Herbert W Armstrong

   And if we do have any brethren come over here from England, I don't know what they would think of us if we would applaud after a sacred song. That would just completely floor them. I'm afraid they would think we were totally irreverent because it would seem that way to them. Of course, it's just the way it seems to men, perhaps. But I tell you, the Catholic Church do instill in their people a reverence for their churches that they regard as the House of God. And we're a little lacking in that line.

   Now, I'm not so prejudiced against the Catholic Church that wherever they have a right principle or a right thing that I'm going to be poisoned against it. Not at all. You know, this world is made up of good and evil, and you can find good anywhere, and I'm going to copy what is right wherever I find it. As a matter of fact, the slogan you've heard me use, I don't mind giving credit. I heard it from Bishop Sheen on his television program. And that is that there is no missing link between man and the dumb brutes, and they're never going to find one, but there is a missing link. It's a missing link between man and God, and that is Jesus Christ. That's absolutely true. I thought that was a wonderful point.

   A lot of people confuse the matter of government in the church. And because the Roman Catholic Church has very strict government in the church, they say now we're just following Rome. That's not true at all. The devil does counterfeit the things of God. And I hope to show you this morning the difference between the government in the Church of Rome and the government in the Church of God. The difference is the government in the Church of God is God's government. The government in the Church of Rome is the government of man. Because the Roman Catholic principle and belief is that Jesus Christ said in effect to Peter, "Well, Peter, I'm going way off. I'm going to have other things to do now, and I'm not going to have time to be concerned about the church or about things here any longer. And so, I'm going to turn it over to you, you run it. I'm going to be busy thinking about something else. I can't run the church any longer." And so that he turned it over to Peter and that the Popes are successors to Peter. Now, there are two things wrong with that. The first of which is that Jesus Christ didn't say, "I'm going to turn it over to anybody," but Jesus Christ went to heaven where for 1900 years, he has been our high priest as head of the church, head of his church. And when men run the church and say, "Well, Christ is out of it, we're running it now," that is not the Church of Christ or the Church of God.

   The second fallacy is that the Popes are not the successors of Peter and Peter never went to Rome. He was commanded to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And at that time, we know now they were up in the British Isles unless Peter might have stopped on the way to the British Isles in Rome. But when Christ said, "Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," we know he didn't die on the way. They're going to pronounce very soon that the bones of Peter have been found under the Vatican. How could they identify them if they did find them? It simply is not true. It is a fraud, but it's going to have a great effect on the world.

   Now, the government of God is the primary issue from one end of your Bible to the other. The first chapter of Genesis tells about the creation of man. But in the very second chapter, as soon as man is created, God commanded the man saying God set before him a choice, and God said, "Choose my way, my laws which I'm going to give you to be governed by me, which will give you happiness and peace and joy and life eternal with blessings now, or your way, which is rebellion against the government of God and is the government of man which will lead to curses here and now and death for eternity." Now, that is the eternal issue.

   In the very last chapter of this book, you find, "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city." That is your passport into the kingdom of God. And you'll have to have the passport to get there, keeping the commandments of God. In other words, being conquered by God and yielding to the government of God.

   Now, to some extent, God governs in his church. And rather than right now, according to all prophecy, we're in the sifting time, we're in the time of trying and testing right now. And many are being purified and made white, and some are being sifted out, and they're being put out to the church. And the whole thing is a matter of whether you have a carnal attitude, a carnal mind and a carnal attitude, or whether you have really been conquered by God. And whether you have voluntarily said, "I want to obey God and live by every word of God because it's the only way of blessings and of the good things that we all really want." It's one or the other, and this is the trying and the testing time.

   And God is giving us one test. He is giving us many tests, but one test that is coming now that it caused my lot to speak on this morning that is testing our women, and it is a test. It's a test of whether you are yielded and surrendered to God. It's a test of whether you have the real spiritual mind of saying, "Yes, Lord, thy will not mine be done," or whether you are going to say, "Well, I guess I am going to see this the way I want to see it. I want to be conformed to the world. I want to be like the world, I want the world to think. Well, of me, I'm not satisfied with the way you made me. I want to paint up my face and make it prettier. I want it to be artificial the way man makes it look. Why did you make me thus?" It is the issue of vanity and carnal mind.

