Herbert W Armstrong

   Now, let's look into tomorrow. Let's look into the world today and what's going to happen in the immediate future as well as tomorrow's world. Because while there is good news for the world tomorrow and we're going to have world peace, we're going to have universal prosperity. We're going to have happiness for all on this world. But, my friends, there's a way to world peace. There's a way to happiness. There's a way to prosperity, and this world has not found that way. It has rather lost its way and brought on all the chaos and all of the frustrations, the fears and worries, the pains, the heartaches, the suffering that humanity is undergoing now.

   There's a reason for these things. We're not going to have the happy world tomorrow until we change our way. As a matter of fact, we're not going to until human nature has been changed, and there's only one who has the cure for that, and that's God Almighty. But people don't seem to want it to be changed. They don't seem to want to know the thoughts or praise of God, which can come only by God's law if they have to go that way to get it. Oh, they want the results. People especially want prosperity. I think I heard someone describing, I guess I mentioned this the other day on the program, someone giving his definition of heaven. It would be a place where you had a 1953 income or 1954, but with the kind of income tax we had before there was any income tax, and with about 1931 or 1933 prices. And where everything would be a big income, low prices, no taxes, and you'd just be financially well off. You think that would be heaven just to have things nice financially? No, there's a lot more than that wrong with this world today.

   Now, in the meantime, before we come to learn our lesson, we're put here and we've been given 6000 years to write lessons and we're writing those lessons. They have been written, but the lessons have not been learned. And we're going through a lot of things yet before God Almighty intervenes and sends Jesus Christ to this earth to rule all nations with a rod of iron and to enforce the ways of God and the laws of God over every nation in all this earth to bring about peace and universal prosperity and happiness and joy in every human heart. Oh, yes, it's coming. But God isn't going to intervene. God isn't going to force this thing on us until mankind has run his course, until mankind has come to the place where if God did not intervene, man would destroy human life from off the face of this planet.

   Now, we've come to the place where there are now weapons available that can lay waste to an entire continent, annihilating all human life and animal life and plant life, not any single city, not just one nation, but a whole continent in one night without warning. And I tell you, my friends, that there is no hope of preventing these weapons from being used, except that we turn to God Almighty. And that the only hope and the only remedy is a spiritual remedy coming from God, as most of these men in high positions realize and even often declare publicly to the world. It's about time we begin to wake up and look to see what is going to happen. Jesus Christ himself said that there was going to come a time of great trouble just before God intervenes that mankind will bring this trouble on himself. A great world trouble, great tribulation, especially on our people and our nations such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved alive. But then he went on to say that for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.

   What are the elect doing there in this great tribulation? Now, we've been hearing that there's going to be a rapture, that all of the church members are going to be raptured secretly up to heaven, that Jesus Christ is coming secretly to snatch away his bride. They say that the coming of Christ is going to be in two phases. The first phase, he comes for his church, and in the last phase, he comes with his church. Very clever phraseology, isn't it? That's a catchphrase. Sounds very clever to some people. It's a human invention, however. You don't find it in the Bible. Now, what does the Bible say? What's going to happen from here until we come to that place? What's going to happen from here until God does intervene? Because God Almighty is not going to force mankind to come to his way, the way that will bring us peace and prosperity, happiness, joy, and eternal life. God isn't forcing any man into that and will not until we come to our complete total extremity, until we've come to the place where if God didn't step in, we would have no human government left on the earth anyway because there would be no humans here to do the governing. There would be no humans here to be the governed. There would simply be no humans left, period. And God is not going to allow mankind ever to look up and shake his fist in God's face and say, "Why didn't you let me do what I wanted to do?" God's going to let us do what we want to do until the time would come that we would be made extinct. Humanity would commit suicide. And then God can always say, "Well, you, you were through, and I was forced to intervene." And then God is going to rule us very sternly and with a rod of iron, with supernatural divine power. And the human beings on this earth are going to walk the mark. I'll tell you that they're going to obey this law that so many of them hate. Why? That law is love. God is love. Everything that ever came from God was in love. God loves his own creation. He loves us who are not only his children by creation, but who are potentially his children by divine birth. And we're put here for the purpose of being first begotten of God and then born of God into the very Kingdom of God. That's God's purpose. Do you think he wants to frustrate his own purpose? Of course, it was necessary to achieve that purpose that God make man a free moral agent, that God make man even with human nature, and that God allow man to disobey or to obey as man himself decides. And yet it was God himself who is responsible. God is a loving God. The only thing God hates is sin because sin is your enemy and mine and is destroying humanity whom God loves.

