Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, greetings, friends. This is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the world tomorrow. My friends, I'm very happy that there's good news coming for the world tomorrow, but we're certainly having our troubles now.

   Now, of course, you never have any troubles, do you? I know, my friends, that this means every one of you. Not one of us escapes having troubles. And as I've said so many times, I don't know when I speak about the way to get out of these things, and people that listen, and I know they listen to the program every day, and yet they never seem to apply this thing. Did you ever read that it is not the hearers but the doers of the law that shall be justified? The Apostle Paul wrote that. You find that way back here in the book of Romans, about the second chapter, isn't it? In the book of Romans, that's the second chapter in the 13th verse (Romans 2:13). Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law.

   Now, when I tell you these things, when I show you the practical way you can be delivered from all of your troubles and everything is going to work out all right, you're going to get the breaks, everything is just going to work out all right. If you know this way and still you don't apply it. Now, my friends, all this that I'm telling you, it's not going to do you any good if you don't put it to work for you, if you don't really use it when the time comes. Here's someone that says, well, I just don't have any self-confidence. Well, this terrible handicap now afflicts nearly everybody.

   I know that when I talk about having troubles, I'm talking to everybody. Yes, even little babies and little children, they seem to have their troubles. I suppose you never saw a little baby cry. Well, little babies have their troubles, but they just wa wa, you know, and they seem to vanish after a while. They don't go on worrying about it like some of us grown-ups. And little children have their troubles. And let me tell you, my friends, their troubles are just as serious to them as your grown-up material troubles are to you too. So, when your children have their troubles, why don't you try to sympathize with them? Remember that you have a Father in heaven that says He sympathizes with you if you'd only take your troubles to Him. And there's Christ as the high priest on the job right now, night and day, for you. And He's a high priest that can really be touched with the feeling of your infirmities. That's your inherited weaknesses as well as your acquired weaknesses and your shortcomings. He knows you're human. You read back here in the Psalms that God knows our frame. He knows we're dust. And like a father pities his children, do you really pity your children? I don't think you do as much as you should. I want to tell you, God pities us a lot more than we usually do our own children. When our children think they're having their troubles, we, you know, it doesn't have any trouble in our sight, and sometimes we fail to sympathize with them. Sometimes we fail to realize we were little children. We've grown up now and we've forgotten how it was when we were little. Well, now, you better not forget. You'd better have a little bit of sympathy and understanding with your children when they have trouble because those troubles are very serious to them, and they suffer real pain and anguish when they're having their troubles. So be understanding and be an understanding parent, and show them the way out and help deliver them from their troubles, and then go to your heavenly Father, and He'll deliver you from yours.

   Now, another thing. As I say, it isn't absolutely universal, but most people suffer from this lack of self-confidence. A lot of you have a lot of self-consciousness. Do you ever stop to think it's all self and you can get rid of it? Let me tell you, I don't know how much self-confidence you've got, but I've got more confidence than you have. I don't care how much you've got. If you've got a lot of self-confidence, I don't care how much you have, I have more confidence than you have. Because if you have self-confidence, that's confidence in what you can do. And I don't care how exalted an opinion you have of your own self. You may have a very exaggerated opinion of yourself and your abilities and your talents, and you may have lots of self-confidence. You think you're really a big shot. I don't care how big a shot you think you are. My confidence is not in myself any longer. My confidence is in God, and I know I placed myself in His hand, and He's using me, and I'm an instrument in His hands. And my confidence is in the power of God. Now, can you top that? That's a little bit bigger than your power, isn't it? So my confidence is in something a lot bigger than you because God is bigger than you. My friends, when can we learn that God is real, and that the true religion that comes from God Almighty is really practical and it really pays off? Now, it will get you rid of your self-consciousness. It will get you rid of your inferiority complex because I've had both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex. I've suffered from both. I know just what it is. I've gone to the two opposite extremes of the pendulum, and then I found the truth. I found the right, sound, middle-of-the-road way. That is the successful way. Now, I know that God can do anything He wants to do through me. I know He isn't going to do everything through me that I might want to do. But whenever I know I'm on the right track and within His will, I've got absolute confidence because the confidence is in the power of God.