   To those that are coming out on the right side of the ledger in this test, our rating is about 99.9%. I don't believe it's over 1/10 of 1%, which is about one out of 1000 that are really being thrown and thrown clear out by this test. But it is a test, and it is putting some out of the church. I think however, it is not more than one out of 1000. I think it's very possible that there is not a woman here who is losing out in this test. It may be possible that of you women here that unanimously you are accepting God's authority, you are seeing God's way. And even though some of you have not yet seen God's way in your own mind and heart, perhaps you are nevertheless doing the thing you should do, obeying the government of God. And if you do, you will see it, I can guarantee you that you will see it.

   So, I am very happy actually that in such a test. The women of this church are really coming up as you would say in the vernacular today, in modern language of flying color. And I could say, God bless all of you. You have really done splendidly. It isn't a matter of controversy. It now becomes a matter of thus, saith the Eternal, even though he says it by and through his ministers in his church, it is the voice and word of God and the command of God and not the command of men. And the few that are being thrown off the wayside by this test are saying it is the government of man. And let me tell you something, my brethren, when you accuse the government of God of being the government of man, you are very close to commiting the unpardonable sin. Because if this is the government of God, if this is the church of God, then the government in this church comes from Christ. How? By and through the power of the Holy Spirit and it is the Holy Spirit acting in and through the ministers that God has chosen, that God has put in this position. You don't choose me, you didn't choose Herman Hoeh, Roderick Meredith, Dick and Ted Armstrong, Raymond Coal, and Raymond McNair and the other ministers. You don't vote for them. You have nothing to say about any of us being in the position we're in. God put us here. If He didn't, this isn't God's church and you have no right to even be in this audience if you don't believe that. Because if this is not God's church, it's a church of the world and it's a church of the devil. And what are you doing here? You know, that's the thing to think about.

   Now, how can you know? You can know by the fruits and you must look to the fruits and decide whether this is God's church. And if it is, then as far as God rules through the church, and He doesn't rule all the way through the church. But there are certain ways in which He does. And to that extent, you must be subject to the government of God. Why? He tells you to even be subject to the world of government through the government of the unjust. How much more then must you be subject to the just government of God by the power of His Holy Spirit? And listen now and listen carefully. It is true that God is doing this, ruling through his own chosen instruments, human instruments. Now, God looks on the heart and if God did choose us who are in the position of being his ministers, then our hearts are right. Nevertheless, we're human and mistakes could be made. I will say this, we make no claim to infallibility in ourselves whatsoever. We could make a decision sometime perhaps and even be in error. I don't know whether God would let us do it. I say perhaps because I am not sure, I'm not sure that God would permit us. I'm not sure he would let such a decision be made in error. The Roman Catholic Church says it can't be done. That's where they have the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. Nevertheless, their doctrine that he's ruling in place of Christ and not as an instrument of Christ belies all of that. But I will say this if we ever did through human error, which would not be in our hearts at all. And you should realize that because we're very sincere and very conscientious in these decisions. We don't like to make them. It isn't of our choosing. We simply see in the word of God that God has laid it on us and it is God ruling and we are ourselves yielding to the rule of God in making such decisions and it brings the wrath of some of you people right down on our heads when we have to do it. So don't think it's done because we like to do it or anything.

   Now, if we should make a mistake, if this is God's church, can you trust God to see that we come to see it and to correct it? Again, if you can't, then God's church is somewhere else, you better go find it. So, I think that's the whole issue. That's, that's the one thing we need to get clear now in approaching this matter that has stirred up such a fuss here because the church has had the rule on lipstick. I want to clarify it this morning and I want to go back and read again some of the article that I think all of you must have read in the Good News. But I've had some letters, I only know of three women that are really rebelling against this thing and I have letters from all three of them here and I'm going to read excerpts of them. If God gives me time, if I can get along well enough to have time left to do it this morning, I want to show you the carnal attitude as it's expressed by these women themselves. I believe that none of those women are here. If one of them is here, I hope she has changed her mind by this time. But evidently those women either read over this in a hurry or they let their emotions well away up and all of the south and the carnality within them emotionally well, all up into such a prejudice that they didn't see much of this. And now I want to read it and refresh your mind before I get into the main thing. I am not here this morning, brethren to present this as a case before you as a jury and see how you're going to vote. It's already been settled and decided and it's a very word of God. It now is the thus saith the Eternal. I'm going to show you the reason why we had to rule and I'm going to tell you what we ruled and why. But I'm not appealing to you to ask you, do you agree that has been settled after prayer, after conference, after great deliberation and very careful prayerful and even fasting and prayer and deliberation. It isn't for you to decide whether there's a mistake or something and what is in the very inspired word of God, it's all settled. It's been written. If you don't agree with it, that's just too bad for you.

