Herbert W Armstrong

   Now, there is a reason we are here on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. 1984 to sort of have a foretaste of that time described in your Bible in Revelations 11 and verse 15 (Revelations 11:15), when all the governments and kingdoms and nations of this world will have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, they will no longer be run by the human beings who are under the influence of Satan, the devil. We're here to celebrate the times spoken of in the 11th chapter of Isaiah, when the wild animals will be tamed, a young lame will be playing with lions or I mean, a young child, will be out playing with a lion, even the wild animals will be tamed. And when we will have world peace, we're here to enjoy a full taste of the times spoken of in the second chapter of Isaiah. And about the first nine or 10 verses (Isaiah 2:1-10), when the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord and when they will beat their plowshares rather their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks or the implements of war into the implements of production. No one will learn war and there'll be no war anymore, but just peace.

   We're here to celebrate the time when even the whole world will begin to be made at one with God. Today, this world is at one with Satan, the devil. Now, for 6000 years, we have lead this earth has been populated by a humanity living in what might be called the day of man or even more properly the day of Satan. This is not God's world, this is Satan's world. We're here to celebrate the beginning of the time that will be God's world. It is not God's world yet. We in God's church have been called out of Satan's world. We are the come-out ones, those that have been called to come out and to follow Jesus Christ and to be made now at one with God, but the world is not at one with God. The world doesn't want to hear about God. God never enters into the mind or the thoughts or the activities of the people of this world. They're only concerned with the things, the ways of Satan. And Satan is the author of vanity, first of all, which has led to competition and strife and attitudes of jealousy and envy of hostility, of rebellion, of destruction, of tearing down, never building up of wanting to get, never give what you share. Whereas God's way is the way of love, love, love, the way of giving, of cooperating, of helping of sharing, of having a concern for the good and the welfare of others of our own kind of humankind of people. But love first of all, toward God in obedience, in reverence, and in worship and in reliance and dependence on God. God who is loved, who is the giver of all good gifts and everything good. And the giver finally, as we're going to see in due time, the giver of peace. But we've been living in the day of Satan. We're looking forward to a time when the whole world will be as we have been called out of the world to become. Now, at one with God, the time we call the millennium, a 1000-year period. Now when this gospel of the Kingdom of God is proclaimed in all the world for a witness to all nations and it is now.

   The Plain Truth is going into every nation on the face of the earth today in one way or another. We are getting the gospel into every nation on the face of the earth today. And I don't know of any other church of any kind that is getting its message there. Although no other church has the gospel of Jesus Christ, they have a gospel about Jesus, many of them, but not the gospel of Jesus Christ because his gospel was the gospel about the Kingdom of God. Whereas man's gospel is merely one about Christ. Christ is a messenger and they only preach a message about the messenger, but they overlook on entirely the message that God sent by him.

   So, we're looking forward to a utopia now is utopia, an impossible thing. You look up the word utopia in your dictionary. If you never did, you might look it up and you'll find that the dictionary says that utopia is a fanciful, imaginary, impossible condition of absolute perfection where everybody is peaceful and happy and there are no troubles of any kind. There's plenty for everybody and everybody has plenty and everybody is happy and contented and everybody is getting along very happily and peacefully with everybody else. In other words, the time of perfection. Well, what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't there be a utopia? Why don't we have a utopia? I'll tell you why. It's because of the way people live. It's all a matter of the way of life. We talk a lot about lifestyle. These days, humans have adopted Satan's lifestyle in one of its many, many different varieties. And there are many varieties of it, but it's all based on vanity, on self-centeredness, on wanting to get, instead of give, wanting to take, instead of share, one of hate instead of love, antagonism, instead of cooperation. Always trying to get the best of someone else or trying to get something without effort or without producing and take what someone else produced away from them. This world has been going on now for about 6000 years in that manner.

