Herbert W Armstrong

   I'd like to start out with a little story. A woman went to a marriage counselor about getting a divorce. Marriage counselor asked her, "Do you have any grounds?" She said, "Oh, you have to buy 1 acre in Oregon." He says, "Uh, no, that's not what I meant. I mean, do you have a grudge?" I said, "No, we have a carport." "You don't understand, does he ever beat you up?" "No, I always get up first." He says, "Well, what seems to be the problem then?" He says, "Mostly we just don't communicate well."

   So I wanted to come out today and communicate well, to get to know you all, to get to know each other hopefully over the next years, and just learn a little bit about each other and learn to come to love each other as brothers and sisters. You know, I've been assigned as the new pastor of the Reseda, which will take place probably in the next 1 to 2 months depending on the sale of homes that everybody is selling their homes and moving and exactly when Mr. Carson will be going to Des Moines. From the sound of it, I'm sure he's gonna be very anxious to get there.

   And so I have been assigned to be your servant. And I hope that we can all learn, grow, to love one each other, to gain more knowledge about each other, to have a closeness that only comes with knowing each other very, very well and communicating very, very well. As pastor in Reseda, I have been looking forward to the opportunity to serve everyone in this area. And of course being the pastor of Glendale and now Reseda, I have an opportunity to serve many, many more people, and I thank God for that opportunity.

   I know that Mr. Farer will be a tough act to follow, but with God's help, I hope to serve you all lovingly, wisely, and effectively. I ask that you please pray for me because of the number of people that I will be serving, and you will pray that I will be able to serve both the Glendale Church and the Reseda Church with wisdom and knowledge and with the help of God, and that would please God in the way I would serve you all.

   As Mr. Cloninger mentioned, Mr. James Capo will be assigned as a ministerial trainee in the Glendale and Reseda areas, but he'll be assisting me over the next year or two at least. I'm sure with the outstanding elders, the deacons, and the deaconesses that we have here, that everything will go along smoothly and that you'll all be served well spiritually.

   My strongest desire today, I like to state that, is that we all come to know each other, to love one another and truly become brothers and sisters in Christ with the fullest meaning of that word. My wife Mary, my daughter Julia, and my son Jamie, and I hope that you will welcome us into your family. We hope to be moving into a more central location. Right now I live close to the college in Pasadena, and I believe the church area goes all the way to Thousand Oaks, so past Thousand Oaks down to Santa Monica to the ocean out into the desert, and the Glendale area goes back up to Mount Wilson, Chileo flats down right to the edge of Pasadena, and then across the northern part of Los Angeles. I think a little bit of Hawaii and Alaska is in there too.

   So I'm gonna try and move more centrally located, so I'll be looking for a home somewhere in the northern part of the area. I tried to cross 134, and that is a very difficult road to travel. It seems to be always crowded no matter what time of day or night that you're traveling, and I'm hoping that somewhere up in the sun up in that area in the north, where I'll be able to get to most of the major foodways into most of the areas fairly quickly.

   I feel that because the area is so wide scattered that many people will feel, "Oh no, oh no, I'll never get to see my pastor and I'll be out here by myself," and I hope that that never does happen, that no matter how wide and how far the distance is that we can always be together, we can always meet, we can always have times where we can counsel, fellowship, enjoy each other's company, needed services, and on visits throughout the year. So please feel free to contact me at any time that you need me, anytime that you feel that you want to talk to me, and I hope that we can have that relationship in the future.

   One of the main, uh, main problems that we will have in the very near future, I do not like change, but of course we have to change. This is a situation where a change has been ordained by God, Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Tkach, and one of the changes that we will have to make is that whenever I talk to Mr. Fonnier, he says, "Well, the good thing Glendale is an afternoon service." I said, "Wait a minute." I said, "Glendale not an afternoon service. Reseda is an afternoon service, isn’t it?" He says, "No," he said, "I thought Glendale was." I said, "No, we got a problem here to start off with."

   We have a problem with that we will both have morning services and one of the congregations will have to move because of the way the situation is set up. One of the congregations will have to move to an afternoon service. So I will make that decision on what is best for both of the churches. And there are some constraints, such as the uh rental agreements that you have already made and whether we can't have to have afternoon services, but I would like to ask, I would like to get your feelings, how many in this congregation would like to have, would prefer, I think about this for a second, how many of you would prefer afternoon services? Would you raise your hand, please? I see some enthusiastic hand raise. OK I'm just counting numbers, not how much you weigh, OK. How many would like to have morning services? OK, thank you. How many don't care what you have? OK, just services, OK.

   Like I say, I will take into consideration every factor when I make my decision. When the decision is made, we'll have it announced to both congregations. Right now, I have no preference. I just don't know. I have to get much many more facts before I could make a change. But we will have to make that slight change. Hopefully not many other changes will be made in the congregation over the next year. If things will run pretty much the way they have, the way that you're accustomed to having it.

   However, we must change. You know, I certainly understand that people don't want to change. Our human nature says leave me alone. You know, I'm just happy. I like it quiet. I like it stable. I want to be just like I am right now. When the Glendale congregation in January or February, we had to move. We lost the hall that we were meeting in it for 15 or 16 years. It was the Masonic Temple. Many of you probably met there yourselves. There's a Masonic Temple very similar to this, a similar configuration to this place. And we had to move to the Elks Hall, which was about 7 or 8 blocks away, but it had the same type of a setup with seats on both sides, some in the back, and then the chairs would be set up in the center and everything was similar.

   We went to the first meeting there. As I sat down and I looked around, everybody was in the same place, but they weren't in a Masonic Hall. All the widows were sitting over here. No one had changed. Wherever I saw someone in the Masonic Hall, that's the same place they were in the. Now they had changed physical locations, but they have not changed. They did not want to change. They, they felt so comfortable.