   Now, let's just refresh our minds a little bit real quickly from this article in the July number of the Good News. The question of lipstick and other forms of makeup had to be settled. It was thrust upon us, it was forced upon us by the women themselves and by some of the men, I have been surprised to find that there are a good, many men that want their women to wear a lipstick. Now, I'll confess, I don't understand that. To me it has always been the height of foolishness. I want to tell you something. If the world hadn't done this thing, if the world wasn't doing it and then you'd see someone come and you'd never seen it and you weren't used to it, you weren't conformed to this world and its customs and you'd see someone coming with lipstick on paint all over their face, their eyebrows all fixed out and black stuff all over them and all that sort of thing, the way women make up and paint themselves up, you would look at them while your mouth would hang wide open in astonishment. And you look on with such disgust, you'd say, well, that must be a wild savage. Someone who's degenerated down to the status of a savage. Yes, you would. It's just a matter of getting used to what the world is doing, being conformed to this world. Now, if you don't like that, it's because you're in the wrong attitude. I can tell you that right now and because you are conformed to this world, but that is the truth. I just wish I had a chance to prove it. You know, it's true.

   Some in the church felt very definitely that makeup is wrong. It's worldly. There was in some cases, an attitude of prejudice and accusation against those who wore it. Now, I have heard of that, but I have never located a case of that. I have heard those who wanted to wear a lipstick say it is those that are not wearing it that are causing the trouble and accusing us. I'm beginning to think that that in itself is the false accusation. And I've always noticed that when anyone accuses others, they are guilty of the very thing they accuse others of. And I'm beginning to think it is those who wanted to wear it that had a guilt complex and were saying things against those who didn't and making up this thing about those people going around saying things I have not heard of when it gets down specifically, of one person that was causing a great rumpus about this who did not wear it. I think they just didn't wear it and kept still about it. The ones who were causing most of the contention are those who wanted to wear it, who wanted frankly, and I'm going to call a spade, a spade to be painted up like a Paris harlot and they wanted to justify it because if you want to know where a lipstick came from and all this paint on the face, it came in its modern use, although I'm going to show you, but the Bible where it came from originally, it came in its modern use from the harlotry of Paris and it's always associated with fornication and harlotry in God's word and in the use in this modern world, where do the women's styles come from? From the harlots of Paris? Now it's going to start coming from the harlots of Hollywood or New York. As the United States takes over, you know, we need to wake up on some of these things and where they come from and what they are.

   Others insisted I can't see any harm in wearing lipstick. I think makeup is all right. But the largest number of women said, well, I'm going to wait and see what the ministers decide. Now, that was the thing we found so many women say. Well, it isn't clear in the Bible, I don't know. And the ministers have got to decide it. Now, if this had been a plain point, we would not have decided, we would have said that God has given you minds to think with and make your own decision. This is not a plain point in the Bible and yet it is in the Bible in, in principle. And in example, it's in the Bible, but it isn't defined in a plain sentence. Thus saith the Lord you shall or shall not. And since the women did not understand and some said one way and some the other and others in the middle said, we don't know, the ministers have got to decide it, it finally came to the place we had to decide. We're not trying to lord it over the people and make decisions to do that. It's a case of where it was going to cause division in the church. And here you were like a lot of lost sheep running around, not knowing which way to go. And the shepherds, we had to lead you. That's just that simple. And we're doing it in love and we're doing it through the spirit of God.

   No, there was still another attitude. I'm not going to let the minister tell me what to do said some, fortunately, maybe that's that 1/10 of 1%. I'm going to read you a letter here. One that says that very angrily, I'm going to study this out for myself and make my own decision. The trouble with that is that some decided one way and some the other and then they go splitting off and others said we can't decide it. I'm going to show you the Bible example. That's exactly the way it was at Antioch. On the question of circumcision, the church had to decide that issue. God gives us that example. And the church today has to do it or it is not the church of God. My religion is between, not between me and the ministers. It's between me and God. That's true. But your religion isn't a case of saying it isn't between me and what this Bible says. The Bible says that God did build his church and that he's put government in the church and it becomes as thus saith the Lord. We've settled this doctrine. Now, your religion is between you and God decide whether you're going to obey God or whether you're going to disobey and commit sin and go into the lake fire. That's for you to decide. We're not trying to make up your mind for you one way or the other. We're just defining what is the word of God. All these different attitudes led to confusion and ultimate division in God's church. Now that it is they lead to it, it would have led to the division. We've tried to nip it in the bud before it got that far. They serve the devil, not our God. That kind of division.

