Herbert W Armstrong

   The big news seems to go unnoticed while our attention is swept this way and back by the liberal news, the local news, the latest sports scores, the political squabbles, the dock strike, the joblessness, the latest flood or tornado, maybe the national news. But what does it all mean?

   The big news is the news that was brought to this earth nearly 2000 years ago about a way to world peace. The really big news is the solution to the population explosion, the solution to mounting crime, rampant divorce and upset within the home.

   The big news is the way to world peace in a virtual utopian world for all of humankind. The big news really embodies every single political party slogan, every preamble to every constitution, every document it would seem when you read the laudatory goals of mankind and all of our guises clubs, lodges split citizens, churches, sects, organizations, nationalities, whatever group it seems we have to have documentation to tell what are the purposes of that group.

   And almost all of them without exception, have some of the most wonderful and laudatory goals, brotherhood, equality, plenty for everybody. The pie in the sky promises that men have talked about and prayed about and preached about and promised each other from time in memorial.

   Now, you can agree with practically all of those things, but wouldn't it be great if it could ever come to pass if you could hear the news right now that tomorrow peace is going to break out everywhere, day after tomorrow or maybe tomorrow, the Middle Eastern crisis will be over permanently. Russia and the United States will be the fastest friends, bosom buddies and neither one of them are going to have any conflicting ideologies anymore.

   If you could hear that exactly starting right now, there will be a complete absence, not a diminution, but in this case, a complete cessation of the arms race and that all defense industry will begin immediately to gear to peacetime purposes and going about the business of producing without polluting those necessary, not necessarily luxurious things which are required for the so-called good life. Oh, if you can hear news like that would be great.

   Well, we did hear news like that years and years ago. It's been lying around underfoot close to hand, maybe in an old trunk, maybe in the top drawer of the dresser in a motel somewhere, or the reading rack of an aircraft. It's found in funeral parlors. It's carried by brides and weddings. It occupies a space on library shelves.

   I remember that during the administration of John F. Kennedy, it was one. Even in the Oval Office of the White House, there may well be such a book on the desk of Richard Nixon. But practically nobody pays any attention to what it says. They don't read it, they don't study it.

   I quote the scriptures, the Bible, the message of Jesus Christ, the good news, the big news of the world tomorrow, prophecies that talk about what will happen, the global solution for the problems that beset all of humankind. And the instant I do this in private to a person who may be interviewing me because suddenly somebody who claims to believe in the Bible is some sort of a weirdo and a strange phenomenon.

   They ought to be interviewed. We got to find out I got unusual bumps on this guy's head somewhere. So, they asked me all sorts of questions. I'll recite something right out of the Bible. And so, the newspaper article comes out that I am a verse-reciting preacher.

   Now somebody else says, oh yeah, one of those. So, he hangs his label and immediately everybody knows exactly what I am except they don't really, isn't it amazing? We're not even embarrassed by it.

   A couple of nations of near biblical illiterates up to 75% of people now say that religion has no real impact on social life or political life or the moral climate of our nations.

   About 44% of all Christ-preaching Christ-professing ministers who believe in the New Testament, supposedly reject what Christ himself said about the solution for the world's problems. Whether or not he was going to return to the earth, some who preach it don't really preach it because they say he doesn't need to return here if you're going up there and you can't figure that out. And I can't either.

   Well, I'll tell you one thing while accepting the name of Jesus Christ. And then down through the mainstream of traditional churchianity, Christianity having gradually so twisted and distorted the meaning of that name. People are now believing in a religion which has certain trappings which may appear to be biblical in one way or another or maybe several. But if they were to hear the ABC 123 straight from the shoulder messaged the way Jesus preached it, they would get the shock of their lives.

   Do you know that the Bible in so many major important doctrines? I'm talking about heaven, hell, the judgment, the millennium, the second coming of Christ, the so-called rapture, the Trinity, baptism, the keeping of the law, law and grace. And you can go right on down the line and talk about hundreds of doctrines. And I've mentioned already, practically every mainstream doctrine there is. And in every last one of those, the Bible says just about the exact opposite from what you've always been told it says. Now, wait a minute, hold on there. If you say, where does he get off to say a thing like that? Let me just ask you this. Do you know where to find the word rapture in the Bible? Do you really? No, you don't. I don't care if you earn your living as a preacher, you don't know where to find it because it isn't there. You know where to find the word Trinity in the Bible. It isn't there. You want to tell me where in the Bible to find the words, I'm going to heaven. It isn't there, no, some of the traditional doctrines that have become so unpalatable that the businessman types of this world just simply cannot swallow some of it which I can't blame them for are just not there.

