Well, greetings everybody once again this afternoon; and to all of you people up in Canada listening at Vancouver, British Columbia; and all of you over in Big Sandy, Texas. I didn't know you were listening last night, but I'm informed that you were. And I am so happy to be back once again on this platform, in front of this microphone, before all of you.
That song "Jerusalem" means something very special to me right at this moment because I am due to arrive in Jerusalem, I think it's the 30th of June. I'll be there until after the 4th of July. The city of Philadelphia has donated to the state of Jerusalem, or the nation of Israel I should say, an exact replica (an exact duplicate) of the Liberty Bell. And Mayor Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem, came to me about oh, a year and a half or maybe almost two years ago. He wanted to build a big park in downtown Jerusalem. There was none. He felt one ought to be there; and he wanted to call it the Liberty Bell Park, and this big Liberty Bell is right at the entrance of the park.
I agreed to help with it and to take care of the construction of the children's playground right at the entrance. Now it is complete, and it is to be opened to the public and dedicated on July the 4th, America's Independence Day. And it is an independence park and has very great significance to the United States. You might say that the United States has kept the nation of Israel alive.
You know there's been a great deal of debate in the last few days in Congress about sending arms to Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and to Egypt. But it seems like that's been settled finally by increasing the number of jet planes that the United States will send to Israel.
Anyhow, we hope for peace. We know there's not going to be too much for a while. Then is coming the great time of peace when Christ comes back to set up and to restore the government of God on this earth and set up the Kingdom of God. I hope to show you this afternoon the difference between the government of God and the Kingdom of God, because they are not synonymous.
Now just by way of a very, very brief announcement, I want to say that in the early days of my conversion, going back 50 years ago up in Oregon (and we were living in Portland, Oregon at the time) I was beginning to fellowship with the Church of God people up there. Now we find various eras of God's Church in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation, and that was what we call the Sardis Era. You read of it in the beginning of the first several verses of the 3rd chapter of the book of Revelation.
There was a mix-up in the Church. It was divided. And the man who had been the real leader of the Church, Andrew Dugger, had lost out by one vote. They were voting. They still had more Bible truth than any other church on earth; but they had lost a great deal of the original truth, which God has restored through me. And one of the things that was lost was on Church organization. Then Mr. Dugger left and, with another man, went to Salem, West Virginia and organized what he called the Bible form of organization of the Church.
Now we in Oregon knew that it was not the Bible form of organization at all. It was a true misapplication of some of the scriptures. The result is my mind was pretty much mixed up on just what is the form of executive organization in the Church. That is a thing that was hardest for me to understand, and it took longer for me to come to an understanding than anything else in the Bible. Now it is all clear.
I have made a mistake in the past because of that misunderstanding, although I have always known that God's form is government from the top down. Now this is too big a subject for me to go into in this one sermon, because I have something else that I think takes precedence and is so important I don't want to neglect it. But there will be an article in the Worldwide News thoroughly explaining that.
Now, let me just say that my recovery permits me to take the active position in the executive management of God's Work; and due to this, the announced changes in administration have been made. And now the Church is organized God's way, and it will have God's blessing. It will go forward. We expect to go forward now in radio broadcasting, getting back where we once were on the big radio stations coast to coast. It's very hard to get them to open up time; but we are doing everything we can. And that we will soon be daily, seven days a week, around the clock, on radio coast to coast. I know that's what the brethren all over the United States and Canada want. And of course, so far as other countries are concerned, we can't reach them with those same programs.
I'd like to read right at this point a verse that was my mother's favorite verse in all the Bible. It's the one 133rd Psalm, and verse 1.
Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
We are in real unity, and the Work will go forward as never before. I'm sure I can promise you that on the authority of Jesus Christ.
GOD'S APOSTLE (PLAY FROM 7:22)
Now let me just say that God has put one apostle in His Church. I have never claimed to be that apostle -- that is, I didn't originally -- until I found that all of the Church recognized it anyway. And I would just simply point to 50 years of the fruits, and what has happened, and what God has done, and how He has used me in the last 50 years.
You know when John the Baptist sent some messengers to Jesus, when Jesus was on earth, to ask Him whether He was the promised Messiah, Jesus didn't say, "Yes." He didn't say, "No." He said, "You go tell John what you see being done. Tell him the fruits that you see, and he will know."
Well, no man made me an apostle; and men cannot elect an apostle. That would never have the approval of God in a million years. Christ Himself selected me, and laid on me the Great Commission of getting the gospel of the Kingdom of God (which is the good news of the coming government and kingdom of God) to all the world. Now that's why I've had to be away from here and in the capitals of the world for the last several years, a great deal; and again I will have to be.
Now I am planning to leave here on the 25th of June. I will be a few days in London, just in case I need a little resting up from that trip (because it is around, I don't know, an 11, 12, 13-hour flight). And then on the 30th of June we will fly on over to Jerusalem, and special plans are being made that our plane can land right at the Jerusalem Airport instead of the airport that is the only one that has been open in Israel at all, which is near Tel Aviv. And then you have a long full hour's automobile ride to Jerusalem. Well, I hope that we'll be able to land at the Jerusalem Airport, and they're trying to get special provision for that. I think that I will inaugurate the Liberty Bell Park with the inauguration prayer. And I will dine with the mayor, Teddy Kollek. Incidentally, he's been here and spoken to the college students; and he's a very good friend of mine.
Now, let me just say that I was never called to get into the college business. God called me to get the message that He sent by Jesus Christ, which is the good news of the coming Kingdom of God. Since it is good news of what is going to happen, it amounts to an announcement. It is not a soul-saving mission to convince people that it's true, or get people to agree. It doesn't make any difference. Whether you agree or you disagree, it's going to happen -- because God is going to do it! And, as my son Garner Ted has said many times on television and radio, God doesn't have to convince you or anybody. We're not going to do it. It's going to be done to us. But God is going to FORCE this world to have peace and to be happy, and tell people how to really enjoy life for the first time in 6,000 years. And that's going to happen soon, in our lifetime.
MISSION OF AMBASSADOR COLLEGE (PLAY FROM 11:20)
Now as I say, I was not called to get into the college business. But in the first years of my ministry, I held six-week evangelistic campaigns in many towns and villages up in Oregon. And always there were converts, and I would organize a small local church; but there was no minister. Now when the sheep have no shepherd, they do fall prey to the wolves or they run astray; and that's exactly what I saw happening. I saw that we had to have ministers in the churches. That I needed educated personnel to serve under me, and to help me in the many other facets of the administration of the Work of God.
And that's why Ambassador College was started. Then later God opened the college in England, and we were all of us that saw it and were at the top at the time, were convinced that God had shown us that He wanted a college over there. And then even after that, about 1963 or '64, the college in Big Sandy, Texas. Now we had the three campuses. God blessed it, and we now have in the neighborhood of 700 ordained ministers around the world. We have an educated ministry. We have many people in top executive positions that are Ambassador College graduates. And, actually the mission of the college has been fulfilled.
So we've come to see that the operation of a full 4-year liberal arts college is not longer necessary to fulfill the Great Commission. That's what I've been called to do. That's what my life has been devoted to, and will continue to be devoted to. So the college has closed its undergraduate program, and will continue to operate only in schools for ministerial and biblical studies. In other words, we will no longer have courses for job or professional training.
All the colleges and universities of this world, they devote their time mainly to teaching people for the various professions, various jobs or positions. And this college has never had that, except partially. But to what extent we have, that will now be eliminated; and it will be, as I said, a school for ministerial and biblical studies. This school, by the way, is a fulfillment of the concept that I invented and that I had back in 1951. And just this morning a copy of The Plain Truth from that time was shown to me, where it is stated out. And I am glad that we are doing what God has shown us must be done. That will greatly reduce the expenses and allow funds to be spent for the radio broadcasting and for getting the gospel around the world, which is the thing that we will be committed to from now on.
GOD CREATED ANGELS (PLAY FROM 15:08)
Now last night I told you that above all God is the Creator. But God also is perfect, holy, and righteous character. God first created angels and put them on the earth. He created angels BEFORE He had created the earth and the physical, material, universe. He put them here to have a part with Him in Creation. In other words, I wonder if you have seen and we have stores here in this area of unfinished furniture. It is furniture that is made complete except the polishing, or painting, or finishing has not been put on. Now you can buy very fine furniture that way if you can finish it yourself and save a lot of money.
Well, in a sense, that is the way God created the earth and the other planets around the world. He put the angels here to finish it, to build it up, to glorify it, to make it more and more beautiful. In order to do that, as I explained last night, He put His government over those angels. And to do that, He sat a super-archangel (one of the three top ones that He's ever created) on a throne to administer the government of God. But that {1} super-angel did not administer the government of God. Rather he led his people into the very opposite; Instead of building up, tearing down; Instead of light and truth, darkness and error. And instead of love, it was vanity and all of the things that we call human nature (which do, incidentally, come from the Devil and not from God) -- vanity, lust, and greed, envy and jealousy, a spirit of competition and strife and violence and tearing down.
So I read to you last night of the angels who sinned, and they are now demons. And the archangel Lucifer has had his name changed from Lucifer, which means shining star of the dawn (which he is not any longer); and God has named him what he now is -- Satan, which means adversary, competitor, rival, or the one working against you. That's what Satan is doing.
CHOOSING GODLY CHARACTER (PLAY FROM 17:49)
The one most necessary thing -- the one that is first of all in God Himself -- is holy, righteous, perfect spiritual character. The angels were made of spirit, not of matter. But there's one thing, as I explained last night, God cannot just create as it is and as a finished work of creation, and that is that kind of character. That must be participated in. Of course, it has to come from God; but the angels had to make the decision, and man has to make the decision. And it's like God said before Israel. He said, "I have set before you light and darkness, truth and error, God's way of love and the other way of hate, and jealousy, and envy." And He said, "CHOOSE!" Humans have to choose. He said, "Choose God's way."
Now, of course, He never forces anyone to do that. We are creatures of free choice. And character can only be built by those who have made that choice, and who have then opened their minds and their hearts to God to put His love, His Holy Spirit, His character within them. Now unless you have come to that point, unless you have repented of the way of this world -- as I say, of vanity, lust and greed, jealousy and envy, and competition and strife -- you are not on the way to that kind of character.
I told you last night that the angels went the wrong way. That left only God in the Person ... As I explained last night from John 1:1, one was God and one who was the Word. Now the Word later, about 2,000 years ago, was made flesh and dwelt among us. In other words, it was Jesus Christ; and God then became His Father. He had been with God for all eternity. There never was a time when they did not exist. Now don't try to understand that, because your minds can't understand it; but nevertheless you can't imagine it any other way either. You can't imagine anything else. Where did God come from if He hasn't always existed?
CHAOS AND CONFUSION (PLAY FROM 20:18)
Anyway, the angels failed and did not go ahead; and the result is (we read it in the 2nd verse of Genesis 1):
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
But, as I say, there was part of that Creation that He did not finish at that time, and like the unfinished furniture; and the angels were intended to finish it, they didn't.
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was [or, had become] without form, and void.
That comes from the Hebrew words, tohu and bohu, which really means chaotic, in confusion, waste and empty or deteriorated. And that was the thing that had come to the earth. It was covered by water. It was in darkness. The sun was no longer shining. Lucifer had been a bringer of light, but he had turned to darkness. And even the sun was not shining.
Genesis 1:2 And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The Spirit of God was there. Now I'd like to read to you from the {2} 104th Psalm and verse 30.
Psalm 104:30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou RENEWEST the face of the earth.
Now notice that. God renewed the face of the earth. That's what you read of in Genesis 1:1. Not the original Creation at all! In verse 1:
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens [and it should plural] and the earth.
But He put angels here first; and they had turned the wrong way, and turned light into darkness -- righteousness into sin. And so now, here was the Spirit:
Psalm 104:30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit ...
Here was the Holy Spirit of God over the watery surface. There was no land. It was all water.
Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The first thing God did was to restore light upon the earth. Now we are not told just how that light was. Because apparently it did not come from the sun because the sun did not shine on the earth until what is mentioned in the 4th day of this 7-day creative week -- which is not the original Creation but the renewing of the face of the earth for man.
Now then, as I said last night, when the angels had sinned, God was the only One ... God and the Word (who was to become Christ but had not yet become Christ), the only Ones! And you could say it was the God Family -- those Two -- who would not, and therefore could not, sin. God had to have people that He knew could be relied on never to go the wrong way, to do the job He wanted done. Not only this earth, but the whole vast universe!
This earth was a training ground. If the angels had made good, they would have gone on to Mars and Jupiter and Saturn and then after this solar system, to other planets of our galaxy and then to other galaxies. But they failed! And deterioration, and ... Ah, that word I tried to think of last night; it came to various planets. And that's the condition we find on the moon, and now we find it on Mars.
As I said last night, the first pictures of Mars -- photographed right on the surface of Mars -- were shown on a screen right on this platform by people about 5:05 to 5:10 in the morning when they began to come through. And I ... in fact some of you were here, and I was. I got in about 5 minutes before five, because I knew I'd been checking on when the picture would come through; and I was here in time for it.
AFTER HIS KIND (PLAY FROM 24:53)
Now God had to do something because He had tried angels, spirit beings composed of spirit. They are not composed of matter at all. There was no matter and no material universe when He first created the angels. They were already here when He created the material universe and the earth. And I read that to you in the 38th chapter of Job last night.
But it left only God, who had that kind of character and who could be entrusted to go on with the Creation and carry the Creation to its ultimate limit -- because, first of all, God is Creator; but He rules over His Creation. And He was the One who is the basic Source of truth, and knowledge, and understanding to those that He creates. A lot of people don't understand that much about God, which is too bad.
Anyway, God now saw that the only way was to reproduce Himself. To do that, He knew it was necessary to make man in His form and His image. God is formed and shaped just like we are. He looks like us except, instead of our pale faces and other colors of faces, God's face shines like the very sun for brightness. It'd probably put your eyes out if you looked straight at it because His face is so bright. It's not the sun but He created the sun. But now God had to create man in His own form and His own image. So He restored the earth, renewed the face of the earth; and then, coming down to verse 24, the 1st chapter of Genesis now:
Genesis 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.
There is no evidence that there was any such thing as reproduction before this time here. God started reproduction in animals, in fishes, in birds, and then finally in human life. Now notice: "God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature." The original word is the same word that is elsewhere translated "soul." Souls are made of matter; and they are not immortal, as the world has been misled to believe.
Genesis 1:24-26 ... after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: at it was so. (25) And [then] God made the beast of the earth after his kind [And so on. And then in verse 26.] (26) And God said, Let us [Not "Me" because God was Elohim, which is a uni-plural name and meant {3} the One that became the Father of Christ, or originally God and the Word. He said, "Let us ... "] make man in our image, after likeness.
So man was created in the image of God, but so there could be reproduction because God was going to reproduce Himself. And He put reproduction in the fish family, the bird family, the animal family, and the human family. And there probably had never been any such thing as reproduction before that time. There's certainly no evidence of it anyway. But now God made man male and female. Verse 27:
Genesis 1:27-28 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. [And told us to reproduce ... Well now, wait a minute.] (28) And God blessed them, and God said unto them, [I want to read this.] Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth.
It had already been "plenished" by angels, and "replenish" means fill it up again. A lot of people read right over that word and never get the meaning. Replenish the earth! Now you take back in Genesis, after the Flood, and you'll find that God said the same thing to Noah -- to reproduce and replenish the earth. Fill it up again after all had been destroyed except Noah and his family.
Well, now next I want to come to the creation of man. God spoke to the man He had created, and the woman. It says here in the 7th verse of the 2nd chapter of Genesis:
Genesis 2:7 The [Eternal] God formed the man of the dust of the ground.
BELIEVING GOD (PLAY FROM 29:54)
He had formed angels out of spirit, but now He formed man out of the dust of the ground. That was necessary so that, if man went the wrong way (as the angels did), God had a plan to have Christ come and be born as a human being, to live a perfect life and never bring on Himself the penalty of sin. But then to take our penalty on Himself and die for us, so we could be forgiven if we change our minds, repent, and begin to BELIEVE GOD.
God had thoroughly instructed this Lucifer, but he didn't believe God; and he turned angels away, so they became demons. Now "The LORD God formed man out of the dust of the ground." Ultimately, after the character of God has been formed in us, we will be changed to immortal spirit beings too; but only after that character has been formed in us in this first life.
Genesis 2:7-9 ... and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (8) And the [Eternal] God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (9) And out of the ground made the [Eternal] God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden [of Eden], and the tree of [the]knowledge of good and evil.
Adam had to make a choice. God first talked to him and instructed him. Then He allowed Satan (the former archangel Lucifer) to get to him. And it was to see whom he would believe. Now Adam believed on God all right. That is, he knew that God was the Creator and that God was his Maker. That he knew. But he didn't believe what God said! That's the big point, and that's exactly what people have not been doing ever since.
Very, very few; as a matter of fact, only 120 out of the thousands to whom Jesus talked after He came 6,000 years ago (and 4,000 years after Creation, approximately), there were only ... Let me see, it says 120 wasn't it that were left. You'll find that in the 1st chapter of the book of Acts, where all that really believed what Christ said and believed in Him -- had repented and believed and received the Holy Spirit on that day of Pentecost.
So there were the two trees.
Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden [This is verse 15.] to dress it and to keep it.
I have been criticized for building such a fine college here, but that is the way God does things. Whatever God has ever made, He looked at it and "Behold, it was very good." Not very bad! And God has not criticized, but some people have. Well, I'll go on taking that kind of criticism because I'm dedicated to the way of God. And if you don't like it, as the old saying goes, you can lump it. You know I mean that in love. But I'm glad that you people here do like it. But he took the man and put him in the Garden to dress it and keep it.
Twice, two years in succession, which is the limit allowable, this college has been honored by receiving the award of being the most beautiful, the best landscaped and the best MAINTAINED campus in the United States. Now, why? I saw right here God put man in that beautiful place "to dress it and to keep it,"not let it run down to weeds.
Genesis 2:16-17 And the [Eternal] God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat: (17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.
Or "Thou," as it is in the King James, "shalt surely DIE." Now he was not an immortal soul. God said, "You will die." YOU, not just some kind of body that you are in, He said, "You will surely die."
Genesis 2:18 And the [Eternal] God said ...
