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   Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce Garner Ted Armstrong of Ambassador College with the World Tomorrow.

   In this series of programs, we will tell you something of the problems of the world today, how they will affect you and their solution in the World Tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, Garner Ted Armstrong.

   A United States of Europe is coming. It's almost here, and we have been foretelling it would occur for more than 20 years.

   And you know, just after World War II, almost nobody believed that West Germany would ever rise again. So, Winston Churchill, that stage of diplomacy said 50 years is what he thought it would take. And he had been there. He had viewed some of the shattered shards of once proud German cities of Essen and Chemnitz and Kamenz, Bruchkobel and Cochem and Bonn and Berlin itself.

   And people thought that that German nation could never once again emerge from the devastating destruction of World War II when those Allied bombers were busily flying back and forth and sometimes mounting 1,000 plane raids.

   But we envision the creation of a United Europe, at least united economically and stable socially and politically to help us withstand the growing red menace. The policy of encirclement was quite popular then, and Western planners call it a calculated risk. That is the risk of rearming as well as revitalizing industrial and economically the nation of West Germany.

   Now I ask you this program on radio as it was then and then later on in 1955 on television and for years in the pages of the Plain Truth magazine, how could we have known that the United States of Europe was coming and that it would eventually embody 10 nations?

   I'm not even saying that the nations that it embodies right now are the ones which eventually will be a part of the ultimate 10 nations, but there will eventually be 10 nations, a virtual recreation of an ancient Roman empire. And I do not refer to people running around in sandals and togas and wielding Roman short swords. Of course, I'm talking about a powerful modern space age third power block in the world which will gather in the shadow of its economically about one quarter of all of humankind, which is about 265 to 290 million depending on how you count it, which nations you're talking about, will actually be larger than either the Soviet Union or the United States. So, you'll have in essence about four major power blocks, perhaps five. You can count Japan as one and China as two. The Soviet Union is three, the United States is four, and of course, a United States of Europe is number five.

   How some people in the United States see this as a good sign. They say once that occurs, the United States of America can withdraw from policeman of the world position, and we won't have to emphasize the containment of communism and going to put out the bushfire wars here and there in Korea, Vietnam, 10 years of protracted struggle and we say we can get back to that pre-World War II diplomacy where we can perhaps look a little more to our own self-interest. And that has been occurring in the last 10 years, a gradual withdrawal of the United States and a gradual expansion of Soviet power into the Indian Ocean, into the Mediterranean, the buildup of the Soviet fleet in conventional forces and the like.

   But the point is all of this was foretold centuries ago. It literally was foretold in the pages of your Bible.

   Now, when we first talked about a 10-nation United States of Europe in the days following World War II. Absolutely no one believed it. I think the kindest comment a lot of people came up with was simply that's nuts or words to that effect.

   But now there is a powerful West Germany at the head of powerful revitalized, re-industrialized nations in Western Europe. And there are moving now toward a political union, and there will become a common currency eventually.

   Now, one third of your Bible is prophecy. And if I could just color a Bible and page through it and show you where the prophecies, the prophetic sections are, you would be absolutely amazed at how much of it is prophecy.

   How much of it talks about our time right now, you know, the Bible is the best seller that's almost never read. It's a kind of a status symbol in a lot of people's homes. The brides carry it, usually white with a little flower attached to it. It's in funeral parlors. I remember one funeral parlor I walked in and sat down, we were arranging for the funeral of a loved one, a family member. And I happened to glance at the Bible there, and you would certainly think that if any place would be logical and likely to place the Bible where it might be read, it would be in a funeral parlor where people were arranging the funerals for loved ones.

   But no, this one was perfectly clean and marked, not dog-eared, obviously not red. Some of the Bible societies, the Gideons and others are quite free Bibles in motel and hotel rooms all across the length and breadth of the United States and for that matter around the world. I don't know just what the exact ratio is, but I imagine you can check with most hotel owners and find out that they lose even TV sets and sheets and linens and everything imaginable, but they hardly ever lose one of those Bibles.

   You can pull it out of the drawer and look, and, well, once in a while, you find a ring where somebody put a cocktail glass on it, it's useful for that. Once in a while, you find where somebody burned the edge of it by letting a cigarette burn down too far. But when you look inside, you won't find very many notes, very many underlining or a checkmark or something that indicated somebody read something he thought was important and that had to do with our day right now today.