   First of all, then we need to get straight in our minds once and for all time, this matter of prerogatives. In other words, does the church have authority to rule on that? Should we have ruled on it? Or is it something we should have been silent about? I've had letters from two or three women here that say they don't know where this kind of thing is going to end you men going off and, and, and man made rules. My brethren the one thing we preach is to get away from the government of man and get into the government of God. And if this is not the government of God, then we're lying to you. We're misleading and deceiving you to get up and walk out here and let me preach in the thin air. Let's get that thing settled once and forever. Is this the government of God, or is that the government of man? If it's the government of man, man without God is loved and swayed by the devil and then it's the devil doing it. If it is the government of God, it's through the Holy Spirit. And if you accuse it of being the government of man, when it is of God, you are saying it is the work of the devil under the influence of the devil when it is the work of the Holy Spirit. And that is blaspheming that becomes the unpardonable sin from which there is no repentance and no forgiveness in this life or in the world to come. I tell you, brethren, we better begin to tremble before this word and not take it so carelessly. Some women love a little vanity. It isn't the paint on their face. It's vanity in the heart that they love a whole lot more than the word of God that have never been conquered and they have not surrendered to God Almighty.

   Now let's get straight to the matter of prerogatives to let me illustrate. Healing the sick is God's prerogative, not man's, God says I am the God that health thee. His name, Yahweh Rotha, the God who heals us and he says, thou shalt have no other gods before me. To go to a man or a man developed science falsely so called for healing them is to break the very first command. Thou shall have no other gods before me. Some of you have been doing that. Now, healing is God's prerogative, not man's. God is a jealous God, jealous of his prerogatives. Now, it's a prerogative of God, not man to make laws respecting marriage. You know, the world is usurping that they have no right to do it. Well, that's an example there. Now on the other hand, there are prerogatives that have fallen to man as an individual. There are places where you should make up your own mind as an individual where the church has no right to make any rulings or exercise any government where you must make your own minds. And we are very mindful of that and God's ministers are very zealously trying to see how far has God given us jurisdiction? Not how far do we want to take it. How far has God given it? That is, how far does God's jurisdiction through us as instruments extend? And where is it a matter for you to make the decision? And where is it a matter for the church to make the decision?

   Now, as an example, God has set before every individual, the way of blessing and eternal life on the one hand and the way of cursing and death on the other. And God says to you, as an individual choose, there are many things for you to choose and to decide for yourselves. And we don't go into those things. That decision is yours and yours alone. It's personal between you and God and we're not going to step in and intervene at all. But God has also laid down prerogatives in his church. And that is God's prerogative through his ministers, his children in many ways, through His God rules his children in many ways through his church. Now, God rules you in two ways. One is direct in things He shows you that you see for yourself in the Bible or else you refuse to see it or you can't see it. It's one or the other, but God also rules you in some ways where He sets the boundary lines through his church. And it's a matter of, are you obeying God? Not, are you obeying just us ministers? It's a matter of, are you obeying God? Because this becomes a thus saith the Lord. That's the thing that I think our brethren have not understood. The big issue isn't a matter of paint on the face. The big issue is, is there a government of God in the church? And are you submissive to that government? That is the one big issue. Everything else is just a little tiny test of that issue. That's all there is to it. God rules His children in some respects through the church and in some respects direct where you have, where we don't intervene one way or the other and you make up your own mind. But where God rules through the church, what God's ministers in the church bind on earth as led by the power of the Holy Spirit is bound in heaven. Now, God Jesus Christ said, so one woman writes in here and says, oh, well, you just got that from the Catholics. That's what they say. I tell you that's a big lie. We got that from the word of God and the difference is that the Catholics are, are not binding it in heaven. For the simple reason that what men bind on earth is not bound in heaven. It's what the ministers of God led by the Holy Spirit as instruments of Christ bind on earth. That and that only is what is bound in heaven. In other words, the real meaning of it is that we are to bind on earth, what is bound in heaven and that's all we bind and what we lose on earth is loosed in heaven. God's ministers are never free to act as they humanly please, but only according to the word of God, as led by the spirit of God.