   Now, what is it all about when you get back to the beginning? What's it all about in the first place, it all has to do with one central thing and that is the purpose of the Eternal creator, God. God has a great purpose, you know, he was during World War II and I said this hundreds of times. And I suppose now Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesmen of all times in our, especially in our lifetime. And I think there is not one of that caliber living today. He was speaking to before the United States Congress assembled and he said there is a purpose being worked out here below. I don't think Mr. Churchill understood what that purpose was, but somehow he seemed to know there is a purpose being worked out and indeed there is. What is that purpose and who is working it out when he said worked out here below? He naturally meant by God above working it out. Everything revolves around that great purpose. That's the overall purpose and everything that is going on or ever has gone on is only a part or a portion of the development toward that purpose.

   Now, that starts with God himself, I don't know how to explain anything except to go back to the beginning. I said so often you look at this world and try to understand it and you don't. You know why? It's like going into a movie when it's almost over and you don't understand it, you don't know what's going on. You don't know why the things you see being said and done are being done or what led up to it because you didn't see what went before. You didn't see what led up to it. Then you would have understood. We've come into this world when it's almost over. It's nearly 6000 years. And God has, in his purpose allotted 7000 years to complete his purpose. The 1st 6000 years had been allotted to Satan the devil. Now, how did he get into this? Well, we need to go back to the beginning to understand even that. So, I usually cover the trunk of the tree with its roots and I leave the branches and the twigs to our other ministers. They bring you the details, but God has a great purpose.

   Now, in the first place today, I say we've been for 6000 years in the day of Satan, the devil. And he is so blinded the world that they have no idea about God, and most of the people in the world are simply not conscious of God. They, they just don't think about it. He doesn't enter into their thoughts or their daily activities of their mind, and they don't want him to enter in. You begin to talk about God and they're uncomfortable. They want to change the subject to run away real quick. They're nervous. They don't want to talk about God. Actually, they are afraid of God. It's not that they think God is a monster going to harm them or hurt them. It's kind of the other way. They think God is so good that they might find out how bad they really are, and they don't want to know, and so they run away and they're afraid of God.

   I've said many times, there is no religion on earth that knows who or what God is except God's own church. You read in the very beginning of the Bible, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." But Moses wrote that in the Hebrew language, and in the Hebrew language, he didn't use the word God. The word for God in Hebrew was Elohim. And Elohim is a plural word, not you and I, but a plural word. It means more than one, and it should be Gods with an 's' on the end of it in the English language because God later said, "Let us make man in our image." Not let me. There was more than one person there. Now, who is that, who and what is this God? And what is He composed? And what is he like? You find that described in the New Testament in the first chapter of John, the first five verses (John 1:1-5). Where it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now, same as in Genesis in the beginning. But instead of saying God created the heavens and the earth, it says, "was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by Him," and there he is, the creator. It just goes into a little more detail.

   Now, who and what is this Word? Is that talking about being a personage? In verse 14 (John 1:14), I believe it is, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and became Jesus Christ." So, the Word was a great personage that became Jesus Christ, is the personage before he became Christ. Now we read of him in Hebrews, that he was like God without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life. He will always exist. He always did. there was never a time when he began, he always has been. Don't try to figure that out in your mind. You just can't, I can't either. Nevertheless, something had to always exist, and it took intelligence to produce the unintelligent things we find in the universe.

   Now, it said that he lived and God lived and the Word lived. Well, the next thing is then how do they live? They lived happily, they lived in peace, they loved one another. Two can't walk together except that they be agreed, and they agree. When the Word, the Logos as it is in the Greek language became Jesus Christ when he was about 30 years of age and was baptized, God said from heaven, "You are my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased." He loved the Son and the Son loved God who then became his Father after he was born of the virgin Mary. And he obeyed his Father. Now he was the Word he spoke. And one of the Psalms says, "he spake and it was done." And the power that did it was the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit that proceeded forth from God and also from the Word. But Jesus said when he was human on the earth that he never spoke anything except what his Father told him to speak. Now two cannot walk together except they be agreed. But at the same time, two cannot walk together except one is the boss. Every young married couple going to the altar in a wedding ought to remember that, one is going to be the boss. So, there's so many young bribes today, that say now in advance, they say they won't, they won't go to the altar if there's any promise to obey, I'm not going to promise to obey. Our marriage is going to be 50/50. And I just simply say, oh yeah, 50/50.