   Now think about it. Now look across from you right now or next to you. Isn't that the same people that's been sitting in that same general area for the last 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 years? We just don't want to change. People like it stable, they like it quiet. But you know, we have been forced to change and it's fitting today, I guess, to talk about change. Not just the changes that are happening right now, but because of the change that is happening is happening right now, we should look at ourselves and how we should change. Because brethren we have been called, we have been called to change, not to stay the same. Remember, each and every one was called the weak, the unwise, we know them, and then God says, "OK, now that I've called you like that, don't remain that way, change."

   So we should think about change. We must learn to change. We must grow from change, and we must look at change as a challenge, not as a trial. He says life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. Our human nature doesn't want us to change, but you realize that the only way that you can come into God's family, the only way that you can grow into God's family is that you must change. We cannot go into the family of God as a human being, as flesh and blood. You must change into a spirit being. We must all change.

   I think the butterfly is a good example of that. Picture back in Iowa now with all those hills and the green grass and the trees. You look out there and you see the butterflies living around. That butterfly has only one job in life, and that's to lay eggs. That butterfly came from a puma, a small little wrapped up cocoon ball that came from a caterpillar. The only thing the caterpillar ever did was eat. Caterpillar, when it's born as an egg, will eat and eat and eat a ferocious appetite, and then would become a chrysalis a chrysalis a little cocoon. It would hang there on a tree for 10 days, then it would burst open and out will come a butterfly.

   The butterfly could not, uh, the butterfly was designed specifically for laying eggs. The caterpillar could not. With every one of those stages of change, that caterpillar could not exist. If you break any one of those stages of change, the caterpillar, the butterfly goes out of existence. There is no more butterfly. And that's what happens to us to make it into God's kingdom. We have certain ways that we have to change. Our life has to go from one type of life to another type of life and eventually into the kingdom of God. It's a step by step change, and we cannot break that. We must change. We must, to make it into God's kingdom, change. There's no two ways about it. Become you perfect, become more mature, become aged, become something different that you are right now to make it into God's kingdom.

   That's what Matthew 5:48 says. But that's easy to say. Isn't that easy to say? All you gotta do is change. But how about in the doing? How about in putting that into practice? How about moving in your life from one position in life to another? The Passover was a reminder. The Passover was a reminder that you should change. When you took the Passover, think back to that time. You were looking before the Passover at the way you had lived, the way that you have lived the past year, and you were rededicating yourself again to God to change more during the next year.

   You must look at your conversion, and the word conversion means change. You were converted from one way of life to another way of life. That's the only way that God could put His spirit into you. You had to change from what you were before. You had to be baptized and all your sins washed away from you. You had to repent before that baptism before a minister could put his hands on you and say, now you can have God's spirit and you could start to grow and to be someone different. You had to change from an old man to a new man. So that you could have God's spirit put into you. And when that spirit is put into you, the power was given for you to change. Repent, then be baptized, then have God's ministry lay on hands and give you God's Holy Spirit.

   The Passover was a remembrance of that commitment, a commitment to change, to repent, to turn, a commitment to do something different. Look at at this time we're looking at right now. Remember we had the Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, that was all explained to us. But after that period of time, what happened to the children of Israel? After the Days of Unleavened Bread and on the last day when they crossed the Red Sea, did they go immediately into the promised land? Did the next day they went into the kingdom, as the analogy is? No, they spent 40 years in the wilderness, 40 long years in the wilderness, but many did not make it into that promised land.

   So we've gone spiritually through the Passover. We've gone spiritually through the Days of Unleavened and Bread. Where are we now? We're in a spiritual wilderness. We're walking through wilderness looking for that new city, that new Jerusalem, that promised land, walking through the wilderness. Let's go to Deuteronomy 8. Deuteronomy 8, see what we are supposed to learn as we walk through the spiritual wilderness. What we should be doing during this period of time.

   Deuteronomy 8. Let's start off in verse 2 (Deuteronomy 8:2). Says, "and you shall remember all the way which the Eternal God led you these 40 years." He's recapping what happened to them for the last 40 years just prior to going into the promised land. "In the wilderness, he lived there for 40 years to humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart deep inside you, whether you will keep his commandments or, or not. And he humbled you and he suffered you the hunger, and he fed you with manna which you do not. Neither did your father know that he might make you to know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Eternal does man live. Will raiment wax not old upon you? Neither did your foot swell these 40 years. You shall also consider in your heart that if a man chastises his son, so the Lord chastened thee. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Eternal your God, to walk in His ways and to fear him."

   He called us out of this world and he put us in the spiritual wilderness. He says this is the way. Don't go this direction. Don't go that direction. Don't go by the way of the Philistines, go the way that is sure, you will go this way. This is the way I want you to go to prove you, to try you, to test you, to humble you, to see that he does turn to the way of life he wants you to live.

   Down in verse 11, he says, "Beware that you forget not the Eternal God in keeping his commandments and his statues and his judgment, which I commanded you this day. At least when you are eating and are full and have built goodly houses and dwelling at the very end," this is down in verse 14, "then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Eternal your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage."

   He brought us out for a specific reason. To change us, to show us the way of living that he wanted us to live the right way, the way that was defined by his laws, the way the happiness, peace, joy, tranquility, the fruits of God's spirit. But you know what happens to us is in human nature, the carnal nature that's in us, is that we tend not to turn to God except in times of adversity. Whenever things are going wrong, it seems so much easier to pray and cry out to God, doesn't it? Whenever things are not quite right in your life. Then it seems to be easier to go to God. If you don't know where to go and everything is going bad, then you cry out to God.

   Two sailors were adrift on a raft for days. When one losing all hope of rescue, he knelt and prayed. He says, "Oh Lord," he moaned, "I've led a worthless life, been drunk too often, been mean to my wife, and neglected my children. But if you save me from this, I promise," and then his companion said, "Hold it, Jess, don't promise any drastic. I think I see land." Because as long as there's another hope some other way, we don't want to turn to God.