   Listen. Do you think we make rules like this to be popular, to get members to make money, to flatter ourselves? Why if we would say is these women that have written me and these letters say just let us do as we please and then we'll all come to church. How many more could we have? If we go to broadway that leads to destruction the way the people like why we could build a Tabernacle maybe 20 or 30 100 times this size and fill it. Frankly. I tell you, I believe, I really believe that God has given me enough preaching power and ability that if I could still have that ability and preach the worldly message, I believe that I could fill tents and tabernacles with 20,000 people, right along. I think you believe that too. Oh, no, we aren't doing this to be popular. We aren't doing it because we want to, we're doing it because God commands it and because we fear God, we tremble to disobey what this book says because we ourselves have surrendered to God because we have been conquered and he has chosen us as his instruments.

   It's very important that we realize the jurisdiction of the church. There's the big issue problems arise which in which individual members are not competent to judge. This has proved to be one of them. There have for example, been a number of divorce and remarriage problems presented before the ministers of God's church. The parties directly concerned felt unable or incompetent to judge and they lacked the authority to render a binding decision. In that case, the ministers looked into it and rendered decisions occasionally, doctrinal questions arise. Some various members cannot agree. Some say, well, I see it one way or another. I see it another way. Yes, there is a way that seems right unto a man. The ends thereof are going to be the ways of death. They are the ways of death. Now, you know the case history in the 15th chapter of acts, certain teachers came from Judea to Antioch where there was a large church and they taught this except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you can't be saved. Now, they didn't say it is a sin to be circumcised. They said you have to be circumcised or you can't be saved. But the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas disagreed. They knew that they were wrong or felt that they were. And I think they knew it. Some of the brethren believe one way, however, and some another and just Paul and Barnabas alone didn't have authority to make what they knew was the truth stick. It's very, you read in the Bible that Paul and Barnabas didn't agree with that. They knew the truth of God, but they lacked the authority to make it binding on earth and in heaven.

   So now listen very carefully. Here's the mighty important point. Had not Christ put government in his church and some of our people, these women that wrote these letters don't want any government in the church. They just want us to come and let you sin and let you do any worldly thing you want to and preach you nice flattering sermons and tell you how good you are and make you feel better so you can go back in your sins and just revel in them and wallow around in them like a hog in his slop for the next month and feel better about it. Well, we're not going to preach that kind of sermons. God tells us to cry aloud and spare not and tell you your sins and some people don't like it. Well, that's what we're going to continue to do.

   Now, if there hadn't been government in the church, a way of settling such a doctrinal dispute as to whether or not that is the right doctrine and what is the teaching of God and of the Bible? Those brethren would have become hopelessly divided and many of them would have been lost. Some would have followed these Judaizing teachers. Some would have followed Paul if they had looked only to men or if they had been left to say, "Well, I want to settle this thing myself. I'm going to reason this out in my own way." Now. There it is right in your Bible. They were not allowed to just reason it out their way and say, "Well, I'm going to do it the way I see it." This thing was settled at the Headquarters Church by the government of God. And they were required to submit to what the church had said. Supposing they had said, "Well, my salvation is between me and God. I'm going to study this thing for myself. I'm going to do it the way I see it, the way I think. I'm not going to follow what the church says, or I'll follow the preacher that I like best." No, you can't follow an individual preacher. You can't do the way you think is right. God is ruling through his church, and it's the voice of God speaking. That's the thing, brethren, we're going to have to realize.

   Well, what did they do? This was the Church of God, and it had Christ's government in it and Christ is the head of the church. And here's the way it was handled. Well, I don't need to go into it. You know, Christ made the decision through them. It was carried to the headquarters church at Jerusalem. And at that time, the headquarters church was at Jerusalem. Today, the headquarters church and God's church is in Pasadena, California. Now they made the decision that it was not necessary to be circumcised. They didn't make any decision. It was a sin if they were circumcised as one woman here seems to think twisting the thing all around. Well, then what the apostles and evangelists, the pastors, and the elders in charge of Antioch would have...