   So even though the United States of America is, in a sense, a religious country, a nation whose forefathers founded the country on biblical principles on some of the laws of the Bible and some of the rights that are expressed of humanity and of one man to another, the golden rule and so on of the Bible. You don't find very many people are really illiterate where the Bible is concerned today. So, while we have many Bibles in the land, very few people ever bother to read them.

   Now, you can take me up on a simple little thing if you don't want to kill yourself socially, I suppose this could be called how to lose friends and antagonize people. But you grab a Bible, get one that's well-worn and dog-eared if you can go find one like that somewhere and then just get on any public conveyance, better yet. Next time you take a trip, go to the either bus station or if you're taking the train or to the air terminal and then board this conveyance and open up a Bible and sit there and read it and begin underlining it and act like you're really studying this thing. See what happens.

   I don't know whether people will act like you've got leprosy and whether they look at you as if with drawn the size, if you're very strange. But uh I don't think I can recall having seen anybody reading that book on a public conveyance and some of them even have them in the reading racks.

   But coming to biblical prophecy, one of the most important things you can simply look at here is that you have to take two alternatives. When you look at Matthew 24, which is the heart and the focal point of Bible prophecy, you are left with two alternatives if you have a Bible why don't you turn to Matthew 24 and if not, well you can just follow along and think about it for a minute.

   But here are those alternatives. Either Christ was a liar, either he was a complete fake, a fraud, a charlatan. And we're talking in very pretentious terms about what might occur thousands of years later and clear on down into our time in the future, the age in which we live today, the space age either he didn't mean a word he said and the Bible is not true and cannot be trusted. Or the second alternative is that much. Almost all of Matthew 24 has not happened yet and is just about to begin to happen right now in our time.

   Now, why did I say that? And after those two alternatives? All right, take a look at Matthew 24. Jesus was at the temple. This is just prior to his crucifixion, and he went out, and the disciples, these were fishermen and carpenters, and one was a tax collector, and Luke was a physician. That didn't mean a medical doctor in our terminology. But one who dealt with various diets and herbs and whatnot and knew about the physical body and methods of getting it in good health. The word physician doesn't necessarily mean a doctor in the modern medical terminology.

   And so they showed him the buildings of the temple. Like a lot of people from Kansas might take a look up, you know, New Yorkers like to watch the hicks and the sticks with their sore necks from looking up at the tall buildings. Well, these disciples were looking at the buildings of the temple and they showed them to Christ, and he said, "You see these things, I'm telling you the truth. There won't be one stone left here on top of another one that will not be thrown down."

   Now, let's stop right there. And let me tell you, in case you're unfamiliar with some of the biblical scholars and their arguments about the Bible. Many people have the attitude of Matthew 24 about the destruction of the temple, about all these calamities of famine, pestilences, earthquakes, and about religious martyrdom were fulfilled when the armies of Titus finally took Jerusalem in about 70 A.D. and that part of the temple was destroyed.

   But here again, you're left with this quandary. Jesus said not one stone shall be left on another that shall not be thrown down. Now, presently, there is a very large archaeological project right at that very same temple likely right along the area now covered in rubble where these men left at that time. And I'm here to tell you because I've seen it with my own eyes that not every one of those stones were thrown down, and the vast sections of the temple itself and some of the other buildings around still remain. And even though many of the stones were cast down, and you know, with crowbars and whatnot tumbled down by the soldiers of the Roman army, there are many of those stones that still are one right on top of the other. So even that statement has not been fulfilled yet.

   He tried to find them out of olive that's just down across the brook, which is now dry up to the other trap, and they were there, and the kind of olive drove privately where they used to go a lot. And the disciples finally got up there. They sat around, and they asked privately with all the people listening. "Tell us when is all this going to happen? When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of your coming and the end of the world?"

   Now, you may not realize that back at the siege of Corregidor just as the defenders on the Bataan Peninsula were ready to give up. And the Japanese had broken through about the third last hastily erected defensive line, and they had unleashed this massive artillery barrage and started a lot of cane fields a fire. Many Americans and Filipinos were caught in a ring of fire and were virtually cremated just as they were about to surrender on the tip of the Bataan before Corregidor was taken, an earthquake struck and many of those hardened battle-worn bloodied veterans got on their knees and they thought the end of the world was here in the black smog, the black fog of London back in the fifties, people dropped to their knees on the street because they thought the end of the world was here.

   Why people misunderstand this business about the end of the world? The Greek word is cosmos, and it means an orderly society. It does not mean the destruction of the entirety of the globe, the earth, the land, it doesn't mean anything of the kind, and the Bible does not teach anything of the kind. It means merely the transition from one age into a new age.

