Herbert W Armstrong

   My friends, I've been telling you that after we have learned some lessons—and it's prophesized that we shall, we have lessons to learn—we shall learn them. We're going to have to suffer to learn them, I'm afraid, because we're just like our forefathers have always been. And as God's word says in the prophecies of your Bible, we're a stiff-necked and rebellious people. A people that have never heeded a warning. Never. You find one place in the Bible where one nation heeded the warning. When God sent Jonah over to Nineveh, the Gentile city of Nineveh, they heeded the warning. And when God sent Ezekiel with the message for our people today and for our generation, and not for Ezekiel's time, actually, at all. In other words, it was a message that Ezekiel, the prophet, wrote. But there have to be modern Ezekiel's to carry the message to the people.

   God said this; this was not going to the Jewish people of Judah, but to the house of Israel, whose people and descendants we are. He said unto him, the second chapter of Ezekiel, "Son of man, I send thee unto the Children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that have rebelled against me. Oh, we do the things that we think are right. Of course, we don't do things we think are wrong. At least we won't ever admit we think they're wrong. We manage to reason around that. What we do is all right." But God says we rebelled against him. "They and their fathers, yes, way back there. Thousands of years ago, our fathers transgressed, God says, against me, even unto this very day, for they are impudent children and stiff-hearted. I do send thee unto them, and thou shalt say unto them, 'Thus saith the Eternal God.' And they, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are," God says, "a rebellious house, they shall know that there has been a prophet among them."

   When these things happen, you have to hear them first, and when you hear them, my friends, let me tell you, those that are proclaiming this message now, if we are faithful, if we are praying always, and watching, we won't be around. We're going to be in a place of safety when these things happen. And those of you who have not heeded are going to see them happen, and then you're going to know that God sent his word faithfully. But if you will heed, and if the nation will not heed as a whole, and the trouble comes, that is prophesized, then you, along with us, will be taken to a place of safety. It need not happen to you individually, even though the nation as a whole will not heed. And if our people as a whole will heed the warning, it will never happen, just like the threatened destruction of the ancient city, Nineveh, did not happen when the Ninevites repented and changed their ways. And they turned to the God of Israel and the God of heaven.

   Now, he says here again in verse six (Ezekiel 2:6), that it is a rebellious house and thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are most rebellious. "And thou, be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house, open thy mouth, and eat that which I give thee," while he was to eat it or consume it until he had it thoroughly digested.

   Well, we eat God's words, you know, and we eat the truth. We eat these prophecies, so to speak, by digesting them into our minds rather than the physical food in our stomachs. It's spiritual food. Now, coming over to verse four of chapter three, chapter three and verse four (Ezekiel 3:4), and God said unto me, "So, Ezekiel is reporting here, 'Son of man, go, get thee unto the House of Israel and speak my words unto them, for thou art not sent to a people of strange speech and a hard language, but to the House of Israel. Not too many people of a strange speech and a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand.'" Listen. Now surely had I sent thee to them, that is to foreign or Gentile nations, surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. Yes, just like the Gentiles city of Nineveh did. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted.

   Now, my friends, if we will heed the warning, if we will turn to God, that's going to prove our Gentiles like most of us seem to think we are, that's going to prove that we are not Israel. But if our nation smears, if our nation scoffs, if our people as a whole, except for the few, if the people as a whole stiffen up against this message of God, that is now going out, that in itself is proof positive that we are the descendants of ancient Israel. Once again, I say, you can't understand your Bible. You are ignorant of prophecy, and you cannot understand it, and there are scales on your eyes, and prophecy is closed to you. And the doors are closed shut against you, unless you know the key that will open up the doors of prophecy.