   Well, here I was reading this. Supposing some had said, "Well, I disagree. I'm not going to let the headquarters church tell me what to do and believe. I'm going to look into this myself." Now, there have been a very few in so far as I know, it's only about one out of 1000 women that are... Well, maybe it's more than one out of 1000 women. It's one out of 1000 of our members. Let's put it that way that are saying this, and I'm going to decide it for myself. Well, what would they have done then? They would have followed the teaching of Romans 16:17, where it says, "Mark them that cause division, divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned." Now, the doctrine they learned is what was settled either in the word of God or by the headquarters church and preached by God's ministers, not the doctrine of the ideas that the people want to make up and say, "This is what I think one believes one way, one another." That is the thing that causes division, but mark them that cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine, you have learned that's the doctrine of the word of God. And the doctrine is settled by God's church and avoid them, which means the only way you can avoid them, either you have to go away from them or put them away from you. So since the whole church can't move out, you just put them out of the fellowship. That's all. God puts them out of the church. In order to avoid them, the ministers would have been forced to disfellowship them and prevent their attending church and forbid any member to receive them into his home or to listen to them in any manner on pain of themselves being this fellowship.

   Now, here's the very sad part of it. If it comes to a place where we in this modern day have to make such a decision and disfellowship, some person, that person, every time is in the wrong spirit and they'll go around, they'll say, "Look, I'm an underdog. This wasn't fair. These men, it wasn't God. It was these men, and they weren't fair," and they're going to look for sympathy. They're going to come crying on your shoulder. They're going to say, "You come with me my way." And instead of those men, what are they saying? I'm going the way of the devil. You come with me into the lake of fire. Those men are all wrong. They're going up into the Kingdom of God. Are you going to listen to that? It's human nature to want to go with the underdog every time, and they put themselves in the light of being a martyr, and they want you to feel sorry for them. And then some of you take it on yourselves to go around and talk to them.

   There is one woman in Pasadena, that I happen to know pretty well because she's pretty close to me. And some of the women in the Pasadena Church have taken it on themselves to go to her and order a little bit sympathize, and she plays on their minds to sympathize with her in her rebellion. I say, don't know, they're such a person. Stay away from them. Let them battle this thing out until they get ready to be conquered and surrendered to God. Otherwise, you're showing hate to them and leading them right into the lake of fire and may be yourselves along with it. If you love them, you will let them go through this ordeal that is necessary in order that they can be saved. It's through a great deal of suffering that some of us have to come to be saved. You know?

   Well, now the really big issue is not whether lipstick is wrong or whether it is right. It's a matter, as a matter of doctrine, the principle involved is the spirit behind its use, make up of itself. Got this. Now, brethren, makeup and paint on the face or lipstick or any of that sort of thing of itself is neither sin nor is it righteousness of itself. It has nothing to do with it, whether it's sin or righteousness. But the reason why you use it and the spirit and what's in your heart and your motive in doing it, that is another thing that then becomes the whole thing.

   Now, there is no direct teaching. You shall or shall not in the Bible, but there is considerable teaching about it in the Bible. And there is the general spirit of the law of God and the teaching of the way of God. And so, when the church makes the decision of this kind, it does become a thus saith the Lord and now it becomes plain and there is a direct, thus saith the Lord about it. Now, the only question is whether or not you're going to obey it. And I'm not here to ask you as a court of appeal, "Do you agree or are you going to rescind this decision?" I'm only here to ask you, "Are you going to obey?" Well, as I say, I think everyone here has already decided to do that. And incidentally, I know that some of them, I know there are several women here. How many? I don't know, but I know of at least eight or 10 that I happen to know of that couldn't see this thing the way the ministers did. Well, sure, that's why we had to decide it. But they said, "Well, we'll obey the church, we'll obey the government of God," and they did it and they gave up their lipstick. And now after about some three months of having given it up, those women, many of them have said right here, some have told my wife, "Well, I just couldn't see it at first, but I could never go back to it now. I just never could. It seems filthy and dirty and everything else." And I, well, I see now how wrong it is.