   Now, you, a lot of you older people, especially, have lived through the machine age into the jet age and now on into the space age, many ages that we talk about in history. This that Christ talked about is the end of an age. As a matter of fact, some versions, modern English render it that way. The confirmation at the close of the age. It isn't talking about the destruction of the world you might have heard of or seen some fellow with a long white road walking to and fro in a public park among all the characters feeding the pigeons he's got a sign on his back that says, flee from the wrath to come.

   There was one years ago in Los Angeles who thought he was Noah, another one who thought he was Jeremiah. I met Sengis and Elijha, one guy who told me he was Christ himself and I didn't believe him. I just didn't believe him. I couldn't because he was wearing a brown suit and he introduced himself and told me his name was Jesus Christ. And I said, thanks a lot. I'll see you later and he was on his way out of my office with my help very gently. And he said, is this any way to receive me? I said, what I receiving you, I'm trying to help you out and there are people however, who have gone about talking about the end of the world, the end of the globe, it self the destruction of the land surface. That isn't what Christ meant. And the Bible doesn't describe it that way.

   But the first thing you warned of was take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my name saying I am the Christ and shall deceive many. Now, how on earth can people come saying he is the Christ? Not that they are, but that Jesus is the Christ. And so deceive people. How is it possible for someone to preach about Jesus Christ and still deceive somebody about his religion? And what have you heard about him mostly? You've heard that he was a vagabond. So that's the first hippie, long brown locks falling over his head. You heard that he was well just about penniless and that he slept in the field and had no place to live. You probably heard a lot about his birth and you've heard a lot about the Lord Jesus and usually with a certain tone of voice that is rather strange. And you wonder where do these people go to learn that? And do they all go to the same school?

   Politicians generally seem to sound a little bit alike and preachers generally seem to sound a little bit alike and you ever notice how it's getting increasingly difficult to tell one from the other. How a lot of times politicians begin to make noises almost like preachers and sometimes they begin to promise virtually the same thing as far as that's concerned, promise you a kind of a millennium or heaven on earth right here and now.

   But if you ever wonder why it is that people, while they've heard a message about the things Jesus did or about his birth or about his death. But very few have heard very much about what he said. If I were to tell you, for example, if Christ has short hair and you can prove it by the Bible that he was of the tribe of Judah, which means he was a Jew, that he was a common looking man so common in fact that he had to be picked out of a crowd by the Judas kiss at an enormous sum to be bribed for that and many times escaped out of the midst of the crowd where they were after him to kill him.

   So he looked like any other ordinary man of his day that he was a property owner and a taxpayer. And that he was a powerfully built man who labored with his hands, most of his life is that I really ask because I can prove that from the Bible and have many times not only orally and in classes and what not, but have written articles on it to absolutely prove that he had his own house in Capernaum and it was large enough for 120 people to get in one large upstairs room.

   But you know, that doesn't quite square with what you thought about him just as it doesn't square that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was a prophet and that he talked about our day. Now, here in Matthew 24 is a fantastic description of our day and it's dated irrevocably. There's no way around it. There was no way to even understand the scripture until the beginning of the atomic and the hydrogen era. It's found in Matthew 24 and verse 21 and two (Matthew 24:21-22). And it says these are in Jesus' own words, 'For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time'. So, it's unparalleled in the history of humankind. 'No, nor ever shall be and except those days should be shortened. There should no flesh be saved.' So, he talked at a time when it was actually possible to annihilate the entirety of all of humanity. And that has never before been possible until this space age, this age of atomic and hydrogen bomb stockpiling where we have overkill where we could literally annihilate 50 worlds like ours one after another.

   So, the very first thing Jesus said, as I was going to mention to you, highlight that is said back in the sixth chapter of the book of Revelation where you read about the horsemen of the apocalypse. This has puzzled people for many, many years. Take a look at the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation for a moment. He said (Revelation 6:1), "And I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard as it was the noise of thunder, one of the four living creatures,' as it should read, saying, 'Come and see, and I saw and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.'

   Now, if you knew a little bit about the Bible, but not a lot about the Bible, you might think, Oh, yeah, Christ is always pictured as riding on a white horse, but that surely means Jesus Christ. But when you read of the other horsemen, the red one, the gray or the grizzled one, the black horse and so on. And then you go back to Matthew 24 and read the time order of the events. You will find that Jesus interprets the sixth chapter of revelation by what he said in Matthew 24. So, let's take a look at that Matthew 24.