   So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to offer businessman types something they've never had the privilege of doing before. I can understand why about 75% of the public just does not believe that there is really that much force in religion that is influencing society in general today and really solving our problems. I can easily understand that I can understand why the Second Martini for lunch bunch the successful and the affluent might say what me be saved. Save from what? Save for my, what? My rolls Royce and my Jaguar my 25,000 plus per year salary, save from what my paid vacations. My friends benefits. My status symbol of an indoor lab where I work used to be a status symbol.

   You can't blame people, people who are fat and happy as we say, just really don't see any need to be saved. It's the down and outers. It's the people that have had it. It's the sick and the infirm you afflicted. It's the elderly whose lives are about over. It's the people who have had one heartbreak and one frustrating love affair and one broken home and one tragedy after another, a lot of criminals in jail have just had it. They maybe went down the road. A lot of kids do started out with hubcaps and graduated automobiles and went to copper tubing and electronics and finally got caught, got out later on, picked up a gun and robbed a bank or something. 10 or 12 years later they want to change their lives. A lot of these people seem to find a need for God. But, I don't blame the businessman types, the fat and happy types, as I say, from rejecting it because the way I hear it's presented, it doesn't make sense first. And secondly, it's unpalatable as all get out. And thirdly, you don't want to join the ranks of that type of life because all you do for golf on Sundays and he just plays havoc with a person's life the way he really wants to live it. So, most people just really don't get around to doing very much about it.

   It's the kind of a message which is largely rejected. I don't blame you a bit. I reject it too, every last bit of it utterly and totally. I reject the mainstream Christian theology of this world. Oh, no, I don't reject the Bible. Wait a minute, I don't reject the real Jesus Christ. I accept him with all of my being and I accept the Bible. Once I was asked by a man who was questioning me on my beliefs, he said, now I understand and you could see he was a little confused. He said that you seem to say that you reject the mainstream of Christian theology. But at the same time, you say that you believe in the Bible.

   Now he says, how can that be? And I simply said, well, you just said it, that's all it is really, you've answered the question. You said it, it's easy. You see, I believe the mainstream of Christian thought. Judeo-Christian ethic has rejected the Bible.

   The Ambassador College publication, What is the True Gospel? Answers one of the most divisive questions of our times.

   We live in a world of many different religions while teaching peace and harmony among men. Their people are led to war against one another. Witness the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India and Pakistan, the Protestant-Catholic confrontation in Northern Ireland and the Jew-Arab crisis. All believing they have true religion. Ironic, isn't it? With over 400 denominations in the Western Christian world? Haven't you ever wondered which one is right? Who teaches what Jesus taught our free articles will help you understand that message in the light of today's world. Send for, What is the True Gospel? Your copy is free, there is no charge or follow-up. It's called, What is the True Gospel? Send your request to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.

   Dynamic, powerful message of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was there is coming a global world governing authority. He came with a message about the world tomorrow. The big news of the way this world's problems will be solved. Where do we get off thinking? He came to live a nice life to be a different kind of a fellow. To be a vagabond. The first hippie, the little Lord in the manger overshadowed by his mother, the dead Christ hanging on a cross, a man with ideas that are unworkable, like turn the other cheek, you know, and that makes society in general kind of sick and embarrassed when little old ladies happen in the restaurants and sing the doxology which I just heard about a moment ago and I remember so well, a couple of these witnesses types, they claimed they were witnessing. I don't know what they had seen. They didn't talk about accident. They weren't in court to talk about a crime, but they were witnessing.

   They were in a coffee shop. It was a long narrow one. It had booths along one side and a tear of the roll, the swivel stools on the other grain narrow. They got to the very rear and started at the top of their lungs to say, fire, fire in the gate for hell. That's about as far as I heard, everybody jumped up and began to run for the entrance, the exit and they were preaching some gospel message. I looked around for the fire. I wondered where the smoke was. Presumably it was coming up for me because I was so close the way they would look at it to the flames. Then they began handing out these little tracks. You know what people do when that happens? They just get embarrassed nearly to death. They kind of cringe, they hang their head and say, oh no. It's about like at the political convention, quiet, banging on the gavel, quiet, ladies and gentlemen, you hear the gavel reverberating.