   You know, that reminds me of the judge back in Gladewater, which we used to call it Glade Water, now we call it Big Sandy over there in Texas. And the judge said that he settled that question in his landing day is that I laid down the law to my wife. I let her know without any equivocation who was going to be the boss in our family. And I told her I would be the boss and make no mistake about that. I will allow her, well, to make any decisions in some minor little minor problems that might come along, but I've reserved the voice in deciding all major problems. And I wanted her to understand that, I am the boss. But he said now that worked out very well. All these years since we were married, no major problems have ever arisen. So, you can guess who the boss was. Well, in this case, God was the boss and Jesus said he was, there's no question about it. You can't have any society, you can't have any organization unless one is the boss. There has to be leadership, you know, in the debate, the Presidential debate just the other night, I was rather amused when the democratic candidate said the big question they had to decide was who had the leadership and that was the great opportunity for the President. He should have said, I certainly agree. You want to have one who has the leadership? I had the leadership as Governor of California. I have had leadership for the last four years. And look what's been accomplished and how different it is since my opponent over here was Vice President in office. You know, leadership is something that has to be proved when someone comes along who has no record and has never accomplished anything. Talks about leadership. I think that's quite a laugh. Only he forgot to say that, I, you know, I used to be a salesman and I think if I had been in the debate, that's what I should have said. And that would have turned the whole trend of the debate right there. Well, however, that may be, that's only in this world and we're not concerned about this world. We're not of it. We've come out of it and of its politics incidentally. But God lived, the Word lived and they got along and they lived the way of cooperation and one was the boss and there was love between them and there was harmony and there was peace.

   Now, the next thing is what did they do if they lived, they had to be doing something. What was their occupation? Well, they were creators, they created and in Ephesians three, in verse nine (Ephesians 3:9), you read that God was the creator, he was the boss and he created all things by Jesus Christ. Now, Christ did whatever his Father told him, he only spoke what his Father told him to do. So, God told him what to do. He spoke and one of the Psalms says, "it was done." The spirit of God leaped out and did it. So, it all originated with God the Father and there was total cooperation and a perfect creation came about.

   Now, the first thing that they created was Angels. What is God? Of what is God composed? Let's see, it's in John four verse 24 (John 4:24), I think, God is a Spirit. He is composed of spirit. What is man? Man is flesh made from the dust of the ground that's quite different. But you see him back in Genesis. It was Elohim more than one person said, "let us make man in our image after our likeness." But the Eternal God and the Eternal is the one who became Christ, formed the man of the dust of the ground just out of matter. And what was made out of matter became a living soul. So, the soul came out of matter and the soul is not spirit. But, God didn't put a spirit in man if you give him the mind. So, you read in Job that there is a spirit in man. You read in the second chapter of I Corinthians, that no man could even have the knowledge that a human can have a knowledge such as horses, cows, elephants can't have no animal can have human knowledge. And a man could not have that kind of knowledge except by the spirit of man, the human spirit that is in him.

   Now, I find in the Bible that there are different degrees or levels of spirit Christ of all is the spirit of God who has the power of creation, the power of thinking and planning and designing and then of bringing into existence out of nonexistence and forming and shaping. He designed an oak leaf and caused an oak tree to always bear oak leaves. He designed the human brain and the human body far more marvelous than anything any human can design or produce. And God was creator and God was composed of Spirit.

   Now, the first thing that God created then was angels. And we find that angels were in existence before matter because you find in the 38th chapter of Job that when the earth was created and the heavens were created at the same time according to both the first and the second chapters of Genesis that the angels were already in existence and they were shouting for joy and singing for gladness because the earth originally was made as a habitat for the angels.

   Now, we find that there are three archangels or Cherubs and they are the highest level of angels. Angels are created on three levels. First ordinary angels, they do not have wings a little higher, also composed of spirit also immortal, not made of matter, but made of spirit. Our Seraphs, they do have wings, then above them, higher, highest of all next to God were Cherub or Super Archangels and they have wings. And there are three of them mentioned in the Bible and a third of them had followed one, Lucifer, Lucifer was one, he was on the very throne of God and there was a government there and the government was based on a way of living a way of life which is love, cooperation, perfect harmony and agreement and being-at-one with God, at-one-meant with God. And one of those Archangel, Lucifer had been on the throne of God and he was experienced in the government of God.

