The World Tomorrow, the Worldwide Church of God presents the World Tomorrow with Herbert W Armstrong...
ladies and gentlemen Herbert W Armstrong.
Well once again, greetings, everybody! As I said in the first program of this series,
that I have been speaking to you, and will continue speaking to you in this series, as
no man has spoken in our time. I wonder if we realize the real danger that we're in this very moment.
Now we find that those who know what is going
on are very much alarmed because even a private individual can now obtain, merely at the stores
that retail, the materials that can make a nuclear bomb. Now we have come to the place
where the weapons of destruction, of mass destruction, exist, that can erase all human
life off this earth, and could do it 50 times over. And as one speaker has said, once would
be quite enough, because there wouldn't be a man, woman, or child left on earth.
And we don't know when these things are going to come, but I have very good news for you.
Before that happens, the Eternal God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, is going
to intervene. And he is going to send once again Jesus Christ back to this earth, to
rule over all nations, and with a supernatural power of the Almighty Eternal God. And at
that time, nations are going to beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into
pruning hooks, and they will not learn war anymore.
We're going to have a time of peace, and it's coming in our time. But first is going to
come the supreme crisis. We're leading right up to it now. It's called the Great Tribulation
in Matthew 24. It is referred to in Daniel 12, and in the 30th chapter of Jeremiah in
the Bible. And it is a time, especially against this country, the United States, the British
Commonwealth of people, and Western Europe. And we are the ones that are going to have
to suffer for our evil deeds, and for the things which we have been doing. We've been
carelessly thinking we can get away with anything. Now that is all coming to an end, and in Matthew
24, Jesus Christ said that there would be a time of trouble such as never was, since
the beginning of a nation, and never will be again, so that unless those days were cut
short, no flesh, not any human being, would be left alive.
But he said, for the elect's sake, the people of God, those days shall be cut short. And
Christ will come. Christ will never let this world destroy itself. I think it's time that
we know why these things. There's a cause for every effect. And these events could not
have happened, all of the troubles - and I don't need to go into a description of them,
they're everywhere - violence, crime, immorality, everything that you can think of that is wrong
- is rampant all over this world. It's in our nation. Someone I think said - was
it Will Rogers one time - "Just what do you think of civilization?" And Will Rogers answered,
"Well, I think it'd be a good idea if we had some." And as a matter of fact, that sort
of sums it up pretty well. Now how did the world get this way, so full of evil? Is there
a devil, and how did he come to be? Where did he come from?
That's what I've been showing you in the past programs in this series. We go clear back
to the beginning, and as I have shown you, the first record of prehistory in the Bible
is not Genesis 1:1, where it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth," but rather in John 1:1, in the New Testament, the fourth book in the New Testament,
where it says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by him."
The Word was the one who later, as you read in the 14th verse of that first chapter of
John (John 1:14), became flesh and dwelt among us. In other words, he came to be Jesus Christ.
Now the government of God ruled the entire Earth at that time. And God placed a super-archangel
to rule. His name was Lucifer. Lucifer was the highest creation of angel that God himself
could create. He was a super-archangel. However, God could only instruct him in the
right way, but he had to leave the choice to him, because otherwise there could be no
character. And Lucifer chose the wrong way, and he led his angels into a rebellion. And
the government of God was taken away from this Earth, and that left only God who had
the type of character that would not - and because he would not, could not - commit sin,
and go the wrong way. This Lucifer that was set as a super-archangel
over the angels of this Earth before man was put here, was said to be - and I read that
scripture in the first one of the present series of programs - that he was perfect in
all his ways from the day he was created. Now he was a created being. He was not born.
He was a specially created being, and he was perfect in his ways as God created him. But
it says, "till iniquity was found in him." But as I say, God couldn't force him. If God
decided and made you have to do right, and you could never do wrong, you'd be just like
a machine. You would not have any right of choice. You could not have any character,
and character is the right to choose, and to choose the right instead of the wrong,
to come to know the right instead of the wrong, and to have the self-discipline to force your
own self, even against your own desires and wills, and temptations, to do the right instead
of the wrong. That is what character is. Now God had told the angels the right way.
