that quite an indictment against the nation that calls itself Christian? He said in verse four (II Timothy 4:4), they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables. Well, now you can have the truth. You can understand the word of God. You can get out of the snare of your own private life, your own private situation, your marriage can improve, your child learning method can improve, your job can improve, your situation can be better. Your sickness can be healed if you want to know the way and if you're willing to go that way and that's the way of God is revealed in all of his words, you need to write in for the articles that I've been announcing the booklets and get the help that you need so desperately. God doesn't need you. He doesn't need something from you. You need him. Maybe you haven't realized it before. But you do, you need him desperately write first of all for this article, Why All These Denominations? Why So Many Denominations? and write for the article on How To Have A Happy Marriage, remember the booklet on Divorce and Remarriage. And then remember The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy, I already mentioned. Now let me tell you a little bit about the Plain Truth magazine, a new brightly different magazine, unlike anything you've ever read before, keeping abreast of the strange happenings on this earth, the real meanings behind it soon to rush in the climactic close of this age. And also every single issue is jam-packed with articles of real vital interest to you in a family way, your own personal income about getting and holding a good job, marital problems, child bearing problems, all types of different articles. Every one of them just were loaded with biblical scripture with every kind of principle that is applicable in your daily way of life, explaining, interpreting, making plain for you from the Bible today's pulsating world events. I said this is a totally different magazine unlike any other, maybe even some of you who have been reading it have never grasped the basic difference. And yet I'm sure that it's obvious the moment you receive your first copy to most when you write in for it and read all of these vital articles. The Bible answers short questions from our readers that are sent in from time to time. The children's Bible Story, a feature for from 5 to 105. And remember your subscription has been paid. In the Plain Truth, we dare to report to you tomorrow's news in advance. What will be happening in the next 5, 10 and 15 years? And you need to know, it's going to vitally affect your very life. So make sure you have a subscription, it's free, remember your subscription paid, it costs you nothing. Make sure you have a subscription to the Plain Truth magazine. All you need to do to receive your prepaid free subscription to the Plain Truth magazine is to send your letter to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena California. That's Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena California, Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena California. Remember they're without costs list the call letters of your station. And so until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye friends. You have heard the World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong for literature offered on this program. Send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123. Or you may dial this toll-free number 800-423-4444.