   Did anybody see the movie "The End"? I didn't see the whole movie, but I've seen the very last few minutes of it. And I remember that so clearly. I think the whole gist of the movie was that Burt Reynolds had a terminal disease and was gonna die. So rather than just die slowly in pain or agony or whatever it was, he was gonna do away with himself and make it quick. So at the last scene of the movie or the very last scene, he goes out into the water and he goes out, swims out way out, and he's gonna drown himself. So he lets himself go and he starts to go into the water, he starts to get these flashbacks of his family and his children, and he doesn't want to die.

   He says, "I've got to hang on to light," and he starts to swim up to the top of the water. Then he gets on the top of the water and he says, "Help me, God, help me, Lord. I'll give you 50% of my income if you'll just save me out of it. I'll give you 100% of my income if you'll just save me." So then he starts to swim towards the shore and as he gets closer to the shore, he says, "I'll give you 40%. Just help me to get to shore. I'll give you 10%." As soon as you get dry land, he says, "I know God that you wouldn't want me to give you all my money." And he walked back up on the shore and then someone came chasing him with a knife, I guess it was somebody had contracted to do away with him, and he started to run. He says, "God, I'll give you 50% if you'll just save me."

   You know God allows our sins to come upon us. He allows them to be turned around when we do sin so that he can use that to chastise us to make us change and turn our ways, to turn us about and to change us. Let's go to Revelation 3. Revelation 3. He tells us here that he wants us to turn. He wants us to repent. He wants us to change our way of life.

   Revelation 3:19. He's talking to the Laodicean era of God's church. And he knows that they have gone wrong in their hearts and in their work, the things that they have done. If your heart is wrong, the things that you do with your hand will be wrong. I think that it was brought up very nicely in the sermonette today. It's not what's on your hand, it's what's inside your heart, what's deep inside you. And if that's not right, and if your heart's not right, everything that you do, everything you put your hand to will be wrong because what you do comes out from the abundance of your heart.

   So their works were wrong, their hearts were wrong, and he told them in verse 19 of chapter 3, says "As many as I love, I will rebuke and chasen. Be zealous therefore and repent," turn, change, convert, move to something different than what you are doing right now. He loves us so therefore he wants that change to come upon us and sometimes uses chasing to do that.

   Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy said that everybody thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks about changing himself. And that's where it all starts. You have to change yourself. Now, human nature says, I don't want to change. So what happens? Well, you've got to change. And the human nature says, I don't want to change. And God says, you have to change. And human nature says, well, I don't think I want to change. God says, you must change. You have no choice in the matter. You must turn. You must turn around from the direction you are going to a new direction.

   Many of us may be going this way when God wants us to go this way. Most of us, I'm sure, are going this way when God wants us to correct just a little bit and come more to center, or we'll maybe off this way a little bit and we want it to come back this way so that we're all walking in the same direction. The people in the world are going this way and God's going this way. We in our conversion came around and then each day we should be changing more and more and more. So we're in line with what Christ wants us to do. Then we have the mind of Christ in us. Then we have the mind of God in us. Then whenever our mind is that way, our heart is that way, and when our heart is that way, then everything we do is that way. We're doing with God's way, the way he wants us to do.

   Let's go to II Chronicles 7 verse 14. Rehoboam had a problem. II Chronicles 7:14. After the kingdom was split, he got his strength and he got everything together. Then in verse 14. Oh, excuse me, this is uh II Chronicles 7, verse 14. This is what God wants of us. This is what God cries out for us to do. He says to us in II Chronicle 7, verse 14. "If my people, which are called by, now he said my name." Today his name is Christ. Today, your name is Christian. If you are called by his name, he says, "If my people, which are called by the name of Christian, the people that are of Christ, that are Christ that have Christ spirit in them, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land."

   That's what God wants for us, from us. He wants us to change our way of life. We have to change day in and day out because we are creatures of habits. When we grew up as we were growing up, our family, our friends, our environment, the teachers that we have, everybody that we came into contact with put something into us, gave us habits that one day when someone came up and he says, "Here, have a cigarette." And you took that first cigarette and started to smoke it. Well, whatever it was that they put into you, Satan's way and Satan's world, he is pervading the whole society. He persuades the whole society, and we grew up in that and that was put into us day in and day out. And then we have to change from that because we have developed habits over the years, habits that are very hard to break.

   We must change. We must humble ourselves and ask what we want to change. That is why the ministry is given. As its first task in Ephesians 4:12, to perfect the saints, to mature the saints, to aid the saints, to feed them full of the word of God so that they become aged and full and someone different than they were before, not that the ministry does that, but the ministry is used by Jesus Christ to do that, and we must help you.

   There's a story about a little girl who was taken to an old fashioned church and for the first time, and she started, she stared in awe at the old high minister who was shouting up in his box pulpit, you see, up real high, and he's screaming and he's thumping the Bible he's waving his arms and hollering and screaming, and she was unable to stand it any longer and she leaned over to her father and whispered in a frightened voice, "What do we do if he gets out of there?" So some do it with gusto, some do it other ways.

   So we must look, we must look always to the ministry, to the studying of God's word, to the Bible, to Bible studies, to sermons, to those things that God provides for us to change through the power and the spirit of God. You know, the whole book of Job is designed for one thing. All of the trials that Job went through was designed for one thing, to make Job really see God. To really understand who God was, he said, "Now I see you. Now I understand who you are. Now I know who God is. Now I understand what you want from me." And then he repented in sackcloth and ashes, and he humbled himself at that point because you must see who God is. You must see who Jesus Christ is. You must know what they want from you.