Well, that's when He said it's not good for man to be alone; and He was right. And, of course, the apostle Paul talked to the unmarried and said it was better if they remained unmarried; but God said it isn't good for man to be alone, and I've always believed God. And I believe what God said! And He said it isn't good for man to be alone. Well you can make of that what you want.
GOD INSTRUCTS MAN (PLAY FROM 35:07)
But the thing is, after God had talked to Adam and Eve and had thoroughly instructed them ... Now, they were created on the 6th day of this what we call "creation week" but was only a renewing of the face of the earth; and the 6th day ended at sunset. Now undoubtedly that evening, after the sun had set, God talked with them for an hour or two and began explaining things to them. And then the next day until sunset was the Sabbath.
That was the first Sabbath, and God talked to them on that Sabbath day, just as God in the form of Jesus Christ later entered into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. God thoroughly instructed Adam and Eve in the ways of His government and of the possibility (if they chose life, instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) that they could enter into the Kingdom of God and be BORN of God until they're His absolute children.
Now get this: God is the ruler. Now He is God the Father. The Father is the head of the Family. And even though we can become His children, and even though we can be made immortal and composed of spirit -- changed from matter into spirit at the time of the resurrection -- authority will always reside in the Father. And the Son as the executive, because He agrees 100% with the Father, will rule the earth. God will be King over all of the universe. And Christ, then, will come back again to this earth and will restore the government of God. And the Kingdom of God IS the Family, born children of God, that have the government of God. So its more than just the government of God, we have to become the very children of God.
Well, I don't need to go into it. You know that Satan then got to Adam through his wife. God may have talked to them just until sundown, and then the Sabbath ended and Satan came along on early Sunday morning. Now Satan's churches started keeping their religious services early, about sunrise, Sunday morning. That is the source and the beginning of the sunrise services on what they call Easter. And you'd be surprised if you get... well some of you have gotten the history of all of these things, and you know how the world has been so terribly deceived and has not known what went on.
REJECTING GOD'S REVELATION (PLAY FROM 38:05)
But Adam did not believe God. And then Satan came along and he believed Satan, and believed what Satan said. And so finally, it is here in the 3rd chapter:
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman [That's Eve, Adam's wife.] saw that the tree [that God had forbidden] was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Now, modern science has a certain ... I call it the tools of science that they use. But first of all of the tools, basic ones, of modern science today is to reject revelation as a source of knowledge. In other words, God's Bible is the Word of God and is the basic source of knowledge. The first thing they do is reject that.
In this world's education you will not find anything about the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. You will not find anything about the Flood. They don't teach that in the colleges, or in school. Whatever God has said, they don't believe. They rely on what the human man has written from way back and what they imagine. And mankind has always been like that.
God knew that probably man would go that way. And that's why He provided all in advance, before THE WORLD WAS, for Jesus to give up His great position as the Word of God, the One by whom God created all things, and to come down and to take on the form of a human being and become human so that He could die. Now He was man, He was human; but He was also God.
I was asked just this morning by one, "Did Christ ever marry?" He was God, and He is going to marry. But He is going to marry the Church after we are made immortal. And if He had married a human woman, it would have been one who was half divine (divine as well as human) marrying a human. And what would have happened? What would mankind have done to their children? It would never have done.
But Christ, you see, is engaged to the Church of God. And after the Church has by a resurrection or an immediate change from mortal to immortal, from matter into spirit, He is going to marry the Church. And God the Father will be Father over us all. And we will be Husband and wife; and we will bear fruit, but the children will be ... At that time, God will open the doors of salvation to all that live; and they are not open now.
Now let me explain that much right now. Adam followed his wife ... Oh I started to tell you about the tools of science. The first thing is to reject the knowledge of God and the next thing is observation with measurement and the third thing then is experimentation. Then human reason, and through human reason then based on those things they come to conclusions they do in modern science. That's precisely what Eve did because, as I read to you:
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food [There is what she saw.], and that it was pleasant to the eyes [which aroused lust in her], and a tree to be desired to make one wise.
She thought that she would come to know what is good and evil herself! She did not have to believe what God said was good and what God said was evil. She would decide that herself. And then she took of that tree. Now, when she and Adam took of that tree, they TOOK TO THEMSELVES the creation of knowledge, or decision of the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. Men ever since have tried to decide himself what he thinks sin is.
I have even questioned ministers, "What is sin? Give me a Bible definition." And they won't do it. They may know what it says in I John 3 verse 4, that "Sin is the transgression of the law." But they won't say it, because they try to say the law has been done away.
CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCES (PLAY FROM 43:12)
And so it is. Adam had made his choice. In other words, Adam said to God in effect ... And let me just paraphrase it in my own words. In effect, he said: "God, I want you to keep your nose out of my affairs. I will not accept you as my ruler. I reject you as my king, as my ruler. I reject you as my God for salvation. I reject you as a source of knowledge to tell me what is good and what is evil, and I will decide it myself."
And God said, "Well, I've given you the choice." Now, instead of choosing character, he chose the wrong way; and God allowed that. God has not going to force you to choose the right way. Adam was able to choose whatever he pleased, and so are we. But, if you make the wrong choice, you'll never have the character of God. And God is able to take care of that too.
From then in effect God said, "Okay. You have rejected me. You have said you will create your own knowledge. You rejected me as your ruler and my government over you. You have rejected me as a Savior and a God and as the source of knowledge. So now I sentence you and your children after you -- THE WHOLE WORLD that will come (and we have all come from Adam) -- to 6,000 years of being cut off from ME. All except the few in the world that I will decide I need to call and choose to do something for me in my service. Them I will call. But otherwise ALL HUMANITY will be cut off from me."
Now you read over here towards the end of the 3rd chapter of Genesis, and I want to take time to just read that:
Genesis 3:22-24 And the [Eternal] God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us [That is, God and the Word.], 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 [Lest he gain eternal life, lest he have salvation.]: (23) Therefore the [Eternal] God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) And he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim [angels, or super-angels], and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life [lest people get salvation and immortal life].
So God took it away. And God said, "I will cut you off from me, and myself off from you." Now let me just explain a little further. 4,000 years later, Jesus Christ said:
John 6:44 NO MAN CAN come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him.
POPULATION EXPLOSION (PLAY FROM 46:36)
God left it that He could choose certain ones. And He has only chosen those He had a job He wanted performed in this 6,000 years. God has left Satan here on the throne until a successor shall have qualified (which Christ did just 2,000 years ago), and then be installed in office (and Christ is coming very soon to be installed in office). But until then Satan is still here. And he is the one who is "the prince of the power of the air" and who is broadcasting through the air. And the spirit in every one of us, our human spirit, picks up the message.
He doesn't broadcast in words. He doesn't broadcast in pictures, like a telecast. He merely broadcasts in attitudes and in, well, certain desires and impulses. And he puts it in human beings from the time they are little children -- selfishness, greed, vanity, wanting to "get" instead of "give" and help and serve; and all the things that we call human nature.
Now, we turn over next to the 6th chapter of Genesis. We notice that about 2,000 years have gone by and it's about 1900 and some.
Genesis 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth ...
They did multiply at first. That is, there was a great rapid population growth -- a population explosion! We are now at that time once again when there's a population EXPLOSION. Do you know there are 2 or 3 times as many people on earth now as when I was born? That's how fast it's growing. And it will double in; well I don't know, within the lifetime of most of us. I hope that includes me. [And,]"When men began to multiply" as there was a population explosion at the time "on the face of the earth."
Genesis 6:1-2 ... and daughters were born unto them, (2) that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took [to] them [selves] wives of all which they chose.
Now "the sons of God" were merely human beings, not angels; because humans reproduce after their kind, and angels can't reproduce at all.
Genesis 6:5-6 And [verse 5] God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (6) And it REPENTED the [Eternal] ...
He changed His mind about it! And it isn't wrong, when you find you're wrong or have made a mistake, to change your mind.
Genesis 6:6-7 And it repented the [Eternal] that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (7) And the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast ...
It had come to the place there was only one man that believed God, only one, Noah. Noah was the only one. Noah was the only one who was perfect in his begettal, his generations (plural) -- of the original race of Seth, the son of Adam. By that time, of course, there were the various nations. But God did not intend intermarriage between the races, and does not today.
Some human being is going to disagree with that, because people decide on what they want. And I have been a little bit distressed to find that some of the girls on the campus want to date men of the other color, and that should not be -- because marriage is a different thing. It should be love the one for another, and no difference whatsoever because of race and other things. But in reproduction we are to reproduce "after our kind." I hope I've made that plain without further explanation.
Genesis 6:5 The [Eternal] saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
GOD'S PLAN REVEALED (PLAY FROM 51:20)
Now, there was no way to go on and save man. If you understand what God revealed to me 50 years ago, that we not only had been commanded to keep God's Sabbath, which is the very test commandment of the Commandments; but also the annual Sabbaths and festivals have very great meaning. I am quite DISTRESSED to be told that most of our ministers on the Feast of Tabernacles do NOT PREACH THE MEANING OF THE DAY; and I am going to take steps on that direction.
Today's holydays, annual holydays, are called TO TEACH US A LESSON. And the minister's sermons should be on what that lesson is. The first one, the Passover is the crucified Lamb. And it starts with our being changed from mortal to immortal, and it starts with Christ. The second, the seven days of Unleavened Bread picture our coming out of sin. AND I WANT THAT PREACHED IN THE CHURCH from now on!
And I say that with AUTHORITY, and I say it with POWER. If any of you think that I am senile and too old to carry on the Work of God, I think you are hearing it a little differently right now (because quite a few have suggested that, who are of opposite belief). And I speak with the authority of Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ called me and put me in the seat where I am. I didn't go to men. And it's something no man can do, and no man can put me out. Now then:
Genesis 6:11 The earth was corrupt [verse 11] before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And, if you know now, God destroyed all the life forms. Some will say, "God isn't fair." Well, if you understand the annual holydays, the 8th day of the Feast of Tabernacles is to open our eyes to the Great White Throne Judgment. That's the time when ALL THOSE PEOPLE that were then destroyed are going to be resurrected and live perhaps a hundred years. The one scripture that has that can be translated another way. But anyway it will be the time that God has in mind, whatever that is -- whether it's 10 years or 100.
And then they will have the chance to come to see the truth. God has taken away all chance of salvation from them. Those people were NOT lost. They were NOT condemned, because God had cut them off. Now I want to make that plain. I've said and used the expression that God adopted a hands-off policy. I find that doesn't make it clear enough to people. People then assume that everyone is lost unless they've accepted Christ. THAT IS NOT TRUE! In other words, except those that God has CALLED -- no man can come to Christ. They are not lost, neither are they saved.
Now all who are living after the beginning of the Millennium, or after Christ comes, will have their chance then of salvation. All, everybody! But Satan will be removed. And now, with Satan here, God is not putting us where everybody has to overcome Satan. Christ had to, to lead. Christ had to overcome Satan in order to QUALIFY to take Satan's place and rule the earth. Jesus said, if we also overcome (and it means, overcome Satan.), we shall sit with Him on His throne.
And I told you last night how we are cleaning the debris and rubbish of 2500 years off of the throne where Jesus Christ is going to sit and rule. We are the preparing the way for Christ's coming and for the Kingdom of God, and no one else on earth is doing that. I want you to understand this great call and commission, and the great Work that this Church, and this is the Church of the living God, and not the church of man or the ideas of man in any way at all.
Now then: All of those people that God destroyed in the Flood will be brought back to life just as if ... They don't know anything in the meantime. And it's just like the next split second from the time they drowned and died, that they will wake up in the Great White Throne Judgment, after the thousand-year reign with Christ. And there won't be any Devil around. And God will show them the truth; and then I think most of them will take it, because they'll look back and see what they did. They'll look back and see that the 6,000 years have shown that if we go contrary to God's way, which the world has, it only brings all of the terrible wretchedness that we see in the world today. There is nothing ...
God said in effect to man (and I didn't complete that a while ago.), to Adam and to the whole world afterwards, "You go form your own governments." They've done it. Look what the governments of man do. They are at war all the time, and someone is plotting to overthrow every one of them. "You go and form your own religions." Look at the religions in the world. And not even those called "Christian" are not the Church of God at all; and do not get their truths out of the Bible, but try to read them into the Bible. I had to learn that 50 years ago, and that was the biggest upset in my mind that I had ever had in all my life. But nevertheless, let me just show you the wonderful justice of God as it is. Anyway,
Genesis 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt ...
And, by the way, that's the word "corruption" that has come from the planets of the whole universe because of what the angels did. And man, when he is finally converted and saved (and there will be BILLIONS of us), that are finally going to be converted and will HAVE THAT HOLY RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER OF GOD. We're going to be sent to the planets all over the universe. That's after the Millennium. This earth will always be God's headquarters. Even God the Father is coming down to this earth. But the whole earth was corrupt:
Genesis 6:12 ... for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
GOD USES A FEW (PLAY FROM 58:22)
Well, so that is the way it started. Now God called one man back here, who was righteous and who believed in God -- Noah. God saved Noah from the Flood, as a type of saving from the eternal extinction of humanity. However, I want to show you now some things about how God has ruled; and God is the real Ruler, although He is allowing Satan to stay on the throne and to operate.
Now next we come to Abraham. And I would like us to turn now to the 12th chapter of Genesis and read the first verses.
Genesis 12:1-2 Now the [Eternal] had said unto Abram [his name was to begin with, but it became Abraham. To Abram] get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: (2) And I will make of thee a great nation [and so on].
Now he just simply said, there's no quibbling, there was no talking back. "Well, do I have to and can I do it tomorrow or next year? Can I go somewhere else?" That's about the way the average human would have resulted. But it says ... Let's see. Well it just says:
Genesis 12:4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken.
Abraham went. He didn't quibble. You know, when I first saw 50 years ago that we should keep the annual holy days as well as the seventh day of every week, I didn't know why. I didn't know the meaning of it, and I didn't know the real meaning until 14 years later. I talked to the people in the Church of God up in Oregon, that we call the Sardis Era of the Church now; and they only laughed me to scorn. And for 7 years my wife and I had to keep those annual days alone, by ourselves. But we did. I DIDN'T KNOW WHY. I DIDN'T ASK GOD "WHY?" I didn't say, "I won't do it until You show me why."
God said, "DO IT." I saw it was forever. I saw it was commanded. And that was enough for me. I said, "In due time." I craved understanding, and I wanted to understand it. But I knew that, in His own time, God would give me the understanding as to why and now I know. You've been taught why. You haven't had to wonder. You haven't had to just take it like God said. But I did, and that's the way Abraham did (and Abram, as he was originally called).
Now his sons Isaac and Jacob also followed with God. Jacob, of course, had a little trouble at first and was a supplanter; but finally repented and came back; and then Moses. But 430 years after Abraham, the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. Now God called Moses. Moses was a ... (I'm not going to take time to read all of the scriptures on all of that, because the time is getting short; and I still have quite a little I want to say.)
God called Moses. Moses was not seeking God. Let me say this. Noah was not seeking God. He was obedient to God and all that but he wasn't seeking salvation or anything. But God called him out and said, "Noah I'm going to use you to preserve human life alive on this earth." God said, "I want you to do something. I want you to build a great ship right here on dry land." And for a hundred years Noah {4} he was building the ship. And he was mocked at, ridiculed by the other people. It seemed so crazy to them. And some of the things God tells us to do do seem crazy to people who don't understand.
Well, anyway, he didn't seek God; but God sought him and called him in this world of Satan's. Then later He called Abraham, and Abraham was not seeking God; but God, it says here, let me read that again, "[Now] the [Eternal] said unto Abram." Abram didn't seek Him. God sought Abram, and called him; and he OBEYED. And he obeyed; he became the father of the faithful (spiritually speaking).
Then later we come to the time of Moses. No I won't go through all of it, but let me just tell you this much. Moses had been over at his father-in-law's place, who was the priest of Midian; and he was returning back toward Egypt. He was walking, and he came across a burning bush. It was just a small bush, but it kept burning. Now he saw it for some time before he had walked up even with it and then he eventually passed it. And finally he turned back to see well what could keep that little bush burning all this time.
And God spoke to him out of the bush and said, "Moses, take your shoes off your feet because the ground whereon you stand is holy ground." God's presence had made that ground holy. God was there, and calling him. Well, Moses was not seeking God. God wasn't trying to get people converted or saved in those years. That's the point I want to get through to you. The others were not lost. They'll come up to the Great White Throne Judgment. But if I've never made that plain before, I hope I'm making it plain now so you can understand it.
There's not injustice with God, in any way at all. But God wanted us to write the lesson. He knew that man would be misled and deceived by Satan, and would live Satan's way. And for 6,000 years of human wretchedness, and human anguish, and suffering and death have proved that only living the way of God is right. Satan teaches people to live just the opposite way. And Satan's churches on this earth try to say God's law is done away. They don't believe in the government of God. That's exactly what has happened.
Now we come a little later to others. God selected Joshua. God selected and chose the; well they are called 'judges' in the Bible or the one translation calls them 'heroes' that rescued Israel when they were taken captive by other nations. And here we have the nations all over the earth.
But in the time of Moses, God made a proposition through Moses to the people. And He said, If you will obey My voice, and do what I tell you, and live My way -- I'll make you the greatest nation on earth. I'll make you the richest, the most prosperous. I'll make you the most powerful! So that five of you can chase 100, and 100 of you will put 10,000 others to flight. But if you do not, there is going to be a 2520-year time period when it would be withheld before that kind of blessing came.
God did not promise them any spiritual salvation. Only Moses, who led them out and the prophets that God called -- them God gave His Holy Spirit to; but it was not to others. Now later there was David and God chose him. However, David was out tending the sheep. He wasn't seeking God. But God had sent the prophet over to the house of Jesse, and they thought every one of Jesse's sons except David was the one that men had chosen. But God chose David. And so it goes. And it has always been like that. Now God chose the prophets of Israel, but the people stoned and killed many of them.
And then we come on down to Christ. And Jesus Christ preached the coming Kingdom of God and how the whole earth then would be freed from Satan and would have peace and would have salvation, and that this character would be built within them. Christ came to live the perfect life, with the kind of character that God wants us to have; and set us an example in that. Christ let Himself be killed, and paid the death penalty in OUR stead! We have inherited the death penalty.
