The World Tomorrow, the Worldwide Church of God, presents the World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong, ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W. Armstrong.
Now, if we try to view the conditions in the world from the point in time of today where we live today, it's a good e like going into or, rather, to say, tuning in a movie on your television set, and you tune in when it's about 3/4 of the way along. And you don't know what's gone before. You don't know what led up to the place where you are now, and you're bewildered because it doesn't make any sense to you. You don't know what they're talking about or what's unless you know what went before and what led up to it.
So, what led up to our day today, to our kind of world today? Now, the world is different than it was 2000 years ago in many, many, many ways; in some ways, it's still the same. Unfortunately, why do we have the condition in the world we do now? Now, God almighty is the creator. Jesus Christ said, 'I work, and my Father works.' They're not lazy, and they're not laying around; what, they work, well what do they work at? What's their job? Creation. Of course, God is the creator. God is also the revealer of knowledge and truth. He is also the ruler of the universe, and he also is the giver of life. He has life within himself and life to give.
Now, God creates in a system, or a process of duality. Two and two seem to go together in almost everything God does. For this example, the creation of man, it started in a physical creation. So, there's the physical creation and then a spiritual creation. Now, the physical creation began about 6000 years ago in the creation of Adam and Eve, of human beings. But the spiritual creation began less than 2000 years ago in Jesus Christ. And that is the second stage of man's ultimate creation, and that is the stage that is going on now.
When Adam was created, Satan was right there. He was here on the earth. Now, how did Satan come to be here? Where did he come from? God had created a super archangel whose name was Lucifer long, long before Adam. Well, how long before, we don't know because the time is not given or revealed. Back in Ezekiel 28:15, I want you to notice something about it. Speaking now of this Lucifer, God says, 'Thou was perfect in thy ways,' in his ways and the way he acted and lived, the way he fought, 'perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou was created until iniquity was found in thee.'
Now, iniquity is lawlessness. Actually, before man was created, God populated this earth with angels. God sent over them this great super archangel, Lucifer, the greatest, most powerful being that God ever did, ever can create just automatically. Apparently, there are two other archangels of equal power today, but he was next to God in power and ability. He was perfect in his ways from the day God created him. God didn't create an evil person, but iniquity was found in him.
Now, what do you think is the ultimate thing that God is creating? The ultimate thing God is creating is perfect, righteous character. And that's something that even God himself alone by himself cannot create. He created man, that character could be built within us. But each of us has to make his own decision, and we have our part in it. And if we decide against it, there's nothing God has so willed that there's nothing you can do about it.
Herbert W. Armstrong will return right after this message.
Well, life's been pretty good: summer home, yacht vacation when I wanted. Hmm. Some little kids sure spend a lot of time with that. Too bad they never last. Yeah. A lot of things are like that. The kids are grown now, hmm Sandy and I aren't getting any younger hmm. Is this all there is? You can know the answer to this age-old question. Why were you BORN? To request your free copy, dial direct 800-423-4444. That's 800-423-4444.
Now then, again, we get down to a philosophy of life, and as I have said to the leaders of many nations, the Kings and Emperors, Prime Ministers, there are two ways of life, or if you please, two philosophies, only two general ways. And I put it in language that a five or six-year-old child ought to understand.
The one way is the way of give, and the other is the way of get. Now, the way of give is really the way of love because love is not lust. Love means an outgoing love, an outgoing concern for the good and welfare of others. It is the way of wanting to serve and help and cooperate, the wanting to share with others, of having it in your mind and heart only the good of others. But getting is that I want to get for me. I don't care about anybody else. I'm looking out for number one. What do I care what happens to anybody else?
Now, the government of God is based on law. You don't know any government anywhere that is not based on a basic law or constitution of some kind. Right here in the city of Tucson, Arizona, where I am just now, we have a local city government, and it's based on ordinances and laws. The state of Arizona is based on certain state statutes and laws, and a state government, and it has to, is suppose to conform to, in many ways to the government of the United States over all states. And the United States is founded on the Constitution of the United States. And we're in the process right now of testing whether that constitution, the law of this land, can even stand and whether Christ is going to be able to lead his church or whether the politicians can. If the state of California can win this battle against the Worldwide Church of God, then they will go after other churches, and if the state of California can do it, then other states will begin to do it until all churches will be wiped out. They have been in Russia. Don't say it could never happen here. It is just that serious. That nobody be misled or misunderstand that point.
