Herbert W Armstrong

   And greeting friends around the world. The news today is mostly violence all over the world. The world today is filled with violence in a number of spots. Little hot wars are flaring up in both sides of a divided world. Stockpiles of atomic and hydrogen bombs are piling up along with the guided missiles to send them and deliver them anywhere in the world, each ready to blast the other half of the world out of existence. But who knows the real meaning of this unprecedented world condition? Never before in the history of mankind does the world face such a condition. This isn't normal. It's something that never existed before until our time, and yet we're taking it for granted.

   My friends, where is this leading us? You hear or you read the daily news, but you probably don't really understand it. The newscasters and the newspaper reporters and the editors don't really understand the news that they report. The world's leading statesmen don't really understand it, nor do they realize where it's leading us. The world's top scientists recognize what's happening; they know what's taking place. They contribute to it while at the same time they say publicly that they are frightened by it and what it portends, but they don't understand it or know how it really is going to come out, what it really means.

   You'd never suspect that this terrifying and constantly worsening state of world conditions that we're living in right now has anything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ or that his gospel had anything to do with today's frightful world conditions, with today's world news. The message that Christ brought from the very Creator God for mankind was a message concerned with world affairs, and with world government, and with our time now, and where it's leading us in the immediate future. It was the good news of a happier world tomorrow into which this very generation is destined to be plunged. He was concerned with today's world happenings that you're reading in your daily newspapers and that you're hearing in the daily newscasts. His message was the advanced news of the outcome.

   Revealing to us, if we are not too stupid to listen and heed or too prejudiced against anything that might sound like it was in the name of religion, then he came to reveal to us the outcome and precisely where we're headed. Today's scientists, statesmen, and newsmen could know where we're headed. They could know the outcome. But unfortunately, what the world has accepted as the gospel has nothing to do with today's terrible and worsening world conditions. No, most people that believe they know the gospel think they've heard the gospel would be astonished to think it had anything to do whatsoever with world conditions. Most people have come to believe and accept a sort of sentimental type of thing that most of the intellectual and more highly educated of the world sneer at as a superstition. And perhaps part of it is, but they don't see any connection between that and world conditions because they have lost the message that Jesus Christ brought.

   The only reason, my friends, that they crucified Christ was their hatred for what he said. That's why. It was not because of the person himself. As I've mentioned so many times, Christ was a very lovable and a very friendly person. He had a marvelous personality. There was nothing about him that people should hate. It was his message about world government. He said that he was born to be a king to rule over the whole world. And that's what really upset the apple cart. That's what caused them to be infuriated against him. And they said that he was a subversive, that he was trying to overthrow Caesar's government. But he said, "My kingdom is not of this time, not of this age, not of this world, but of a future time." But my friends, you and I are living into that future time when, by an act of God, God is going to step in and intervene and save this world from itself. Because we're living in a time now that very soon, unless God Almighty does intervene, I tell you, my friends, there won't be a human life left alive on the face of this earth. World-famous scientists tell you that today. Some of the world's greatest men tell you that today. But it seems we just can't believe it somehow. No, we're just glued to our daily routine, and we're so busy with our pleasures of the moment and our pastimes or our work or our business, our social affairs, and our interests that we haven't any time for that. And the religion that we've all come to accept has nothing to do with world conditions anyhow. It's just sort of a sentimental something. And it's a message about Christ, as I've said.

   Now, I've been showing you how Jesus himself, in his very preaching in Matthew 24, was looking down into today's world and telling us where we're heading right now into a time of world tribulation, worse than anything that ever happened on the face of the earth. And unless God Almighty intervenes, that no flesh would be saved alive. Not a single human being would be left alive on this earth. But he went on to say that for the elect's sake—the elect are the real Christians that are really crying out to God day and night and that really have faith in him and are relying on him and trusting in him, and for their sakes—he said that these days would be shortened, that God would intervene, and he would step in and stop it.

   And Jesus' gospel was the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God, which is the government of God, a government that is to rule this world. You know what's wrong with the world today? Only one thing: it is the rule of men. It is the rule or the kinds of government, the many kinds of government that we have all over the earth, of course, of men cut off from God ruling with the ideas of men, rejecting the laws that God set in motion to bring us peace, to bring us happiness and joy, prosperity, and everything good that we would all like to have. No, we go the other way. We reject those laws. We violate them with impunity. We even hear a lot of people believing and calling it Christianity today that all of the natural, even spiritual, laws of God have been done away with and that Jesus came to do away with them. Why, Jesus came to fulfill them. He came to practice them, to do them. And he said, "Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." He said, "If any man will do the will of the Father in heaven and keep his commandments, he shall understand and know the doctrine or the truth." Yes, he came preaching world government, the government of God. Why haven't you heard that message? That, my friends, is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel you will find in your Bible. But it isn't the gospel that most people have been believing.