   The very first thing he wanted his disciples to watch for was, false christ's, religious confusion and deception. The deception of many, and the very first horseman of the mysterious four horseman of the apocalypse is a white horse. Someone who has a crown and a bow who goes out to conquer. Now, how in the world are you going to recognize who is right and who is wrong? How are you going to do exactly as Jesus said, and take heed that no man deceive you a little later on in the same chapter Matthew 24 verse 11 (Matthew 24:11), he said, "And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many, and because iniquity shall abound, he said, the love of many shall wax cold, but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."

   Why did Jesus dwell continue about false prophets and false Christ? Religions of the world are divided up into hundreds and hundreds of different sects. There are all the major religions, the minor religions, Christianity so-called is divided into more than 400 differing denominations. Each saying it gets what it believes out of the Bible and yet each one disagreeing with the other and sometimes even really scrabbling with one another and writing nasty articles back and forth and attacking one another and the like.

   You can't really find very much more of a record of viciousness than you can back to history of one religion, attacking another religion or people who are filled with a religious notion trying to convert the heathens and savages. So how are you going to know? How are you going to check and to prove yourself? He said that many will be deceived. Now, how do you know I'm not going to deceive you? But the answer is you don't unless you prove it to yourself with your own eyes. That's why on this program, I am determined to show you from time to time scriptures that point out some of the most important things in your Bible and try to interest you enough to get you to blow the dust off your own Bible at home. Open it up and begin to prove some of these things to yourself.

   You can't believe me just because I tell you something any more than you can believe, even what you hear in the newspapers or hear over the radio or television news. You have to take it all with a little bit of a grain of thought because sometimes things are reported inaccurately, maybe no intent, no motive involved. Maybe it's just a matter that the news didn't quite get there the way it should have been. So, I say, don't believe anybody, listen without prejudice to anybody you wish, but then go to the source and check it for yourself and believe what you see proved in your own Bible and then you won't go wrong.

   But the very first thing that Christ warned us was, false christ, false prophets. He said there would be many, not just a few. I often times, where I have to think of a name of the Christian religions and think that they're all right that everybody is right. And people have always said, well, now how can can all these churches be wrong or it makes all more sense to ask, how can all these churches be right? If any one of them is right. Let's just reason together for a minute. If any one of them, I mean, this very sincerely is right. All the way. Right. 100%. Right. Then none of the others can be. So, why is that? Well, because every one of them differs in certain major, if not major than many minor points of doctrine.

   Now, maybe the way that heaven has a dozen different doors, a dozen different methods of getting there. I never could figure why people wanted to go to heaven. You can see how shocking it's going to be if they're halfway there and they need Christ coming the other way. Now, you know, I can just imagine that scene. People are hurtling up to heaven by the millions, a great mass of people on their way to heaven. And here comes Jesus true to all the prophecies, true to what he said, true to the first message that ever came back to the earth after he departed, that he shall so come in like manner you seen him leave. That he's coming back to the earth in Matthew 24 that talks about his return to the earth. So, they're on their way to heaven and here comes Christ on his way back to the earth and they say, "Hold it. Where are you going?" He says, "Well, I'm going down to earth where I told everybody I was going, where are you going?" And they might say, "Well, we're going to heaven." He says, "No, you're not. No, you're not. I told you time and again that no man is ascended to heaven. Peter told you on the day of Pentecost, in the second chapter of the book of Acts, the very first recorded ministry sermon in the entirety of the New Testament that David is dead and buried in the sepulchers with us to this day. And then went on to really drive the nail in the coffin by saying David is not ascended into the heavens and that was after the resurrection of Christ. So, if you think he was in some special compartment, kind of reserved to wait there his soul, you know, crying for release until Christ made it possible. How come David wasn't up there?

   David, a man after God's own heart, who used to write about as much of the Bible as anybody, one of the greatest kings in all of the history of Israel, one of the greatest and most central figures of the entirety of the Bible in biblical history, a man of whom it is said will be resurrected to judge his own people, Israel. And yet the New Testament says Peter said under inspiration of Christ that David is not ascended into the heavens. Now you begin to wonder where we get some of these ideas. Where did we get the notion in the first place? If anybody was going to go to heaven.