The Work Today (PLAY FROM 1:07:44)
I'll tell you the first scripture that really opened my eyes to the fact that I and the other churches in which I'd been brought up were wrong was Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death." I said, "Well, that can't be. I'm an immortal soul. I can't die." Then, the very next part of the same verse: "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Well, I said, "I've already got eternal life. I'm an immortal soul." But the Bible says, "The soul that sins, it shall die." Christ said to Adam, "You are a soul; and if you sin you will die." And I began to realize the truth finally, and that the churches are all wrong about going to heaven and their kind of a hell; and that they are wrong in saying that we are immortal souls, and practically all of their doctrines.
So God showed me those basic things, even during my intensive study of over six months before I was converted and baptized. And I don't know of any leader that is a world leader as God has made me now, or a founder of a religion. And of course I'm not a founder of religion. But I don't know of any that have ever come to it this way as a complete surrender to God, a complete believing what He has SAID. When Christ came and preached to thousands, only 120 believed what He had said after 3 ½ years of the very Master, Jesus Christ Himself, being here on earth.
Jesus did not come on a soul-saving crusade. Never once did He say, "Give your heart unto Me, and I'll give you salvation." He didn't say those things. Those are the things that Billy Graham and the modern Protestants say. The Catholics will say that they give you something at the time you die, and that's going to save you apparently. But those are the ways of the religions of man and not of God, my brethren.
Now the disciples went out teaching what God preached. God brought a messenger, a message from God; I mean God sent a message through Christ. And Christ brought that message, which was the good news that the government of God will be restored; but be restored by the very BORN Family of God. God is doing things in His time and His way, and God's way is PERFECT! But no man would do it that way, and the ways of man would be very imperfect.
Now, if we overcome, and turn from Satan's way unto God's way, and develop His kind of CHARACTER WE will sit with Christ on His throne and rule with Him. But the reason He has called us now, and called most of you, is to stand back of me in getting this gospel to the WHOLE WORLD, and not just the United States only. And not just Pasadena and some place like that alone, it's the whole wide world. And I am being heard in Canada as well as the United States right now, this very minute, and over in Big Sandy, Texas. I wish I was being heard in England and other places, but I am heard there on various times.
Now, let me see, is there anything that I overlooked that I've got to mention before I quit. Oh, about the college, one thing I did not say. The universities of this world in the main are devoted to teaching men for a profession, or for a job, or something like that. We will not have a job or professional training program. We will have, as I said, a school for ministerial and biblical studies. We do not need so many, so it's going to be ultimately cut down to 250 students. In other words, there's a reason for the college -- to provide an educated personnel to assist me, and for ministers. We now have around 700 ordained ministers all over the world. And, as a matter of fact, we have even more than we need right now on the payroll.
For years every student who made good was taken into the Work on graduation. But for the last several years, we've just been unable to do that. We're graduating more than we can use. And so it's foolish to go on trying to be in the college business and taking the money of God's people and spending it on that instead of what God said: Go and get the gospel around the world.
The Gospel To The World (PLAY FROM 1:12:50)
Now I'm going to go on doing that all around this world. And kings, and presidents, and prime ministers, and emperors even, invite me. I don't go in on them except at their invitation. But I have private, personal meetings with them; and they usually last anywhere from 30-35 minutes up to 2 hours. Twice I spent 2 hours with the king of Thailand, on each time I spent 2 hours with him. He appealed to me for help in certain ways that I found that I could help him. I sent a team of several men to be over there for 10 days, all over Thailand, not only in the Catholic city; but all over, and to find out what we could do and what we ought to do to help him. And finally they came back with the report, and there were about 6 or 8 of our top men that I sent over there.
Well, I will tell you one thing that has been done. We have been sponsoring portable schools for the mountain people that were uneducated. Not only are we getting them educated, but they have gone from ordinary farmers of things that are good to eat into opium and things of that kind of drugs because there was a lot of money in it. And so we've had to try to convert them back to farming vegetables. We've had to work out markets for their produce, and many things. But it is a program of the king of Thailand, King Bhumibol, which is very difficult for us to pronounce, and he is a friend of mine.
But God has given me favor in the eyes of leaders and heads of government in Central America, in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe, and all over. And He is going to continue that and I'm going to continue in that Work and the Work of God now will go ahead as it never did before. I am hoping that we will now get back, very soon, on radio until all over the United States and Canada we are covering it with half-hour programs every day. And they will be programs that are going to proclaim the good news of THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
Now I tell you, so far as the finances is concerned, I've found that it depends more on our pleasing Jesus Christ, the Head of this Church, than it does on any methods we use to try to raise money. And I know that, as we do that which is pleasing to God, He will back us; and He will provide every need, as He always has and as He will continue to do.
Well, I didn't want to carry it on to a full 2 hours today; and I think that that covers it enough. It has finally come up to today, when God has called me to get this out to the world. We're living in the generation when it is going to happen, and God wants it announced to around the world. I'm not trying to convert people in these other nations. Don't misunderstand. That isn't what God called me to do. But He wants it announced so that they can't say, "Well, God, why didn't you tell us?" He'll say, "I did, but you didn't listen." And that's what I'm doing. I'm telling them and announcing, and that's all. I don't have to get them converted.
The cooperation that we've had in Israel, and the dozens and dozens of times that I've gone to Israel and Jerusalem, never once have we sought a single convert; nor, as far as I know, have we made one. And they know that. This is not the time God is trying to save the world spiritually, but to get out the message. Now the way is open to carry the message in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, to tell them of the cities of Judah, that the Lord is coming with A STRONG ARM -- Armstrong. Is it a coincidence in the fact that God chose a man with that name to carry that message, to rule them in the Kingdom of God and to bring them peace? And they and the Arabs will all be at peace one with another.
We are helping to do it now and helping it with the Moshe Koll's Foundation, with the young people. And when I go over there, both Arabs and Jews are on the program. And they did for our students when they went over, and it's wonderful to see things like that happen.
And, by the way, the last time I saw the king of Thailand I asked him how was our program coming? He said over 90% (in fact, he said 95%) have been turned away from this drug production into food production. Now that's another wonderful thing that's been done. But at the same time it opens the door to have me, as I have had hundreds of times in Bangkok and over in Thailand, and get the truth of God there as an announcement. And that's all I am called on to do. It is being done, nobody else is doing it. This is the Work of God, and God has prophesied that He would send someone to prepare the way before Christ. That is being done, and not by anybody else -- as you brethren ought to know.
So now, I'm going to say "Goodbye" for this time. I'm getting back, and I'm going to be writing more than before. And I'm just coming along fine. I need to be more physically fit. In fact, I need to get in more walking. But my heart is back into fine condition. It was swelled way up. In fact, I had heart failure. Not a heart attack. It was heart failure, and it completely stopped. My breathing completely stopped, but it was restored. But God had not taken my spirit or my mind. And He has restored my mind. If anything it's better than it was before. And I still am not over 55 years old in actual mental powers and abilities. And I just want you to know that I'm coming back into active service again. I've had to take a lot of time off, and I haven't even done an awful lot of writing. I've done a little. But I will be doing more from now on.
So God bless all of you, and let's carry on. We are now in complete unity and we're going on together to get this job finished that God committed to me almost 50 years ago. So thank you all, and God bless you.
Bricket Wood Message
Well, greetings everybody once again. It’s nice to be back at Bricket Wood. I might just say that about a week ago we did have a wonderful turnout over in Jerusalem; and I was able to speak about 25 minutes to the top people of the nation Israel—members of the Knesset, members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court Judges, presidents of universities, and former presidents, mayors, and so on. And early tomorrow morning I’m leaving for Nassau, in the Bahamas. I think there will be radio interviews. There’s no television there. There will be speeches at businessmen’s clubs through the week at noon, like the Kiwanis, the Rotary Club, and so on—as we had when we were there before.
What has caused this slight change? On next Sunday (I believe it is afternoon, instead of evening.) one of the two I think best known concert pianists in the world Horowitz—Vladimir, I guess it is, Horowitz—is going to be giving the first recital that has occurred on the West Coast of the United States in about 27 years at the Ambassador Auditorium. Now, I very much hated to miss it; and still it was coming on the same date as the Sunday evening campaign in Nassau. But now something else has developed; and we have decided that we will only advertise that I will be there on Friday night and Saturday night, but there’ll be the three-night campaign. We’ll just turn it over to Mr. Bass on Sunday night, and he will have the crowd right there. He will be the minister there. He’ll have to take care of the others some other way for a while. It’ll turn the people that are attracted by this campaign right over to a local minister. And that will enable me to be in Pasadena.
Now one reason that is necessary: the Oxxon... (Is that the way you pronounce it?) It’s one of the biggest oil companies in the world. I think it’s a consolidation of Standard Oil and several others, probably more than a billion dollar corporation (or billion pound, either one). And anyway, they are going to sponsor a national coast-to-coast broadcast on NBC or CBS about a month later of Maestro Horowitz in the Ambassador Auditorium. And to do it they’ll have to give it, you know, the atmosphere—to show pictures of the Ambassador Auditorium by day and also by night, and the shimmering water, that the pillars rise up seven-stories high out of the lake of water, and interior shots I hope—because the Ambassador Auditorium is, I can say without exaggeration, the finest auditorium that has been built in the world (so far as I know) in this century.
I’m not comparing it with something like the Basilica of St. Peter down at Rome, which I think took over 200 or 300 years to build and is filled with ornate carvings, many pictures that if you see them on the walls you will think they are oil. And they are not oil. They are all various little pieces of marble, cut in the right color and put together in a way that makes a wonderful picture. Now, things like that took years, and years, and years to do. And I think there is nothing else on Earth like it, or ever has been.
But in the form of more-or-less modern architecture, I think there has been nothing that will compare with the Ambassador Auditorium; and the acoustics are perfect! The Los Angeles Music Center, which is pretty much supported by The Los Angeles Times—the same family are back of both; and they are very jealous. I don’t know why they should be. We’ve been bringing greater attractions into the southland, as we call that area of southern California, than they have. But they could have gotten them. And, if they didn’t, that’s not our fault.
And our acoustics are better, as their auditorium is more than twice the size of ours; and you can’t make an auditorium that big and seating that many people (in the grasp for more dollars and more profits) and have the acoustics as good. Practically all the music halls and auditoriums for big musical concerts in Europe are about the size of ours, or smaller. We seat 1,250 and they seat about 3,500; and that is the difference.
Now the Music Center in Los Angeles will compare favorably with anything anywhere in the world. They are bringing that kind of cultural attractions to southern California. It’s a credit to southern California, as things in this world go. And we can’t see any reason why they should be jealous, but they are. One thing that hurt them very much down there: When Maestro Rubinstein was there a year ago last January 15th, a couple of nights later (he with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra) he was doing a concerto. He insisted on taking our piano from the Ambassador Auditorium down to the Music Center to play on it. Now, that was very humiliating to them. And they had to get it into the newspaper that he had borrowed the Ambassador College piano, and it was mentioned.
Well, I told Maestro Rubinstein that I had the two best pianos in the United States in that auditorium, about three or four weeks before, when I was having dinner with him in New York. And the Maestro said to me, he says: “Young man…” Now, that was the most delightful insult that anyone has given me in a long, long time. No one has called me young man for a long time. By the way, Maestro Rubinstein just a week or two ago entered his 90th year. He’s older than I am. So he could say that; and I enjoyed that very much, because I still am a young man.
I told him I had the two finest pianos in the United States. He said, “Young man, are you a professional?” I said, “No. But you are.” Well he said, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” I said, “No. I’ll let you do the talking.” Well I just told you his answer. He insisted on using our piano for the concerto in The Pavilion, which is the name of the large auditorium at the Music Center, much to their chagrin; and he has done it again since.
Well, this large oil company, which probably is the largest in America now. I think it’s a new consolidation. I think it includes a lot of Standard Oil, maybe Gulf Oil and several others. I’m not really up on just what it is. But they want to feature him in a program that will probably be listened to by 30-40 million people in all parts of the United States. And I need to be there to help arrange it. And I think that’s very important because it’ll give Ambassador College the greatest exposure to the public in the United States that we’ve ever had at one time, in one kind of program. So I think that’s important.
THE WORK OF GOD TODAY (PLAY FROM 9:07)
Well, the Work of God is going on around the world. And the Work of God is not going on around the world in any other manner, shape, or form anywhere. And that’s the main thing we are called for right now, is to get that out.
Now today I want to get back to prophecy. Not just world events. You know most prophecy and most history that you read in even profane history of the world is concerned with governments—the rise and fall of governments, and wars, and who is ruling, as ruling this or that of the other nations, and when.
In the Bible you will find however, that world events are listed only as they affect the nation Israel. The Bible is essentially the Book of Israel; and it not concerned with the affairs of other nations that have no connection, no relationship, to Israel. But still the historic portions are mostly a matter of the rise and fall of governments, and of their kings, and political and economic and governmental things. But God is interested in government, and I hope you’ll see why before I’m through here this afternoon.
But I am interested now in prophecies, not of world events of this world but of God’s Church. Now as in the prophecy of world events (and the many prophecies in the Bible about it), there is virtually nothing prophesied that was to happen between the first century and our time today except what you find of the seven Churches in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation. And there you find seven successive Churches, or eras of time in the Church; but also it is speaking of the Church as a whole all through the time. For example, the message to the Church of Ephesus was primarily for the Church in those early years. However, the Laodicean condition was there; and so was the Philadelphian condition. But the Ephesus condition dominated.
Now when we finally come to the Laodicean era, which is still ahead of us, the primary dominating factor will be the Church that is lukewarm. But you also find the Ephesus condition, the Thyatira condition, and all of the others there. So, in a sense, it is talking of the whole Church all the way through. When you read that, for example, if we overcome we will reign with Christ on His throne—that doesn’t mean just the people of that particular era. That will apply to all eras. But still it will be the overcomers. Now I’ll have something more to say about that a little later too, I hope.
But then was the prophecy in Matthew 24 about the false ministers going out and how the true gospel would be replaced with a false one, about wars, about famines, and so on. Those things have happened. There’s no specific prophecy about any one event; but it’s just a general condition that has prevailed more or less from the first century on till now, except that now it has escalated at the time of the end.
ALREADY SAVED? (PLAY FROM 13:01)
Now finally we come down to verses 13 and 14; and I want to emphasize verse 13 this time, where Jesus said:
Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
When I was holding the campaign, back in 1933, that resulted in the raising up of the parent Church of this Philadelphia era, we had one man who was quite a critic who attended; and it was his habit to attend any evangelistic meetings held in that area there. He would always ask the speaker a question, and he would never fail to stump the speakers. He was a Bible scholar, self-professed. He admitted it himself. And he thought he understood the Bible better than any others.
Now in Eugene, Oregon (and this was just out of Eugene) on the University of Oregon campus, on one corner of it, is a… Well, you might say a Bible school. It’s really a seminary; I think of the Church of Christ. Anyway, their young men were often sent out to practice on an audience out there.
This old man, Mr. Belshaw, would always ask a question. And he’d have a question they couldn’t answer, and he would expose right off the bat that they didn’t know anything about the Bible; and then they’d be through. The audience wouldn’t come any more.
So the first night… No, he didn’t come the first night. He waited until the second night in my campaign. (And it went on for six weeks.) He said, “Mr. Armstrong.” I said, “Well, yes, Mr. Belshaw.” You see, it was a little one-room schoolhouse that only seated 36 people. However, we had some standing. We probably had 45 people there, which seemed like a tremendous audience at that time. He said, “May I ask you a question?” And I said, “Yes, Mr. Belshaw, you may.”
He said, “May I ask you, ‘Are you saved?’ Mr. Armstrong?” I said, “Mr. Belshaw, you ought to know that in Matthew 24, verse 13, it says ‘He that shall endure unto the end, the same SHALL BE saved.” Well, everybody laughed at him because that’s what he expected to say to me. He thought I would say, “Sure, I’m saved.” And he was going to quote that and make a laughing-stock out of me. So it sort of got turned around. And every time he had started a heckle it happened too. God always seemed to give me the right answer.
THE SABBATH QUESTION (PLAY FROM 16:03)
I know later on (This was about the beginning of the 6th week.) I’d announced I was going to speak on the Sabbath question. So a minister from this school came. I think he was a graduate by this time. And it was customary in those days; and I hadn’t come to know as much about the Scriptures as I do now, or I wouldn’t have gone in with it. But any such meetings as that, if a visiting minister came, he was asked to lead in prayer. So I asked this visiting minister to lead in prayer. Well, his whole prayer was a tirade against the Sabbath. He thanked God that we had a Savior to worship instead of a day! And he said, “I am like the apostle Paul was. I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ; and Him crucified.” He said, “Away with these things of days and things like that.” Well when we arose, you see, he thought he had my sermon completely destroyed before I’d started.
Well, an incident happened that week. My wife had just written to me about it. I’d gone on down to Eugene; but my family was still up in Salem, where we’d been living for a few months. And so I mentioned this incident, that I’d just had a letter. I said, “I agree with this man and his prayer. And I too am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”
I said, “I just received a letter from my wife. And our oldest son, Richard, was playing outside. (It was summer then.) And the window was open. My wife was doing the housecleaning or something. And he was playing with another little boy. (They were both at that time, I think, 4 ½ to 5 years old.) And the other boy was using words like gosh, and darn, and gee-whiz. My son wasn’t going to stand for that any longer. He stooped down, and he picked up two sticks, and he crossed them. He said, ‘Donald, look here. Do you know what that there is?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, that there is a cross.’ And he said, ‘Do you know that they had to take Jesus Christ and nail Him up to a cross until He died there BECAUSE you are always saying gosh, and darn, and gee-whiz. Don’t you say those things any more!’”
I said, “I’m, like this other minister that lead us in prayer, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They took Jesus Christ and nailed Him up to a cross till He died BECAUSE you people have been {1}… [**Tape skips at 19:06 and part is missing.]. Jesus said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments; and I’ve set you an example, that you should do as I’ve done to you.”
SIGN OF THE END (PLAY FROM 19:16)
Now, the next verse here in Matthew 24:
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached [In Mark 13:10 it’s “published.”] in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and THEN shall the end come.