   Now, I've been showing you how also the prophet Daniel, even 600 years before Christ, was inspired to reveal the future of the world from his time right on down to what's going to happen in our time now We've been going through, in two or three programs recently, the second chapter of Daniel. Daniel was a young lad who had been taken among the captives of the Jews at the time that the Chaldean armies had come down into Judea and Jerusalem and had taken the Jews captive 600 years before Christ. Daniel and three other friends of his were very brilliant young Jewish lads. And so they had been taken up to Babylon, the capital of the Chaldean Empire, to be trained in their language and to be educated for important positions in the Chaldean government. Now, this Chaldean government of Nebuchadnezzar was a world government. It was the first world-ruling government that the world had ever had.

   And so, the king had dreamed a dream. No one could tell him what he had dreamed or interpreted, but Daniel, and Daniel said that there was nothing about him. He had no powers to do it. But he said, as I've given it to you before in the 28th verse of Daniel 2 (Daniel 2:28), "But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." That's in our time, your lifetime and mine. Now he gave him a brief resume of world conditions as they were going to be from that time down to today so that he could show him what will happen today. But the real climax, the real purpose of this, is to show what's going to happen in our time. Now, this dream had been in the form of a great metallic image. I've been going into it in previous broadcasts. And it started out with the head of it, which was Nebuchadnezzar. And after Daniel had told him the dream, he says, "We will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, are the king of kings." In other words, a world ruler. For, and this was a very important thing he was trying to get over to this king.

   For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. In other words, my friends, God rules the universe. God created the entire universe, and God rules the very universe that he created. In this universe, God set many laws in motion. There is a law in motion that keeps this earth turning on its axis once every 24 hours by a man-made watch. There is a law in motion that keeps the moon encircling the earth. There is a law in motion that some modern scientists have discovered that will keep certain little man-made satellites for a certain length of time encircling the earth until finally the faint pull of gravity from that great distance away from the earth finally does pull them down, and the speed at which they're going burns them up when they hit the earth's atmosphere. And even man is able to take advantage of some of these laws when he discovers these laws and, after all of these years of human life on the earth, learns how to begin to conform to some of these laws and to do something with them. God set a law in motion that keeps the earth with the moon encircling the earth traveling in a prescribed course around the sun once every solar year. He set laws in motion that regulate all of the stars, the galaxies, and everything that our astronomers see in the heavens. But he sustains those things. He keeps those laws in motion. And by the very fact that he directs and sits at the controls of all of these laws that he set in motion, God Almighty rules the entire universe. God is the supreme ruler.

   But here mankind has been cut off from God. Nebuchadnezzar was a mortal human man. He had been cut off from God. He didn't know that God had decreed that he was to be the man who was to be the first world ruler, that he was to rule the nations of the earth as he did do. And so, Daniel said, "Thou, O king, are the king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, strength, and glory." God gave you that. Nebuchadnezzar didn't know that. He thought he got it by his own power and his own brilliance. He was filled with conceit and vanity just like everybody else. You are too, my friends. And so am I, except that we are supposed to get that finally crucified and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. And God will exalt us in due time. And I hope you have done it. And he said, "God hath made you ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold," the head of this image.

   And then after him was another kingdom to arise, and then a third one, and finally the fourth one. Well, it comes down to the Roman Empire, and we've gone into that before, and I don't want to take the time to go into all of that again. The fourth kingdom was to bear rule over all the earth too. But the point that I want you to get, that I want to bring up just once again, is now this 34th verse Daneil 2:34): "Thou sawest till..." You see, there's a time sequence. It starts with a head and it proceeds along in time order to the breast and arms of silver, which was the Persian Empire that followed the Chaldean Empire. And then Alexander came along and started his empire, still bigger. And it proceeded down to the legs of iron and the feet part of iron and toes, part of miry clay. There was a time element, and it was to endure until a certain time. Well, that's coming down to the time just ahead of us now, the toes. We haven't quite got to that yet. That is now being formulated in the territory of the ancient Roman Empire right now.

