Herbert W Armstrong

   Now, Bible prophecies tell us that Jerusalem and the Middle East are destined to be the center of world violence and world disturbances from now on until that battle of Armageddon and the end of this world and the second coming of Christ to start another and a new world, The World Tomorrow.

   The World Tomorrow, the Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert W Armstrong, internationally recognized ambassador for world peace, visiting prominent leaders around the globe, discussing the cause of world problems, and proclaiming the good news of The World Tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W Armstrong.

   I think most of our listeners and viewers know that I travel all over the world, that I speak personally with many heads of governments in many nations, all over the world. And some people have asked me, well, what do I talk about, do I try to tell them about Jesus Christ? Do I try to get them to give their hearts to Christ and to be converted to receive Christ? No one, even Jesus himself, when he was on earth, didn't ask people to receive Him and wouldn't they give their hearts to Him? He talked to them about the things they were interested in, and I talk to heads of government about world conditions, about their concerns and worries, and about world peace and how it's going to come.

   I talk to them about the way to world peace. I tell them we're not going to have world peace of our own efforts. It's not going to come that way. But I do tell them about the second coming of Christ and that God is going to send Jesus Christ to this earth to set up the kingdom of God, one nation ruling the entire world, all nations, and to bring us peace; we won't do it ourselves. God is going to have to do it to us.

   Now, in my most recent trip, I was visiting both Jordan and Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem, I had a private conversation with Manna Salvador, the speaker of the Knesset. Now the Knesset, as I think most of you know, is their congress or their Parliament, their lawmaking body for the first time, so far as I know, they allowed a private television crew to tape for television this conference between me and the speaker of the Knesset.

   I was accompanied in this interview by my own personal aide, Aaron Dean, by our world news editor for the Plain Truth, Mr. Gene Hagberg, and by the recent consul general of Israel to Los Angeles, Michael Ravi. So now I want to show you that conversation just as it was televised by our own television crew.

   You know that we have some basic problems in the Israel economy. And then there are the conjuncture one, the basic problems are that a country is spending one-third of its gross national product on defense, one-third to pay off debts. Now we are a coalition government, and the tail is walking the dog. Yes. In other words, every small splinter group is stretching out the arm. They are not Armstrong, they are arm weak, and they ask for money to run their ministries and to prove that they are successful.

   And since one-third of our gross national product is inadequate to provide all this welfare and education and development, they address themselves to a printing press. I'm simplifying a complicated subject. Mr. Armstrong.

   Do you know? I see now as I didn't when I was younger, the trouble in the whole world, and it's the trouble here. It's trouble in other places, and it's a world trouble. It's every man for himself. People will join together and ally in groups provided that group can be against some other group. It's person against person, group against group. Two cannot walk together in peace except they be agreed. If there's contention and if you're in a bad attitude and one is trying to get the best of the other or take from the other, then you have no basis for peace. Now, that's the trouble in the whole world.

   Mr. Salvador, knowing that Mr. Armstrong has been a frequent visitor to Jordan and had just completed a five-day visit to Amman, asked his impression of the mood there today.

   How did you, did you find any, any [unknown word] is what we say in French, any open-heartedness and a new spirit that we could engage in a dialogue and hammer out a settlement between us and our cousins?

   Last time I talked with King Hussein was last March, and I told him that the one thing that I would like to do would be to get him and Mr. Begin together on my jet aircraft. And I said, I know Mr. Begin would like to do it, and I know you would if... and he began to laugh, and he said, yes, I would if the "if" is the other Arab nations and what they would say about it.

   I find that the Jordanians do not feel as hostile toward Israel now, as I think other Arab nations do. Well, they really would like to be friends. There is a variety but uh uh of uh of still have different ideas about especially the West Bank and things like that, you know.

   Well, I will uh, I would like to tell you Mr. Armstrong, and this is a fact about the 18th or 17th day after the war broke out in Lebanon, in Lebanon, and Syria was beaten, and Soviet prestige was at the lowest ebb and the source of intimidation was not there, then they started with new plans instead of giving it a push and a momentum, sit down and discuss this. You, you wanted, I say the American government wanted to enlist at the same time, the full uh friendship of Syria and the PLO, and you know, there were all sorts of negotiations behind our back, and they allow the Soviets to rearm and to reintroduce themselves with 5000 more experts and new, more sophisticated dangerous weaponry, and that's where we failed.

   Well, and I'm saying, because of this, because after all the, the United States of America is the protector of the free world. They are the protector of the free world. If, if God forbid they, they just wrap up and they, and they, and they, they disappear from this area and so on. I don't know, the United States wants to be a friend of Israel. They want to support Israel, but also our government at Washington wants to keep the friendship of the Arab nations. So this is legitimate, this is legitimate, this is legitimate. You should keep, you can keep the friendship with the Arab countries.