Now, this world has really been ruled by Satan. And I'm coming to explain that right now, and of course, the real instigator of it is Satan, but Satan has deceived the entire world, and many people are doing things of which Satan is a real instigator. But they're unaware of that. They don't realize they were really led into it by an evil Satan.
This Lucifer was instructed in all of the government of God. He was set on the throne over the angels, governing and ruling with the government of God. The government of God was set here to carry on this process of developing character within those angels. Well, iniquity was found in this Lucifer. He led all of his angels into rebellion against the government of God, and the government of God no longer was administered on the earth. Its physical destruction came to the earth as a result of that.
But in the 104th Psalm, it's in verse 30 (Psalm 104:30), it speaks about God renewing the face of the earth by sending forth his Holy Spirit. And so, you find the earth in a state of chaos and destruction. In the second verse of Genesis one, the first chapter of Genesis (Genesis 1:1), and the Spirit of God is there brooding over the watery surface; it was all ocean, there was no land at that time, and it was all dark because the sin of the angel's brought darkness, and God is the God of light and not of darkness. So, the first thing that God did, he said, 'Let there be light,' and so light appeared. And then in six days, he renewed the face of the earth for mankind. Angels had failed. And you read in Peter, 2nd Peter, and the second chapter and fourth verse in the New Testament of how the angels sinned (II Peter 2:4). And God has not spared them who sinned. Lucifer had his name changed to Satan. And we know him as Satan today. He has deceived the whole world.
Well, God first created man, and he created a woman from the man, Adam and Eve, they were called, just as God had instructed Lucifer at the headquarters of the universe. Lucifer was on the very throne of God before he sent him out.
So, God first instructed Adam, and he talked with Adam that very first Sabbath day. And God did not allow Satan to have any contact with Adam until God had thoroughly instructed him about the government of God, about the coming kingdom of God, which is the family of God ruling with the government of God, a different thing than the government of God. And he had shown him that God's way and God's government are based on love, on the way of give and not on the way of get, just to use my own phraseology for it.
Now, Adam had an opportunity to qualify to replace the former Lucifer on the throne of the world and to administer the government of God. Now, God was determined to restore the government of God to this earth, and he intended to do it through man. Now, the first man Adam was given a chance, but just as Lucifer had rejected and rebelled, so now did the first man rebel.
There were the two trees in the Garden of Eden. One was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that was taking to yourself the decision of what you think is right and what you think is wrong. The way of a man that God says is never right and leads to death. Then there was the tree of life, which represented the Holy Spirit and the gift of eternal life, which God was willing to give Adam free. He didn't have to repent. He had never done any sinning yet at the time God spoke to him. But Adam had to qualify by rejecting Satan and Satan's way, the get way, and by accepting God as his ruler, as the revealer of knowledge and truth, and a savior. So, he had to also not only reject Satan and Satan's way but obey God and accept God's way. As I say, this was symbolized by the two trees.
Now, Satan, when he was allowed to, Satan got through to Adam by way of his wife. Now then, let's go back to Genesis, the third chapter. At the very end of the third chapter (Genesis 3:22-24), 'And the eternal God said, Behold, the man has become one of us to know good and evil.' That is, he took to himself the knowledge of good and evil instead of letting God give it to him. God is the revealer of knowledge. And if you shut off revelation, you shut off the real source of knowledge.
'And now, lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life', which he had not taken yet 'and live forever' because that represented the Holy Spirit, the tree of life. 'And lest he do that, therefore, the eternal God said, send him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So, he drove out the man, and he placed the cherubim to the garden of Eden, Cherub with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.'
God then shut mankind off from the Holy Spirit. And God, in effect, said to Adam, to put it in modern language, my own language. He said, 'Adam, you have made the decision, you have had the chance to make a great decision, not only for yourself, but all that will be born from you, which will be the entire world of humanity. You have decided for yourself and all of them. Therefore, I sentence you and your progeny, mankind, to 6,000 years of being completely cut off from me. All except the few that I shall specially call and draw to me for special service or activity preparing for the kingdom of God. When I will re-establish the government of God on this earth and with the kingdom of God.'