   James said in the New Testament that we must fulfill that law of God even as Jesus did. And if we don't, we are sinners and are convinced that the law are convicted as transgressors because sin is the transgression of God's law, not of human conscience. And I want to tell you that when Jesus Christ comes and when he preaches that truth, and when we find, as it is also recorded in advance in the 11th chapter of Isaiah, that at that time, the earth, the whole round earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Eternal as the waters cover the sea. Isn't it going to be wonderful? It won't be long now until the whole earth will be covered with the knowledge of God as fully and as thoroughly as this ocean floor is covered with this water. That's going to be a wonderful thing. Then people are going to know the truth about the law of God and they aren't going to be deceived anymore and then they're going to begin to follow it and those who don't are going to be in the minority. Well, the sheep instinct is a great instinct. Well, now let's get into this, what's going to happen. We've been going into it now in the prophecy for several days. And we have seen, my friends, that there is a time order of events that is prophesized in God's plan for fulfilling his purpose. God Almighty is working out a purpose here below and in fulfilling that purpose, it is his purpose now that his gospel, the same gospel that God sent by Jesus Christ, the same message that Jesus preached and taught his disciples, the same message that the apostles went out and preached to the world, but the message which has been absolutely squelched and has been smeared under by a rubbish heap of pagan tradition ever since. That same gospel of the Kingdom of God, the rule of God, the government of God. Yes, and the family of God into which we can be born. The Kingdom of God is all that. That gospel, that message is to be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations, not to convert them, not to change them because they won't listen, don't heed it. We know that. But as a witness and then shall the end of this world come.

   Now, we have found also that just before this great tribulation is going to come on our people and on our land, the most terrible frightful famine that has ever struck. We have just had a few little forerunners. That's all you people that have been suffering from drought. You haven't seen anything yet. I tell you, it's going to be much more terrible. And over the whole land until one third of our people will die of the famine, the scarcity of food and the things we eat will not agree and will bring on all kinds of diseases. There will be an epidemic of disease such as has never struck our people before in all history. And a third of all of our people will drop dead, the doctors and physicians will not be able to do anything about it. And then at that time, we're going to be invaded by a foreign enemy. My friends, if I have to stand alone in this world in foretelling what's going to happen and in warning you people of what's coming, this is the work of God and it's the power of God and it's going to keep coming. God Almighty has opened the door and no man can shut this door of radio and of the printing press that is carrying this warning out to the world. This was a door that God opened and he says, no man can shut it. There are plenty of men that would like to shut it. They don't like to hear it. They don't like to hear it being thundered. Yes, even one of our great national news magazines was talking about my speaking on this program as thunder. Did you ever read in your Bible what God says about it? Did you ever read of how the Ten Commandments were given by the very voice of God? Did you ever turn back to the 20th chapter of Exodus and read it? Let me just show you a little something of how God's message goes. It came out with thunder here in the 19th chapter of the book of Exodus (Exodus 19:19). As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, just before the words of the Ten Commandments came, Moses spoke and God answered him in thunder. When God speaks, it comes and it thunders out. And now after the Ten Commandments were given in the 20th chapter in the 18th verse of Exodus (Exodus 20:18), now when all the people perceived the thundering and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled and stood afar off and so on. Then I wonder if you ever noticed that when God speaks, even in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, it's called thunder. And if you ever notice the Moffat translation as God told one of his prophets, one of the so-called minor prophets, there he's relegated as a minor prophet by men today, Jonah, this message from the Eternal. I'm reading now from Jonah, the first chapter and the first verse in the Moffat translation of the Bible (Jonah 1:1). This message from the Eternal came to Jonah, the son of Amitai. Go to Nineveh, that great city and thunder in their ears that their wickedness is known to me. You know, I deem that a very great compliment. That one of our great national news magazines, known the world over, recognizes what comes on this program as thundering God's warning message to you. God help you and have mercy on you if you don't heed, that's all I have to say. And I know that most of you, my friends, won't. Well, this terrible time is coming. Then there's going to be an invasion. But just before that, it may be along the same time as the famine and the pestilence. But just before this time, there is going to be a flight. And those of God's people who are in constant prayer and whose hearts are continually with God instead of in this world, who are watching and who are praying always and keeping close enough to God to be accounted worthy to escape all these things, are going to take a flight and they're not going to be here when the trouble comes. But others, still saints, still God's people who may have been lukewarm, they'll wake up though when the great tribulation comes and they're going to be here in that great tribulation. And for their sakes, for their sakes, God was going to shorten these das. He's going to step in and intervene.