   Now all government is based on a law. How would you define law? I had to speak before the Law School of the University of Southern California, one of the most famous law schools in the United States. And I mentioned then that law is merely the rules of human conduct of the conduct of one or more persons in contact with other person or persons. And, I also mentioned that men can't seem to understand what is the right way of conduct. And even our Supreme Court judges can't understand the difference between right and wrong. They just don't know one of the big arguments right now. Is abortion. Is it right or wrong? And only God can tell you that. So, I think the next problem that I put on the air will be answer to that question. When does human life start? Is it at birth or is it before birth? Is an abortion, the taking of human life. Is it murder or isn't it? Oh, I'm not gonna give any opinions. I'm just going to tell them what God says. I'm going to tell them what Jesus Christ would say if he were here, what he does say because the Bible is his word in writing. So, he says that that's what he says.

   Now, any government is founded on a law of basic law and the law is merely the rules of human conduct. And God's way of human conduct is love. Now, the next thing that God created was the physical universe, as I say in Job 38 you believe that God creating the earth and Genesis one and Genesis two of our statements that show in both places that the whole universe was created at the same general time as the earth says in the same day, but it doesn't mean 24 hour day, the same general time. And so, angels were created before the physical universe. When God created the physical universe and created the earth, he put a third of the angels on the earth and he put this Lucifer over them.

   Now, there are two other archangels, each one over a third of the other angels, I presume. One of course was Michael, and the other was Gabriel. Those are the three archangels that God set a throne of government on the earth, that his government based on the law of love, of love toward God, first of all, and then love toward your fellow creatures. In this case, it would be because of angels. And Lucifer was set on a throne to, to, what's the word I want? administer that government. And he's still is on that throne to this day that now when he was set on that throne nobody knows it was prior to the creation of the first human. And I don't know whether it was two or three years before or whether it was millions of years because angels are immortal and they've been living forever, not forever. They've been living a long, long time. They're immortal. This Lucifer, when he got on the throne of his own, he became jealous. Beauty, went to his head.

   Now, you find about him in the 14th chapter of Isaiah and the 28th chapter of Ezekiel. He was so beautiful that he allowed vanity to seize him and it went to his head and he then became jealous of God. God ruled the whole universe, but he could only rule this one little planet earth. So, he organized his angels into an army and said, let's go up and pull a coup, let's invade God's heaven and knock God off the throne. I want to take over, I'm going to take God's place, I'll be God, but he got knocked back down to earth. And so, he was no longer the super archangel. He became Satan, the devil and his angels who went with him became demons.

   Now, after that had happened, God next decided that he and his great purpose to be what's out here below would reproduce himself. He could create no higher being, then the Cherubs and here was a Cherub who had gone the wrong way and sinned and lacked the character of God. So, he said, I only God can be assured of all is going the right way and never will go the wrong way. So, he would reproduce himself and he would reproduce himself out of humans, made out of the dust of the ground. Then God said, let us that was God the Father said to the Word, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Then the Word obeyed and he formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life. Now he didn't have immortality. Angels did, but man had a mind and he had a human spirit and the human spirit was on a lower level than an angel spirit, the lowest level of any spirit, but it was still spirit. It was human spirit and the human spirit with a human brain. And incidentally, a human brain is no better than a cow's brain or a horse's brain or an elephant's brain or any animal brain. But the human spirit with that brain empowers it with the power of intellect, the power to acquire and comprehend knowledge, the power to reason, the power, to add wisdom and judgment, to make decisions, to put facts together in a reasoning process and come to conclusions even to invent and to do many things that the human mind can do.

   And so, the human brain empowered with the human spirit becomes a mind. Animals don't have minds, they merely have brains, but God offered the man life. He put him in the Garden of Eden and there were two symbolic trees. One is the tree of life. And if the man would take that tree of life, he would then be made at one with God. And it meant that God when God's spirit would enter into him and combine with his spirit. Now, man was at first made alone and in complete, God had not completed the creation of the first. He was only a single male human being and God wanted him to reproduce and replenish the earth.