   Before you can change, you must study the word of God. You must delve into the Bible deeply. You must drink of that word, so you know what God wants for you. And once you know it, once you understand it, then you must live that way, and you can only live that way by the power of the spirit of God that God gives you. It's natural for us not to want to do that. It's carnal nature. That's why the message that Mr. Armstrong preaches to the world, the Jeremiah message, and he preaches it also to us. Let’s go to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 3. He preaches that message because we tend if not to be given that every Sabbath, if not to be fed every Sabbath, if not to be listening to the broadcast, not to be studying our Bible day in and day out, not to be praying and not to meditate, but in Jeremiah 3, you know what happens to us the minute we draw back from that step by step if we're going along with Christ and you forget to do those things, you start to make just a little bit of a turn.

   The more you miss, the more you forget, the more you don't do it. The turn starts to become more and more. It starts off so small that you don't even realize it. And then all of a sudden the turn is there. The next thing you know, you're going off to the right or the left. And then the last thing that you know is that you're going this way and Jesus Christ is going that way, and you've missed everything that you were supposed to learn, everything that you were supposed to get inside you, that change that you were supposed to make in your own structure is gone.

   In Jeremiah 3:12, "To go and proclaim these words towards the north and say return you backsliding Isreal, says the Eternal, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the Eternal, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquities that you have transgressed against the Eternal your God and have scattered your ways to the strangers. That thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the Eternal, says turn oh backsliding children, says the Eternal for I am married unto you. I am married unto you."

   He is a husband to us and we will be a husband at that marriage supper at the end time, “and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family,” and that is what he has done. He is taken out of Israel and out of all the world, one of the city, and two of a family. We in the God church, and "I will bring you to Zion," symbolically the church at the end time, the church that we are in today, the very body of Christ. He says, "I will give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and with understanding."

   And those things that you learned, those things that you need to learn, are the responsibility of the pastor of the church. It is your responsibility to delve into the Bible to find out the way of life that you should lead, that you should study those things to show yourself an approved workman of God, that you should work on studying, growing, and eventually changing.

   Jeremiah 8. And verse 5 Jeremiah 8:5. This is something about the human heart. That before conversion. We will not accept. God has to go in to the very heart of man upon your conversion and maybe many times during the time that you're growing towards the kingdom of God and take your heart and jerk it around. And so look where I want you to go because the carnal heart is enmity against God. It says in Jeremiah 8:5. "Well, why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast the seat, they refuse to change and to repent."

   And I'm not saying that we are all carnal and running off in the wrong direction. No, not at all. The majority of God's church is right there striving and working to change and stay with God, but it's only that if you know that the possibility, the potential is there to move off from God's way and you're aware of it and you're working on it all the time, that's how you stay close to God. The time that you say I've got it made and I can make it, no problem. I don't have to worry about all these things backsliding, never. I don't have to worry about studying and praying, never. I can pray when I drive in my car. That's the only time I ever have to pray. I can listen to a tape once a week and then I'll make it into God's kingdom. That's when the problems start. That's when the turn starts.

   And if you're aware of those things, if you're aware of, you're able to backslide and your heart can turn. If you know that, then you'll be aware and watching for it, and then you'll also be forcing your heart back to God. You'll be forcing yourself to go God's way, not that you can do it carnally, you can only do it with the spirit of God. God has to get our attention sometimes and he uses chastisement to do that. Many times that we start to turn from God, God allows our sin to come upon us to let us know that we need to change, that we need to turn.

   Let's go back to II Chronicles 12. Now this is a story about Rehoboam that I mentioned before, II Chronicles 12. And then he had a problem. He took over as the king of Judah, II Chronicles 12 verse 1. "After he had established his kingdom and strengthened himself." II Chronicles 12:1, it says "It came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and has strengthened himself. When he had got himself strength, when he knew what he was doing, he forsook the law of the Eternal and all Israel with him. And it came to pass in the 5th year of Rehoboam Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against the Eternal, and he came up against them."

   And then one of the prophets of God came to Rehoboam and told him in verse 5, "Then came Shemaiah, the prophets of Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, who had also gone along with Rehoboam and what was happening. That were gathered together in Jerusalem because of Shishak and said unto them, you have thus says the Lord, you have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak." Because you have turned from me, he said, then I will allow you to go down into Egypt. I will allow the Egyptians to come in and take over Jerusalem.

   Then in verse 6 it says (II Chronicles 12:6), "Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king himself humbled themselves, and they said the Eternal is righteous. And when the Eternal saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Eternal came to Shemaiah saying, they have humbled themselves. They have turned. They have repented. They have changed in the way that they were going. They have humbled themselves. Therefore, I will not destroy them. But I will grant them some deliverance or deliverance for a little while." At one point they will be taken over. But at this point here, because of their humbleness, because of they turning back to God's way, he says, "I will let them alone for just a little while, and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak." Because of what they did, because of the change that came about in their hearts.

   Many times we don't hear. We don't hear what's being said to us. That's a trait, I think of human nature. I think that husbands, more than wives have that ability to just sort of shut down and not listen. Many times. In Bible study, we see, we see the words, but we don't see the words. The word is right there. But we don't see it, and we read it again and then again and again and then maybe after 10 years, all of a sudden something clicks and we say, "Wow, do you see what that says? I've never seen that before." Because something in it at that time was not developed to the point where we could accept that, where we could see that.

   In sermons, we hear many, many things about how to correct and change the direction of our lives. We must take those to heart in conflict and the Good News Magazines and some of the articles in there are fantastic. Some of the new Good News Magazine articles are so fantastic, so deep, the Plain Truth, so good. The TV and the Radio Broadcast, Mr. Armstrong coming out so powerfully. Some of the recent broadcasts, especially the one a few weeks ago on Easter, must have stirred controversy someplace, the way he came out, so strong against Easter.