He started this Lucifer out on the right track. But he turned, and all of his angels, he turned
his angels into rebellion against God instead of going the way of God. In other words, God's
great law, the foundation of his government, was the way of love, the way of giving, the
way of cooperating, away from self, not incoming but outgoing, and the way of helping, of concern
for the welfare of others and not just for yourself alone, the way of humility instead
of the way of vanity. As I often say, as I say in speaking to audiences
in national capitals around the world, it the way of giving instead of getting. But
this world is on getting. Now how did we get that way? Well, first this Lucifer turned
to it. And I read you the scripture in the 28th chapter of Ezekiel, in a preceding program.
Then he led his angels into that way. Now as I say, it left only God who had that supreme
righteous character. God had a great job he wanted those angels
to do, but they, they sort of flunked out on the test. And they disqualified themselves
to go on. The job he had is a job that now is the potential of human beings, and the
great potential that is ahead of us now, and that is that we are to go to the planets all
over this vast universe and complete their creation, and turn them from decay which has
come as a result of the sin of those angels and the sins of men, and turn them into production
and into beauty, and turn darkness and ugliness into beauty. God is the author of beauty;
Satan is the author of ugliness. Now this Lucifer that was the super-archangel
- God changed his name to Satan the Devil. "Satan" means... Lucifer, let me tell you
first what his name "Lucifer" meant. Lucifer was a word which meant "cherub" or "shining
star of the dawn." It meant he was a bringer of light and truth. But "Satan" is just the
opposite. It is a rival, an adversary, or an enemy, and that is the meaning of the word
"Satan the Devil." Now this Lucifer became Satan.
God saw that he was the only one now. He knew that there's no use in trying to just create
more and more angels. Well, a third of the angels had gone wrong. I don't know about
the other two-thirds, the Bible doesn't tell us, but maybe they turned to the right way
because they are called holy angels. And I think the Bible could not call them that if
they had not made the right decision and gained that right character of holiness and perfection,
and in other words, according to the way of God, which is a way of life, and a way of
conducting yourself in your relation to other people.
Herbert W Armstrong will return right after this message.
Well life's been pretty good, summer home, yacht, vacation when I want it.
Some little kid sure spent a lot of time with that, too bad they never last.
Yeah, a lot of things are like that, kids are grown now and Sandy and I aren't getting
any younger. Is this all there is?
You can know the answer to this age old question "Why were you BORN?".
To request your free copy, dial direct (800) 423-4444 that's (800) 423-4444.
Then God created man. It was only god left, but God must have said, 'There are not enough
of me, I've got to have millions and billions of beings with my kind of character' that
can go throughout this entire endless universe, throughout all space, and restore these that
have come to a state of decay, and restore them to beauty and to production. So what
was God going to do? Well he said, 'I'm the only one that has that
character, but there are not enough of me.' So he said, "I will create man in my own image."
In other words, I will reproduce myself. Now in order to do that, man had to go through
this same thing of developing character and he had to make his own decisions. And so,
in case man went the wrong way, instead of making him immortal as God had made the angels,
God made man out of matter. That's why we're from the dust of the Earth.
We're only matter. There is a spirit in connection with our brain that imparts the power of intellect,
but we are not spirit. In the 2nd chapter of Genesis, verse 7 (Genesis 2:7), "God formed
man of the dust of the ground." Now the man was formed from the dust of the ground, and
God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man" (formed from the dust of
the ground) became, became, was turned into, "became a living soul," not an immortal soul.
That's one of the first things I learned in the Bible 50 years ago. That was the most
shocking thing that had ever come to me in my life, to learn I was not an immortal soul,
and to learn that the Bible says "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," and that Adam
was a soul, and Eve was a soul, and God said to them, 'If you disobey me, you will surely
die.' Now God offered them eternal life and his
Holy Spirit if they would follow his way. Adam had the chance to qualify to restore
the government of God on the Earth, which had been lost through Satan. Adam had that
opportunity. However, God had first talked with Adam. He created man after his own image
and likeness, in other words, the same form and shape, but we were made of matter and
God is composed of immortal spirit. And God, as I say, has this holy righteous perfect
character, but man does not have it, at least not yet.