   You look down, somebody's lying there asleep and two or three are chatting away. Hi Henry, you know, and a couple of women are talking and the guy with the thing in his ear and now I'm getting an interview on CBS or NBC News or something else. Quiet minister is about to talk to God. I'll tell you the way to get their attention. Hold it everybody, Ted Kennedy is on the telephone. Man, you talk about a Paul settling over. You know, people would begin to wait a minute. You know, we're going to get a direct phone patch right into the microphone. You're going to hear what he says, that would get their attention. They'd sit up and notice people give a few embarrassed moments for a, just in case religion. We think maybe God might be up there. They've even got an emergency Bible these days. I was telling you about some time ago. I want to get a copy of that, by the way, they have a Bible in the military and I think for aircraft now that they seal up in the life raft and says open an emergency only. Isn't that unbelievable?

   So, we have a just in case religion, it's all watered down. It's neatly packaged up into an unpalatable kind of a hodge pod that is all completely irrelevant and unrelated to the hard dog eat dog, competitive business world outside. What is the Bible, I ask you got to do with drought with hurricanes, with Fraine fire and rain and storm? What has it got to do with dock strikes with nations becoming third-rate powers with the realignment of global powers today along more economic lines, the big trading empires and combines beginning to develop, to become full-fledged political entities like a third power block in the world in central Europe.

   What's that got to do with the Bible? I answered everything. So, I'll give you a new opportunity Businessmen of the world sheik and blasé' people who don't know much about the Bible and couldn't care less, as well, given an opportunity to everybody else, including even ministers who think they know something about what the Bible says. I'm going to offer you an opportunity you've never had before.

   The opportunity, not just to reject an unpalatable hodgepodge of historical machinations, twisting, resting and perversion of original truth. I'm going to give you the opportunity to reject the truth, to hear the truth and reject it. Now, it's not so bad to reject the way it has been because that ought to be rejected. I reject it with all of my being, but you ought to hear the real gospel of Jesus Christ just once before you go and have an opportunity to do something with that one way or the other.

   Jesus Christ of Nazareth came preaching what he called the gospel of the Kingdom of God and he told what that kingdom was, he told all about it. He drew analogy after analogy of how he was a young nobleman who went away into a far country that's Christ who has received his Father into heaven to get for himself a kingdom and to return. Why don't you hear that very much today? He said he's coming back. It doesn't matter whether I believe him, it doesn't matter whether you believe him. He said it. I'm merely commenting that most of the world doesn't believe him. And that millions who claim they believe on him don't believe what he said. That's their problem between them and their God. It's not, you know, in a sense, maybe it's your problem because it affects the entirety of our civilization and our whole way of life. If we all with one voice and one will and purpose were obedient to our God, it would be something else. Again that we're not, we don't even want to claim that most people would never argue with me on that table.

   Garner Ted, the United States is too a commandment keeping nation, forget it. You haven't got a common meeting place to stand on the same solid ground to say a word like that, same comment for Canada. We're just not going to say we're a commandment keeping people. You can pick anyone. You might have trouble doing that quick. What's number six that illustrates my point? You can go down the line with the 10 commandments at some time or another, read them instead of them. They are found in Exodus 20 Deuteronomy 5 in case you know where to look. And that's the Old Testament, by the way, Genesis and then Exodus, you can look at the second book of the Bible and find the 20th chapter and read those, you might get a surprise, they might say something you didn't know they said, you might read about the fourth commandment and wonder, well, how come the whole Christian theological mainstream doesn't observe that one? Well, you might say, how come you don't observe most of the other ones as far as that's concerned. But even those that they try to observe, those that they claim to observe are somehow getting a little watered down when it comes right down to it.