   You know, the thing, my friends, we have to learn is to get the self out of it altogether, whether it's self-consciousness, self-confidence, self-anything. Get rid of that self. It isn't going to do you any good. It's your enemy. You're never going to begin to learn the real way of life and the real way to happiness and to peace until you learn that your own self is your worst enemy. Get rid of it. You know, a lot of people talk about knowing the Lord, and they say it how good it is to know the Lord. Well, they know that He lived and He died for them, and that's about all they know. They don't realize that He can actually live His life in them here and now. They don't seem to know. It isn't an everyday practical thing with them. No, they put on a smile on their face, and it's all put on. It isn't there all the time. It's just there when they're talking religiously to someone in a sanctimonious attitude. They claim they know the Lord. Well, they throw themselves into a sort of a self-hypnosis. They sort of hypnotize themselves. It's a superstition. My friends, get rid of the superstition and get the reality because Christ is real. Christ is alive. He rose from the dead, and He's on the very throne of God to help you right now. Well, you can have all the confidence in the world. I don't care what your troubles are, they're going to work together for good. You know, if you love the Eternal, all things work together for good to them that love the Eternal.

   Whenever I say that, I always think of a friend of mine, a truck gardener up in the state of Oregon. I've told you this before on the air, and I've even written about it. He was a truck gardener down in a valley just beside the Santiam River in the valley, up in Oregon, the Willamette Valley. And there had been a lot of rains, and the river had overflowed its banks, and it had just completely wiped out the crops. Well, he told me one morning about that, and I was terribly upset because this was a fellow I thought a lot of. He was just like a brother to me. And he rather rebuked me. And here I was, his minister, but he rather rebuked me, and I learned a lesson from it. I don't tend to try to make the same mistake twice. That is, I'm certainly going to try not to make it twice. And I was caught off guard, and I was sympathizing with him, you know, and it was quite a calamity, and I worried about it. He wasn't worrying a bit. He said, "You're taking that a lot harder than I am." He said, "You preached to me that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord." He said, "I love the Lord." He said, "I can't see how this is going to work for my good. I can't see any good in it now. But," he said, "there's some good coming from it somehow because God says so, and His word stands, and you can't break it. So," he says, "I believe it. I know it." He says, "I'm not worrying." He says, "I'm thanking God because I know this is going to work good." Now, he said, "It may look like a calamity, but it's going to work good because all things work together for good. So, I'm thanking Him for the good it's going to work." You know, you may be on your way up to a beautiful rose, and as you finger your way up the stem, you may get stuck on some thorns along the way. But the rose is there at the end, you know, and he knew that the good was coming.

   Well, sure enough, it did. When the waters went down, for some reason, it only injured his neighbor's ground, and they weren't tithe payers, and they didn't really love the Lord, as he said, he did. Now, he not only loved the Lord, he served Him. He obeyed God.

   Well, we were in the sixth chapter of Hebrews, going through this priesthood book in your Bible, the book that is so neglected. Almost no one understands it. Once again, here's the keynote of the whole book, the 14th to the 16th verses of the fourth chapter (Hebrews 4:14-16): Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Don't get discouraged. Don't waver. Don't give up, for we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, our weaknesses, our shortcomings. Yes, we slip over, and we make some mistakes sometimes, but was in all points tempted like as we, tempted just like we are, yet without sin. There's the difference. He just didn't do what we've done. He was without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

   Why don't you really do it? Why don't you put that to work for you? Why don't you apply it no matter what your trouble is? Quit worrying about it. Take it to the throne of grace because there's a living Savior there. Jesus isn't hanging dead on the cross. He rose from the dead. He's been on the job day and night for 1900 years for every generation that's been living, and He's on the job for you now. Is He just wasting His time, my friends, for you? Because you don't take advantage of it. He's there to give you the help, the guidance, the deliverance, the wisdom, whatever you need, the power, whatever it may be, yes, the faith, the faith that will save you. If you don't go and get it, you won't receive it.

   Now, here we were in the sixth chapter (Hebrews 6:1-20). Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection or full spiritual growth. Well, then why do we have to go on to full spiritual growth? Why do we have to go on to perfection if you're already saved and that's all there is to it? Did you never read where we must grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? You don't get all His knowledge at once. You don't develop all of the character. You were put here to be made like Christ, to be made perfect as He is perfect. God says, be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Be ye holy as God is holy. Now, you can't make yourself holy, but God can make you that way. But you're not going to ever attain that all at once, even with the power of God, because it requires some of your working along with it too. And He's only going to work as you do. Did you ever read it is him that overcomes and keepeth my works unto the end that is going to sit on His throne with Him, and it is going to be given power over the nations to rule the nations in the kingdom of God when the kingdom of God is ruling all the other nations of this world? So, we have to go on unto perfection. My friends, the repentance of your transgression of God's rule and your faith in Christ and your belief in Him and acceptance of Him as Savior, that's only the beginning. Then God promises to give you the Holy Spirit, and you're just a newly begotten babe in Christ, that's all. Now you have to go on unto perfection.