The disciples had just asked Him for a sign of when the end of this world would come, and He would come to usher in the World Tomorrow. And He had not given that sign until He came to this 14th verse. Now IF THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM HAD BEEN PREACHED and proclaimed to the world all through the time, up to the end and the time of Christ’s coming, He couldn’t say that would be the sign of His coming, could He? In other words, HE SAID RIGHT THERE THAT HIS GOSPEL WOULD NOT BE PREACHED UNTIL THE TIME OF THE END! Otherwise, what He said made no sense whatever, if it had been preached all the time. His preaching didn’t mean that you’ve come yet, to the time of the end. So that is really a very important point.
We, right now, have come to a place that I think you find described in the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation, and beginning with verse 7. The time when it says:
Revelation 12:7 And there was…
It speaks of prophecies in the past tense, as if they had already happened—because, when it’s a prophecy in the Word of God, it’s just as certain as if it had already passed.
Revelation 12:7-9 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, (8) and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. (9) And the great dragon was cast out [Who is the dragon? “The great dragon was cast out…”], that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.
Now Brethren, I suppose that couldn’t include anybody here? He deceiveth the whole world! You know, a deceived person thinks he’s right. If you KNOW you’re wrong, you WOULDN’T BE DECEIVED! Then you’d know. Deceived people are probably just as sincere as those who are undeceived and who know the truth. And this whole world is deceived! That’s not saying anything against the person.
Revelation 12:9-10 …which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (10) And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God.
That doesn’t come until the Second Coming of Christ. But, at the time of this prophecy, the announcement will go out that now is the time, now it “is come.”
SATAN CAST DOWN (PLAY FROM 22:41)
Revelation 12:10 …and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them…day and night.
Now, I think Satan has a few people doing his bidding. They like to accuse me of this, and that, and the other thing. Really, I’d hate to start accusing people. That is the job the Devil is doing. Well, anyway come on now to the 12th verse:
Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe unto the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
How does he know? How does he know the time is about up and that this world is about to end? Because WHAT THIS CHURCH IS DOING! The gospel of the Kingdom is NOW going to the world for the FIRST TIME in 1850-1900 years. That’s how Satan knows.
Revelation 12:13-14 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. (14) And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
Now, that is a prophecy that is just immediately ahead. Perhaps that war in heaven is already being fought, or has been. We are very close to that time. But beginning at that point is a good deal like coming into a movie, and it’s been going on for some little time. And the things you see don’t exactly make sense to you, because you don’t know what had gone on before. You need to see it from the beginning. And, you know, it’s a good deal like that. We start in the teaching of the Bible for this time, and prophecy for this time. And if you don’t know what went on before, you just don’t get it.
I’ve looked at sometimes plays on television. Maybe it’s an hour long; and, for some reason, that I wanted to see this particular one. And I tune in when it’s been going on for about 15 minutes; and, you know, I can’t make head or tail of it from that time on. I don’t know what went before; and everything else is just based on what went before, and you don’t get the meaning. So we have to go back to the beginning. And I tell you, that’s one reason people DON’T UNDERSTAND the Bible. It’s one reason they DON’T UNDERSTAND the true gospel. They try to come in when it’s about half or two-thirds over and understand it. And you don’t get it that way at all!
We need to know what led up to it. What has led up to this point? This takes people on Earth. There’s a devil here. The devil hates the people. It doesn’t tell us “why” at that point. You have to go back before. How did the people come to be here? How did human beings ever come to be here? Did GOD put us here? Or did we just grow here, by evolution? Now, I would think you’d want to know that. I do. And when people try to disagree with the truth of God and of God’s Church, they usually start right in there; and take it all out of context, and you don’t know what’s gone before and you don’t understand it.
All right, let’s just skim through, very rapidly. See if I can skim through in about 10 minutes.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING (PLAY FROM 26:47)
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens [It should be plural, heavens.] and the earth.
In the Hebrew language, it is plural; In other words, the whole universe. It was a perfect Creation. The Hebrew words indicate a perfect Creation. In Job 38:1-7, God is speaking to Job. He says, “Where were you, Job, when I created the Earth?” Job had apparently built a great building. He’d been the one who’d been building it. It was a building where the cornerstone was laid on last. Now there’s only one kind of a building where that happens; and that is in a pyramid, where the cornerstone is the top stone. And this was one where the builders rejected that Stone [Matthew 21:42], and that Stone was Christ.
Apparently, Job then…there’s some indication that he well could have been the builder of the Great Pyramid. Now, not that he was Khufu. He was not the Pharaoh of Egypt at all. But he could have been the great engineer that the Pharaoh brought in to do it for him. Anyway, God was showing how He created the Earth.
GOD CREATED ANGELS (PLAY FROM 28:00)
“Where were you, when I created the Earth? When I laid the line upon it? When I did this, and that, and the other thing? And ALL THE HOLY ANGELS shouted for joy!” [Job 38:7] The angels were already there before the Earth was created. It was a beautiful place. The angels were so glad to see it that they shouted for joy.
Now, that indicates to us that angels populated this Earth before Adam. God had created angels. He had put them here, if you read the various scriptures about it. First is II Peter 2nd chapter and from the 4th on through the 6th verse. You find the angels that sinned and kept not their first estate, which was this Earth. And then the next thing shows another sin—between Adam and Noah (and the Flood)—that brought destruction to the whole Earth as a result of that Earth-wide sin. Then next it mentions Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed totally; but the area that the sin covered was the area destroyed. In that case, it was just those few cities. So we know there was the destructions to the Earth.
Now you come back to the 2nd verse of Genesis 1, and you find that the Earth was in a state called in the Hebrew language “tohu” and “bohu.” Those Hebrew words really mean waste and empty, or chaotic and in confusion (as a result of the angels that sinned). They were here to develop the Earth, to do something good with it, to build it up. Instead, they tended to destroy it just as Satan has induced human beings to do! We have polluted the Earth—its surface, its soil, the water, the drinking water, the air. It’s all polluted. We have tended to destroy what God gave us. We are doing the bidding of the Devil, who is the god of this world.
Now we find that God’s government was put over those angels. And God set one on a throne. He was a super-archangel. He was the greatest, most perfect being that God can create. Now let me tell you one thing: God CANNOT create holy, righteous character instantly in a person by fiat. That’s something that can’t be done. That kind of character has to be developed through experience and by time. But God created this being, great as he was; gave him powers; gave him the power of thinking, of reasoning, of drawing conclusions and making decisions, making choices. He wouldn’t have had any personality or been a ‘being’ otherwise.
Now God instructed him in the truth, in the government of God, which is based on the law of God—which is love. L-O-V-E. Love is AN OUTGOING CONCERN towards others. And God’s law is love, and God’s law is not like any laws men make. God’s law is a way of life. Men don’t make laws that are a way of living, but laws to govern people the way the lawmakers want to rule them and govern them. So, this fellow got to reasoning. He got to thinking. You see, God’s law is love. Now that’s the way of peace. That is the way of cooperation. That’s the way of helping, assisting, of having concern for others.
But Lucifer began to reason, “Look, I want to exalt myself. Why should I exalt God? I’m going to get myself to be bigger than God. God made the universe. He created it. I don’t have the power to do that. But I’m going to try to take it away from Him. I want to take it away from Him!” So he reasoned that lust and greed would be better; that jealousy and envy would be better. He resented authority of God over him, and he began teaching his angels that. “Look, God has taken everything but this one Earth. He’s got all the rest in the universe. He’s not fair!”
They began to criticize God. They began to judge Him. They got into a spirit of competition and strife, of violence and war, of destruction. The name of this super-archangel was Lucifer. You read of that in the 14th chapter of Isaiah. (I can’t take the time for all of that. I want to go through this real quickly, this part of it.) He was given a throne. He said, “I will exalt my throne above the angels of God.”
In Ezekiel 28 it talks of him. It says he was perfect in all of his ways from the day God CREATED him (He wasn’t a born being; A created being.), until iniquity was found in him. It said he sealed up the sum of perfection, wisdom, and beauty. He was a created being, a great being. But he had brought disaster to this Earth; and he had scrapped the government of God, which was here.
GOD RENEWS THE FACE OF THE EARTH (PLAY FROM 34:10)
Now, why did God create human beings? You go back into the 2nd verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis:
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
In other words, it was chaotic and in confusion. It was waste and empty. It was covered with water. Darkness covered the face of the deep. In other words, it was all ocean. Now in the 104th Psalm, and verse 30, you will read that God sent forth His Spirit and He RENEWED THE FACE OF THE EARTH. God renewed the face of the Earth. And the first thing God said was… And God creates everything by Jesus Christ, who is the WORD of God; and He speaks and it is done. He spoke and He said, “Let there be LIGHT.” Satan brought darkness. God is the Author of light, of truth. Satan is the author of error—to deceive people, to blind them, till they think they are right when they are wrong.
Sometimes he darkens those that we love the most. And Satan’s been busy over here in England, very busy. God says Satan’s has got people to turning and thinking that black is white, and that down is up, that east is west. They’re sincere. They really believe it. But they are misled. That’s the pity of it. Brethren, I tell you, we need to pray for people that have been so deceived.
Do you have to be a weak-minded nit-wit to be deceived by Satan? Do you know that he has deceived the greatest minds on this Earth! The GREATEST MINDS don’t know the truth; they don’t have it. They don’t have the Spirit of God. They don’t believe there is a Satan. They don’t believe there is a God, most of them.
Well, in six days God renewed the face of the Earth. Then He said, after creating the animals each after its own kind:
Genesis 1:26 Let us…
The word for “God” is Elohim, which is a uni-plural that is used in the first chapter of Genesis. Now another word comes into the second chapter, which refers to the Word—the Spokesman, Yahweh. But Elohim is the word in the first chapter of Genesis; and it is “God,” and GOD IS A FAMILY—a family of persons. ONE GOD! ONE FAMILY, But more than one person. You read of it in John 1, and the first 5 verses, in the New Testament.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it was Jesus Christ. He’s always existed. He was WITH God, but He’s a different person. And when He was born as a human being later, God called Him His Son. He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That’s A FAMILY RELATIONSHIP! Jesus prayed to Him as His Father. The Scriptures show us that the Church is going to be married to Jesus Christ. The Church will be the wife. There’s a Husband and a wife. There’s a Father and a Son. That’s A FAMILY relationship!
Now after this thing happened to the angels, why did God create human beings? There had to be a reason; and, if you don’t understand that and the purpose, you don’t understand things. Why didn’t God create another super-being? Well, how did He know that he wouldn’t do the same thing, and go the wrong way? God was left as the only Being… And the one we call the Father is the Father of the Family; but the one who became Christ was with Him, and absolutely 100% with Him in every way.
And do you know it’s impossible for God to sin. God knows and is SO WELL acquainted with the fact that to go contrary to His way of love is to bring disaster, suffering, destruction, darkness, everything wrong. And so God knew that He was the only One that could be absolutely relied upon never to go contrary to His way of love, which is His law. And that was the law of the government of God.
SATAN BROADCASTS (PLAY FROM 39:15)
Now, just stop and think a minute. Some people don’t like LAW. They resent it. Do you know where that’s coming from? That’s coming from Satan! He is broadcasting. He’s the prince of the power of the air. He broadcasts. And your mind is in tune with his wavelength, your mind - every one of you here. So is my mind. But when you come to know God’s truth, you begin to recognize what is wrong when it comes to your mind.
Now you don’t hear Satan broadcast. You don’t see anything (like you do on television). He broadcasts merely in thoughts, in impulses, and in attitudes. You know, the attitude is the whole thing; the attitude. If you have an attitude of peace, of harmony, and of love—you are not going to get in trouble with anyone. But if you have an attitude of resentment, of saying “You stepped on my toes, so I’m going to sock you,” or the attitude of getting to the other and hurting him before he gets to you—that’s the attitude of Satan; and he puts that attitude into people.
Children grow up with it. They are not born with it. They don’t have it when they’re born. I have just concluded an article for The Plain Truth on human nature. Where did human nature come from? Now we’ve never had anything specifically on that, and it’s time we had it. And so I have written, it’s the part 8 of the Human Potential series. Where did human nature come from? Did God create it in us? Did God create in us a nature that is hostile to God and not subject to His law (the right way of life) and can’t be? Did GOD CREATE IN US a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? Did the God of love do that?
But we have it, don’t we. Then where did we get it? God didn’t create it. It’s being broadcast. Children begin to get a little of it by a year and a half, or two years certainly. You’ll find a little bit of rebellion against what Mom and Dad say to children before they get very old. You won’t find it in an infant of 2 or 3 months old though. You see a sweet little baby. Don’t think all that evil is in him. It isn’t, yet. But it’ll get there. And we have all tasted of the way of Satan, every one of you, and I. We all have!
THE PURPOSE OF MANKIND (PLAY FROM 42:24)
Now we are put here for a purpose. God knew HE’S THE ONLY ONE THAT WILL NOT AND CANNOT EVER SIN, because He will not. And He has a great program. He had a great program ahead for the angels, to cover the whole universe! Most of the universe, except for this Earth, is like our moon. It is a dead hulk of decay. Now God doesn’t create things like that. There’s a reason they became that way. And God intended the angels to go over the whole universe and do a tremendous job; but they had to do the job here first. They didn’t.
They had to. God can’t have things going without some kind of regulation. And we can’t have peace, and we can’t do the job God wants done, unless we are in harmony and have His Spirit of love. That’s the way He had to have a government—that is based on love, on helping one another, on giving and sharing to one another.
So Satan tried to turn that into a harsh law that is trying to hurt you. And he pictures a god who is a god of vengeance and wants to get revenge on us. That’s not our God! That’s Satan’s god. And Satan is the god of this world.
Now, God saw that the only way He could get beings that could get this job done OVER THE WHOLE UNIVERSE (more than just this Earth) was to reproduce Himself. So He started the reproduction process. To do that, it required matter. There are other reasons it required matter, and that was explained in an article (last September, I believe it was) in The Plain Truth, in installment 7. I hope you read it.
If you didn’t, you’d better get the copy and go back and read it—because that’s knowledge you’ll never get any other place! God has not revealed it to any church. He’s not revealed it to science. You won’t get it in any university or college. It is the kind of knowledge you need, and you can’t understand without it. God is revealing TO HIS CHURCH new knowledge, more coming now than ever did before. But the new knowledge and new teaching isn’t that the law is done away. Not at all! That’s Satan’s teaching. That’s what I had to confront 49 years ago.
Now in six days, as I said, God recreated the surface of the Earth; and it was beautiful. It was perfect. It isn’t now, because man has polluted it; but it was then.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us [Not “Me.” More than one person—“Let Us…”] create man in our image. In other words, “Let Us make man after the God-kind.” Man was made TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. Man was given a mind, inferior to God… [** Tape skips at 45:46, and part is missing.]
I need to be triplets. I need to be several places around this Earth all at once, and I can’t be. Well, God is going to reproduce Himself so that there’ll be a lot of Him. And He wants us to come to be like Him; and, if we’ll just yield, we can be. We can be.
CHOOSING OR REJECTING GOVERNMENT (PLAY FROM 46:04)
Well, He created Adam. He said it wasn’t good that the man be alone, so He created woman to be a help for man. As He had instructed Lucifer in the truth first and then sent him out, now He did not let Satan get to Adam… Because Lucifer had his name changed. He’s now Satan. He was “Light bringer.” The name Lucifer meant bringer of light and truth. “Shining star of the dawn” is the meaning of that Hebrew word, or name. And now his name is Satan, which means adversary, competitor, enemy. That’s what he has become. But he’s an immortal being, just as angels. He MUST remain on this Earth UNTIL a successor has qualified to restore THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD on this Earth, and has been inducted into office and restored it.
Adam was the first one that had a chance. The two trees were symbolic in the Garden of Eden. The one, of the Holy Spirit of God, that would have given him God’s nature—the divine nature. He didn’t have it. He never took it. The other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They took that. And when Eve took it, and Adam took it with her, they took TO THEMSELVES the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. They wouldn’t let God tell them what is the right way. “No, I want to decide for myself. I don’t want any government over me!”
And YOU’LL FIND OUT THAT THOSE THAT GO OUT FROM THIS CHURCH, SOONER OR LATER, COME TO THE ONE THING: They’ll say “I DON’T WANT ANY GOVERNMENT OVER ME!” And WHAT GOD DOES WANT IS HIS GOVERNMENT OVER US! THAT’S THE ONLY REASON WE’VE BEEN BORN, BRETHREN! (I CAN’T PUT ENOUGH EMPHASIS IN THAT.)
IF YOU HATE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, YOU ARE ON SATAN’S SIDE. GET OVER ON TO SATAN’S SIDE, IF THAT’S WHERE YOU STAND. BUT IF YOU ARE ON GOD’S SIDE, GET OVER HERE ON GOD’S SIDE; AND STAY THERE!
And remember: “He that endureth unto the end” is the one who’s going to be saved. SATAN IS OUT TO DECEIVE YOU! I don’t say, “Follow me.” But I say, “Don’t follow any other man. FOLLOW THE TRUTH.” I do say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”
Humanity was put here to reject the way that Lucifer turned to, and his angels. To REJECT the way of defiance against the government of God! We were put here to ACCEPT the government of God to be obeyed. Obedient to the government of God; and to come to the place where, as Christ said, if we overcome—overcome Satan’s way, overcome sin (which is the transgression of the law)—that we will sit with Him on His throne.
Now character must be developed. To have the character of God, it must come from God. But first we have to know God has let us all—allowed us, not caused us—allowed us to grow up accepting so much of Satan’s way. Then He gives us the truth. And if we see the truth, and see that God is right, and that the way we’ve been going (of competition and strife, lust and vanity and greed, of resentment and rebellion against authority) is wrong; we turn over to God’s way.
Now we have to be ruled by the Kingdom of God before we can do the ruling in the Kingdom of God. Does that make sense to you? Do you agree with that? Do you think the government of God is wrong? The government of God is love. People will tell you it’s not the government of God. They’ll tell you it’s my government. Well that’s what they said about Moses. They said, “Why do you take to yourself, Moses, all of this rule?”
Well those that said it went right down into the earth, didn’t they?
I didn’t take it to myself, brethren. I was called, and I had to swallow the most bitter pill I had ever swallowed in my life. Satan may have used Adam’s wife to get to Adam; but God used my wife to get to me. Now what do you think of that? He made my wife see the truth. It angered me. I didn’t want any of it. I had every argument against keeping the Sabbath that anybody can think of today. Well, that’s old stuff with me. I went all through that 49 years ago. My wife just smiled and shook her head, “No.” I said, “But look. You have to obey me! I’m your husband.” She said, “I have to obey you in the Lord, and not contrary to the Lord.” Well, I couldn’t come back on that; and she remained firm. She didn’t lose her love for me, but she didn’t lose her love for God either.