   Brethren, I'll tell you when I first ran across this thing about clean and unclean meats over 20 years ago. And the controversy was being stirred up, and it was new to me, and it was pretty hard for me to see it. But I gave up eating anything like pork or bacon or oysters or lobsters or clam or any of the unclean foods and fish and one thing and another and fowl. That is the kind that are unclean. You know, I used to just love that kind of thing. Boy, didn't I used to love pork chops and ham? Why my wife and I in Chicago years ago when we were young, there was a place where they had the most delicious sugar, cured ham sandwiches. Great big gobs of fat on them. Oh, when I think of it now, we used to think we liked that sort of thing, but after we had been weaned from it and quit doing it, do you know that the very thought of it makes me sick in my stomach now. And believe it or not, it isn't just psychology alone. I have gotten lard in things in restaurants when I didn't know it and would never have eaten it if I had known it. And I'd been sick at my stomach and I could taste that hog fat in there later and go back and inquire and find that there was lard in that thing. And I wondered what made me sick and I didn't know I had it. So that's physical and not mental.

   Now, I used to smoke. I thought it was all right. I couldn't see any harm in it, but I saw the principle in God's law. That's one reason that God has called me to the position he has. I was able to discern it. There isn't any direct thus saith the Lord thou shalt not smoke either. But I saw the principle that it was not vanity, but it was lust of the flesh. That's what it is. And when I saw that I said, "I'll quit smoking," and I quit. I still didn't see anything wrong with it again, particularly except that God said I mustn't do it.

   Now, I told you, didn't I tell you here the other day that after a few years of having broken the habit, I bought a pack of cigarettes, took them up into a hotel where I was staying one time when I was traveling in another foreign city, another city, not at home. I'll tell you so that I wouldn't get the tobacco smell in my clothes. I did it when I was undressing at night and before I put my pajamas on so that I could bathe my body and there wouldn't be any of the smell of it. And I only smoked part of one cigarette and it was, it seemed filthy and dirty. Now, it never seemed like that to me before. And so I threw that whole pack away and that cured me forever. Now, that's the way it is with lipstick. A lot of women, it's a lot of babies that haven't been weaned from the breast. You know, they just don't want to get away from it, do they? But after they've been weaned, you can't put them back on it. And after some of you women get weaned from this lipstick. You will wonder why you ever used it and many of you are already in that condition. I think a good many of you are already in that condition. You wonder why you ever didn't do it, just like I wondered why I ever smoked.

   All right. Come on in the water is fine. It may seem cold, your toesies. But when you get in the water is fine, I'm telling you, God's way is best for me and best for you. That's the right way.

   All right. Now, let's see. I'm skipping over most of this. But a few points I want to bring out. Now, women who have grown up from little girls conformed to this world and its ways in regard to makeup do not see and they do not feel that lipstick or any other makeup on the face is wrong. They can't see any harm in it. Now, some of you are still in that condition, but women who have been weaned from it no longer conformed to this world, but who have been transformed in the spirit of their minds by the Holy Spirit of God, freed from this addiction and it is an addiction of vanity and are wanting to be like the rest of the world and part of the world and well thought of by the world because you fear of the world and you're afraid of what will the world say. That's why women do it. They're afraid of the world, but they're not afraid of God. They don't tremble at this word. They only tremble before the world. How many of you women are like that here? All right, choose ye this day where you stand. If God be God then follow him. If the world is your god go and love it and get all the vanity and all of the lust and greed out of it that you can and all the enjoyment you can while you're living now because you aren't going to have it very long. You'll be getting your reward right now. I say make up your mind this day where you stand following the ways of harlots. But the really big issue is not the right or wrong of lipstick or tobacco or any of these things. The big issue is one that transcends all that. The big issue is the matter of obedience to God.

   Now, I'd like to come back to that a little later at this time. But right now, I want to get into the main message. Still have to hurry. Will you turn to Isaiah 66 verses one and two? (Isaiah 66:1-2) Thus saith the Eternal. Here's a thus saith the Lord, "The heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you build under me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath my hand made and all those things have been," saith the Eternal. "But to this man will I look even to him that is of a poor and a contrite spirit that trembleth at my word." You tremble at the word of God or do you tremble before this world following the harlots of Paris? Which? There's the big issue. Are we, the people of God, are we God's church? If we are my brethren, we are a separate and a peculiar people not different from the world in that the men wear long whiskers and the women wear bonnets and the men, a funny kind of a black hat on their heads that makes everybody look at them and laugh and make funny wisecracks about them. But different in that we obey God and the ways that are right and follow the laws that God set in motion for our good while the world is going on in the ways that seem good, but which are only bringing unhappiness and misery and empty lives and suffering and death. Do we tremble at the word of God or at the world? If we're spirit-minded, we're separated from the world because God called us to be a separate and a peculiar people. He called us to be separate from the world. Jesus said that we are the light of the world and the only light in the world, you can put a lot of that light out by being like the world and saying, "I want, I want the world to think I'm like it is. I'm going to put on my lipstick." And while I think of it, I'm going to say right here in Pasadena, California, you find perhaps the most cultural city in the United States of America. It has been, it's fast becoming more of a general type of city like any other city as it grows and expands and, and the old millionaires are dying out there and more people that are working people and working in factories even are moving in. But it still is a very cultural city.