   You know, you just read these things, and almost everything you read in the Bible is exactly the opposite of what so many of you have been taught and what so many of you have come to believe. You've been taught you don't need to go on to perfection while you're already saved. But this says, let us go on to perfection. This is in your Bible. Open your Bible, Hebrews the sixth chapter, the first verse. There it is. Read it with your own eyes. This is the word of God now. And this we will do, verse three, if God permits, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit or partners as the marginal reference is, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. That's the world tomorrow or the age to come. If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.

   Now, that shows that some can fall away. And a lot of you have been taught that you couldn't ever fall away, that once you profess Christ, you're just automatically saved forever. If they so fall away, it's impossible to renew them again unto repentance. But now I don't want to discourage anyone. I doubt if any of you have ever done that. Don't think you've already done it and so there's no use trying anymore. Let me read that again here in the revised translation, beginning here with the fourth verse: For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened. Now, this is speaking of those that have really been enlightened, those that have really been converted, those that have surrendered and begun to obey God, and those that have received the Spirit of God. That is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, the love that fulfills God's law. And that love won't be in you unless it does fulfill God's law flowing out from you. And that's the kind of people this is speaking of and have tasted of the goodness of the word of God. You can't taste that goodness unless you understand it. How many understand the Bible and the powers of the age to come or the world tomorrow? Now, it's impossible if they then commit apostasy to renew them to repentance. They just aren't going to repent again.

   But listen, if you do repent of what you've done and if you feel sorry and you wish you hadn't done it, well, then you haven't committed this. This doesn't apply to you because those people are crucifying the Son of God on their own account, and they hold Him up to contempt after they've come to really know Him. They're the only people that really know the Lord. For land, which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to be cursed; its end is to be burned. Now, the same thing is true of us. If we bear fruit, that spiritual fruit by producing spiritual results by, in other words, placing ourselves in God's hands and just being an instrument in His hands.

   You know, my friends, there's the kind of confidence I have. God had to beat me down. Now it took years. It took suffering such as I think you can't imagine. Most of you have never had to go through it. I hope you never do. I hope you can learn your lesson without it. But I'd rather suffer everything that I had to and learn the lesson than never learn that lesson. But finally, when I thought I was just a burned-out hunk of junk, I thought I wasn't giving God anything, but I came to the place I was willing to surrender to Him. And you know, He rose from the dead and has been clothed with divine power. He has all the power there is. It's the power that upholds and sustains the universe. It's the power that sits at the controls and directs the controls of every force, of every energy.

   I received a rather scoffing letter from a woman, I believe it was in Michigan. Some of that didn't make sense. Why would Jesus have come down to this little speck of an earth if He was the one that created the whole vast universe with all the nebula, the galaxies and everything that the astronomers can see and know? If God created it all by Him, which the Bible affirms that He did, what would He come down to this little speck of an earth about? And what's He doing, sitting up there way off in heaven with all the rest of the universe and yet devoting His time as our high priest down here? What's He concerned about us for? Well, I was just reading that question to you back here as we began in Hebrews: What is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou carest for him? You know, persons like that. And this was a person that had fancied she had a great deal of intellectuality and thought she had quite a mind. But she doesn't know how to use her mind. She doesn't know how to yield it to her own Creator, and she's using human reasoning and depending on it and does not know the purpose being worked out here below, does not know what God is doing, that God is reproducing Himself and does not know what God's purpose is to make out of us.

   Now, are you going to limit the power of God? Sure. God is interested in us in this little speck of an earth because we can be made like God. We're not just some little insignificant human mortals unless we reject God. And then we're just like an animal. We'll die, surely. And the wages of sin is death, not eternal life. You die as much as an animal. Of course, it's the second death, and I haven't time to go into the full theological exposition of that. But nevertheless, my friends, if you understand the purpose, don't limit God.

   Now, I think we had gotten up to about the ninth verse here. Beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. This is in the sixth chapter of Hebrews. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. Now, he's just been speaking about going on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, but leaving the elementary things of the Christian religion about repenting of your own ways and turning to God's ways and the faith in Christ and being baptized and things like that, and shows that we have to go on unto perfection. He's been showing the Christian life. Then he showed it was impossible for those that once were enlightened. Very few have ever been completely enlightened and really understood and who have tasted the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God. Very few have tasted very much of the word of God. Very few people understand it. And most of you don't spend enough time on your Bibles to have tasted very much of the word of God. Now, it's spiritual food, and I think most of you are certainly starving spiritually. And if you ate material food about as much as you eat the spiritual food that is contained in the Bible, you would starve. You wouldn't live very long, and you're not going to live long spiritually if you don't digest a lot, not only read and take in the spiritual food of the Bible, you have to digest it, and it's something to give you the fuel to live on.