So I agreed I would give it an honest research. I almost believed there was no God, because I was challenged on evolution at the same time. Finally I proved how false evolution is. I proved the existence of God. Next I PROVED that the Bible is the Word of God, infallible in its original writings. And, of course, we have different translations and different copies. But we can get to the truth if we want to, if we are sincere enough that we really want to. And finally I had to see that I was wrong, and the world is wrong—that all nations are deceived. Now that was a bitter pill, but I swallowed it.
I’d been in business, and I’d been quite successful. Now I had to start from nothing. And when I started preaching God’s way of giving instead of Satan’s way of getting, at first I was getting a salary of $3.00 a week; and we were getting eggs, and we were getting (oh) vegetables and things from some farmers thrown in. I rejected that $3.00 a week when a challenge came of obeying God. From that time, within about one week from that time, the parent Church of this era of God’s Church was raised up—with 19 members. (Here’s that number 19 again, that some people like to ridicule.)
And that Church is going on, bigger and bigger all the time. Sometimes a few fall away. That’s been happening all these years, for 42 years now. But always, within 2 or 3 months, more new members have come in than those who went out. The Church keeps growing! THE WORK OF GOD KEEPS GROWING, because THIS IS OF GOD!
When I get into trouble, do you know where I go? I go into a private room, on my knees; and God shows me how to solve it. This is THE WORK OF THE LIVING GOD, and don’t you ever forget it! It’s not the work of men. And the men that go out of it go to no place. That’s happened for 42 years. You see, I’ve seen this happen. You haven’t, brethren. You don’t need to take my word for it. If you want to put it to the test, go on out. I won’t stop you, but I’ll go on loving you just the same—because I do go on loving those who have gone out.
CHRIST QUALIFIED TO RULE (PLAY FROM 54:39)
Well, Christ had to meet Satan and had to overcome Satan before He could qualify to rule. Now the first Adam failed. God finally let Satan get to him. He followed his wife in the wrong way. Maybe there’s something to it that I finally followed my wife in the right way. Anyway, I hope so; because I know that was of God—and the true God, and not the false god. Some people get mixed up on which is God.
So Jesus Christ came and qualified. Now before Christ came, why did He come? And why are we here? I want to go now to, well, a prophecy in Isaiah. The 9th chapter of Isaiah, beginning with verse 6:
Isaiah 9:6-7 For unto us [That’s speaking of Israel.] a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the GOVERNMENT [the government] shall be on his shoulders: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (7) Of the increase of HIS GOVERNMENT [Some people don’t like government. Of the increase of His government] and peace… [Because the government of God is the only government that can bring peace.]
I talked, as I said, to the leaders of the nation Israel about a week ago. I told them of the troubles that the world is in. I have another meeting coming later, when I can go into more detail; and this particular time I couldn’t because Minister Moshe Kohl (a minister in the government) had invited everybody there and sponsored it. And I couldn’t go further than he would go at that time. Next time I’ll be free to say all I want to say, and I will. But this, I mentioned how the world had come to the place where…
It’s like an editorial in the United States News and World Report. That’s one of our weekly news magazines in the United States that I try to read all the time, because it’s one of the very best. This was 2 or 3 years ago. It said in the editorial that it seems that conditions have gotten to the place now where the only way we can keep humanity alive on this Earth is through the existence of and the intervention of a very powerful “unseen hand from some place.”
I said, “You know who they meant. They meant the Messiah that your people have been looking for all these years. And I’M HERE TO ANNOUNCE TO YOU THAT HE’S COMING NOW VERY SOON!” And I’m going to make that announcement a lot greater as I go along. There were 170 there, of the top people of the nation Israel. I either end everything I say now with something like that; or I go even further and name names, which I will do in Israel.
The message in the 40th chapter of Isaiah speaks of the cities of Judah, and that is really Judah. It’s not Israel. They don’t know it. They think they’re Israel. They don’t know where the Ten Tribes of Israel went. The cities over there, in the nation now called Israel, are the cities of Judah. And God is going to give ME the opportunity to get that message over to them.
God’s Work IS going out to the world. Enemies will try to say it isn’t, because they would do anything to serve Satan because they are deceived and don’t know what they are doing. Well, notice now:
Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government [That’s why Christ came—to govern.]and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his [David’s] kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the [Eternal] of hosts will [do] this.
Now, when it says that, you can be sure it’s going to be done. It will be done. Now, Jesus had to qualify. I’d like to go next to the 3rd chapter of Malachi.
Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me [That’s really Christ speaking there.]: and the Lord, whom ye seek [Christ.], shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant…
He’s a Messenger with a message. He’s the Messenger of the Covenant.
THE OLD COVENANT (PLAY FROM 1:00:44)
Now, there was the Old Covenant; and Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant. And that married the nation Israel to God, but Israel was not a faithful wife. You know the story. There’re so many prophecies about it—in Jeremiah, in Hosea, and many other places in the Bible—especially in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament too.
But there was something wrong with that Covenant. You’ll find it in Hebrews the 8th chapter. You also will find it back in Jeremiah 31. The fault was NOT the law, as so many people seem to think. The fault WAS that the people didn’t keep it. And what will be changed is that God will write His law of love in their hearts and in their minds. Now, that law is a spiritual law.
There also was a great system of physical laws given to ancient Israel as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Wherever you read, in the New Testament, “works of the law” the word for “works” there is, ‘ergon’ is the Greek word; and it means PHYSICAL WORK. They had to do physical things morning, noon, and night to establish in them the habit of obedience.
I carry with me a watch that I hardly ever look at. I got this during the war. I had to have a watch with a very clear face for broadcasting, so I could see when I’d come to 29 minutes. I don’t use this watch any more, but I carry it. Do you know why? Because it’s better for the watch that it’s wound every day. If I lay it in the dresser or some place at home, I’ll forget it. But it’s habit! I wind it every night when I take it out of my pocket to undress. It’s habit.
Which is easier to remember? This is a test of intelligence. Which is easier to remember: To wind a one-day watch or an 8-day clock? Why the answer is it’s much easier to remember to wind a one-day watch, because it’s habit.
I had two sons. Both had become ministers in the Church of God. The one was killed as a result of an automobile accident now about 18 years ago. However – (All of a sudden what I was going to say just leaves me. Well, I’ll get it back in a second or two.) Oh, when they were children. I told you a while ago that I was speaking down by Eugene, Oregon you know. And I hadn’t moved the family down yet; and they were still…and I told you about my elder son, Dick.
Well now there was my younger son, whose name is Garner Ted; and he’s still around, very much. And somehow Richard, whom we called Dick, (Dickey in those days), he was coming along pretty good. But Ted had just come to this age. He was between 4 and 5 years old by now, and my wife said that I was just going to have to do something. She couldn’t make him mind at all. So, when I came up, I called him and I talked to him about it—the way he’d been doing; and he knew it. And I said, “Now, I’m going to have to paddle you for that.” And I used a table tennis paddle. I spanked him real good.
“Now,” I said, “I wonder if you will do what I tell you?” “Yes,” he said he would. Well I said, “You see that chair over there. Take it and move it over here.” So he did. I said, “Now take it and put it back again.” So he did. I told him everything I could think of. I said do this, do that, do the other thing. I said, “Well, now you’re beginning to learn how to obey. Now I’m going to watch you for the next day or two, while I’m home. I’m going to make it a habit to. [** Tape garbled at 1:05:16 and part is missing.]
A habit of obedience! But all the sacrifices, all of their meat and drink offerings, couldn’t forgive their sins; and they couldn’t be forgiven until Christ came anyway. It was only a substitute. But when Christ came they didn’t need the substitute any longer.
If you got in a football game (soccer over here) and one of the top players of the team who ought to be a starter is 5 minutes late getting there, and you start a substitute in his place. As soon as the main player gets there, the substitute goes out. When Christ came (and the Holy Spirit came that we could have, which they didn’t have), we didn’t need the substitute any more.
But you see, the spiritual law—the law that is LOVE, the law that is HOLY, AND PERFECT, AND JUST as Paul wrote in the 7th chapter of Romans {2}—that is God’s Way of life! And that goes on. Yes, I had to argue with my wife, until I lost that battle 49 years ago.
THE NEW COVENANT (PLAY FROM 1:06:30)
Well, now notice here: Christ is coming as the Messenger of the New Covenant. The New Covenant also will be a marriage, but a marriage of THE CHURCH to Christ. And this time we will come to the place I just read to you, where we can’t sin, before that marriage takes place. He said HE WILL WRITE HIS LAW IN OUR MINDS AND OUR INWARD PARTS. He wasn’t talking about rituals, the works of the law. THE LAW—THE LAW THAT IS SPIRITUAL. The law that is holy, and just, and good.
You don’t find any such thing about the so-called laws of Moses at all. Well, I can go into a doctrinal subject like that some of these times. I don’t know why some people now, after all these years, can possibly be deceived on a point like that. Anyway, I want you to notice, here is Christ coming as the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Malachi 3:2-3 But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap. (3) And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the [Eternal] an offering in righteousness.
BEFORE CHRIST’S SECOND COMING (PLAY FROM 1:07:58)
Did Jesus do that when He came? It’s speaking about THE COMING OF JESUS CHRIST! He didn’t do that! He didn’t do any of those things. LOOK AT IT! READ IT!
Malachi 3:4-6 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the [Eternal], as in the days of old, and as in former years. (5) And I will come near to you to judgment [Jesus said the Father judges no man. He’s given judgment to the Son, didn’t He?], and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the [Eternal] of hosts. (6) For I am the [Eternal], I change not [and so on].
That is a prophecy of Christ at His Second Coming. Now we find:
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ…
Then it begins to speak of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way before Him. But Jesus didn’t do any of these things when He came the first time. That’s speaking of a SECOND COMING and SOMEONE TO PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE HIS COMING! There’s something there you’d better learn, brethren. There also was a Second Coming of Christ. And it just said here that, before He comes, there’d be someone to prepare the way. So someone is preparing the way for the Second Coming, the same as the First.
As the gospel of the first century apostles, so now; there was a great apostasy during the apostles of the first century. And we read of it over here in II Thessalonians.
II Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him. (2) That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Now he was writing about 50 something or 60 AD. I’ve got some notes on it somewhere, I don’t have them right here. The Church was perhaps 10 or 15 years old by that time. The Church was really founded on the Day of Pentecost in 31 AD. But the false church was started in 33 AD, or immediately thereafter.
II Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first…
Now that “falling away” in the Greek is speaking of apostasy; In other words, turning away from the truth of the gospel to a false gospel. And that did happen in their time. And a falling away is prophesied for our time now, too. And the one was only a type of the other.
II Thessalonians 2:3-7 …and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition: (4) who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (5) Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? (6) And now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. (7) For the mystery of iniquity…
The “mystery of iniquity” was the religion called the Babylonian Mystery Religion. And it was a religion of lawlessness. It was Satan’s religion. Satan is the lawless one, and “iniquity” means lawless. That was the mystery—THE BABYLONIAN MYSTERY RELIGION. You’ll find it in the 17th chapter of Revelation, where the name is given, as a mother church. She’s the mother of daughters that have come out of her IN PROTEST, calling themselves Protestants. That is Revelation 17:5. And her name is:
Revelation 17:5 …MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
The Babylonian Mystery religion—that is the religion that was founded under Simon the magician in 33 AD. And that church still claims it was founded in 33 AD. In that they are right. But this apostasy began then, and it’s a type of the apostasy in God’s Church right now. But it is Satan that is in back of it; but he deceives people, and they don’t know they’re deceived. Now, it says:
II Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work…
That was in John’s day. It was already working at that time. Well, it’s still working. Don’t you think it isn’t!
Now Jesus Christ had to qualify. And you read of the big qualification in Matthew the 4th chapter. I won’t take time this afternoon for that. But Satan put Christ through, well, a kind of temptation that you have never been through. He had had to fast for 40 days and 40 nights. A man died just a day or so ago here, from fasting about 50 or 60 days. I don’t think he would have lived that long if he hadn’t taken a little something. And, of course, that caused uproar here; because there’s nothing but violence going on now in this world. But Jesus had to qualify, and when He did:
GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD (PLAY FROM 1:14:44)
Mark 1:14 Now after that John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
THAT IS THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD and the FAMILY OF GOD. Now I’ve said the government of God had been on this Earth. Christ came to preach “the kingdom of God”—which is THE FAMILY OF GOD ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD.
Now the government of God has been on this Earth, and has been taken away. But the Family of God has not been yet, and won’t until the time of the resurrection and Christ’s Second Coming. You see, that’ll be something a lot more. That’s the Family of God, into which WE WILL HAVE BEEN BORN, I hope. And, brethren, I’m afraid it won’t be all of us that are in this room; but I hope it will certainly be most of us—born of God.
It is the Family of God ruling with the government of God. That’s why we were born. That’s why we are called. That’s why humanity was put on the Earth. We need to know why we are here and the purpose that’s back of it—to give us meaning, so we can understand where we are going and why. Now notice here:
Revelation 2:26 He that overcometh…
Christ had to overcome Satan. Christ had to face Satan’s way, be tempted with Satan’s way, and reject it; and He had to prove He would obey the government of God. And when He proved it, He said:
Mark 1:15 The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Time had not been fulfilled until He qualified! He had to QUALIFY before He could become the future King. But there’s a reason why God wasn’t ready at that time yet. So He went to get the Kingdom and to return; and He’s going to return very soon now. And when He comes back, He will have already been crowned. The coronation ceremony will have taken place in heaven. And He’s coming as the King of kings and the Lord of lords—to rule all nations.
Now, if He had to qualify, should we rule with Him if we don’t qualify in the same way, brethren? I have said we are called ahead of time. This is NOT the time God is trying to save the world. Jesus said: “None can come to Me unless the Father draws him,” through the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t come to give peace that time. He said, “Think not I come to bring peace onto the Earth.” He came as He said of His coming—because “some would believe” would only cause trouble among people on Earth that are angry against the truth of God and aren’t going to tolerate it if they can stand it, if they can help it.
But when God sets His hand to save the world spiritually, there won’t be any Satan around. The first thing Christ’s going to do when He comes again is to put Satan away for a thousand years. Then he’ll be loosed a little while at the end of it. And at the end of the thousand years, people will be in peace—THE WORLD AT PEACE!
But as soon as Satan is loosed, you’ll find millions of people come to war (right away, they want to). They are angry at all of the saints and those that are on God’s side, and they want to kill them. Then fire will come down and devour them. That will be their first death. There’ll be people that have been born in the Millennium. And God will put Satan away forever, and never can he come back to the people of this Earth again.
QUALIFYING TO RULE WITH CHRIST (PLAY FROM 1:19:01)
Brethren, we are called now. We have to contend with Satan! And Satan is after us, not others. It’s “the woman” he’s going after, as I read to you at the beginning this afternoon. WE HAVE TO QUALIFY. And there’s going to be a difference in status and government between us and those that are called and saved later. Now, it says here:
Revelation 2:26 He that overcometh [And this is for all Churches.] and keepeth my works UNTO THE END [Enduring to the end.], to him will I give power over the nations. (27) And he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
And then in Revelation 3:21:
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh…
That is Satan and Satan’s way, and that comes under the government of God. And the only place on this Earth that the government of God is operating is in this Church. And some are going to try to get you to GET AWAY FROM THAT GOVERNMENT! “Oh,” they’ll say, “It’s A HARSH GOVERNMENT.” You tell me one harsh thing that I’ve ever done in this government. Go on. Tell me! You just can’t. It’s a government based on a law of love, and it’s a government that we poor humans (those of us that God has called and put in certain offices) are trying to administer in love.
And it is those we’ve done the most for, and had the most love for, that will turn against us. Can you explain to me why that is? Someone said to me in Pasadena, “you notice the people that turn the wrong way? They are people who have been on the payroll getting, taking from this Work. They never can seem to get enough. But the people that are not on the payroll, and the people that are giving and not getting, they remain loyal.” Can you explain that? Where your treasure is there your heart is also, if you are putting your treasure in; but if you get, you never get enough and you want more. That’s hard to understand sometimes.
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne…
He had to overcome. He said, “As I overcame.” HE OVERCAME SATAN, and we have to do it. Now when you overcome jealousy and envy, bitterness and resentment against someone who stepped on your toes—you are overcoming Satan and Satan’s ways, because that’s where it came from. That’s where it came from.
Now, I could go on and read more of this; but I just wanted to get that to you. And I want to just give you two more passages of Scriptures today. (Maybe I’m over. I don’t know. No, I’m not overtime. I was afraid I was. I’ll quit on time.) All right, in John 6, verse 66-67.
John 6:66 From that time [During the life of Christ on Earth.] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
What would you have done if you had lived in that day? You know, the Pharisees of that day said, “Look, if we’d lived back in the days of these prophets way back there, we would never have done like they did.” That’s what they said; and yet they are the very ones that cried out for the blood of Christ and said, “Crucify Him.”
Some of you would say, “Oh, I would never do that.” Oh, yes, you would—some of you—if you’d lived back in the days of Christ; because, if you leave His Work, you are leaving Him just as much as they did. Just as much. And you’d better think very seriously about that. Some of you are on the fence. That’s a pretty poor place to be. I say, “If you are on God’s side, you come in and be on God’s side; and you STAND there.”
John 6:66-69 From that time on many of his [Jesus’] disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (67) Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? (68) Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. (69) And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
We are following that same Christ today. He’s the Head of this Church. I didn’t assume any rule of leadership. It was put on me. God put it there. I wanted to be humble. I didn’t want to rule.
Just outside of Eugene, Oregon there were two brothers that had come into the Church; and there was a third brother, and he wasn’t sure. So they had a man, a minister of the Church of Christ, come down who wanted to argue about the Sabbath. So I let him say his say first, and then I was going to answer. When I started to answer, he just shouted. And I don’t know. He wasn’t even making any sense of words. I couldn’t get a word that anybody could hear. Finally, I said, “Well, let’s have a moderator and give you so much time, and then me so much. I’ll keep still while you have your time. You keep still when I have mine.” He agreed, but he didn’t do it. I gave him his time. I kept silent.