   Why don't you write for our booklet The United States in Prophecy and learn where we are mentioned in the Bible prophecies? Because my friends, we are Israel, not Judah. Remember, once again, there were 12 tribes of the children of Israel, and they were divided after Solomon died into two nations, and the great nation with the ten tribes was called the house of Israel. The kingdom of Israel, sometimes they're called Samaria, because Jerusalem was not their capital. Why, know Jerusalem is the capital of the Jews. But the capital of Israel was Samaria. Sometimes they're called Rachel because they are descended from Rachel, who was their mother, Rachel, the wife of Jacob, one of the wives of Jacob. And he had Leah, and he had others, but they were all descended from Rachel. So sometimes they're called even from their mother's name, from whom they have descended.

   Now, then, I want to get back into Jeremiah 31 because this is a very, very long prophecy. And there's so much of it that we haven't even come to or covered yet at all. And I've been showing you how we're going to be punished. But my friends, in captivity, in the punishment that is coming, in the slavery that is coming on. Those who survive the terrible famine, the terrible dust storms that are going to engulf this whole nation. Yes. And another attack of locusts of which grasshoppers are just sort of small cousins. Well, we had a little bit of the scourge of grasshoppers back in 1935 after the drought of 1934. Well, that was only a forerunner, and we're going to get it. But those who survive what is coming and what is prophesized that I've been going into broadcast after broadcast here recently, and I must get on to other subjects for a while now. Those who survive are really going to repent, and they're going to turn to God, and the yoke that is on their neck and the bonds that bind them in slavery are going to be burst and broken by the second coming of Christ. And he is to lead our people back. And I've been reading to you how they will be conducted back by outside nations. I was reading that in the 14th chapter of Isaiah, but also in the 50th chapter of Jeremiah. It shows that they're coming, here it is, the children of Israel and the children of Judah, which are the Jewish people, and they're going together, going and weeping, they shall go and seek the Eternal, their God. They shall ask the way to Zion. That is the church or the spiritual condition, their faces. Thither was saying, "Come, let us join ourselves to the Eternal in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten."

   Now, I want to get into this present program. I want to tell you about that covenant that they're going to join themselves to with God in that perpetual covenant. After the second coming of Christ, I want to show you what's going to happen. Now, here in the 50th chapter of Jeremiah again, let me repeat one other thing before we get back to continuing in Jeremiah 31. Therefore, thus saith the Eternal of hosts, the God of Israel. Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land. And I was showing in the preceding program that that Babylon is the daughter of the ancient Babylon. But there also is a king and the whole thing is called Babylon because that is a woman astride a beast and the beast is the government, a resurrection of the ancient Roman Empire.

   And here in verse 19 now, Jeremiah 50 (Jeremiah 50:19), God says, "I will bring Israel again to his habitation." Habitation is the habitation he promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the land of Palestine. And as a matter of fact, it is to spread from the Nile River in Africa to the Euphrates over in Asia. Ultimately, it's to spread to include the whole earth, and we will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan; his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead. In those days. And at that time, say the Eternal, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none.

   No, my friends, there will be no iniquity. Why? Because when this thing comes, that I have been foretelling that I have been proclaiming to you. And I know of no other voice on the face of this earth that is proclaiming it. God have mercy. Why won't we wake up? Why won't we open our eyes to what is plainly in your Bible? This truth is plain, regardless of errors of translating, it's in your Bible. Why is it that they will deny? What has now come to light? What is now revealed that has been hid until now, just as you read in Daniel's prophecy, many of these things that are prophesized. God had purposely closed and sealed and hid from the understanding of man until now, though it's been in the Bible all along, but they couldn't understand it. Why is it that so much of the Bible is just like an enigma? You read it, you don't understand like a veil over your face, and you don't see it clearly.