   Herbert W. Armstrong will return in a moment. But first, this offer concerning literature of related interest: The White Horse of Religion, The Red Horse of War, The Black Horse of Famine, The Pale Horse of Disease. Because of the size and scope of a topic such as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, we are pleased to offer a complete set of four booklets on the subject. Individual editions in concise, full-color format detail specific information on The White Horse of Religion, The Red Horse of War, The Black Horse of Famine, and The Pale Horse of Disease. These prophetic subjects from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 6, are too important to ignore. All four booklets are available at no cost or obligation. All you need to do is request the Four Horsemen booklets. Send your request to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123.

   Now, we've come down to this great tribulation of what's going to happen next. You read here in Matthew the 29th verse of Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:29). Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken. Now, there it is immediately after the tribulation of those days. The sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars shall fall. Now, when the Bible uses the word stars, it is speaking of any heavenly body, from the smallest meteor to the greatest star that is millions of times larger than this earth. Now, obviously, it is not referring to great stars, millions of times larger than the earth falling on the earth. That wouldn't be possible. Rather, the gravity of such a star would make the earth fall on it, as we know if you know anything about science whatsoever. But it does mean meteors and probably quite large meteors, but still that would be attracted by the gravity of the earth will fall to the earth and will not be burned up as they are streaking through the atmosphere. You know, there are countless meteors coming down to the earth all the time, but very few of them ever hit the surface of the earth because they're burned up by their very speed in striking the earth's atmosphere. Well, anyway, these are coming through and they're going to fall on the earth.

   Now, I would like to have you notice back here in Joel, the second chapter of Joel and the 31st verse (Joel 2:31), where it speaks of the sun being turned into darkness, the moon into blood. But there it says that that is to occur before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. Now, I want you to notice something. You've heard a lot about the great tribulation, and I have told you that the great mistake is that they mistake the great tribulation as being the Day of the Lord. Now, the Day of the Lord is the time of the wrath of God and the plagues of God. And you know, most of them think that that is the great tribulation. It's the time when God is going to send his wrath down here and before God sends his punishment, his plagues on the earth, he's going to rapture the church up to heaven out of it before it happens.

   Now, my friends, let's look into this and see whether that's true. I want you to notice this immediately after the great tribulation, the sun and the moon are to be dark and the stars are to fall. That is Matthew 24, verse 29 (Matthew 24:29). Now, you turn back here to Joel's prophecy and you read very plainly where it's speaking about the Day of the Lord, and that's being spoken of in both the first and the second chapters of Joel's prophecy. In the first chapter, it says in verse 15 (Joel 1:15), "Alas for the day, for the Day of the Lord or the Day of the Eternal is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty, shall it come?" It's a destruction. It comes from God. Therefore, God sends the destruction because it comes from him. He sends it and it is a time of destruction. And in the first verse of chapter 2 of Joel (Joel 2:1), "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm in my holy mountain." That's God's holy nation or the church. In this case, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. That's not just the church. That's all the inhabitants of the land for the Day of the Lord or the Day of the Eternal cometh. And it is nigh at hand. Now, in the second chapter, in the 31st verse (Joel 2:31), Joel says that the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. Now, here you have a time order. First through great tribulation. Secondly, after that, the sun and the moon being dark and the stars falling.

   Now, let's turn over to Revelation 6, where you find the seals being opened that Jesus opened and who alone was accounted worthy to explain these seals and to open the understanding or the meaning of these seals to our minds. And we find a phase of the great tribulation pictured in the fifth seal. I explained in the preceding broadcast. One phase of that is a martyrdom of saints, that is, those saints that are asleep at the switch right now. They are lukewarm. They are the ones that Jesus says he'll spew out of his mouth if they don't wake up, my friends. Many of them will wake up when the great tribulation comes on them, but not before, not in time to be accounted worthy to escape. And consequently, they are going to be in it. Now, many are going to be taken to a place of safety. You can't come to any other conclusion when you find prophecies showing that the saints are going to be martyred, a terrible martyrdom of saints, and other prophecies showing that the saints are going to be taken to a place of safety. The answer is that some of the saints are taken to a place of safety. Some of them are martyred. Neither place says that all of them will be martyred. Neither scripture says that all of them are going to be taken to a place of safety. Now, then we find that the great tribulation is going to be a time of national trouble on our land. Our cities wiped out and destroyed, an invasion by foreign armies of Great Britain, of northwestern Europe, of the United States of America, of Canada. And then again, a third of our people are to be killed in the war after another third have already died of the famine and the pestilence. It will only leave a third alive. And I read to you yesterday in Ezekiel's prophecy how that remaining third, my friends, this is a stern prophecy. You better open up your eyes and begin to believe this because it's the very word of God. The third that remain are to be taken away from our homes here and transplanted around the world. Some of them are going to be taken down to South America. Others are going over to Europe and they're going to be taken there as slaves. And then I tell you, there will be a pagan religion that is tied right up with this government that's coming along, and they will accept that pagan religion and give up the Bible and their belief in the Bible and the very testimony of Jesus and the law of God, or they will be tortured unto death, martyred.