As soon as I began to speak, he said, “Oh, oh, oh…” Just a lot of things like that, where he couldn’t hear a word. I said, “The Spirit of God isn’t here.” I got up and left. And the brother of these other two men turned against the Sabbath; and they were pretty bitter against me. They said, “Look, if God has called you, you’ve got to stand up for the truth. You’ve got to stand up against someone like that.” Well, I said, “I just wanted peace.” “Yeah, but there is a time you can’t run like that.” After that, if it had been repeated, I would have SHOUTED louder than he did; and God would give me a voice to do it! And I’d say, “YOU SIT DOWN, BY THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS CHRIST!” and he would have sat down.
Afterwards they came (tried to heckle; and this, and that, and the other thing), but it turned against them every time. There are times you have to rule. I’ve ruled people that don’t want peace. Well, if I’ve had to, I’ve done it. I didn’t want to. Always there are those, just like there were in the days of Moses though, that like to point a finger and question and say, “God didn’t choose you.” Well, pray tell me, what people did then? People didn’t. They just didn’t.
Well, Jesus asked His disciples if they were going to leave Him. And Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of truth.”
PURPOSE OF OUR CALLING (PLAY FROM 1:27:14)
This is the Church that is doing the mission God wants done today, and nobody else is doing it. If you realize that God has given us two purposes for calling us now: One is that we get His message to the world, and the other is that that very thing that He’s given us to get out is the means of the second great thing, which is that we develop the character and show we can be ruled by His Kingdom. And we develop the character that we will sit with Him on His throne and rule in His Kingdom.
GOD’S WHOLE PURPOSE IS TO RESTORE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD ON THIS EARTH! THAT’S WHY HUMANITY IS HERE! But God has adopted a hand’s off policy for 6,000 years because humanity rejected God!The first two people rejected God. So He said, “You live your way for 6,000 years”—which means Satan’s way, because Satan is influencing them and swaying them.
Where would you go? Who else is getting the job done? Nobody else on this Earth! Someone has to be preparing the way for the Second Coming of Christ. Brethren, it’s being prepared. One little insignificant thing, perhaps—it’s just a physical thing; but, for the last six years, we’ve been clearing off over 50 feet of debris and stuff on top of the throne of David, where Christ is going to sit to rule. That’s just one little thing. That’s not the main thing. The main thing is announcing that the Kingdom of God is coming, as a witness before other nations; and it is being done. And God is giving me favor in the eyes of heads of governments all over this world. Nothing like that ever happened before, to me or anyone else that I know of.
Now finally: II Thessalonians the first chapter, beginning with the second verse. I want to say this to you, even as Paul said it to those of Thessalonica.
II Thessalonians 1:2-4 Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) We are bound to thank God always for you [As I am, to thank God for you.], brethren, as it is meet [fit, or proper], because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other abounds. (4) So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure.
Now I think I can say I am speaking for all of the ministers, all of the loyal ministers in the Church of God, when I say that. That’s the way we feel towards you people. We can’t do the job God has given us to do without your backing, your help, your support, and knowing we have your prayers. That’s more important than anything.
II Thessalonians 2:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.
We are announcing the Kingdom of God all over this world. God is opening the doors. It is a miracle! Nothing like it has ever happened before. And, brethren, we have to continue going.
Now, it’s time the fence sitters make up their mind. And as Elijah said, if the Eternal is your God—the Eternal Creator, let’s get over on His side and get well anchored and stay there, and endure until the end. If Satan, and trouble, accusations… They say questions: “Ah, but the people have questions.” What they mean is “I’m trying to put doubts into their mind.” EVE DOUBTED. IT WAS DOUBT. SHE DOUBTED GOD. So she went the wrong way. Brethren, let’s get these doubts out of our mind. Let’s get settled. Let’s get anchored. Let’s know where we stand, and then let’s stand—because I’m going to stand there till either I die or the Kingdom comes. And I want you there with me.
What has caused this slight change? On next Sunday (I believe it is afternoon, instead of evening.) one of the two I think best known concert pianists in the world Horowitz—Vladimir, I guess it is, Horowitz—is going to be giving the first recital that has occurred on the West Coast of the United States in about 27 years at the Ambassador Auditorium. Now, I very much hated to miss it; and still it was coming on the same date as the Sunday evening campaign in Nassau. But now something else has developed; and we have decided that we will only advertise that I will be there on Friday night and Saturday night, but there’ll be the three-night campaign. We’ll just turn it over to Mr. Bass on Sunday night, and he will have the crowd right there. He will be the minister there. He’ll have to take care of the others some other way for a while. It’ll turn the people that are attracted by this campaign right over to a local minister. And that will enable me to be in Pasadena.
Now one reason that is necessary: the Oxxon... (Is that the way you pronounce it?) It’s one of the biggest oil companies in the world. I think it’s a consolidation of Standard Oil and several others, probably more than a billion dollar corporation (or billion pound, either one). And anyway, they are going to sponsor a national coast-to-coast broadcast on NBC or CBS about a month later of Maestro Horowitz in the Ambassador Auditorium. And to do it they’ll have to give it, you know, the atmosphere—to show pictures of the Ambassador Auditorium by day and also by night, and the shimmering water, that the pillars rise up seven-stories high out of the lake of water, and interior shots I hope—because the Ambassador Auditorium is, I can say without exaggeration, the finest auditorium that has been built in the world (so far as I know) in this century.
I’m not comparing it with something like the Basilica of St. Peter down at Rome, which I think took over 200 or 300 years to build and is filled with ornate carvings, many pictures that if you see them on the walls you will think they are oil. And they are not oil. They are all various little pieces of marble, cut in the right color and put together in a way that makes a wonderful picture. Now, things like that took years, and years, and years to do. And I think there is nothing else on Earth like it, or ever has been.
But in the form of more-or-less modern architecture, I think there has been nothing that will compare with the Ambassador Auditorium; and the acoustics are perfect! The Los Angeles Music Center, which is pretty much supported by The Los Angeles Times—the same family are back of both; and they are very jealous. I don’t know why they should be. We’ve been bringing greater attractions into the southland, as we call that area of southern California, than they have. But they could have gotten them. And, if they didn’t, that’s not our fault.
And our acoustics are better, as their auditorium is more than twice the size of ours; and you can’t make an auditorium that big and seating that many people (in the grasp for more dollars and more profits) and have the acoustics as good. Practically all the music halls and auditoriums for big musical concerts in Europe are about the size of ours, or smaller. We seat 1,250 and they seat about 3,500; and that is the difference.
Now the Music Center in Los Angeles will compare favorably with anything anywhere in the world. They are bringing that kind of cultural attractions to southern California. It’s a credit to southern California, as things in this world go. And we can’t see any reason why they should be jealous, but they are. One thing that hurt them very much down there: When Maestro Rubinstein was there a year ago last January 15th, a couple of nights later (he with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra) he was doing a concerto. He insisted on taking our piano from the Ambassador Auditorium down to the Music Center to play on it. Now, that was very humiliating to them. And they had to get it into the newspaper that he had borrowed the Ambassador College piano, and it was mentioned.
Well, I told Maestro Rubinstein that I had the two best pianos in the United States in that auditorium, about three or four weeks before, when I was having dinner with him in New York. And the Maestro said to me, he says: “Young man…” Now, that was the most delightful insult that anyone has given me in a long, long time. No one has called me young man for a long time. By the way, Maestro Rubinstein just a week or two ago entered his 90th year. He’s older than I am. So he could say that; and I enjoyed that very much, because I still am a young man.
I told him I had the two finest pianos in the United States. He said, “Young man, are you a professional?” I said, “No. But you are.” Well he said, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” I said, “No. I’ll let you do the talking.” Well I just told you his answer. He insisted on using our piano for the concerto in The Pavilion, which is the name of the large auditorium at the Music Center, much to their chagrin; and he has done it again since.
Well, this large oil company, which probably is the largest in America now. I think it’s a new consolidation. I think it includes a lot of Standard Oil, maybe Gulf Oil and several others. I’m not really up on just what it is. But they want to feature him in a program that will probably be listened to by 30-40 million people in all parts of the United States. And I need to be there to help arrange it. And I think that’s very important because it’ll give Ambassador College the greatest exposure to the public in the United States that we’ve ever had at one time, in one kind of program. So I think that’s important.
THE WORK OF GOD TODAY (PLAY FROM 9:07)
Well, the Work of God is going on around the world. And the Work of God is not going on around the world in any other manner, shape, or form anywhere. And that’s the main thing we are called for right now, is to get that out.
Now today I want to get back to prophecy. Not just world events. You know most prophecy and most history that you read in even profane history of the world is concerned with governments—the rise and fall of governments, and wars, and who is ruling, as ruling this or that of the other nations, and when.
In the Bible you will find however, that world events are listed only as they affect the nation Israel. The Bible is essentially the Book of Israel; and it not concerned with the affairs of other nations that have no connection, no relationship, to Israel. But still the historic portions are mostly a matter of the rise and fall of governments, and of their kings, and political and economic and governmental things. But God is interested in government, and I hope you’ll see why before I’m through here this afternoon.
But I am interested now in prophecies, not of world events of this world but of God’s Church. Now as in the prophecy of world events (and the many prophecies in the Bible about it), there is virtually nothing prophesied that was to happen between the first century and our time today except what you find of the seven Churches in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation. And there you find seven successive Churches, or eras of time in the Church; but also it is speaking of the Church as a whole all through the time. For example, the message to the Church of Ephesus was primarily for the Church in those early years. However, the Laodicean condition was there; and so was the Philadelphian condition. But the Ephesus condition dominated.
Now when we finally come to the Laodicean era, which is still ahead of us, the primary dominating factor will be the Church that is lukewarm. But you also find the Ephesus condition, the Thyatira condition, and all of the others there. So, in a sense, it is talking of the whole Church all the way through. When you read that, for example, if we overcome we will reign with Christ on His throne—that doesn’t mean just the people of that particular era. That will apply to all eras. But still it will be the overcomers. Now I’ll have something more to say about that a little later too, I hope.
But then was the prophecy in Matthew 24 about the false ministers going out and how the true gospel would be replaced with a false one, about wars, about famines, and so on. Those things have happened. There’s no specific prophecy about any one event; but it’s just a general condition that has prevailed more or less from the first century on till now, except that now it has escalated at the time of the end.
ALREADY SAVED? (PLAY FROM 13:01)
Now finally we come down to verses 13 and 14; and I want to emphasize verse 13 this time, where Jesus said:
Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
When I was holding the campaign, back in 1933, that resulted in the raising up of the parent Church of this Philadelphia era, we had one man who was quite a critic who attended; and it was his habit to attend any evangelistic meetings held in that area there. He would always ask the speaker a question, and he would never fail to stump the speakers. He was a Bible scholar, self-professed. He admitted it himself. And he thought he understood the Bible better than any others.
Now in Eugene, Oregon (and this was just out of Eugene) on the University of Oregon campus, on one corner of it, is a… Well, you might say a Bible school. It’s really a seminary; I think of the Church of Christ. Anyway, their young men were often sent out to practice on an audience out there.
This old man, Mr. Belshaw, would always ask a question. And he’d have a question they couldn’t answer, and he would expose right off the bat that they didn’t know anything about the Bible; and then they’d be through. The audience wouldn’t come any more.
So the first night… No, he didn’t come the first night. He waited until the second night in my campaign. (And it went on for six weeks.) He said, “Mr. Armstrong.” I said, “Well, yes, Mr. Belshaw.” You see, it was a little one-room schoolhouse that only seated 36 people. However, we had some standing. We probably had 45 people there, which seemed like a tremendous audience at that time. He said, “May I ask you a question?” And I said, “Yes, Mr. Belshaw, you may.”
He said, “May I ask you, ‘Are you saved?’ Mr. Armstrong?” I said, “Mr. Belshaw, you ought to know that in Matthew 24, verse 13, it says ‘He that shall endure unto the end, the same SHALL BE saved.” Well, everybody laughed at him because that’s what he expected to say to me. He thought I would say, “Sure, I’m saved.” And he was going to quote that and make a laughing-stock out of me. So it sort of got turned around. And every time he had started a heckle it happened too. God always seemed to give me the right answer.
THE SABBATH QUESTION (PLAY FROM 16:03)
I know later on (This was about the beginning of the 6th week.) I’d announced I was going to speak on the Sabbath question. So a minister from this school came. I think he was a graduate by this time. And it was customary in those days; and I hadn’t come to know as much about the Scriptures as I do now, or I wouldn’t have gone in with it. But any such meetings as that, if a visiting minister came, he was asked to lead in prayer. So I asked this visiting minister to lead in prayer. Well, his whole prayer was a tirade against the Sabbath. He thanked God that we had a Savior to worship instead of a day! And he said, “I am like the apostle Paul was. I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ; and Him crucified.” He said, “Away with these things of days and things like that.” Well when we arose, you see, he thought he had my sermon completely destroyed before I’d started.
Well, an incident happened that week. My wife had just written to me about it. I’d gone on down to Eugene; but my family was still up in Salem, where we’d been living for a few months. And so I mentioned this incident, that I’d just had a letter. I said, “I agree with this man and his prayer. And I too am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”
I said, “I just received a letter from my wife. And our oldest son, Richard, was playing outside. (It was summer then.) And the window was open. My wife was doing the housecleaning or something. And he was playing with another little boy. (They were both at that time, I think, 4 ½ to 5 years old.) And the other boy was using words like gosh, and darn, and gee-whiz. My son wasn’t going to stand for that any longer. He stooped down, and he picked up two sticks, and he crossed them. He said, ‘Donald, look here. Do you know what that there is?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, that there is a cross.’ And he said, ‘Do you know that they had to take Jesus Christ and nail Him up to a cross until He died there BECAUSE you are always saying gosh, and darn, and gee-whiz. Don’t you say those things any more!’”
I said, “I’m, like this other minister that lead us in prayer, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They took Jesus Christ and nailed Him up to a cross till He died BECAUSE you people have been {1}… [**Tape skips at 19:06 and part is missing.]. Jesus said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments; and I’ve set you an example, that you should do as I’ve done to you.”
SIGN OF THE END (PLAY FROM 19:16)
Now, the next verse here in Matthew 24:
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached [In Mark 13:10 it’s “published.”] in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and THEN shall the end come.
The disciples had just asked Him for a sign of when the end of this world would come, and He would come to usher in the World Tomorrow. And He had not given that sign until He came to this 14th verse. Now IF THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM HAD BEEN PREACHED and proclaimed to the world all through the time, up to the end and the time of Christ’s coming, He couldn’t say that would be the sign of His coming, could He? In other words, HE SAID RIGHT THERE THAT HIS GOSPEL WOULD NOT BE PREACHED UNTIL THE TIME OF THE END! Otherwise, what He said made no sense whatever, if it had been preached all the time. His preaching didn’t mean that you’ve come yet, to the time of the end. So that is really a very important point.
We, right now, have come to a place that I think you find described in the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation, and beginning with verse 7. The time when it says:
Revelation 12:7 And there was…
It speaks of prophecies in the past tense, as if they had already happened—because, when it’s a prophecy in the Word of God, it’s just as certain as if it had already passed.
Revelation 12:7-9 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, (8) and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. (9) And the great dragon was cast out [Who is the dragon? “The great dragon was cast out…”], that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.
Now Brethren, I suppose that couldn’t include anybody here? He deceiveth the whole world! You know, a deceived person thinks he’s right. If you KNOW you’re wrong, you WOULDN’T BE DECEIVED! Then you’d know. Deceived people are probably just as sincere as those who are undeceived and who know the truth. And this whole world is deceived! That’s not saying anything against the person.
Revelation 12:9-10 …which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (10) And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God.
That doesn’t come until the Second Coming of Christ. But, at the time of this prophecy, the announcement will go out that now is the time, now it “is come.”
SATAN CAST DOWN (PLAY FROM 22:41)
Revelation 12:10 …and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them…day and night.
Now, I think Satan has a few people doing his bidding. They like to accuse me of this, and that, and the other thing. Really, I’d hate to start accusing people. That is the job the Devil is doing. Well, anyway come on now to the 12th verse:
Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe unto the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
How does he know? How does he know the time is about up and that this world is about to end? Because WHAT THIS CHURCH IS DOING! The gospel of the Kingdom is NOW going to the world for the FIRST TIME in 1850-1900 years. That’s how Satan knows.
Revelation 12:13-14 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. (14) And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
Now, that is a prophecy that is just immediately ahead. Perhaps that war in heaven is already being fought, or has been. We are very close to that time. But beginning at that point is a good deal like coming into a movie, and it’s been going on for some little time. And the things you see don’t exactly make sense to you, because you don’t know what had gone on before. You need to see it from the beginning. And, you know, it’s a good deal like that. We start in the teaching of the Bible for this time, and prophecy for this time. And if you don’t know what went on before, you just don’t get it.
I’ve looked at sometimes plays on television. Maybe it’s an hour long; and, for some reason, that I wanted to see this particular one. And I tune in when it’s been going on for about 15 minutes; and, you know, I can’t make head or tail of it from that time on. I don’t know what went before; and everything else is just based on what went before, and you don’t get the meaning. So we have to go back to the beginning. And I tell you, that’s one reason people DON’T UNDERSTAND the Bible. It’s one reason they DON’T UNDERSTAND the true gospel. They try to come in when it’s about half or two-thirds over and understand it. And you don’t get it that way at all!
We need to know what led up to it. What has led up to this point? This takes people on Earth. There’s a devil here. The devil hates the people. It doesn’t tell us “why” at that point. You have to go back before. How did the people come to be here? How did human beings ever come to be here? Did GOD put us here? Or did we just grow here, by evolution? Now, I would think you’d want to know that. I do. And when people try to disagree with the truth of God and of God’s Church, they usually start right in there; and take it all out of context, and you don’t know what’s gone before and you don’t understand it.
All right, let’s just skim through, very rapidly. See if I can skim through in about 10 minutes.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING (PLAY FROM 26:47)
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens [It should be plural, heavens.] and the earth.
In the Hebrew language, it is plural; In other words, the whole universe. It was a perfect Creation. The Hebrew words indicate a perfect Creation. In Job 38:1-7, God is speaking to Job. He says, “Where were you, Job, when I created the Earth?” Job had apparently built a great building. He’d been the one who’d been building it. It was a building where the cornerstone was laid on last. Now there’s only one kind of a building where that happens; and that is in a pyramid, where the cornerstone is the top stone. And this was one where the builders rejected that Stone [Matthew 21:42], and that Stone was Christ.