Now God started with the same way he did with the angels. He taught the man. And God did
not allow this Satan to come to him until he taught the man and the woman, then he did
allow Satan to come along. Now Satan said, in effect, he said, 'Look you can't believe
what God is saying. God knows better. He's lying to you, and you can believe me.' And
there was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and he said, 'You go ahead and take
of that and you will be God yourself.' So they believed what Satan said. They did
not believe God. They believed in God, they knew he was the creator, but they did not
believe God. That is, they didn't believe what he said. I hope I make that plain, because
most people don't know the difference between believing in Christ and believing Christ.
There are a few million people in this world, several million, who really believe in Christ
and believe in God, but they don't believe God, and they don't believe Christ. They don't
believe what they have said. When Jesus Christ came in the human form,
1900 and some years ago, almost 2000 years ago, he preached to thousands. Thousands heard
him, but how many really believed him? Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. Adam said,
in effect, where God had given him the chance now to qualify, to take the place of Satan
and to restore the government on the Earth, Adam said, 'Lord, I know who you are. You're
my creator, but I don't want you for my God. I don't want you to be my ruler, and I don't
want to obey you, and I don't want to believe that I have to get my knowledge from you,
that you are the basic source of knowledge.' And in other words, to paraphrase it in modern
language, he said the same as, 'God, get your nose out of my affairs. What are you trying
to get from me? Well, I'll decide for myself what is right and wrong. I'll run myself.'
So God said, in effect, and this is in my own language now, but this is what it means
in the Bible. God said, 'All right, Adam, you have had the
chance. You have made the decision. I give what you want. I will adopt a plan of 6,000
years of keeping hands-off, and I'll keep my nose out of your affairs.' In other words,
'I am sentencing you. And this is a sentence for you, and your children who will become
the world, to 6,000 years of being cut off from me.'
'You have to decide for yourself what is right from what is wrong. You must go out and choose
your own religions, choose your own gods, make up your own gods out of your own minds
of what you think God is. You go out and form your own governments. You form your own systems
of civilization and education. But I'm cutting you off from me.'
Then God said, 'But I'm making one exception. As we go along, here and there there's going
to be a man or perhaps in some cases a group of men, that I want to call and deal with
personally, and give a commission to, to perform for me. So I reserve the right to call them
out of this world of yours.' Now that's what I want you to realize, that
except - and this is what no church in this world understands or believes - that the world
is cut off from God. Now let me tell you what that means. Most people think that everyone
is lost unless they get saved by believing on Christ, and they just think it's believing
on Christ, and they don't believe Christ. Let me show you what it means. The world as
a whole is not lost. The world as a whole is not saved. Since God cut them off - God
cannot be unfair and say you're condemned now for eternity - they were only sentenced
to be cut off from him for 6,000 years in this life. But as you read in the 37th chapter
of Ezekiel, and in the 20th chapter of Revelation, there is coming after the thousand years rule
of Jesus Christ to bring peace on this Earth, there is coming a time to be known as the
Great White Judgement. Then all the dead, starting way back with
Seth, the son of Adam, and all the way through, all of those people that have been cut off
from any chance of any kind. They were not condemned, they're not lost, they're going
to be resurrected right back into mortal flesh. Read the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, and you'll
find quite a description of that. And God is then going to speak to them and put his
spirit into them, and they will stand on their feet, and that's when they will come to be
converted. In this life, God knew Satan would be there,
and would be deceiving the world. In other words, what he knew was that man would go
the way of Satan, and he wanted them to have 6,000 years of proving that this way of Satan,
the way of getting, the way of vanity, the way of jealousy and envy and of competition
and strife, is wrong and can only bring heartache, and can only harm people and bring nothing
but the kind of violence, and the terrible things that have come to this Earth.