   I understand in the calls that they had in the uh the uh telephone response that they only had maybe one or two calls against the broadcast and quite a few calls for people saying. "Hey, I didn't know that, you know, I'd like to have some more literature." I don't know what the final count was on it, but I know that all of a sudden the work is taking a turn, a change. In Glendale, I've had in the past month 6 new prospective members, Mr. Farer was telling me that in the Reseda area, the same thing. It's just like a storehouse is broken open. Because when we get ourselves together, when the church gets back on track and we as a body prepare ourselves for the marriage of Jesus Christ, then God says, "Aha, beautiful. That's what I wanted. I can bring in more people so the churches can grow, so the congregations will have those people necessary so that we can do this work at the end time so we can strengthen Mr. Armstrong to proclaim the gospel and bring the end time."

   Sometimes though we miss what we need. There was a certain energetic young preacher who had a thriving country church, and he was always prodding his people to do greater things for God. He spent much of his time in preparation in his sermons. There was a member in his congregation who did little and seemed to care less. It caused the young preacher much concern. Several occasions, the preacher would tell him exactly what he thought, and the member never caught the point. The member always thought he was referring to somebody else.

   One Sabbath, the preacher made a plain to him who he was talking to. The following the service, the member said, "Preacher, you sure told them today." The next sermon, the preacher was more pointed than ever. Again, the member said, "Boy, you sure told them today." The next Sabbath it rained so hard that no one showed up at church except the one member. So the preacher thought, "Now, now I can tell him." And he got talking and the sermon went straight to that member who was the only one there in the audience following the service, the member walked up to the preacher, and said, "Preacher, you sure would have told them if they had been here." And I'm not saying that the ministry teaches it preaches at any one individual. What I'm saying is that we must take every bit of instruction to heart. We must take everything that's said, everything that we read, all those things from the broadcast, everything that comes to us through God's ministry, through the work of God, through the Bible and say, "How does that apply to me? How does that apply to me?" We can't just say, "Well, I know we're not talking about me. It must be somebody else." We must look at that. We must evaluate ourselves.

   In I Corinthians 11, it tells us that we should judge ourselves so that we will not be judged. We must look at ourselves, you know, we're at a time now that judgment is on the house of God. Mr. Armstrong and some of the broadcasts and the tapes and the sermons in Pasadena has been talking about judging, and he's come to a better understanding of exactly what judging is. Judging is not condemning. It's looking to see if at this point you're right or you're wrong. If you're going in the right direction or the wrong direction, and then eventually whether you will make it into the kingdom or not make it into the kingdom of God. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about that from him.

   We need to continually ask God to open our minds to what we are. Where we need to change. I mean, we have to go to him and beg him for that. We have to say, "Help us to see ourselves." How can you work on a problem unless you can see it? How can you work on something in yourself unless you can see it? We can always see problems in other people, huh? We can see that, "Yeah, he's got that problem, she's got that one, he's got that, and they got them." How many times have you heard anybody sit down and say, "You know what I've got is a problem," very, very seldom. Because it's so easy, it's easy to see other people, but we must change and we must change ourselves.

   Proverbs 2, Proverbs 1. Proverbs 1 talks about this, about changing and not changing. Verse 22 (Proverbs 1:22). "How long you simple ones, would you love simplicity and the schooner delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge." Verse 23 (Proverbs 1:23), "Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make you know. I will make known my words unto you." Then it goes on to the next few verses talking about what will happen to those who do not turn, who do not listen. And what will happen to them?

   And in verse 32 (Proverbs 1:32), it says, "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." But in verse 33 (Proverbs 1:33), "Whosoever hearkens them to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil." When God cries out to you, when God helps you to change, when God chastises you, when you go through a trial. He's not doing it simply because, "Well, I have nothing to do today, so I think I'll take them and I'll cause them a problem." This is no, because of the sin that you committed, the sins that we commit, and it's not always that there sins that we commit are in our trials, but the majority of the time, that's what it is.

   That's the first thing you should look at. If you go through a trial, you say, "God is trying to tell me something. What is he trying to tell me? Can I cleanse myself? Can I find out something from this trial, from whatever's happening to me so I can learn and so I can grow and so I can change?" And then you go through that trial and you study and you look at it and you say, "Why is it happening?" and you study the Bible and you pray and you fast and you meditate. And then after you've done all that, then God will show you if there's something in here in you that He wants you to change.

   Sometimes he will, sometimes he won't. Sometimes you can't see it at that particular point in your life, and you might have to go on for years before you see it, or sometimes you'll see immediately where the problem is. And just like that, the trial is gone. Or sometimes the trial disappears and then months later it comes back again because the change has not been made within you. But when you have those chastisements, then you look and you say, "What should I learn? What should I grow? How should I grow from this? How can I change?"

   And you say, "Well, I want to change, but I can't. Well I've been smoking for 25 years, but I can't, I can't stop. How do I change my life? How do I change these sins that I have in my life? How do I change my ways so that I can come back closer to God?" Very simple. Very, very simple, because it's already been done in those that are baptized members of the Church of God. God grants us repentance. God gives us repentance. God leads us to repentance. He leads us to change.

   Let's go to Ezekiel 11. Ezekiel 11, a prophecy about what would happen in the end time, what would happen in our time today. Ezekiel 11:19. He talks about you and I today and about our heart, our very core of being, that's inside of us, the very depth of our mind. He says, "I will give them one heart. And I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh." That's what happened to you upon your conversion and your baptism. He gave you a new heart. He made you a new man, and then he put his spirit in you "so that they may walk in my statue and that they may keep my ordinances and do them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

   When you receive God's spirit, when you receive the Spirit of Jesus Christ in you, He gave you the power to change. He gave you knowledge. He gave you understanding that no one else in this world has the ability to tap the very Creator God of this universe, the ability to reach out with the power of God's Holy Spirit and change your life.

   There's a sermon I said today, you can't do it by yourself. You can have those flat tree. You can have all the outward appearance of change, but none of that makes any difference because it's in your heart is where the change has to be made. If you are wanting to smoke, if you can't stop smoking, I just use this as an example. It's because your flesh wants it, because your flesh desires it, and because that controls you. But if you can get deep into your heart and change that desire in your very core of being in your heart, deep inside you, then the flesh will go along and that smoking will disappear.