   If you show resoluteness, if you show uh vigor and vision and you show tenacity, perseverance, you have to, in order to address yourself to the Lebanese uh entanglement, you have to attack the fundamental issues and you should not divorce yourself from the historical basic data about this country.

   So, they have a national pact that the president should be a Christian. The prime minister is a Muslim, the president of the, of the parliament is a Muslim Shiite and so forth. And uh unfortunately, on this uh in this animosity and this ethical mosaic that you have in Lebanon with Soviet communist agents inside and the wrangling and bickering and the skirmishes between them, encouraged the Soviets resuscitating all the time. It is, I'm afraid a very, very unpleasant task, almost uh, unma, unmaterializable, I don't know how they are going to, well, we are living in a turbulent world, but I tell you, this is only going to be solved one way and we humans aren't going to solve it.

   But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is going to have to solve it for us, and it will be solved, and it won't be long now, and it will be done. I don't mean a year or so, but I don't mean another 100 years either. We're in a crisis at the close of all civilization in this world, and the very hub of the whole world crisis is right here, and things are going to happen here to Jerusalem.

   Now, one thing I can tell you, you're going to see big events take place in Europe very soon. I'm in touch personally with the men that are leading in a movement to unite Europe, reunite. Well, in the Christian time, they can understand why they're not making better progress right now, Fran Joseph Strauss, um, Otto Von Hofler are friends of mine, and they're working for a United Europe, and it's going to happen sooner than they realize. Mr. Hofler came to Pasadena to see me about two months ago, and he was a little discouraged that they're not making faster progress. Something is going to happen to force a new United Europe that will be a nation as strong and as powerful, if not, maybe more so than either the Soviet Union or the United States.

   Now, our people in the United States don't believe that, nobody believes it. But, biblical prophecy says it's going to happen, and mark my words, it will happen, and I'm not speaking just like a wild-eyed fanatic that doesn't know what he's talking about.

   Well, and it's going to affect Israel over here, very seriously. It's going to affect the United States very seriously. Well, the idea of a United Europe is, in my opinion, uh, real realizable. And after all, Europe was one nation with several languages and vernaculars, even the Catholic church prophecies, like the second chapter of Daniel, the seventh chapter of Daniel, and a few other chapters in Daniel, the 14th chapter Zechariah. Tell us a lot. And that is not make-believe.

   Well, I wish, I wish I could have you when I'm arguing with the Orthodox and National Religious party here, there was no to have your, to have your background in the Bible. I could, I could, I could resist all the pressures of the religious parties in this desert. But believe me, you'll find the Bible is true. Absolutely. And it's going to happen. Well, I wish it come true, people who just can't understand, and they can't believe, they don't believe what it says. If they believe what it says, we could have a better world. Well, we, we, some visionary, we, we live in a consumer society which deserted the tenets and values, basic values of, uh, of our, of our culture, of our civilization. This is a menace to the survival of, uh, of the, uh, of the, uh, basic moral values of, uh, of, of the Western world.

   It all gets back to a way of life, a way of life. There is a law, that law merely, now you're a lawmaking man. The Knesset is a lawmaking body. I spoke before the uh constitutional uh law department at the University of California in their law school. And I was, I was mentioning that law is merely the rules to regulate human conduct. It's a way of life. The law of God is love, which is outflow regard and concern for the good and welfare of others as well as yourself and equal to yourself. And we don't have that in this world.

   We have a law operating in this world, and that law is vanity. I love me. I don't care about you, every man for himself. I want everything for me, but I'm going to disagree with you. It's competition instead of cooperation and instead of cooperation and unity and the right attitude and spirit. We find people joining together in conflict with other groups, one group against another.

   Now, in World War II, the United States and Britain were fighting against Germany. Now they try to ally with Germany against Russia. In World War II, the United States was allied with Russia against Germany. And we, we, we ally, and then we change our allies, alliances, and we don't see it all gets back to a basic attitude of mind and way of living.

   Now, I see that God's way is wanting to help, wanting to share. Now, that's the way we do. We come to Israel, we don't ask anything of Israel. We're not trying to get anything here. You can't find a single friend of ours over here that will tell you I've ever tried to get anything here. I come here to give and you can check that all you want to and you find that's true. And when people can get into that attitude, we'll begin to have world peace.

   Now, we're not going to have that until, you know, the Bible also prophesies the Messiah is going to come and it is going to happen, and we are going to have a world of peace. We're not going to have it in man's way. As long as man wants to organize as he's doing this group against that group, this nation against that nation, this individual against that individual. It just can't be. You're right.