   The poor man couldn't do it. So, God performed an operation, put him to sleep, used as perhaps it was a miraculous anesthesia, but it was an anesthesia, took out one of his ribs and made a woman out of it. And so, he added the woman, a female human to the male and the two became one. That one, what? One family. They became one family just as God and the Word are one God family. Now they became one human family. Already, you begin to see a type toward God. Now, God said, offered them eternal life. If they would take the tree of life, then the spirit of God would enter into them and would impregnate them with immortal life. They would have been begotten with eternal life. And in due time, they would be born as very God as Jesus himself was later after 4000 years.

   But in the meantime, Satan came along and he deceived Eve, and Eve took of the forbidden fruit. That was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God forbade them to take that to take to themselves, the knowledge of good and evil. Now notice they were made with the human spirit and it had the power to know up to a certain level, the level of the human spirit, they could know good as well as evil. They couldn't know good though on the grand scale that God's mind can because they had a lower grade of spirit and any, any, any, any good that they could do was of a self-centered nature.

   I've said many times that one of the highest attributes of good that is possible for a human is mother love the way a mother loves her child, but that is in itself innately selfish. The child came from that mother, it's hers, she loves it. She doesn't love other children like that one. All the difference in the world. For as God doesn't have favorites. God is just love, period. God loves sinners as well as the righteous. He loves sinners so much. He gave his only begotten Son to die for them that they could be reconciled back to him again. That's a different kind of love altogether. It's on a higher, more grand scale.

   And so, what did God do? He closed off the tree of life so that no man could get to it and put super archangels guarding it with flaming swords, lest anyone should go in and take it and eat and live forever. And so, this world was founded and Satan had virtually kidnapped Adam and Eve and they went the way of Satan. Satan didn't say worship me. He said, do your own thing. He said, choose your good and evil for yourself, your own way, do your own thing. And so, they did, but they could not choose a higher good because it wasn't within their power. They only had a human spirit. It wasn't on that higher level of the spirit of God.

   And so, the world that followed had both good and evil, but there was Satan who had kidnapped them and kidnapped their whole family. At that time, the foundation of the world, God made certain decrees. He decreed as you read in the 13th chapter of Revelation in verse eight (Revelation 13:8), that the one who is the Logos or the Word would become flesh and dwell among us, would live a perfect human life that would pay the death penalty in man's stead because the penalty for that sin was death. So now it was already decreed that man's sin could be paid for and man could have his penalty removed.

   The next thing God decreed was that as in Adam, all were going to die. So, in Christ, the same all would be made alive by a resurrection. You read that in I Corinthians 15 beginning with verse 22 (I Corinthians 15:22). And then along with that in Hebrews 9:27 you will read that it was appointed then at the very foundation of the world for man once to die because of sin. The only offspring of Adam and Eve and they had sinned. Adam had sinned and all have sinned since. And Adam, they all die in Adam. But after they die, there would be a judgment, there would be resurrected in Christ. Christ would come and pay the penalty of sin. They would be resurrected. And then it would be possible after all for them to be saved.

   In other words, God had a purpose. He was working out here below. And when Satan induced Adam and Eve to go the wrong way, he did not defeat God's purpose, no one can defeat God's purpose. And so, God arranged that even though man should die through Christ, they would all be made alive and then would come a judgment. But the judgment was not on the children of Adam and Eve. And so, a world developed and as I said, at the beginning, it was not God's world, it was Satan's world. Man had departed from God. He had rejected God. If he had taken the tree of life, he would have had God's mind along with his mind, he would have been made at one with God. He would have lived God's way and there would have been peace on earth.

   But he took the way of strife, of competition, of evil, the way of Satan. And so, a whole civilization developed of 6000 years. And you and I have been born into that civilization and the people of the world think it's God's world. They have been deceived and Satan is the great deceiver, now in due time after all these years, so many other things happened, I could go back and show you the coming of Israel of Abraham, and then his children 400 some years after that. But they didn't have the Holy Spirit, but it was part of the working out of God's plan.