   Well, I'll tell you one thing. It's just what I was reading to you in the preceding program. Here this modern Babylon, this daughter of the ancient Babylon of 600 years before Christ, all nations have drunk of the wine of her fornication, and they are drunk on that wine. That's spiritual wine, not physical, and a physically drunk person is sort of bleary-eyed. You know, they don't see things clearly like the fellow that was out counting the moon; he might, looking through one eye, see one moon, he'd open up the other eye, and he began to see two, and then he thought he could count three or four. And some fellow came along, heard him counting, 12 and 1234. And he started counting all over. Say what in the world are you doing? And he hiccuped a little bit, and he was dead drunk. He says, "I'm counting the moon." Well, that's just about the way it is. You couldn't see it clearly. And, you know, when we're drunk on spiritual wine, my friends, and the whole world is deceived, and your Bible prophesized it would be. And either that's true or the Bible prophecies are not true, but they have been fulfilled, and they are true. You know, you look at the Bible, you just don't see it plain. It's all muddled up. It's all sort of blurred. It's not in sharp focus. And so it is, you can't take a good picture of the camera unless you get it in good sharp focus. You can't understand your Bible until you get it in plain, clear, sharp focus.

   Well, when we come to this time of trouble, my friends, millions are going to see that what they were hearing on the World Tomorrow program was true that it was the word of God, no matter how many other people tried to laugh it off and tell you don't listen and all that sort of thing. It's all in the Bible prophecy that they would do that too. They're only fulfilling the prophecy when they do, and our people are going to repent, and they're going to come asking the way to Zion with weeping, and you're going to search for the sins of our people, and they won't be there because God will have forgiven and pardoned, and because our people will then be seeking for God's ways and for his law.

   And along with what we read over here in Micah, of all nations, our people among them, but our people, especially ahead of even others, we read over here in Micah, the fourth chapter (Micah 4:1). But in the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Eternal shall be established in the top of the mountains. Now that is speaking of the Kingdom of God, that is speaking of those that are in God's real true church, the church that Jesus himself did found, the church that has the spirit of God and is being led by the spirit of God, those that have been begotten of God, and shall then be born of God as divine sons of God. Because this mortal shall have put on immortality and this human shall have become divine, the kingdom of God in the top of the mountains, ruling over the world. The purpose of your being called to be a Christian now is that you be trained, that you grow and develop spiritually, develop in character, and that you be trained to rule over the nations for 1000 years. You then will be made immortal. You then will be in the kingdom of God. You then will be judging the nations. "Know ye not," said the Apostle Paul, "that we shall judge the world, even judge angels?" And Jesus said to him that overcomes, will I grant to sit with me in my throne. "He that overcomes, will I give power over the nations?" And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. So says Jesus Christ in the second and the third chapters of Revelation in your Bible.

   And now, my friends, here's what's going to happen: of all nations, the mountain of the house of the Eternal shall be established in the top of the mountains and also of the mortal nations that are left will be Israel. Our people that have not yet been converted, our people that have not yet at that time learned their lesson, but will have repented. Yes, and turned to God and want to seek his ways when this punishment comes because God has been pleading, my friends, with preaching. But people say, well, we don't want to be preached at, we're going to go on our own ways. We'd rather follow our traditions. We'd rather be sheep and follow the way the world is going. So, they won't listen to God's word; they don't want to be preached at. And so, God is going to punish. And when this physical punishment comes, when God speaks in a language you have to understand. Then I tell you, my friends, I think a great many of you in my audience. If you won't repent now, you will then.

   Well, our people, Israel, will be in the top of the nations and be exalted above the little nations, and people shall flow onto it, and many nations shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Eternal and to the house of the God of Jacob." And he, that is Christ, or the God of Jacob. He shall teach us of his ways. Now, what is the way of salvation? Isaiah tells you in the 55th chapter, "Let the wicked forsake his way, let the wicked man forsake his own way or the wicked woman for that matter, and turn to God and find God's ways because God's ways are not our ways." Now, we follow our ways. We follow our human thinking. We use human reasoning to get around the word of God. Jesus said, we should live by every word of God. That's what's wrong with us, my friends, in the United States.