   As for us, we're not going to solve the world problems right now. And as for us, meaning the work that I'm doing nothing in the United States. We love Israel, we love the people of Israel, and we come here in peace to help, to give, to share. We know we're not going to bring peace.

   Now, my job is to proclaim the way of peace, not to accomplish peace, but to proclaim the way of the Almighty God, who's going to accomplish it and going to do it to us, whether we like it or whether we don't, he is going to compel people to have peace and it's going to take force, it's going to take a force greater than human force. And in the meantime, we just try to have as much peace as we can.

   Now, I'm a friend of Arab people, a friend of the Israelis, a friend of the Japanese, a friend of black people in Africa. And we have projects in all of these countries and we know we're not going to bring peace, but we believe we should do what we can toward peace in the meantime, and I proclaim the way of peace.

   Well, Mr. Armstrong, I am, first of all, very privileged to have you in my office, the fortress of Israel's Democracy. May I just present you with the medal of the Knesset? It features the building and then the sides of the Monotheistic three Monotheistic faces. The Jerusalem is holy to them. So here is the medal, which shows Jerusalem for which you have done so much. And the Knesset, the only fortress of democracy in the Middle East. And here is what I say to the Honorable Mr. Herbert Armstrong in appreciation of his true friendship for the lantern people of Israel and his magnanimous gestures which aid and strengthen the spiritual and moral tenets of our common culture. Me savior, speaker of the Knesset with my best wishes.

   Oh, thank you so much. That's a wonderful honor.

   The Middle East now is seething with crisis after crisis. Now, very few realize the significance of what is going on now in the Middle East, as I said, Bible prophecy shows very plainly that the whole center of our disturbances is going to be in the Middle East from now on until Armageddon, the final battle of World War III, and the end of this world.

   Now, I have a booklet just off the press. It is a reprint of an article that appeared some little time ago in The Plain Truth, but it tells you about this whole Middle Eastern situation, and it's entitled "The Middle East in Prophecy." What is happening in the Middle East? Why is it leading into the end of this world? Why is the Middle East so important? The things that are going on in Beirut and in Lebanon, continual strife and trouble. It's first one thing and then another.

   I'd like to send it to you, and there is no request for money. It's absolutely free. And we don't ask for any contributions. We don't beg for money on the air. I hope you've noticed that and the great difference. Now, at the same time, if you're not already a subscriber, we'll put you on the subscription list for a free year's subscription to The Plain Truth, the world's finest magazine, and one of the world's largest circulated magazines in the world. Now, over 6 million copies every issue going out.

   Now, this most recent number is looking forward to 1984. "Where in the world are we headed?" is on the front cover. Now there's an article by me, "Are People Lost Because of Adam's Sin?" Many people are puzzled about that. Some people say, why should all the world be lost because of Adam's sin? Well, I think you'd like to read that. That's an editorial that I have written myself.

   Then there's an article here, "Coming a Europe Between East and the West." In other words, the Soviet Union now is interested in Europe uniting and withdrawing from the United States and being a wedge between Russia and the United States. And in a way that they don't realize and very few realize that very thing is prophesied and is going to happen. And the medieval Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, is going to be restored.

   Here's another article, "Why the Passion for Pleasure?" It seems that people are just in a passion for pleasure today. Here's another article, "Children of Divorce." What happens to the children of a divorced family? Then here's one, "The Habsburg Empire," and it's going to be restored again. Now, the end of that empire, Otto Von Habsburg recently flew from Europe over to Pasadena, California to have a conference with me, and our world news editor was present in the conferences that we had, and we've had another conference together with him in Europe on this most recent trip.

   Beside you need to read that what is going on in Europe and what is going to happen? Another one is "A New Dark Age Coming." The Plain Truth is chock full of articles on world conditions, on world news, explaining world news, giving you the real cause and purpose of what is going on in the world, where it's leading, what's going to happen next? What does Bible prophecy say about it? And not only on news but on personal and family living and what life is all about and things that you need to know.

   So, for that in this booklet on the Middle East and what is going on in the Middle East today and understanding that you need, you just send your request to me, Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena California. Now, that's Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena California 91123 is the zip code. But better yet, go to the telephone right now, call now it's a free call. You dial 800 that's a free call. Then 423-4444, that's 800, then 423-4444. Now from Alaska and Hawaii, you dial, collect 213-304-6111. Now that's collect 213-304-6111. So, until next time, Herbert W Armstrong, goodbye friends.

   For the free literature offered on this program, write Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena California 91123 in Canada Box 44, Vancouver BC or in the continental United States including California. You may call this toll-free number 800-423-4444 in Alaska and Hawaii call, collect 213-304-6111. If the lines are busy, please try again. The preceding program and all literature were produced and sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God.