   I read a little track the other day that said you don't go to hell for smoking. You don't go to hell for boozing it up. You don't go to hell for all those things. You go to hell for rejecting Christ. What was wrong with that? Everything? You don't go to hell in the first place. There isn't any hell. Well, now, wait a minute, you might think I don't believe what the Bible teaches about it. I do, the Bible talks about a Gehenna fire, a hell fire. But what you think of when I say the word, hell, you think of a place probably as described by Don T. Alighieri in one of his nightmares where people are leaping around or upside down demons are tickling them on the feet while they're in this cauldron and smoke coming up. I've seen the pictures. I've heard the types you know, loosen the neckties, look out, I'm going to hit you tonight and then really heat up the fire and kind of bang the sinners over the flames, you know, and wait for everybody to run screaming to the altar and repent fire and brimstone preachers, they were called, people believe in an ever-burning hell fire. Do you want to accept that? You believe saved mothers out there in heaven floating around on a cloud, you know, shuffling through harp music and comparing wings. I guess that's all it is to do. Maybe counting those gold bricks are looking down below and listening to the shrieks of these tormented millions and let's face it, we know the broad majority is going there if that's where people go, if they don't, which I'm trying to explain. But anyhow, there is no ever-burning hell. It isn't even in the Bible. Oh, it talks about the wicked becoming ashes, it talks about a fire all right. It talks about there being a hell fire. Absolutely. There's no question about that. But you have to look into the Bible to find out what kind and when and under what circumstances and who goes there. And it's a completely different story from the way you've heard it.

   So, I'd like to give you time after time as I come on with what I call the big news of the world tomorrow, which is just another way of saying the gospel of becoming rulership, the government and the kingdom of God. I'd like to give you an opportunity to reject not just a hodgepodge of traditionalism of ceremony, a smattering of paganism dressed up in a nice tuxedo and made to look presentable in the 20th century. I'd like to give you an opportunity to reject the truth.

   The splendor of kings as a man for thousands of years, every kingdom with a despotic or benevolent has four important aspects. Its ruler, subjects, laws and territory. Bible prophecies, foretell a kingdom that will rule the whole world with the laws of God as its guide. It's called the Kingdom of God. Some say it's the church. Others are sure is set up in the hearts of men and many insist it's in heaven. But what does the Bible say? Where would it be? And how will it be set up? The booklet titled, What do you mean Kingdom of God? Brings you the answer from your Bible, write for your free copy today and read the big news about, What do you mean Kingdom of God?

   I really don't blame people at all for rejecting the promises on old barn roofs and rock side signs along the highway and, you know painted on big flat rocks and signs on painted automobiles. And the like, I don't blame people for kind of shuffling their feet and looking embarrassed when somebody stands up in a busy restaurant began screaming out religious slogans. I don't blame people at political conventions for not wanting to pay much attention they're one of the most driest things they can possibly listen to. How do they select those people? Where is the poll taken as to, how do they decide on inviting different people? I know they want to get representatives of all different religions and different faiths and so on. And I know that the people that do pray usually don't want to embarrass anybody there by using the name of Christ. Yet they are commanded in the Bible when you pray, say our Father, which art in heaven, et cetera, et cetera. And we see the disciples, the apostles always said in Jesus name. But people have managed to rationalize that away and to dispense pretty much with that.

   No, I can see how it is rather unpalatable to many people. The form the ceremony, the traditionalism, the various doctrines that they don't really understand. I can prove for you by getting an encyclopedia right now. Maybe I should do it some other time. And here in the office, I didn't bring it with me and read what is called the Apostles Creed. The apostles never heard of it. Of course, they were dead centuries before anybody ever concocted that. And it says, who died descended into hell. Speaking of Christ, I believe in Jesus Christ, the son of God who died, was buried and descended into hell. Now this is in the Apostles Creed. And yet these same people are preaching and teaching that Jesus said to a thief hanging right there with him this day, you're going to be with me in paradise. Even an atheist ought to be able to figure out there's something wrong with that.

   You know, the Apostles Creed. You've heard of that? This is something that is recited by the churches and they say right in that creed, they believe Jesus went to hell. Did you know that? Well, you recited it but I'll bet you don't understand it. What do you do down there? Is there such a place? Yeah. It's a place where farmers used to keep their potatoes in the winter. The old Anglo-Saxon word really comes from an original Germanic term and there was an ancient goddess whose name was Hel, Hel. But really originally it was taken from a Greek term which is Hades. And if you've heard somebody saying that the word Hades has any remote connection, any etymological derivation, any connection to fire or heat or flames or ashes or anything that is connected with the giving off heat and light and energy in terms of a flame that is devouring or not devouring something. Then you've heard wrong because the Greek word which is translated hell in the English is hades and hades merely means the grave.