   I know people in the church of God who have tried to stop smoking and could not. But upon baptism and receiving God's Holy Spirit, we were able with the strength of God to stop smoking. They were able because they went to God and they said, "I know I've got to stop. I can't continue this because I'm a hypocrite." One gentleman told me he, after being baptized, used to go back into this meat locker. He worked as a butcher and stand back in here amongst all those carcasses smoking cigarettes. He thought, "Who am I kidding?" He said, "There's probably 8 million angels standing up there watching me, huh. I'm not kidding myself. I'm not kidding anybody else" because he went around people, you could smell the smoke on him. Everybody knew he smoked probably because you could smell that smoke. And all those angels were standing with us and probably shaking their heads saying, "No, no," because he was kidding himself. He was kidding himself.

   Let me give you 7 things to do, 7 spiritual steps to change. The first thing you must do is set the right goals. You must set the right goals. Philippians 4:8, realize it because you think it's evil. You must know the difference between the two. You must know, you must understand this is good, this is bad, and make a decision in the way you want to go.

   Philippians 4:8. Finally, brethren "whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, a good report, any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Keep your mind on those things. Think about doing those things, "those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me," this is Paul talking, "do, and the God of peace shall be with you."

   If you keep your mind right, you keep your heart right, and you're thinking about the right goal, then you're going to automatically work towards that goal. You won't be deviating off of other areas. If you always think about bad things, then that's where your mind and your body will eventually go to. If you're thinking about those things that are right and proper, if you keep the right goals, the proper goals.

   Secondly, submit yourself to God's will. Humble yourself. You know the name of scriptures today, it says, "Humble yourself." If you are proud. If you have pride in yourself, if you think that you are so great and so wonderful. Then there's something wrong because none of us are. We are all humble servants of Jesus Christ. Nothing else. We must always humble ourselves before God.

   James 4, James 4:7. It says "Submit yourself, therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Two things. You must submit yourself to God. You must humble yourself before God, and you must resist the evil one. If you do those two things, then you can draw nigh to God, verse 8, and he will draw nigh to you.

   If you keep yourself clean, you keep yourself right, you submit yourself to God, you humble yourself to God, and you flee from the devil. You resist Him, then you will drawn nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. It says, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts," your very minds, deep inside you, "purify yourself, you double minded." And then over in verse 10 (James 4:10), "Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."

   If you go through this life in this spiritual wilderness, humbly. And you humble yourself before God, when it comes time to go into the kingdom of God, He will literally lift you up to meet him in the sky. If you are humbling yourself now, if you are working on being humble, if you are submitting to his way of life and changing everything you do to go his way, then he will lift you up.

   The third one is resist steadfast in the faith. Resist steadfast in the faith. I Peter 5:9, actually it starts out in verse 8 (I Peter 1:8), "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walks around seeking whom he may desire." He wants you. He wants you so bad. He terribly wants you to be ripped out of the church of God. That is his main goal in life is to pull you from God's church. "Him, the devil whom resists steadfast in the faith." Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world, he uses those trials and temptations to pull you out of this church. He is after you. He's like a roaring lion.

   You know, we hear this so many times it becomes deaf ear, doesn't it? "Oh, he's gonna go to that roaring lion. I, I know that don't have to even listen to it." Think about it. He is around this world roaring, hollering and screaming, crying out because he wants you, because he is so mad. He is so upset because we are getting so close to the end and he knows it and he's going to do everything possible, pull out all stops to get God's people out of the body of Christ. And you must resist him steadfast. How? In the faith. In the faith, the truth of Jesus Christ, the Bible, the word, you gain faith by the reading of the word by going in and delving into the Bible and understanding the Bible. That gives you the assurance that you know that God is real and Jesus Christ is real, and His way of life is real, and He will deliver you from trial, and you get that faith. And when you're in the Bible and you're studying the Bible, and therefore you'll have the faith and you'll be able to resist in the faith. So resist steadfast in the faith.

   Put off all wickedness, but put on God. It’s the old man new concept. If you take off wickedness, if you take wickedness out of your heart, then you must put something else back in. You must have God in your heart. When you were baptized, you were washed clean of everything. There was nothing inside you. And something had to be placed inside of you to help you to change God's spirit. And God's spirit could not come inside you until that wickedness was taken out of you, so your iniquities were removed from you. When Jesus Christ, blood was splashed on you. Whenever you were washed clean, then you could come into the very presence of God, and that God's spirit is right there with you, His power and His might, so that you can now go before the God of this universe and the Creator God, and you put off wickedness through the power that he gave you.

   Let's go to Colossians 3, Colossians 3:1. When you were baptized, you came up someone new, someone different. The Passover service again was a reminder of that, that you go back to your baptism and you think about the time when you were washed clean and you lose your commitment, a new person.

   Chapter 3 of Colossians verse 1. "If you then do risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, which Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things of this earth." Look at the right place, have the right goal.

   John in verse 9 (Colossians 3:9). " Lie not one to another, seeing that you put off the old man with his deeds and that you put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him," the knowledge, the knowledge of the word of God. And in verse 12 (Colossians 3:12). "Put on therefore, as the elected while holy and beloved vows of mercy, timeless, humbleness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering," able to bear things for a long period of time, patience, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any in so Christ forgave you, so also you do."

   "And above all these things, put on charity." Above everything else, no matter what else you do above all of that. You put on love. Love for each other, love for the brethren. Love one to another. So "above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." That is the thing that binds us together to help us all to grow because in the church of God, we are not like the outside world. In the church of God we should be different from the outside world. If you see someone who needs your help, you reach out and you lift them up and you edify them because you love them.

   In the outside world. What do they do? Well, if I can put this person down, then I'll look better than everybody else's eyes, and if I can crush them and I can hurt them, then everybody else will think I'm better. But in the church of God it's love. It's a love of one to another, so that when a brother is down, you reach out. "Let me help you. Let me let me see if I can help you in some way. Let me give you something of myself to edify you, to build you up, to make you feel better and reach out in that bond of perfectness, charity, love."