Apparently, Job then…there’s some indication that he well could have been the builder of the Great Pyramid. Now, not that he was Khufu. He was not the Pharaoh of Egypt at all. But he could have been the great engineer that the Pharaoh brought in to do it for him. Anyway, God was showing how He created the Earth.
GOD CREATED ANGELS (PLAY FROM 28:00)
“Where were you, when I created the Earth? When I laid the line upon it? When I did this, and that, and the other thing? And ALL THE HOLY ANGELS shouted for joy!” [Job 38:7] The angels were already there before the Earth was created. It was a beautiful place. The angels were so glad to see it that they shouted for joy.
Now, that indicates to us that angels populated this Earth before Adam. God had created angels. He had put them here, if you read the various scriptures about it. First is II Peter 2nd chapter and from the 4th on through the 6th verse. You find the angels that sinned and kept not their first estate, which was this Earth. And then the next thing shows another sin—between Adam and Noah (and the Flood)—that brought destruction to the whole Earth as a result of that Earth-wide sin. Then next it mentions Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed totally; but the area that the sin covered was the area destroyed. In that case, it was just those few cities. So we know there was the destructions to the Earth.
Now you come back to the 2nd verse of Genesis 1, and you find that the Earth was in a state called in the Hebrew language “tohu” and “bohu.” Those Hebrew words really mean waste and empty, or chaotic and in confusion (as a result of the angels that sinned). They were here to develop the Earth, to do something good with it, to build it up. Instead, they tended to destroy it just as Satan has induced human beings to do! We have polluted the Earth—its surface, its soil, the water, the drinking water, the air. It’s all polluted. We have tended to destroy what God gave us. We are doing the bidding of the Devil, who is the god of this world.
Now we find that God’s government was put over those angels. And God set one on a throne. He was a super-archangel. He was the greatest, most perfect being that God can create. Now let me tell you one thing: God CANNOT create holy, righteous character instantly in a person by fiat. That’s something that can’t be done. That kind of character has to be developed through experience and by time. But God created this being, great as he was; gave him powers; gave him the power of thinking, of reasoning, of drawing conclusions and making decisions, making choices. He wouldn’t have had any personality or been a ‘being’ otherwise.
Now God instructed him in the truth, in the government of God, which is based on the law of God—which is love. L-O-V-E. Love is AN OUTGOING CONCERN towards others. And God’s law is love, and God’s law is not like any laws men make. God’s law is a way of life. Men don’t make laws that are a way of living, but laws to govern people the way the lawmakers want to rule them and govern them. So, this fellow got to reasoning. He got to thinking. You see, God’s law is love. Now that’s the way of peace. That is the way of cooperation. That’s the way of helping, assisting, of having concern for others.
But Lucifer began to reason, “Look, I want to exalt myself. Why should I exalt God? I’m going to get myself to be bigger than God. God made the universe. He created it. I don’t have the power to do that. But I’m going to try to take it away from Him. I want to take it away from Him!” So he reasoned that lust and greed would be better; that jealousy and envy would be better. He resented authority of God over him, and he began teaching his angels that. “Look, God has taken everything but this one Earth. He’s got all the rest in the universe. He’s not fair!”
They began to criticize God. They began to judge Him. They got into a spirit of competition and strife, of violence and war, of destruction. The name of this super-archangel was Lucifer. You read of that in the 14th chapter of Isaiah. (I can’t take the time for all of that. I want to go through this real quickly, this part of it.) He was given a throne. He said, “I will exalt my throne above the angels of God.”
In Ezekiel 28 it talks of him. It says he was perfect in all of his ways from the day God CREATED him (He wasn’t a born being; A created being.), until iniquity was found in him. It said he sealed up the sum of perfection, wisdom, and beauty. He was a created being, a great being. But he had brought disaster to this Earth; and he had scrapped the government of God, which was here.
GOD RENEWS THE FACE OF THE EARTH (PLAY FROM 34:10)
Now, why did God create human beings? You go back into the 2nd verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis:
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
In other words, it was chaotic and in confusion. It was waste and empty. It was covered with water. Darkness covered the face of the deep. In other words, it was all ocean. Now in the 104th Psalm, and verse 30, you will read that God sent forth His Spirit and He RENEWED THE FACE OF THE EARTH. God renewed the face of the Earth. And the first thing God said was… And God creates everything by Jesus Christ, who is the WORD of God; and He speaks and it is done. He spoke and He said, “Let there be LIGHT.” Satan brought darkness. God is the Author of light, of truth. Satan is the author of error—to deceive people, to blind them, till they think they are right when they are wrong.
Sometimes he darkens those that we love the most. And Satan’s been busy over here in England, very busy. God says Satan’s has got people to turning and thinking that black is white, and that down is up, that east is west. They’re sincere. They really believe it. But they are misled. That’s the pity of it. Brethren, I tell you, we need to pray for people that have been so deceived.
Do you have to be a weak-minded nit-wit to be deceived by Satan? Do you know that he has deceived the greatest minds on this Earth! The GREATEST MINDS don’t know the truth; they don’t have it. They don’t have the Spirit of God. They don’t believe there is a Satan. They don’t believe there is a God, most of them.
Well, in six days God renewed the face of the Earth. Then He said, after creating the animals each after its own kind:
Genesis 1:26 Let us…
The word for “God” is Elohim, which is a uni-plural that is used in the first chapter of Genesis. Now another word comes into the second chapter, which refers to the Word—the Spokesman, Yahweh. But Elohim is the word in the first chapter of Genesis; and it is “God,” and GOD IS A FAMILY—a family of persons. ONE GOD! ONE FAMILY, But more than one person. You read of it in John 1, and the first 5 verses, in the New Testament.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it was Jesus Christ. He’s always existed. He was WITH God, but He’s a different person. And when He was born as a human being later, God called Him His Son. He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That’s A FAMILY RELATIONSHIP! Jesus prayed to Him as His Father. The Scriptures show us that the Church is going to be married to Jesus Christ. The Church will be the wife. There’s a Husband and a wife. There’s a Father and a Son. That’s A FAMILY relationship!
Now after this thing happened to the angels, why did God create human beings? There had to be a reason; and, if you don’t understand that and the purpose, you don’t understand things. Why didn’t God create another super-being? Well, how did He know that he wouldn’t do the same thing, and go the wrong way? God was left as the only Being… And the one we call the Father is the Father of the Family; but the one who became Christ was with Him, and absolutely 100% with Him in every way.
And do you know it’s impossible for God to sin. God knows and is SO WELL acquainted with the fact that to go contrary to His way of love is to bring disaster, suffering, destruction, darkness, everything wrong. And so God knew that He was the only One that could be absolutely relied upon never to go contrary to His way of love, which is His law. And that was the law of the government of God.
SATAN BROADCASTS (PLAY FROM 39:15)
Now, just stop and think a minute. Some people don’t like LAW. They resent it. Do you know where that’s coming from? That’s coming from Satan! He is broadcasting. He’s the prince of the power of the air. He broadcasts. And your mind is in tune with his wavelength, your mind - every one of you here. So is my mind. But when you come to know God’s truth, you begin to recognize what is wrong when it comes to your mind.
Now you don’t hear Satan broadcast. You don’t see anything (like you do on television). He broadcasts merely in thoughts, in impulses, and in attitudes. You know, the attitude is the whole thing; the attitude. If you have an attitude of peace, of harmony, and of love—you are not going to get in trouble with anyone. But if you have an attitude of resentment, of saying “You stepped on my toes, so I’m going to sock you,” or the attitude of getting to the other and hurting him before he gets to you—that’s the attitude of Satan; and he puts that attitude into people.
Children grow up with it. They are not born with it. They don’t have it when they’re born. I have just concluded an article for The Plain Truth on human nature. Where did human nature come from? Now we’ve never had anything specifically on that, and it’s time we had it. And so I have written, it’s the part 8 of the Human Potential series. Where did human nature come from? Did God create it in us? Did God create in us a nature that is hostile to God and not subject to His law (the right way of life) and can’t be? Did GOD CREATE IN US a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? Did the God of love do that?
But we have it, don’t we. Then where did we get it? God didn’t create it. It’s being broadcast. Children begin to get a little of it by a year and a half, or two years certainly. You’ll find a little bit of rebellion against what Mom and Dad say to children before they get very old. You won’t find it in an infant of 2 or 3 months old though. You see a sweet little baby. Don’t think all that evil is in him. It isn’t, yet. But it’ll get there. And we have all tasted of the way of Satan, every one of you, and I. We all have!
THE PURPOSE OF MANKIND (PLAY FROM 42:24)
Now we are put here for a purpose. God knew HE’S THE ONLY ONE THAT WILL NOT AND CANNOT EVER SIN, because He will not. And He has a great program. He had a great program ahead for the angels, to cover the whole universe! Most of the universe, except for this Earth, is like our moon. It is a dead hulk of decay. Now God doesn’t create things like that. There’s a reason they became that way. And God intended the angels to go over the whole universe and do a tremendous job; but they had to do the job here first. They didn’t.
They had to. God can’t have things going without some kind of regulation. And we can’t have peace, and we can’t do the job God wants done, unless we are in harmony and have His Spirit of love. That’s the way He had to have a government—that is based on love, on helping one another, on giving and sharing to one another.
So Satan tried to turn that into a harsh law that is trying to hurt you. And he pictures a god who is a god of vengeance and wants to get revenge on us. That’s not our God! That’s Satan’s god. And Satan is the god of this world.
Now, God saw that the only way He could get beings that could get this job done OVER THE WHOLE UNIVERSE (more than just this Earth) was to reproduce Himself. So He started the reproduction process. To do that, it required matter. There are other reasons it required matter, and that was explained in an article (last September, I believe it was) in The Plain Truth, in installment 7. I hope you read it.
If you didn’t, you’d better get the copy and go back and read it—because that’s knowledge you’ll never get any other place! God has not revealed it to any church. He’s not revealed it to science. You won’t get it in any university or college. It is the kind of knowledge you need, and you can’t understand without it. God is revealing TO HIS CHURCH new knowledge, more coming now than ever did before. But the new knowledge and new teaching isn’t that the law is done away. Not at all! That’s Satan’s teaching. That’s what I had to confront 49 years ago.
Now in six days, as I said, God recreated the surface of the Earth; and it was beautiful. It was perfect. It isn’t now, because man has polluted it; but it was then.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us [Not “Me.” More than one person—“Let Us…”] create man in our image. In other words, “Let Us make man after the God-kind.” Man was made TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. Man was given a mind, inferior to God… [** Tape skips at 45:46, and part is missing.]
I need to be triplets. I need to be several places around this Earth all at once, and I can’t be. Well, God is going to reproduce Himself so that there’ll be a lot of Him. And He wants us to come to be like Him; and, if we’ll just yield, we can be. We can be.
CHOOSING OR REJECTING GOVERNMENT (PLAY FROM 46:04)
Well, He created Adam. He said it wasn’t good that the man be alone, so He created woman to be a help for man. As He had instructed Lucifer in the truth first and then sent him out, now He did not let Satan get to Adam… Because Lucifer had his name changed. He’s now Satan. He was “Light bringer.” The name Lucifer meant bringer of light and truth. “Shining star of the dawn” is the meaning of that Hebrew word, or name. And now his name is Satan, which means adversary, competitor, enemy. That’s what he has become. But he’s an immortal being, just as angels. He MUST remain on this Earth UNTIL a successor has qualified to restore THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD on this Earth, and has been inducted into office and restored it.
Adam was the first one that had a chance. The two trees were symbolic in the Garden of Eden. The one, of the Holy Spirit of God, that would have given him God’s nature—the divine nature. He didn’t have it. He never took it. The other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They took that. And when Eve took it, and Adam took it with her, they took TO THEMSELVES the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. They wouldn’t let God tell them what is the right way. “No, I want to decide for myself. I don’t want any government over me!”
And YOU’LL FIND OUT THAT THOSE THAT GO OUT FROM THIS CHURCH, SOONER OR LATER, COME TO THE ONE THING: They’ll say “I DON’T WANT ANY GOVERNMENT OVER ME!” And WHAT GOD DOES WANT IS HIS GOVERNMENT OVER US! THAT’S THE ONLY REASON WE’VE BEEN BORN, BRETHREN! (I CAN’T PUT ENOUGH EMPHASIS IN THAT.)
IF YOU HATE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, YOU ARE ON SATAN’S SIDE. GET OVER ON TO SATAN’S SIDE, IF THAT’S WHERE YOU STAND. BUT IF YOU ARE ON GOD’S SIDE, GET OVER HERE ON GOD’S SIDE; AND STAY THERE!
And remember: “He that endureth unto the end” is the one who’s going to be saved. SATAN IS OUT TO DECEIVE YOU! I don’t say, “Follow me.” But I say, “Don’t follow any other man. FOLLOW THE TRUTH.” I do say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”
Humanity was put here to reject the way that Lucifer turned to, and his angels. To REJECT the way of defiance against the government of God! We were put here to ACCEPT the government of God to be obeyed. Obedient to the government of God; and to come to the place where, as Christ said, if we overcome—overcome Satan’s way, overcome sin (which is the transgression of the law)—that we will sit with Him on His throne.
Now character must be developed. To have the character of God, it must come from God. But first we have to know God has let us all—allowed us, not caused us—allowed us to grow up accepting so much of Satan’s way. Then He gives us the truth. And if we see the truth, and see that God is right, and that the way we’ve been going (of competition and strife, lust and vanity and greed, of resentment and rebellion against authority) is wrong; we turn over to God’s way.
Now we have to be ruled by the Kingdom of God before we can do the ruling in the Kingdom of God. Does that make sense to you? Do you agree with that? Do you think the government of God is wrong? The government of God is love. People will tell you it’s not the government of God. They’ll tell you it’s my government. Well that’s what they said about Moses. They said, “Why do you take to yourself, Moses, all of this rule?”
Well those that said it went right down into the earth, didn’t they?
I didn’t take it to myself, brethren. I was called, and I had to swallow the most bitter pill I had ever swallowed in my life. Satan may have used Adam’s wife to get to Adam; but God used my wife to get to me. Now what do you think of that? He made my wife see the truth. It angered me. I didn’t want any of it. I had every argument against keeping the Sabbath that anybody can think of today. Well, that’s old stuff with me. I went all through that 49 years ago. My wife just smiled and shook her head, “No.” I said, “But look. You have to obey me! I’m your husband.” She said, “I have to obey you in the Lord, and not contrary to the Lord.” Well, I couldn’t come back on that; and she remained firm. She didn’t lose her love for me, but she didn’t lose her love for God either.
So I agreed I would give it an honest research. I almost believed there was no God, because I was challenged on evolution at the same time. Finally I proved how false evolution is. I proved the existence of God. Next I PROVED that the Bible is the Word of God, infallible in its original writings. And, of course, we have different translations and different copies. But we can get to the truth if we want to, if we are sincere enough that we really want to. And finally I had to see that I was wrong, and the world is wrong—that all nations are deceived. Now that was a bitter pill, but I swallowed it.
I’d been in business, and I’d been quite successful. Now I had to start from nothing. And when I started preaching God’s way of giving instead of Satan’s way of getting, at first I was getting a salary of $3.00 a week; and we were getting eggs, and we were getting (oh) vegetables and things from some farmers thrown in. I rejected that $3.00 a week when a challenge came of obeying God. From that time, within about one week from that time, the parent Church of this era of God’s Church was raised up—with 19 members. (Here’s that number 19 again, that some people like to ridicule.)
And that Church is going on, bigger and bigger all the time. Sometimes a few fall away. That’s been happening all these years, for 42 years now. But always, within 2 or 3 months, more new members have come in than those who went out. The Church keeps growing! THE WORK OF GOD KEEPS GROWING, because THIS IS OF GOD!
When I get into trouble, do you know where I go? I go into a private room, on my knees; and God shows me how to solve it. This is THE WORK OF THE LIVING GOD, and don’t you ever forget it! It’s not the work of men. And the men that go out of it go to no place. That’s happened for 42 years. You see, I’ve seen this happen. You haven’t, brethren. You don’t need to take my word for it. If you want to put it to the test, go on out. I won’t stop you, but I’ll go on loving you just the same—because I do go on loving those who have gone out.
CHRIST QUALIFIED TO RULE (PLAY FROM 54:39)
Well, Christ had to meet Satan and had to overcome Satan before He could qualify to rule. Now the first Adam failed. God finally let Satan get to him. He followed his wife in the wrong way. Maybe there’s something to it that I finally followed my wife in the right way. Anyway, I hope so; because I know that was of God—and the true God, and not the false god. Some people get mixed up on which is God.
So Jesus Christ came and qualified. Now before Christ came, why did He come? And why are we here? I want to go now to, well, a prophecy in Isaiah. The 9th chapter of Isaiah, beginning with verse 6:
Isaiah 9:6-7 For unto us [That’s speaking of Israel.] a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the GOVERNMENT [the government] shall be on his shoulders: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (7) Of the increase of HIS GOVERNMENT [Some people don’t like government. Of the increase of His government] and peace… [Because the government of God is the only government that can bring peace.]
I talked, as I said, to the leaders of the nation Israel about a week ago. I told them of the troubles that the world is in. I have another meeting coming later, when I can go into more detail; and this particular time I couldn’t because Minister Moshe Kohl (a minister in the government) had invited everybody there and sponsored it. And I couldn’t go further than he would go at that time. Next time I’ll be free to say all I want to say, and I will. But this, I mentioned how the world had come to the place where…
It’s like an editorial in the United States News and World Report. That’s one of our weekly news magazines in the United States that I try to read all the time, because it’s one of the very best. This was 2 or 3 years ago. It said in the editorial that it seems that conditions have gotten to the place now where the only way we can keep humanity alive on this Earth is through the existence of and the intervention of a very powerful “unseen hand from some place.”
I said, “You know who they meant. They meant the Messiah that your people have been looking for all these years. And I’M HERE TO ANNOUNCE TO YOU THAT HE’S COMING NOW VERY SOON!” And I’m going to make that announcement a lot greater as I go along. There were 170 there, of the top people of the nation Israel. I either end everything I say now with something like that; or I go even further and name names, which I will do in Israel.