   Now listen, many nations shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Eternal and to the house of the God of Jacob," and he, Christ, will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths for why? The law, oh, the law that so many people hate. But where are those people going to be? Well, they just won't be around then, my friends, they just won't be around. Thank God we won't have to hear any of it because the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Eternal from Jerusalem, and he, Christ shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off. And, or as the Moffatt translation has it, till they beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

   My friends, we're going to have world peace. Can you believe that? Well, if you can believe the word of God, you will have to believe it because it's certain. And at that time, my friends, they will seek for the iniquity in Israel, and it just won't be, in those days. And at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, the Jewish people, and they shall not be found.

   Now, you people that have anti-Semitism in your heart that don't have the love you ought to have for the Jewish people. Oh, certainly. I suppose there are some Jews that have done some things despicable, just the same as there are Gentiles in every other race that have, we're all human, and there's evil in human nature as well as good. But, you know, there's a lot of good in the nature of every Jewish person. Just the same as there is in any person that is not Jewish. And we should have love nevertheless, regardless. But they'll seek for the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found for I, God says, will pardon them whom I reserve or whom I leave as a remnant, the last generation.

   Now, back to the 31st chapter, Jeremiah, let's continue on. I think we were reading here beginning about the 11th verse (Jeremiah 31:11). "It's to be declared in the Isles," the British Isles, "among the chief of the nations," verse seven in the Isles, verse 10, for verse 11, "the Eternal hath redeemed Jacob," that's speaking. Now the second coming of Christ when he shall have redeemed us and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he, or as I have read it to you out of the Moffatt translation has rescued him from a stronger power, a stronger world of power. Every passage in the Bible, every prophecy that refers to the condition of Israel at the second coming of Christ shows they'll be in the hands of a stronger power, and the Christ that is coming will break that. Yoke will snap those songs. We'll deliver his people. And they'll go back to Palestine.

   So listen, verse 12, now, Jeremiah 31 (Jeremiah 31:12), "therefore, they shall come and shall sing in the heart of Zion, and they shall flow together to the goodness of the Eternal for wheat and for wine and for oil." Remember, this is right after we've had national famine, and now we're going to have abundance, "and for the young of the flock and the herd and their soul shall be as a watered garden." Think of that, spiritually, just like spiritually like a watered garden. All our lives will be full. They'll be happy, they'll be satisfied. I tell you, my friends, there are some that aren't afraid to acknowledge it when they've been wrong. And to see that much of God's truth is being revealed now that have been hidden, and it's God's design. Why should we be ashamed then to acknowledge new truth that had been hid until now? We certainly shouldn't.

   Well, their soil will be as a watered garden after the second coming of Christ. That's our people, my friends, that's your family, your neighbors, your own people, our people that we love, our dear, beloved America. Certainly, this is the most wonderful nation on earth, isn't it? And yet, my friends, we're going the way of ancient Rome. We're going the way of sin. God help us. God is going to have to punish us because he loves us too. We've got to learn some lessons. We've got to learn the way to truth, the way to a full, abundant on a happy life. Then we shall have it.

   Well, we're going to have plenty of wheat and wine and oil, as he mentions here, the young of the flock and the herd, their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Think of that, no more sorrow, any more at all. "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow." You know, this isn't such a bad message, is it, my friends? Even though we read in the prophecy that God is about to punish our people for their own good. I know a child doesn't like to be spanked, good and hard, but it's for his good. Now, God is chastening me. He's punished me, not with physical spanking, but in other ways, it's a lot harder to take, and I didn't enjoy it. No, you read back in Hebrews that God chases every son he loves. You read there that it's not a very delightful thing. We don't enjoy it, but we are profited by it later. But just think how beautifully it's all going to turn out. When we have learned our lessons, my friends, you have lessons to learn in your private life right now. When you learn them and save all the punishment and save all the chastising and the suffering. You can come to happiness and joy right now. You don't need to wait for this time I'm reading about. But our people are going to find it because they're going to be taught a lesson. All right.