   "Let the place of God," verse 15 (Colossians 3:15), " rule in your hearts, to which also you are called in one body and be you thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another, and psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord." And then it says, "Whatsoever you do in word or deed, in all, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him." Everything you do, everything that you do should be done with Jesus Christ in mind. Everything that you do can be done heartily as unto the Lord. That's the way you do it.

   Spiritual renewal number 5, spiritual renewal. Day by day, you must be renewed. You must depend on God's spirit. No man will make it into the kingdom of God on his own. No man's arm, no man's flesh can allow him to come into the kingdom of God. Everything that man does is because of himself or God's spirit. If he does it because of himself, he cannot make it into God's kingdom. If he does it with the power of God's spirit in changing his character, then he can become a spirit being in God's kingdom. That wilderness that we're in now, God gives us the strength to make it through this wilderness. He gives us the power of the universe so that we can go into the kingdom of God.

   You know, if the scripture talks about the grain of mustard seed, if you had faith. As if the grain of mustard seed. A mustard seed is so small it's hard to even see. That little bit of faith in us, we can move a mountain. We can move a mountain from here all the way out to Des Moines, to make Mr. Calyear ???????????????????? happy, you know. We can move one entire mountain range if we had faith, just that, just a tiny bit, so you couldn't even see it if I was holding it between my fingers right now, just that much we could move a whole mountain range without any trouble at all. That's a lot of power to have, isn't it? That's a lot of strength that a human being would have. When we have that at our disposal in our hand.

   II Corinthians 4:16. "For which cause we think not, but through our outward man there are outward man perishes, and our outward men are perishing, our outside bodies day in and day out are detreating." We grow up to about 17 to 20 years of age. We reach the peak maybe around 30, and from here on out, it's just downhill all the way, ha. It's traumatic when we hit 30, wasn't it? When we hit 40 and I'm I'm 43, 44 right now. I'm hitting the skids and I'm starting to move right out, and I play racquetball now. I know it. Boy do I know it. When I come out of this courts I I run around for an hour or so. I understand it because my body on the outs, the outward man is perishing each day, but it doesn't make any difference because the flesh is nothing.

   Mr. Armstrong has been uh, saying that we have nothing but chemical existence right now. We don't have life inherent. All we have is a chemical existence. You're just a group of chemicals all put together with a bunch of dirt and some other things going in minerals and vitamins or whatever it all takes in your body to keep you going. That's not life, that's a chemical existence. And he says "We faint not, but, but though our outward man perished, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."

   How do we renew that day by day? We renew that because each day, every day, maybe many times a day, we say, "God, replace, replenish, and stir up the Holy Spirit that's in me." As you use God's spirit in love, as you use God's spirit in service, as you give, as you help, as you go through life, it's like a God's spirit flowing through you. And as you do that, you must go to him day in and day out and say, "God, continue to give me more of your spirit." You have maybe that much in today. So tomorrow you have just a little bit more. 20 years from now you might have that much. Maybe 40 years from now you might have that much. If the if the kingdom doesn't come by then, some of you may have been in the church that long. You start off with just a little bit of spirit on the first day, and it grows and it grows and it grows and you should always be asking God for more of His spirit, more of his strength, more of his power, so that you're spiritually renewed each day so that you depend on God's spirit to make it, not your mighty arm, because in 20 years of age.

   You don't understand. You really don't understand what it is not to depend on your own body because you're in good physical shape, you're in good physical condition, you have very, very few aches and pains. We have some college students here that can depend on themselves. But then when you hit 30 and you start to get a few aches and pain, 40, a few more, 50 starts to go, I guess a little bit more. But then if you have a crippling disease, if you have an injury, if you have something that happens to you that prevents you from having a normal bodily strength that you would have, I've busted my ankle a couple of times over the past 10 years in sports, and I know. And when you're laying there and you can't move and your leg is throbbing, and you have to depend on the right to pick you up and drag you around the house you ever did that because I couldn't move because my leg was swollen that bad. Then you say, "What, you know, this body is just not gonna last forever" and it won't. That's why you have to depend, and you have to depend on the renewing that's intern

   6, 16, no that wouldn't be right. Sixth. Control your thoughts. Don't let them control you. And this is what happens in many of our lives today. II Corinthians 10:5. Is it because we have grown up in Satan society and we have so much of Satan pushed into us over the years that it's a war going on inside of us, as Paul talked about, the war of our mind going against the war of the flesh, and our body controls us and our body says do this, and he said, "No, we don't want to do that."

   I lost the battle last night with chocolate ice cream. I guess some of you know how that is, and I fought it and I fought it, and I still lost. I lost. I'm gonna have to repent on that, I guess, but you must control your thoughts. You cannot let them control you. You must take the mind of Christ. You must take the heart of Christ. You must take the power of Christ, and then you must grab that that's inside you and say, "Hey, this is the way we're going to go." It's called self-discipline. It's called self-discipline.

   II Corinthians 10:5, "Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." You must ask yourself, "Will Christ do this if he was here in my position?" And that you must work to gain control of your thoughts and to drive yourself in the right way and the proper life.

   And then finally, the 7th one. Just get up and do something. Get up and do something. The Pharisees were not entirely wrong. The Pharisees were wrong because they depended only on their works and nothing else, but we know that we must learn Christ's way. We must learn the way that He wants us to go. And then once we learn that, once we understand that, then we've got to do something about it. Just knowledge is not enough. The demons know that Christ is the Messiah. The demons know that He is our Savior. The demons know that he is the King of king and Lord of lords, but it doesn't do them any good. What it is is once you know, you must get up and you must do something.