   But I had to skip over all of that in the discourse this afternoon. Anyway, excuse me, you people in New Zealand this morning. And so, we come to the time of Christ who was the second Adam, he came to do what the first Adam could have done but did not. He was born with the Holy Spirit and he kept himself so close to God that he never did sin. He was capable of sinning. But he had determined not to sin and he had the power to refuse to sin and he did refuse to sin. He lived the perfect life. He set the perfect example and then he voluntarily gave that life to pay the penalty of all the humans who have ever sinned.

   But while he was alive, he said, I will build my church. And the word church comes from the Greek word. All the New Testament was written in the Greek language. And in the Greek language, the word for church was Ecclesia, which really is two words, and it means come out ones. He called certain people out of this world of Satan. He called them to come out and to become through him at one with God. And he is the mediator between man and God to unite us back to God and make us at one with God.

   And so, judgment came to be on those called out that God would draw just like a magnet will draw someone to them. In John 6:44 you read that Jesus said, no man could come to him except God the Father draws them. You see the churches in this world are of this world. They don't realize it that they are Satan's churches without them, without realizing that they are deceived. God knows they are deceived and the chief blame is Satan's rather than theirs. And ultimately, that's where the blame is going to be placed, but judgment is not on them yet. And when judgment does come on them, they'll realize Christ paid the penalty of their sin if they want to accept it, if they want to repent, if they want to turn around and go the other way and start to live God's way, they can yet be saved.

   Now, it's just a case of when we are to be saved. Those that God calls are those who are predestinated to come. We have a different battle than those that will come later. We have to fight Satan. We have to fight this world. We have to overcome Satan. We have to overcome the world and we have to even overcome our own selves.

   Now everybody is going to be called, but only those in God's church are called, now, others will be called later. It's just a case of when you are called, we are called now not to get salvation. We are called now to learn and to come to be filled with the spirit of God and to learn of God in order to be teachers and to bring others when their time comes into salvation and into the Kingdom of God. And to bring them into a condition where they too will finally be at one with God.

   The world doesn't know much about God, the Father in Old Testament times, they didn't know anything about God the Father, the only God they knew was the one who became Jesus Christ. The Jewish people don't know anything about God, the Father to this day, they don't know, they just know of one God. And I think the one who became Christ is the only God. They don't know that God is a family and that we can be born into that family.

   So now God has given his church and ancient Israel was the church in the wilderness, but they were really the congregation or church of Israel. We are the "Church of God". In other words, they were the flesh-born children of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. We are the spirit-born, the spirit-begotten children of God. So, we are called by our Father's name. They were called Israel. That was their national name. We are called "Church of God" and we go by our Father's name, God. Oh brethren, do we realize these wonderful truths? Do we realize it?

   Now, God has given us these annual Holy Days. First was it began the spiritual phase of God's program began with Christ and his sacrifice. And the Passover pictured that, the seven days of Unleavened Bread picture coming out of sin. That's the next step. The day of Pentecost coming in the summer. Pictures of the coming of the Holy Spirit also is the time of the coming of the law of Mount Sinai and that comes in the summer, usually in the month of June, I guess always.

   And then we come to the Feast of Trumpets. That was the second coming of Christ. That is the time when Christ will come and take over the reign and the rule of all nations. Now, when he comes, we're going to reign and rule with him. He says, for example, in Revelation, the second chapter. Well, it's in verses, chapter 2 verse 26 and 27 in chapter three, verse 21 (Revelation 2:26-27), we will sit with him on his throne. We will be given power over the nations and rule them with a rod of iron.

   We're called now to qualify to do that. That's the only reason we're called, not just to get salvation. Those of you who think you're called just to get salvation are going to find you won't get it. You're like the one who received one of the 10 talents. When Christ in the parable gave one talent to each of his 10 servants, the one who took it and gained 10 with it and did something qualified for what he would do in the kingdom. He's going to reign over 10 cities in the kingdom. He qualified for what he can do in the Kingdom of God. The one who gained five talents only did half as well. He'll be given half as big a job in the Kingdom, which means half as big an honor really.