So, God said, in effect, 'You go form your own government.' So, look at them, the governments all over this world.
Herbert W. Armstrong will return right after this message.
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God had cut man off. He said, 'Go form your own governments. He said go form your own religions. You rejected me as your God.' All right. Look at all the different religions that man has formed under the sway of Satan. God said, 'You go form your own fund of knowledge since you reject knowledge from me.' So, man has done that, and man's store of knowledge. He's built his institutions of learning, and our educational system is all what man has done under the supervision and guidance of Satan, the devil. And mankind doesn't even know that.
And I say to you today that the most ignorant men we have in this world are the most highly educated. And so, man is going out to form his own institutions, his own governments, his own churches, his own knowledge, his own civilization. For 6,000 years, man has been cut off from God in a way that man does not realize, again, as Jesus Christ said, 'No man could come to him unless the Father would draw him.' God must take the initiative. No man is able to do that. But man has not been cut off from Satan. I want to emphasize that point.
Now, for 5,700 years, man had stumbled along about the same old keel. In this sense, so far as what human beings call progress, there has been very little progress in 5,700 years of man's development on earth. Now, most so-called progress has come in this century since I've been here. Now, this thing of man calls progress. It's dual or what God would call progress. There are two kinds: one is physical and material progress, and the other is spiritual.
Now, the physical progress that man has made, much of that is very good, and some of it is very bad. Spiritual progress has been in reverse, going backward. Not progress at all but backsliding. Physical progress, well, when I was born before the beginning of this century, no one ever thought of flying in the air until I was 11 years old, when I believe it was Orville Wright who made the first flight about as far as across this auditorium right here and not out of the sight of anybody.
When I was 11 years old, the telephone was still in its infancy. Communication and transportation were still elementary, in very way. In the United States, we were primarily an agricultural country. At that time, with the overwhelming majority of our population living on farms or in the smaller towns. Today, it's just the reverse. But at that time, agriculture was not mechanized. In other words, they had horse-drawn plows, and my, how I have seen that, and farmers plowing up by the roadside in the country in Iowa, singing at the top of their lungs as they worked all day. They were happy then, not anymore.
I have seen developed the machine age, the age of science and technology. You might call it the air age, the automobile age, an age of rapid transportation and air age, the nuclear age, and now the space age.
Now today, the number one question in the world is the question of human survival. Because now science and technology have developed the weapons of mass destruction that can erase all human life from off this earth. And if God doesn't intervene, it would be done. But God will intervene before that happens, and it won't be done.
That's the physical progress. Let's look at the spiritual progress or retrogression. Anything like spiritual progress has been going backward and almost exactly the ratio that the physical progress has been going forward. As science and technology have developed and advanced, morals and spiritual progress have waned and gone backward just as rapidly. You ever think of that before?
When I was a boy, we didn't have any such problem as divorce and remarriage. I never thought about divorce. There had never been a divorce in any of my family. None of my aunts or uncles or cousins or anybody that I knew in the family. Marriage was for life. Now, the very foundation of human civilization is the family unit. The family unit has been broken. Families are breaking up today. Divorce is now rampant. About every third marriage ends in divorce, and in some places even more than that.
Morals have been on a Toboggan slide. Crime and violence have just increased and been rampant. Wars were increasing with greater means of mass destruction until now the next war, if it's a nuclear war, can erase all humanity from this earth. And that is the number one problem on earth today. In other words, what we have had is human degeneration.
Now, measure that against the advancements of science and technology. All of the benefits of science and technology are no good with degeneration. There are no benefit to us whatsoever. And yet science and technology have brought us the weapons that will finally destroy us. And cosmocide, we have come to the place where only Jesus Christ can save this world alive.
We're looking forward now to that great time, the millennium when there will be no Satan. And then after that, when all that have been cut off by God and from God will then be called, and they won't have any Satan to confront them. What a wonderful time that'll be.
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. You may call this toll-free number 800-423-4444. That's 800-423-4444 in California dial direct 213-577-5225. The preceding program and all literature were produced by the Worldwide Church of God.