The message in the 40th chapter of Isaiah speaks of the cities of Judah, and that is really Judah. It’s not Israel. They don’t know it. They think they’re Israel. They don’t know where the Ten Tribes of Israel went. The cities over there, in the nation now called Israel, are the cities of Judah. And God is going to give ME the opportunity to get that message over to them.
God’s Work IS going out to the world. Enemies will try to say it isn’t, because they would do anything to serve Satan because they are deceived and don’t know what they are doing. Well, notice now:
Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government [That’s why Christ came—to govern.]and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his [David’s] kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the [Eternal] of hosts will [do] this.
Now, when it says that, you can be sure it’s going to be done. It will be done. Now, Jesus had to qualify. I’d like to go next to the 3rd chapter of Malachi.
Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me [That’s really Christ speaking there.]: and the Lord, whom ye seek [Christ.], shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant…
He’s a Messenger with a message. He’s the Messenger of the Covenant.
THE OLD COVENANT (PLAY FROM 1:00:44)
Now, there was the Old Covenant; and Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant. And that married the nation Israel to God, but Israel was not a faithful wife. You know the story. There’re so many prophecies about it—in Jeremiah, in Hosea, and many other places in the Bible—especially in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament too.
But there was something wrong with that Covenant. You’ll find it in Hebrews the 8th chapter. You also will find it back in Jeremiah 31. The fault was NOT the law, as so many people seem to think. The fault WAS that the people didn’t keep it. And what will be changed is that God will write His law of love in their hearts and in their minds. Now, that law is a spiritual law.
There also was a great system of physical laws given to ancient Israel as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Wherever you read, in the New Testament, “works of the law” the word for “works” there is, ‘ergon’ is the Greek word; and it means PHYSICAL WORK. They had to do physical things morning, noon, and night to establish in them the habit of obedience.
I carry with me a watch that I hardly ever look at. I got this during the war. I had to have a watch with a very clear face for broadcasting, so I could see when I’d come to 29 minutes. I don’t use this watch any more, but I carry it. Do you know why? Because it’s better for the watch that it’s wound every day. If I lay it in the dresser or some place at home, I’ll forget it. But it’s habit! I wind it every night when I take it out of my pocket to undress. It’s habit.
Which is easier to remember? This is a test of intelligence. Which is easier to remember: To wind a one-day watch or an 8-day clock? Why the answer is it’s much easier to remember to wind a one-day watch, because it’s habit.
I had two sons. Both had become ministers in the Church of God. The one was killed as a result of an automobile accident now about 18 years ago. However – (All of a sudden what I was going to say just leaves me. Well, I’ll get it back in a second or two.) Oh, when they were children. I told you a while ago that I was speaking down by Eugene, Oregon you know. And I hadn’t moved the family down yet; and they were still…and I told you about my elder son, Dick.
Well now there was my younger son, whose name is Garner Ted; and he’s still around, very much. And somehow Richard, whom we called Dick, (Dickey in those days), he was coming along pretty good. But Ted had just come to this age. He was between 4 and 5 years old by now, and my wife said that I was just going to have to do something. She couldn’t make him mind at all. So, when I came up, I called him and I talked to him about it—the way he’d been doing; and he knew it. And I said, “Now, I’m going to have to paddle you for that.” And I used a table tennis paddle. I spanked him real good.
“Now,” I said, “I wonder if you will do what I tell you?” “Yes,” he said he would. Well I said, “You see that chair over there. Take it and move it over here.” So he did. I said, “Now take it and put it back again.” So he did. I told him everything I could think of. I said do this, do that, do the other thing. I said, “Well, now you’re beginning to learn how to obey. Now I’m going to watch you for the next day or two, while I’m home. I’m going to make it a habit to. [** Tape garbled at 1:05:16 and part is missing.]
A habit of obedience! But all the sacrifices, all of their meat and drink offerings, couldn’t forgive their sins; and they couldn’t be forgiven until Christ came anyway. It was only a substitute. But when Christ came they didn’t need the substitute any longer.
If you got in a football game (soccer over here) and one of the top players of the team who ought to be a starter is 5 minutes late getting there, and you start a substitute in his place. As soon as the main player gets there, the substitute goes out. When Christ came (and the Holy Spirit came that we could have, which they didn’t have), we didn’t need the substitute any more.
But you see, the spiritual law—the law that is LOVE, the law that is HOLY, AND PERFECT, AND JUST as Paul wrote in the 7th chapter of Romans {2}—that is God’s Way of life! And that goes on. Yes, I had to argue with my wife, until I lost that battle 49 years ago.
THE NEW COVENANT (PLAY FROM 1:06:30)
Well, now notice here: Christ is coming as the Messenger of the New Covenant. The New Covenant also will be a marriage, but a marriage of THE CHURCH to Christ. And this time we will come to the place I just read to you, where we can’t sin, before that marriage takes place. He said HE WILL WRITE HIS LAW IN OUR MINDS AND OUR INWARD PARTS. He wasn’t talking about rituals, the works of the law. THE LAW—THE LAW THAT IS SPIRITUAL. The law that is holy, and just, and good.
You don’t find any such thing about the so-called laws of Moses at all. Well, I can go into a doctrinal subject like that some of these times. I don’t know why some people now, after all these years, can possibly be deceived on a point like that. Anyway, I want you to notice, here is Christ coming as the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Malachi 3:2-3 But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap. (3) And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the [Eternal] an offering in righteousness.
BEFORE CHRIST’S SECOND COMING (PLAY FROM 1:07:58)
Did Jesus do that when He came? It’s speaking about THE COMING OF JESUS CHRIST! He didn’t do that! He didn’t do any of those things. LOOK AT IT! READ IT!
Malachi 3:4-6 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the [Eternal], as in the days of old, and as in former years. (5) And I will come near to you to judgment [Jesus said the Father judges no man. He’s given judgment to the Son, didn’t He?], and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the [Eternal] of hosts. (6) For I am the [Eternal], I change not [and so on].
That is a prophecy of Christ at His Second Coming. Now we find:
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ…
Then it begins to speak of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way before Him. But Jesus didn’t do any of these things when He came the first time. That’s speaking of a SECOND COMING and SOMEONE TO PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE HIS COMING! There’s something there you’d better learn, brethren. There also was a Second Coming of Christ. And it just said here that, before He comes, there’d be someone to prepare the way. So someone is preparing the way for the Second Coming, the same as the First.
As the gospel of the first century apostles, so now; there was a great apostasy during the apostles of the first century. And we read of it over here in II Thessalonians.
II Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him. (2) That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Now he was writing about 50 something or 60 AD. I’ve got some notes on it somewhere, I don’t have them right here. The Church was perhaps 10 or 15 years old by that time. The Church was really founded on the Day of Pentecost in 31 AD. But the false church was started in 33 AD, or immediately thereafter.
II Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first…
Now that “falling away” in the Greek is speaking of apostasy; In other words, turning away from the truth of the gospel to a false gospel. And that did happen in their time. And a falling away is prophesied for our time now, too. And the one was only a type of the other.
II Thessalonians 2:3-7 …and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition: (4) who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (5) Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? (6) And now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. (7) For the mystery of iniquity…
The “mystery of iniquity” was the religion called the Babylonian Mystery Religion. And it was a religion of lawlessness. It was Satan’s religion. Satan is the lawless one, and “iniquity” means lawless. That was the mystery—THE BABYLONIAN MYSTERY RELIGION. You’ll find it in the 17th chapter of Revelation, where the name is given, as a mother church. She’s the mother of daughters that have come out of her IN PROTEST, calling themselves Protestants. That is Revelation 17:5. And her name is:
Revelation 17:5 …MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
The Babylonian Mystery religion—that is the religion that was founded under Simon the magician in 33 AD. And that church still claims it was founded in 33 AD. In that they are right. But this apostasy began then, and it’s a type of the apostasy in God’s Church right now. But it is Satan that is in back of it; but he deceives people, and they don’t know they’re deceived. Now, it says:
II Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work…
That was in John’s day. It was already working at that time. Well, it’s still working. Don’t you think it isn’t!
Now Jesus Christ had to qualify. And you read of the big qualification in Matthew the 4th chapter. I won’t take time this afternoon for that. But Satan put Christ through, well, a kind of temptation that you have never been through. He had had to fast for 40 days and 40 nights. A man died just a day or so ago here, from fasting about 50 or 60 days. I don’t think he would have lived that long if he hadn’t taken a little something. And, of course, that caused uproar here; because there’s nothing but violence going on now in this world. But Jesus had to qualify, and when He did:
GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD (PLAY FROM 1:14:44)
Mark 1:14 Now after that John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
THAT IS THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD and the FAMILY OF GOD. Now I’ve said the government of God had been on this Earth. Christ came to preach “the kingdom of God”—which is THE FAMILY OF GOD ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD.
Now the government of God has been on this Earth, and has been taken away. But the Family of God has not been yet, and won’t until the time of the resurrection and Christ’s Second Coming. You see, that’ll be something a lot more. That’s the Family of God, into which WE WILL HAVE BEEN BORN, I hope. And, brethren, I’m afraid it won’t be all of us that are in this room; but I hope it will certainly be most of us—born of God.
It is the Family of God ruling with the government of God. That’s why we were born. That’s why we are called. That’s why humanity was put on the Earth. We need to know why we are here and the purpose that’s back of it—to give us meaning, so we can understand where we are going and why. Now notice here:
Revelation 2:26 He that overcometh…
Christ had to overcome Satan. Christ had to face Satan’s way, be tempted with Satan’s way, and reject it; and He had to prove He would obey the government of God. And when He proved it, He said:
Mark 1:15 The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Time had not been fulfilled until He qualified! He had to QUALIFY before He could become the future King. But there’s a reason why God wasn’t ready at that time yet. So He went to get the Kingdom and to return; and He’s going to return very soon now. And when He comes back, He will have already been crowned. The coronation ceremony will have taken place in heaven. And He’s coming as the King of kings and the Lord of lords—to rule all nations.
Now, if He had to qualify, should we rule with Him if we don’t qualify in the same way, brethren? I have said we are called ahead of time. This is NOT the time God is trying to save the world. Jesus said: “None can come to Me unless the Father draws him,” through the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t come to give peace that time. He said, “Think not I come to bring peace onto the Earth.” He came as He said of His coming—because “some would believe” would only cause trouble among people on Earth that are angry against the truth of God and aren’t going to tolerate it if they can stand it, if they can help it.
But when God sets His hand to save the world spiritually, there won’t be any Satan around. The first thing Christ’s going to do when He comes again is to put Satan away for a thousand years. Then he’ll be loosed a little while at the end of it. And at the end of the thousand years, people will be in peace—THE WORLD AT PEACE!
But as soon as Satan is loosed, you’ll find millions of people come to war (right away, they want to). They are angry at all of the saints and those that are on God’s side, and they want to kill them. Then fire will come down and devour them. That will be their first death. There’ll be people that have been born in the Millennium. And God will put Satan away forever, and never can he come back to the people of this Earth again.
QUALIFYING TO RULE WITH CHRIST (PLAY FROM 1:19:01)
Brethren, we are called now. We have to contend with Satan! And Satan is after us, not others. It’s “the woman” he’s going after, as I read to you at the beginning this afternoon. WE HAVE TO QUALIFY. And there’s going to be a difference in status and government between us and those that are called and saved later. Now, it says here:
Revelation 2:26 He that overcometh [And this is for all Churches.] and keepeth my works UNTO THE END [Enduring to the end.], to him will I give power over the nations. (27) And he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
And then in Revelation 3:21:
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh…
That is Satan and Satan’s way, and that comes under the government of God. And the only place on this Earth that the government of God is operating is in this Church. And some are going to try to get you to GET AWAY FROM THAT GOVERNMENT! “Oh,” they’ll say, “It’s A HARSH GOVERNMENT.” You tell me one harsh thing that I’ve ever done in this government. Go on. Tell me! You just can’t. It’s a government based on a law of love, and it’s a government that we poor humans (those of us that God has called and put in certain offices) are trying to administer in love.
And it is those we’ve done the most for, and had the most love for, that will turn against us. Can you explain to me why that is? Someone said to me in Pasadena, “you notice the people that turn the wrong way? They are people who have been on the payroll getting, taking from this Work. They never can seem to get enough. But the people that are not on the payroll, and the people that are giving and not getting, they remain loyal.” Can you explain that? Where your treasure is there your heart is also, if you are putting your treasure in; but if you get, you never get enough and you want more. That’s hard to understand sometimes.
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne…
He had to overcome. He said, “As I overcame.” HE OVERCAME SATAN, and we have to do it. Now when you overcome jealousy and envy, bitterness and resentment against someone who stepped on your toes—you are overcoming Satan and Satan’s ways, because that’s where it came from. That’s where it came from.
Now, I could go on and read more of this; but I just wanted to get that to you. And I want to just give you two more passages of Scriptures today. (Maybe I’m over. I don’t know. No, I’m not overtime. I was afraid I was. I’ll quit on time.) All right, in John 6, verse 66-67.
John 6:66 From that time [During the life of Christ on Earth.] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
What would you have done if you had lived in that day? You know, the Pharisees of that day said, “Look, if we’d lived back in the days of these prophets way back there, we would never have done like they did.” That’s what they said; and yet they are the very ones that cried out for the blood of Christ and said, “Crucify Him.”
Some of you would say, “Oh, I would never do that.” Oh, yes, you would—some of you—if you’d lived back in the days of Christ; because, if you leave His Work, you are leaving Him just as much as they did. Just as much. And you’d better think very seriously about that. Some of you are on the fence. That’s a pretty poor place to be. I say, “If you are on God’s side, you come in and be on God’s side; and you STAND there.”
John 6:66-69 From that time on many of his [Jesus’] disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (67) Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? (68) Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. (69) And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
We are following that same Christ today. He’s the Head of this Church. I didn’t assume any rule of leadership. It was put on me. God put it there. I wanted to be humble. I didn’t want to rule.
Just outside of Eugene, Oregon there were two brothers that had come into the Church; and there was a third brother, and he wasn’t sure. So they had a man, a minister of the Church of Christ, come down who wanted to argue about the Sabbath. So I let him say his say first, and then I was going to answer. When I started to answer, he just shouted. And I don’t know. He wasn’t even making any sense of words. I couldn’t get a word that anybody could hear. Finally, I said, “Well, let’s have a moderator and give you so much time, and then me so much. I’ll keep still while you have your time. You keep still when I have mine.” He agreed, but he didn’t do it. I gave him his time. I kept silent.
As soon as I began to speak, he said, “Oh, oh, oh…” Just a lot of things like that, where he couldn’t hear a word. I said, “The Spirit of God isn’t here.” I got up and left. And the brother of these other two men turned against the Sabbath; and they were pretty bitter against me. They said, “Look, if God has called you, you’ve got to stand up for the truth. You’ve got to stand up against someone like that.” Well, I said, “I just wanted peace.” “Yeah, but there is a time you can’t run like that.” After that, if it had been repeated, I would have SHOUTED louder than he did; and God would give me a voice to do it! And I’d say, “YOU SIT DOWN, BY THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS CHRIST!” and he would have sat down.
Afterwards they came (tried to heckle; and this, and that, and the other thing), but it turned against them every time. There are times you have to rule. I’ve ruled people that don’t want peace. Well, if I’ve had to, I’ve done it. I didn’t want to. Always there are those, just like there were in the days of Moses though, that like to point a finger and question and say, “God didn’t choose you.” Well, pray tell me, what people did then? People didn’t. They just didn’t.
Well, Jesus asked His disciples if they were going to leave Him. And Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of truth.”
PURPOSE OF OUR CALLING (PLAY FROM 1:27:14)
This is the Church that is doing the mission God wants done today, and nobody else is doing it. If you realize that God has given us two purposes for calling us now: One is that we get His message to the world, and the other is that that very thing that He’s given us to get out is the means of the second great thing, which is that we develop the character and show we can be ruled by His Kingdom. And we develop the character that we will sit with Him on His throne and rule in His Kingdom.
GOD’S WHOLE PURPOSE IS TO RESTORE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD ON THIS EARTH! THAT’S WHY HUMANITY IS HERE! But God has adopted a hand’s off policy for 6,000 years because humanity rejected God!The first two people rejected God. So He said, “You live your way for 6,000 years”—which means Satan’s way, because Satan is influencing them and swaying them.
Where would you go? Who else is getting the job done? Nobody else on this Earth! Someone has to be preparing the way for the Second Coming of Christ. Brethren, it’s being prepared. One little insignificant thing, perhaps—it’s just a physical thing; but, for the last six years, we’ve been clearing off over 50 feet of debris and stuff on top of the throne of David, where Christ is going to sit to rule. That’s just one little thing. That’s not the main thing. The main thing is announcing that the Kingdom of God is coming, as a witness before other nations; and it is being done. And God is giving me favor in the eyes of heads of governments all over this world. Nothing like that ever happened before, to me or anyone else that I know of.
Now finally: II Thessalonians the first chapter, beginning with the second verse. I want to say this to you, even as Paul said it to those of Thessalonica.
II Thessalonians 1:2-4 Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) We are bound to thank God always for you [As I am, to thank God for you.], brethren, as it is meet [fit, or proper], because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other abounds. (4) So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure.
Now I think I can say I am speaking for all of the ministers, all of the loyal ministers in the Church of God, when I say that. That’s the way we feel towards you people. We can’t do the job God has given us to do without your backing, your help, your support, and knowing we have your prayers. That’s more important than anything.
II Thessalonians 2:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.
We are announcing the Kingdom of God all over this world. God is opening the doors. It is a miracle! Nothing like it has ever happened before. And, brethren, we have to continue going.
Now, it’s time the fence sitters make up their mind. And as Elijah said, if the Eternal is your God—the Eternal Creator, let’s get over on His side and get well anchored and stay there, and endure until the end. If Satan, and trouble, accusations… They say questions: “Ah, but the people have questions.” What they mean is “I’m trying to put doubts into their mind.” EVE DOUBTED. IT WAS DOUBT. SHE DOUBTED GOD. So she went the wrong way. Brethren, let’s get these doubts out of our mind. Let’s get settled. Let’s get anchored. Let’s know where we stand, and then let’s stand—because I’m going to stand there till either I die or the Kingdom comes. And I want you there with me.
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