   But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. That isn't falling away. And things that accompany salvation. Now notice it. And things that accompany salvation. Well, is there anything then that accompanies salvation? You see, all the way through here, the Apostle Paul, in writing this book, the Hebrews, has been showing that just receiving the Holy Spirit is not all there is to it. You can fall away, and some people think you can't. They're just as wrong as they can be. Now, all the way through here, Paul is showing that we have to go on and grow in grace and knowledge, that there is something to the Christian life, and there's a lot of obedience in it. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation. Though we thus speak, for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward His name in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. Now, he isn't showing here that you get saved by doing that. But he's certainly showing that that is part of a Christian life. And he says that God isn't going to forget it. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. That should be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

   What? Did you notice that, my friends? Those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Now, the promises were made to Abraham. What did God promise Abraham? Did He promise in heaven? Is that what you're going to inherit? Do you ever look into the Bible to see what God promised Abraham? Because to the Gentiles of Galatia, Paul said, if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's children and heirs according to the promise, the promise made to Abraham, and you're one of His children. Now, here he says that we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. And it takes patience along with that faith, and patience includes endurance and introduces a time element of remaining faithful over a certain period of time. Let me read that in the revised translation. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you have showed for His sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end. Now, there's something you have to keep doing until the end. You have to grow. As a Christian, you have to continue to digest spiritual food. And just as you have to grow physically from a child, just so as newborn babes in Christ, we have to grow to maturity my friends, a lot of people don't seem to understand that. Now, here it is again. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and love which you showed for His sake in serving the saints as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish or slothful, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Now, it takes patience and faith. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He had no greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself, saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. He obeyed God, and he kept God's commandments and statutes and laws as well as things that God told him on the spot because God spoke directly to Abraham. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves. And in all our disputes, an oath is final for confirmation. At least it used to be, my friends. I don't know whether it is anymore. We're in the age when, as Paul wrote to Timothy, men are truth-breakers. That is, they're covenant breakers. They break their contract, even a written contract today. Their word is not good any longer. So, when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He interposed with an oath of God's purpose, and that purpose is unchangeable.

   What is that purpose being worked out here below? Now, there again, my friends, professing Christians, very, very few of them understand. What is the overall purpose being worked out here below? Why is God interested in getting you saved? Why do you need any salvation? What is the reward? Where are we going? What does it all mean? Will you listen to this program every single day or morning or night at the same time, wherever you're listening, in whatever part of the country? You read the Plain Truth. And if you're in a part of the country where we're coming on in television, watch the telecasts, my friends. If God is opening your mind, if it is given to you to understand, you're going to be surprised, and you're going to get understanding such as you never had before. God help you to have it.

   Notice now, He interposes with an oath so that through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. You know what that hope is? We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, behind the veil or the curtain. And that speaking of the old temple of God and the Holy of Holies, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, this earthly tabernacle was the type of the throne of God in heaven. And Jesus has gone to heaven, and He's in the very throne of God, and has been. He was there when Paul wrote this, my friends, as our high priest for us after the order of Melchizedek. Now, who in the world is Melchizedek?

   Well, now, at last, we come to that. And I hope in the next program, now, I'll be ready to explain to you who is Melchizedek. Christ is of the same rank and still Melchizedek is high priest forever. And so is Christ. And there's only one high priest. You know, the answer is really astounding.

   Because of the importance of this subject and other related topics, we are pleased to offer the following free literature. "Revelation or Confusion?" The last book of your Bible has been a puzzling story of chaotic symbolism for centuries. Revelation means to reveal or to disclose. Instead of hiding or sealing up, God inspired the book of Revelation to be written for you to understand. This perplexing book yields important knowledge of soon-coming events, events that will directly affect you and your family. Our free booklet, "The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last," is written in simple and easy-to-understand language. It gives you the keys that unlock the meaning of the symbols in Revelation. You'll learn why no one has understood this book until our time, and who actually revealed these remarkable prophecies. For a clear explanation of where we are in Bible prophecy, request the free booklet, "The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last." Send your request to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123.

   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.