   Now, here you find that phase of the tribulation in the fifth seal of Revelation 6. Here we read it yesterday of those that had been in the martyrdom of the Middle Ages and of the early Christian martyrdom, which began very shortly after the time of Christ. And Stephen was the first martyr that you read of in the seventh chapter of the book of Acts. And from that time on, there were many Christian martyrs, and they are told to rest yet a little season that the seven last plagues of God and the second coming of Christ and the judgments and the vengeance of God, which is the day of the Lord, cannot be poured out until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. Now, here is a message coming apparently to those who were martyred, beginning with Stephen, the first martyr, or you can say beginning with Christ who was really the first martyr and he is the firstborn from the dead, the firstborn of many brethren. Well, Stephen, aside from Christ, was the first martyr and there have been many others, and they are to wait God's vengeance when he sends this destruction. The Day of the Lord that he will send is not to come until after what? This great tribulation until another martyrdom of saints.

   Now, what's the very next thing? I just read that to you from verse 11. Now, here's verse 12 (Revelation 6:12): And I beheld John is speaking what he saw in vision when he had opened the sixth seal and lo there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. There it is immediately after the great tribulation. You know Jesus said in Matthew 24:29, and is quoting Jesus, immediately after the great tribulation, the sun will be dark, and the moon will become as blood, and the stars of heaven will fall. Now here it shows that immediately after the tribulation, and Joel 2:31 said that that will happen before the time of God's vengeance, before the time when God's judgments are poured out, the Day of the Lord, because then will come the Day of the Lord. Now let's read on here in Revelation 6: And the stars of heaven fell to the earth. And then next, we find the heaven departed as a scroll. Now, I want you to read something, notice something there, turn back to Matthew 24 just a minute. And in verse 29 (Matthew 24:29-30), I read to you that immediately after the tribulation, the sun will be dark, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars will fall. Now, verse 30, the next verse, and then shall appear. Now, if something appears, men see it. The sign of the Son of Man, that's what shall appear. That's what they shall see. And where? In heaven, they're going to see it up in heaven. Now, that's not the coming of Christ. It's the sign of his coming. And you know, the disciples asked him, "When will occur the sign of your coming and the end of the age?" All right, immediately after the great tribulation that shall happen. And the Gospel is to go to all the world before the great tribulation because there will be a famine of hearing the word of the Lord during this great tribulation. The atheistic powers will dominate the world, atheistic Russia, this pagan religion that will unite up with the fascist regime of the union of nations over in Europe. Now, then there will be a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. That will be the dark time when no man can work for God. And so, the gospel is going now preparatory to that. It's the last warning message. Your ears are hearing it. Now, God help you to heed.

   Now, what is this sign that they see, the sign of the coming of Christ that they see in heaven? Here it is, verse 14 in Revelation 6 (Revelation 6:14-17): The next thing after the sun and the moon being dark and the stars falling and the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth and the great men, the rich men, the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman, that's every slave that is, and every free man, that's every other man. There's your great men, your little men, your slaves, every kind of man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains. And they said to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne." They're looking up into heaven, seeing God, the Father, sitting on that throne and Jesus at his right hand. This is not the coming of Christ. It's the sign of his coming and they're seeing that and they're terrified. My friends, are you going to be one of those that are going to run shrieking and start terror, asking for rocks to fall on you even to kill you rather than to let you see that face up there that you can't stand it to look upon and live and said to the rocks in the mountains, "Fall on us." Why? Verse 17: For the great day of his wrath, the Lord, the Eternal, is come and who shall be able to stand? My friends, this is a stern prophecy. You better open up your eyes and begin to believe this because it's the very word of God. You see, the Day of the Lord then follows the sun and the moon being dark, and that follows the great tribulation. And something else is going to follow that. Do you know what it is? That's the time when God will start to intervene. Now you read right on here and here come the plagues of God. But an angel comes saying, "Hold this all back, hurt not the earth, neither the seal of the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Who is that? And what is going to happen? Now, we're going to continue going on through this. I'm going to show you very plainly and very vividly so many other prophecies. What is this Day of the Lord? What is going to happen? It's mentioned in more than 30 prophecies in your Bible. And who are these that are to be sealed? Who are the 144,000? We're coming to that now.

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   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong, sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God. For literature offered on this program, send your requests along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong, Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123.