   Now, you can check me on that if you like. There are such things as Exhaustive Concordances that have every single word of the Bible where it gives you the Greek and the Hebrew and tells you the original word and what it means. You can check me on that. Now, the word Gehenna, which is used very sparingly but here and there and also translated hell is a word which Jesus used to describe a valley that belonged to the sons of Homage originally, right near the city of Jerusalem. I've been there. So, in that sense, I guess I can say I've been to hell and back like Audie Murphy in the movie, this is a very precipitous deep valley right off the shoulder of what used to be called Mount Zion.

   The city of David down below there, it was called Genam, Gina or Henum or Gehenna. And in this was the Jerusalem garbage dump and they shoved the refuse. And once in a while I had a horrible practice then of course, crucifying criminals, which is the method of Christ's death and they would shove the bodies off the cliff. They would stone people sometimes and throw them headlong over this precipitous cliff where they would simply, and this is a horrible thing. They didn't bury them, they just left them there and the rubble just continually burnt day and night, day and night for years. You know, the garbage dump is burning. They didn't believe too much in sanitation and good air pollution control, in those days. This became known as Henum the Valley of Henum or Gehenna. It was a fire which was never quenched the bodies that hung up down there unfortunately decayed.

   You know, there's one scripture that has been used by fire-breathing evangelical types to tell you that one of the things about this hell fire is that there are immortal worms there, there are immortal worms. Let me turn to that right quickly. I'm about to run out of time. I hadn't intended getting into this, but it's kind of interesting. I've got a little article to tell you about that. I hope you will write for, Do Worms Never Die in Hell? Is the title of it, Jeremiah. Let's get back to the last chapter of Isaiah. Here we are Isaiah 66 and verse 24 (Isaiah 66:24). And it says this is the last verse of the whole book of Isaiah. So, look it up some time, it says, they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me for their worm shall not die. Neither shall their fire be quenched and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

   Oh, man, I wonder how many sermons have been made out of that verse about a fire which is not quenched. I can start one of those if I had an ashtray and a piece of paper right here. I can start it and say now hold it, don't even spit on it. No water. No nothing. No. Put it out. We're not going to quench that it's an unquenchable fire. Will it go out? Sure. As soon as it's burned up what it was burning on. So, that's the same kind of a fire the Bible talks about now, what is it? A worm that never dies? I've seen lots of those. I know exactly what they are, what they look like and where they are, they don't die. You know what they do, they do something else. If you want the answer to that you write for an article, Do worms never die? It's a cute subject. You'll really be inspired when you read this article.

   But it shows you how silly are some of the misinterpretations of some of these scriptures in the Bible? How obvious right before our nose is the real answer. It's commonplace, household, plain everyday information that anybody ought to know. He wasn't describing here some agony of ever living writhing in a Don T. Alighieri nightmare in a place called hell. He was describing a very real fate of someone who was put to death in a very cruel and horrible manner.

   You know, there is death that is going to occur to all men once that isn't the wages of sin that happens to everybody good or bad. We all die because we're mortal, temporal, transitory, earthbound, metabolic organisms. But you know, it says in the Bible, the wages of sin is death and that means death from which there is no resurrection. The way your Bible tells it, Jesus Christ of Nazareth said there are resurrections, not just one, but more than one. You'll be surprised when you read what he said about it.

   I'll bring you that and what he said about his kingdom. What he said about the life hereafter, it's so different from anything you've read before. In the meantime, write for this booklet and get these scriptures ahead of time on. Just what do you mean the Kingdom of God? You'll be surprised. You'll be shocked. You'll find your Bible says, well, you didn't know it says is the Kingdom of God something within you. Maybe somewhere along your religious experience, you've heard someone say that. Maybe you even thought it was in the Bible. This booklet goes through the scriptures on that subject and shows you as no other booklet we have exactly, What is the Kingdom of God? It is free of charge. There is no price for it, Just what do you mean the Kingdom of God? Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye friends.