   But the one who just tried to get saved and that's all. And he tried to keep what he had, but he didn't add anything to it, had it taken away from him. He didn't get into the Kingdom at all. And that's what's going to happen to any of you people who think you're just getting into the kingdom and you're just going to get saved. If you don't realize, you have to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as well as his grace. If you don't realize you have to overcome, if you don't realize you have to endure it in the end, if you don't realize you have to qualify, we're rewarded according to our works, not saved according to our works, but we're not being called just to be saved. Salvation itself is a free gift of God. But we're called for something more than that now.

   We're called for a great job and we must qualify. What have you qualified for that you know, how much have you grown since this time last year? Ask yourself that. And many of you are going to have to say, well, I guess I haven't grown. I guess I haven't learned any more than I knew then. I guess my character is not any better than it was, than it was then. Excuse me, I sometimes think that a lot of Protestantism has rubbed off on some of us and they think it's just a matter of getting saved and brethren is far, far more than that.

   Now, then if we qualify, then when Christ comes, we're going to sit with him on his throne, we're going to be given power over the nations. We'll be kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. That's Revelation 5 verse 10 (Revelation 5:10), and then will come that 1000-year period that I mentioned at the beginning.

   Now after that, Satan will be loose and Satan will be put away in the day of Atonement, which we had just 10 days ago. Pictures Satan being put clear away. Christ will come and rule when he does, Satan won't be on the throne any longer, he'll be removed. We will be ruling with Christ. Have you been qualifying? Have you been gaining ground? Brethren, and I don't say you have to reach absolute perfection. I don't think any of us is going to do that, but we have to have gained ground. We have to have made progress. We have to have been overcoming. We have to have been growing in grace and knowledge. Do you study your Bibles enough? Do you pray enough? Otherwise, brethren, some of you are not going to make it into God's Kingdom. We talk about making it into God's Kingdom. Let's quit talking that way. Let's talk about qualifying to be a king or a priest.

   You know, since my wife died, it's now 17 1/2 years ago, I have been having formal dinners. Sometimes I call it my home and actually it isn't my home. At all because I don't own it belongs to the college. And so, we have named it the Ambassador College Student Social Center. But every year I've been having every senior student as a guest at a formal dinner. And I know that they all look forward to that. And by the way, at the Young Ambassador, filming will be shown one of the evenings in this festival, you will see the Young Ambassadors coming to one of those dinners in my home and you will see what those dinners are like. And that's never been shown before to the brethren and, and while all of the seniors have been, guess there. They are the future kings and they're going to be kings for a long, long time. And I might just say, I sort of joined the Young Ambassadors this time. They called me and a forever Young Ambassador. And I, I guess I'm a little old to be called a Young Ambassador because they call me a forever Young Ambassador. But, I think that you will enjoy that film this year because I believe it is by far the best film so far, it's an entertainment film, but it's a film of good, wholesome music and it's uplifting and good for you. I think it'll be good for all of you to see it, to be sure and don't miss it.

   But following, then of course, will come that 1000 years and after that will come the time of the Great White Throne Judgment. Those who have lived before judgment was not on them. They will be resurrected as they have died in Adam. They will all be resurrected in Christ and it will be the final judgment. And of course, that is a subject for the Last Great Day of the feast.

   Now, my eyes have completely gone out on me. I'm not blind, but I can't see any, even large type enough to read it right off. So, I brought no notes, no Bible. I can't, it's just impossible to see. And I have to just talk out of my head from now on and anticipating that I have had discernment for the last Holy Day. put on tape. It was done before this last sort of blindness hit me, which is only about a month ago now or a little less. And, but whether you're here or some other feast site that will be shown at all face sites on the last day. But then we will, will show the final combination of this marvelous, great purpose of God. It's a marvelous thing and God's purpose, as I said, does stand, as I've said before. I've looked into the book and which is God's book. I've looked over into the end to see how it comes out and we win and we will win brethren. Keep studying your Bible, keep praying, keep qualifying and never fail.