That's why there has to be a cause. We've gone the wrong way. We've gone the way of
Satan. We've gone the way of vanity, lust, and greed. We've gone the way of competition
and strife. We've gone the way of jealousy and envy, but not the way of love, not the
way of giving and of kindness, and of helping. And there is such a great difference.
Herbert W Armstrong will return right after this message. You're invited to learn more about these important issues through the pages of Plain Truth,
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God arranged so that Christ could come and be born, and be a human being. And being born
of God, he was God, but being born of a human woman, he was also human. He is the only person
who ever lived who was both human and also divine God. Now he was able, because he also
God, to live a perfect life without any sin whatsoever. Then he gave that life of his,
because he is the one who's our real maker. All things were made by him.
And in Ephesians the 3rd chapter, God created all things by Jesus Christ, and through Jesus
Christ. (Ephesians 3:9) But Christ was the maker and the one who did what his Father
delegated to him to do. And consequently, when Christ died, he took on himself our sins,
your sins and mine. And paid the penalty in your stead and my stead, for us. And God is
a great giver, a great forgiver. He forgives, he blesses, he wants to give us every blessing
in the world. Well now, finally coming to verse 22 of the
3rd chapter of Genesis (Genesis 3:22), and I read this in a preceding program: "And the
Eternal God said, Behold the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now
lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever,"
now lest he gain immortal life, which god had not given him.... God had said 'You will
die if you disobey,' and they did disobey. "Therefore the Eternal God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out
the man," and of course his wife with him, "and he placed at the east of the garden of
Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life"
lest they go back and gain the spirit of God and immortality and live forever.
God cut humanity as a whole off from salvation, right there. But he reserved the right to
call those whom he would call. Now he has called a number. Jesus Christ said, "No man
can come to me, except the Father which sent me, draw him." (John 6:44) Otherwise, no one
can come to Christ. They say, 'Come and give your heart to the Lord. Give your heart to
Christ.' Brethren, the world as a whole cannot do that,
unless God has called them. Now you'll find two places in the Bible where it speaks about
predestination. One is in the 8th chapter of Romans, and the other is in the first chapter
of Ephesians. And the meaning of predestination, practically no one understands it. Almost
no one ever gets it. It.... You're not predestinated to be lost, no one is. But some are predestinated
to be called now while Satan is still ruling and reigning over this Earth, instead of later.
After when Christ comes, the first thing he will do is put Satan away. And then Christ
will... everybody will be called to salvation that is still living on Earth. And after that
thousand years, everybody else who ever lived before will be resurrected and given the chance
to come. Oh, what a wonderful God, and what a wonderful savior we do have!
Why can't we realize it, instead of the fables that are being taught and called Christianity,
which are just the opposite of the Christianity of your Bible, and of your real God? Well,
God cut humanity off except those who he would call. Now it has been that way all the way
along. You come down to the time of Christ, and there were the disciples of Christ, they
wanted to do something else, but Jesus called them. And they followed him, and he taught
them to be apostles. Apostles are ones sent with the gospel, and
the gospel is that Christ brought - and I'll be coming to that in about the next program,
I hope - is the good news of the coming government of God being restored to this Earth, but it'll
be more than just the government of God, it'll also be the kingdom of God which is the family
of God into which we may be born. Let me tell you, there are very few - even
though you might become a president of the United States - very few who understand what
it means to be born again. Those who are born of God become like God, and they're in the
family of God, and they're no longer mortal, they're immortal. They're no longer like,
made out of flesh, they're made out of spirit, composed of spirit, and holiness, and righteousness,
and they cannot be born that way until they have developed this holy, righteous, perfect
character. Now I'm going to leave you with that, that's
the purpose of God in this life. I hope that we can go on from there in the next program
of this series, and I hope that we can keep this series going for some little time now.
Well, I say goodbye now. This is Herbert W. Armstrong saying goodbye, until the next time.
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