   Now here it is: Thou sawest till, he saw this image till a certain thing happened. This is the thing that's going to happen in your lifetime and mine, this my friends is going to be the greatest world news that has ever occurred since mankind has inhabited this earth. Here it is, till that a stone was cut out without hands or in the supernatural power of God "which smote the image that he had seen in the dream upon his feet that were of iron and clay and break them in pieces." Now the feet represent our time, now the stone, if it had smitten this thing on the head, it would have to have happened about 2,500 years ago because there is a time element in this image that he saw in his dream. And it smote it at the part of the time image which is just ahead of you and me now in our lifetime. Now it isn't going to happen yet today. It isn't going to happen just tomorrow or this year. But I'm telling you, my friends, it can happen within 15 years from now. But I'm not setting any dates. I'm just telling you the probable time.

   Now, I want you to notice, "Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold"—in other words, the kingdoms of this world, the governments and the kingdoms of this world—"broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them." That is, handmade governments, because that's what it represented. That's the symbolic interpretation as Daniel gives it. He says, "We will tell the interpretation thereof before the king." It's not my interpretation. It's Daniel's interpretation as God inspired it. It's the Bible interpretation: "And the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them." And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain—that's a symbol for a great nation—and it filled what? Not heaven, it filled the whole earth.

   Now, the complete interpretation of that is in the 44th verse: "In the days of these kings that are symbolized by the toes of this image shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom." And I've shown you in previous broadcasts that that stone is the stone that the builders, symbolically speaking as it's referred to in the King James translation of the Bible, and other places, is Jesus Christ. The stone the builders rejected that has become the head of the corner. And that stone is Jesus Christ. He is the one who was born to be a King. He is the one who is going to come and smite the image—or, in other words, all the governments of this world that are quarreling among themselves, that are heaping up weapons and engines of destruction to blast everybody else off the face of the earth. And he is coming, and the God of heaven through him is going to set up a kingdom. And he came to preach a kingdom that's going to replace the kingdoms and the governments of this world now.

   Yes, world government, my friends, was the gospel in the message of Christ. And here it is in the Old Testament, in your Bible, in the prophecy of Daniel. It's a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. It shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, these earthly human kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. And then, as it is back here in the 35th verse that I read to you, it's going to fill the whole earth.

   All right, now let's go on from there. Daniel himself had a dream a little later, and that's recorded over here in the seventh chapter of Daniel. Let's get right along to that. The same general story is told, but he brings out something else that I want you to get in the seventh chapter because in the second chapter with the dream that came to Nebuchadnezzar, all you would get is that Christ is coming down here and all by himself going to rule all the world and all of its nations. Well, is he going to have anyone ruling under him? For instance, will he have someone to be the king over one nation and another person a king over a different nation and so on? Are there going to be like, for instance, in the United States where we have governors over the various states and so on, and subdivisions of government? And who is going to be on those?

   All right, that's revealed here in the seventh chapter (Daniel 7:2). He brings out a detail that was not revealed in the second chapter. It was in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, that Daniel had a dream. And Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts or wild animals came up from the sea, diverse one from another. They were different, each one from the other. Now, the first was like a lion, and it had eagle's wings. But the second, he beheld another beast, a second like a bear. It wasn't a bear, but it was like a bear. And it raised up itself on one side; it had three ribs in the mouth between the teeth, and so on. And they said thus unto it, "Arise, devour much flesh," whatever it was that destroyed human beings. "And after this I beheld, and lo, another, another wild animal, like a leopard." And this beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. Now, what does that all mean? Dominion was given to it?

   Well, let's just stop right there and get the Bible interpretation of this so that you can understand it because that's all symbolic language. But the Bible explains it. Verse 16: Daniel here says, "I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. And I came near to one of them that stood by"—one of the angel guard—"and asked him the truth of this." This was all, of course, in his dream. "And so he told me and made me to know the interpretation of the things." Now, here's the interpretation right in the Bible. I don't have to guess at what it means. Neither do you. "These great beasts or wild animals, which are four, are four kings." And as you proceed, you will notice that he uses the word "king" or "kingdom" interchangeably because the king stands for his kingdom. This is speaking of kings of absolute power so that the king is the kingdom because, you might say, he owns it, he rules it completely. Now, "they are four kings. These great beasts which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth." And they were world-ruling kingdoms. "But the saints of the most high shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever."

   Now, we go back to the beginning of this dream again. And the first was like a lion. Well, that was King Nebuchadnezzar. And the second was like a bear. That was the Persian Empire. And here, God was using wild animals whose characteristics were the characteristics of the very nature of the governments or the kingdoms that they are portraying. Now, the Chaldean Empire was a kingly type of empire with kingly splendor and grandeur. But the bear was bigger and more ponderous that followed, perhaps in one way a little less ferocious, but it was a devouring thing, a bear that was devouring much flesh. It was slow of movement, a big lumbering bear.