   I've heard people say the Bible says, we're going to heaven. But where does it say that? That's all you ask. Where does the Bible say you are going to heaven? I know very well. The Apostle Paul said he desired to depart and be with Christ. But you know, the Apostle Paul was the one who was inspired to write the resurrection chapter of the Bible. In I Corinthians 15. The Apostle Paul there talked about the hope of the dead. He said, if Christ is not risen, then as our faith vain, he talked continually about a resurrection. In the early chapters of the Book of Acts, the Apostle Paul was found preaching through Jesus the resurrection of the dead. Paul was a great believer in the resurrection. He talked about it continually. He didn't believe at all in going to heaven because he talked about the reward which Christ would bring with him to the earth from heaven. You ought to write for this article we have on just 'What is the Reward of the Saved?' Maybe that sounds like a religious title. But after all, it's kind of a religious subject, we start thinking about it. This business is going to heaven.

   You know, I said time and again, that people want to be saved from something right here on the earth. If people have economic difficulty, they want money. If people have got a disease, they want to get rid of it. If they got a fever, they want a lower temperature. If they're cold, they want to get warm. If they're sinking in a bog, they want to get saved from it by a rope or a limb or something. And at that time in your life, when you're about to face a terrible emergency, you're ready for something other than somebody saying, blessings be upon you, my child, you're saved. You want a rope, you know, you want a thermometer, you want a doctor or somebody to help you out of your difficulty.

   So, what is Jesus Christ of Nazareth offer people? He offers them a better life here and now as well as life throughout eternity. He offers them life and life more abundantly. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, came with a message about Christian duty, about responsibility, about character development, about obedience to God, about living a life of overcoming and developing into a full-blown mature, well-grounded, well-rounded thinking human being who has a love of mercy more than justice, who has a desire to give instead of take, who wants to serve and help his fellow human being instead of steal from him?

   And what is all of this for, Christian retirement? Suddenly after somebody was overcome by a bit of hard effort and hours in prayer and blood and sweat and tears as he suddenly gets rafted off up to heaven when his body dies, you know, when you stop to think about it, you and I don't believe in going to heaven. I don't care how many people profess to, because you've never seen anybody stand around and rejoice about the time it was Uncle Harry's turn to die.

   You know, it reminds me of the old Jewish fellow who was lying on his death bed. Maybe you've heard this writer, and he was kind of wheezing away and talking to one of the young fellows there. And he was saying, everybody, you know, and the kid said, well, they're all in the other room, father. And he said, what is that? I smell? And they said it's mother's apple strudel father. He says, oh, to die with the taste of mama's apple strudel on my lips, gasping away. It sounds horrible. It's one of these kind of a party records. And the kid says, I'm sorry, father. But mother says it's for after the funeral.

   Now, you know, that's just not good news to the poor old fella. He's lying there about to die and he smells the pie or the apple strudel being cooked. And he is told, well, that's for after you die, I've never looked pray tell before the person departed. Have you ever yet seen anybody who was about to die or the whole family? And everybody else was rejoicing. The most eloquent sermon that's ever been preached to preach somebody in the heaven after died is barely made dent in the tears of the ones that are still living and standing huddled around the coffin. People really innately deep down in themselves. Still wonder about it.

   Let me tell you, you don't need to wonder. I'll tell you where people are going when they die 6 ft under. And that's where they're going to stay until Jesus Christ of Nazareth comes to this earth and they are resurrected. So, if you want to write for this book on, 'The Modern Romans' and also ask for an article on, 'The Resurrection' while you're at it, you'll find something very, very, very surprising. I'm sure. And I'm not asking you to believe it because I tell you, you look into your own Bible and prove it to yourself.

   Write for this booklet, 'The Modern Romans a decline of Western Civilization' just mentioned the Romans booklet, 'The Modern Romans a decline of Western Civilization'. It showed how agriculture was in trouble, the economy was in trouble. Joblessness became rampant in the military, even threatened insurgents or the overthrow of government. This book of, 'The Modern Romans' will put you in the picture in modern-day United States of America, Canada, Britain, Australia, South Africa and other countries and show you how our Western English-speaking world is going the way of ancient Rome. It's free of charge. It's graphically illustrated, it has full-color pictures throughout and it costs you nothing. All you need to do is to tell us the name of the radio station which you've been listening and then send your request to, Box 345, Sydney New South Wales. The address is, Box 345, Sydney New South Wales. Remember there is no price, there's no advertising in any of the literature I've mentioned it's free of charge. The address again is, Box 345, Sydney New South Wales. Until next time. This is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye friends.

   You have been listening to the World Tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.

Please Note: The FREE literature offered on this program are no longer available through the Address and Phone Number given, please visit www.hwalibrary.com for all FREE literature offered on this program.

Broadcast Date: 1974