   Verse 14 (Jeremiah 31:14), God says, "I will satiate or satisfy the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness," saith the Eternal. Thus says, the Eternal verse 15 (Jeremiah 31:15), "a voice was heard in Rama lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not," you know, we thought that Rachel's children, the house of Israel, didn't exist anymore. And a lot of people think they just melted into the Gentiles, and they're all lost. They're called the Lost Ten Tribes. Listen, verse 16 (Jeremiah 31:16), "Thus saith the Eternal refrain, thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears for thy work shall be rewarded," saith the Eternal, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

   Now, where is Israel coming from at the second coming of Christ, at the regathering of Israel at the time of the next Exodus under Christ, that is of which the Exodus under Moses out of Egypt was only a type? This is the Exodus under Christ that the second coming Moses was a type of Christ, and this is the Exodus out of Babylon, my friends, and we will be in captivity and slavery of Babylon at this time, as our forefathers were in the slavery and the captivity of Egypt, and just as Moses delivered them, so Christ shall deliver us. There is God's pattern; there is the way it rings true. There is the type and the antitype. There is the duality of the prophecies in God's word.

   And listen, "thy work," he's speaking now to Rachel, the mother of Israel, the so-called lost ten tribes. They're not lost, my friends, says the Lord, and they shall come again, wherefrom? From the land of the enemy, every place in your Bible that speaks of the condition of Israel and where they're coming from, they're coming from captivity, the condition they will be in at the second coming of Christ is slavery and captivity. My friends, when will we wake up and realize these are terrifying things? They are real, and we can prevent it, even happening, even though the prophecies say it will happen. God's word also says if we will turn to him and repent, it will not happen, we can prevent it. And the only way I know of preventing it, my friends, is not by keeping silent. The only way it can be prevented is that someone will thunder this word of God to the people and that the people will have the good sense to come to their senses and to wake up and to repent and return to God.

   Well, continue with verse 17 (Jeremiah 31:17). "And there is hope in thine end." Yes, hope in our end, the final outcome, saith the Eternal, "that thy children shall come again to their own border," as God had promised our forefather, Abraham, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. 'Thus thou hast chastised me,' says Ephraim, 'and I was chastised as a bullock, unaccustomed to the yoke.'" That Ephraim and Manasseh are going under that yoke, my friends. Why is it when there are whole societies both in Britain and in America that have for their one purpose? Spreading the truth of our identity as Ephraim cannot see that a yoke is coming on us. Why is it that they cannot see it? Why are they so blinded both in Britain and in America? Here is Ephraim bemoaning, "Thou hast chastised me." This isn't speaking of the time when the captivity came way back there, 700 years before Christ. But the one from which Christ shall deliver us in the great Exodus yet to come, "turn thou me, and I shall be turned," says Ephraim, "for thou art the Eternal my God. Surely. After that, I was turned, I repented," says Ephraim, "that's our people in the British. And after that, I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh. I was ashamed. Yeah. Even confounded because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Is Ephraim, "My dear son," says God, "is he a pleasant child? For since I speak to him. I do earnestly remember him still, my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him." Saith the Eternal, "Set the waymarks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart toward the highway. Even the way which thou went, turn again. O virgin Israel, turn again to these thy cities." Back in Palestine. They're coming the way they went, and they're coming from where we are now, in the land of our captivity, my friends, and that shows the way that ancient Israel went.

   Well. That's in the booklet The United States in Prophecy. Oh, I wish we had time to go on. We come to this covenant they're going to make. But let's see, I just got down to the end of the 21st verse, and that begins in the 31st verse. Now we're going to continue on there. And as soon as I finish this, I want to get into some things about the present-day spiritual living that is so, so important to you people that are listening to this program. And now finally, my friends, listen to this.

   Why are you here? Where are you going? Does your life really have any meaning, or are you only the end product of an evolutionary accident? The Bible reveals that man was placed on earth for a reason. While men dream of a utopian society on earth, the true destiny of mankind is more than that, properly understood, man's ultimate potential is almost beyond belief. To learn more about this exciting truth, request your free copy of, "Why Were You Born?" Some of the most amazing prophecies ever written in your Bible are revealed in your free copy of the booklet, Why Were You Born?