   You've heard a sermonette today. You've heard a sermon. We've got some praying, maybe some studying this morning. You'll maybe go home this afternoon and do some more. That's great. That's fantastic. But the minute you walk out that door and it's all forgotten, and you don't go back and you don't open up your notes and go over some of these things and refresh them in your mind and say, "Hey, today I'm gonna try this and today I want to do that." If you don't do that, it's all for not because you must get up and you must do something.

   Let's go to Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12. Talking about chastising things that you might be going through right now, the chastening that many of us have to go through day by day, and I would imagine everyone in this room is probably going through some trial right now, either minor or major. Some of us is going through very, very major trials. Some of us going through trials that are horrendous, but you must take that trial, and you must think about it. You must use it to change and to put it to work for you. That trial is doing to you so that you can grow, so that you can change and so you can learn and you can change your way of living.

   It says in Hebrews 12:11. It says, "Now no chasing for the present. It seems to be joyous." No one says, "Hallelujah. That's right, joyous, you're right." None of it seems good right now. But notice the next word. "Nevertheless, afterward." Later on, you'll be able to look back and say I’m glad that God put me through that trial. Afterwards, you'll be able to say, "Yeah, I'm, I'm glad I had to go through that because if I hadn't, I wouldn't be where I am today." So afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness until there with our exercise thereby.

   To grow physically, you go out and you buy a set of 120 pound weights, I guess that's the standard weights that you lift those and you run around the track and I play racquetball and do I come out of there tired and my muscles are just maybe a little stronger, maybe my cardiovascular system just a little bit better of course living in Pasadena, that's not a guarantee because of the air, but we're exercised by it. But if you go through trials day in and day out and when you take that trial, it's just like lifting the weight, and if you change after you've gone through that trial, you understand where you must be going in the future and you change and you turn and once you change and you turn, then you're exercised thereby. Then your spiritual muscles have been strengthened.

   But then you came into God's church and that little bit of spirit was put in you, you have very little spiritual muscle. But each day, each day as you go through a trial of a problem and he reached over and you pull that spirit out and say, "OK, now we're gonna solve this problem." You gained a little bit more spiritual muscle and it got tighter and it got stronger and it got larger inside of you. And then the next time you went to a trial, you take that spiritual muscle and you move it again, and each day it's exercise until eventually, eventually you're entirely a spiritual muscle what something look forward to, ha. But that's what the analogy is. Your exercise go by.

   "Wherefore verse 12 says. Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet. lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but rather let it be healed." In other words, don't just lay there and say, "Oh, I can't do it. I, I just, I'm tired of fighting." You get up and you do something. When you go through a problem, you go through a trial, you learn from it. When you learn from it, you grow from it. When you grow from it, you do something about it. You go to God and say, "God, I cannot see my problems. I know that. I understand that. Help me to see it. Open my eyes to what I really am. And then give me the strength to be able to accept it, to be merciful, I be merciful because I can't take it. And help me." And then once you see it, then you have to get up and you have to do something about it.

   When we determined that we need to change, if we change with God's help, using that spiritual muscle, then we have developed character. That's what character is, to go out to discern between good and evil. Once you discern that, you take the spirit of God and you say, with self-discipline and strength, "I'm going to overcome this with God's help and with his spirit." And then when you do, when you change, when you make the right decision, if you're making a bad decision, you make a good one. If you're making the good decisions, you keep making the good decisions and you continue to grow.

   So as Christ moves down this path, we're right there with it straight at the path, very difficult. And so if you start to stray just a little bit, and all of us do, I think that Christ goes straight as an arrow, and we in our Christian life may go this way, then they'll go this way, and then that way, and then this way and then something's way over here and then back again and just all over the place, but we're basically trying to go the direction that Christ wants us to go. We're trying to move in the direction he wants for us.

   Philippians 4, Philippians 4 and verse 13. It boils down to one thing. With God's spirit, with His power, with his might, once you determine that you need to change and you determine that you must do something, Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." I can do all things, not just partial, but all things through Christ who strengthens me. That is character, seeing what we need to change and then do it.

   But what about something we need to change in the very core of our being? You know, sometimes you have a problem that's been in you for years and years and years. It comes from the very depths of your life that maybe was put into you by the way that you were brought up. And many times people have to admit that they cannot change that physically. Smoking might be one of them if you started at a very young age or just whatever it is. Then if you have something within you, you want to change, and you know it has to be changed, you've been unable to change. You've been working on it for years. You go to God and you ask for repentance. God grants repentance. He grants change. He provides the answer.

   God is the only unchangeable source in the universe, you know, God changes not. Everybody else changes. We all change. Things in our lives change, but he is the only one that is unchangeable, and we must change to become like Him so we can be unchangeable so that God's spirit can be in us and grow in us and so we can set ourselves in the right way of life so we can live God's life the way He wants us to live.

   We must change now. Now is the time to look at ourselves. Now is the time to see where we fall short. Take a look. As Christ to look inside of us and to help us to take steps to change us and make us new. This is not a time to question yourself about conversion or anything else. This is a time to look at yourself and say, "Hey, I need to change. I need to change," because many times when a person looks into themselves, they say, "Hey, I got this wrong, that wrong, this. Have I ever converted?" No. If you're even looking into yourself, if you're that concerned, if you have that much of God's spirit in you to want to look deep down inside of you, and I grant you that many today will do that, will look inside of them and we ask and we'll say, "Is that really me inside of me? Was I ever converted?" You say, "No, because I'm looking because I want to change, and I know God's with me and he's going to help me to change."

   And then you look inside there and when you see those changes, you go to God on your knees and you say, "Help me. Help me because I can't do it by myself." You humble yourself before him. You must know, you must deeply understand in Psalm 9, it says that God will save you. You must know that from the bottom of your heart. You must go to God and you say, "Look inside of me, strengthen me, help me and help me to change because you must know that without him, it's impossible." Without the power of Jesus Christ in you, it's impossible. Without God's spirit in you, it's impossible. It says in Philippians 4, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me."