   My friends, there are counterparts of these in the world today, and they do picture even conditions that you find on earth today. Now, the third was like a leopard. Now, a leopard is a cat, and it moves swiftly, quick of motion. Well, this typified Alexander the Great in his kingdom. And Alexander's army moved more swiftly than any army the world had ever known. It was called in some of the ancient histories a swift conquering flight. And there were four heads because Alexander's empire was divided into four divisions. After his untimely death, he died as a young man of dissipation and debauchery. And his four generals, ten years later, took it up and divided the empire. They couldn't get together on one leader, and each one of them took a fourth. They divided it into four divisions. And then, finally, the fourth great beast. Oh, this was not like any beast on earth. This was the Roman Empire. This one had more kingly splendor, actually, than the Chaldean Empire. It had more preponderance of weight and was even more swift and cunning and ferocious in that way than Alexander's Empire.

   Well, here's the description of it: "After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly." This was the Great Roman Empire, started in 31 B.C., and it went on down to 476 A.D. in its first and main aspect. "And it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it." That is, the other governments before it just swallowed them up, conquered them, you might say, and took over their territory. "And it was different from all of the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns." Now, there are ten horns. What are they?

   Well, let's go on a little further. Verse 23: "He said to me, 'The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth.'" That was the Roman Empire. I'm in verse 23 now, getting the translation or the interpretation of this thing. "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, and it shall be different from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and break it in pieces." The Roman Empire was a world-ruling empire. "And the ten horns out of this kingdom are..." Now, here's the interpretation of the horns. They are ten kings or kingdoms that shall arise, in other words, after its original fall, after 476 A.D. Now, there was another to arise after them.

   But let's go back and get that in this thing, first, let's go back now to verse 8: "I considered the horns." I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn. Now, this was smaller, that is, in—well, shall we say, military power or force or anything of that sort—because it had practically no military power at all. Therefore, it is symbolized as a little horn or a little government because the horns are governments. "Before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots." In other words, they were gone. Now, the first three that were plucked up by the roots—let me see, there were the Vandals, the Heruli, and the Ostrogoths. And they were plucked up by the roots. There are no Vandals on the earth today. No Ostrogoths, no Heruli. They're just gone. However, the others are all still on earth today. They were plucked up by the roots. "And behold, in this horn were the eyes like the eyes of a man." Because it represents a man ruler in his kingdom and a mouth speaking great things.

   "And I beheld till..." Now, till here again is a time element. This is showing history that's now in the past, although it was prophecy when it was written. But it isn't all written yet. The grand smash climax is just ahead in your lifetime and mine. "I beheld till the thrones were cast down," just like when the stone smites the image on the feet in Daniel 2, "and the Ancient of Days did sit."

   Now then, we come down here to verse 21, and we find the interpretation again: "I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them." That's a government that was fighting the true Christians that had the true gospel of Jesus Christ and prevailed against them "until the Ancient of Days"—and this is going to be Christ—"came and the judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom," that the real Christians, in other words, possessed the kingdom.

   Now then, let's get the final interpretation in verse 27: "And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to not just Christ alone, but to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."

   Now, my friends, if you turn right back to the early chapters of the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ says of Christians, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne when he comes to rule the earth. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him I will give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron." The real mission of the Christian is to be trained in this life to become one of the rulers under Christ when he comes to rule the world. However, there's a lot more to it than that. He must be born into the kingdom of God.

   Now, my friends, listen. You cannot understand the Bible unless you understand that third of it, the neglected third that is devoted to prophecy. Do you realize, my friends, that approximately one third of your Bible is devoted to telling you what is going to happen in this world within the next 10, 20, or 25 years? Now, you can't understand it unless you have the key that opens it up today.

   Because of the importance of this subject and other related topics, we are pleased to offer the following free literature. The richest, most powerful group of nations on earth—The United States and British Commonwealth—are part of one of the most mysterious puzzles of all time. The prophecies of the Bible mention such small nations as Libya, Syria, and Ethiopia. But they seem to omit all reference to The United States and British Commonwealth. How could such important nations be left out of inspired prophecy?

   This mysterious puzzle is unraveled in the full-length book, "The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy." This book reveals the true identity of these peoples from the pages of your Bible, and yet it goes beyond past history and shows you what to expect in the future. "The United States and British Commonwealth" is no dull history book. It's a dynamic chronicle of the years just around the corner. If Bible prophecy leaves you puzzled, be sure to read "The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy." Your copy is free of charge. There's no cost to you.

   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, Herbert W. Armstrong, 111, California, 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.