   Now, there are many widows living in Pasadena that are widows of wealthy men. Many of them live in the Green Hotel and many of them live at the famous Huntington Hotel. For instance, I know that the wife of the former president of the Union Pacific Railroad lives there and the Union Pacific is the wealthiest railroad in the United States. They own the New York Central and a lot of other big railroads, in addition. This woman is very wealthy, and there are many like that. They are wealthy women. Now you go to our Pasadena Civic Auditorium to many of the concerts and the fine things that is fine things in the world as they are. And yet some of the things in the world are all right. It's a mixture of good and evil and there you will find these women attending those things and some of us in going to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where you find women who are millionaires, the widows of big executives and millionaires and people who live in fine homes, women driven there in their big chauffeur driven Cadillacs who live in homes that are worth from $100,000 on up, who can afford anything they want. And those women come in there with no lipstick, no paint whatsoever on their face. I would say at least one third of them have none of it. Of course, some of them do. But the number who do not is surprising you do not have to wear a lipstick to be well thought of. Now whoever put that notion in your mind that you do. And a good many of you women have been finding out my experience now that you don't have to.

   I used to think I had the smoke to be well thought of. I thought maybe if I turned the fellow down when they'd offer me a cigarette and everybody else took one, they'd think I was a sissy or something. I found they don't think that at all. Lots of times they passed cigarettes around and I said, "No, thank you." You haven't got the habit, huh? Boy, I wish I could break it. I wish I was in your shoes, on the envy me. They don't make fun of me. Why are we ashamed of right things? We're the light of the world. We can't be the light of the world, if we're going to follow the darkness of the world, can we? The world is all dark. You want, you want to join that darkness or do you want to stand out in the world and have, and be light and have the light of the world we're told we must be different from the world. Now, ancient Israel was the nation of God and God made them a separate and a peculiar people. They were to be God's nation. Of course, they didn't want to remain that way. They wanted to be like the world around them. And that was a very great sin. That's the trouble with a lot of our people today. God tells us to be separate, come out from among the world and be separate. But no, we want to be like the world just like ancient Israel. And that is a sin. Deuteronomy 14, the first two verses (Deuteronomy. 14:1-2). "You are the children of the Eternal, your God. You shall not cut yourselves nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead, for thou art and holy people under the Eternal, thy God and the and the Eternal have chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are on the earth," brethren we're to be above all the people on this earth. Spiritually, not in money, not necessarily in education or in things of that sort even. Although remember God prospers those that serve Him and God wishes we might prosper and be in health and all that sort of thing. But it's, we're above other people spiritually. That's the real thing that counts.

   Well, now what about the New Testament Church? It's no different. It's the same way. Turn over the I Peter 2, the first two verses and then the ninth (I Peter 2:1-2, 9), "Wherefore laying aside all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby now laying aside all malice and guile hypocrisies, envies." Yes, and vanity and all that sort of thing. And wanting to be like the world. Now, verse nine, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people," or don't you want to be peculiar? Do you want to be like the rest of the world, "that you should show forth the praises of him that hath called you?" Oh, but I'd rather show forth the customs that came from the harlots of Paris. I don't want them to think I'm different. I want them to think. I'm just as much of a harlot as they are. How about that now? Or you don't realize that's what it is, do you? "Show forth the praises of him that hath called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light?" We are the light of the world. Carnal people have carnal natures that makes them want to be like the rest of the world.

   Now in II Corinthians, six, II Corinthians 6:14-18, you surely know this, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness and what conquered hath Christ with Belial or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" What part do you have with this world in its ways that are contrary to God? Now, where the world's ways are not contrary to God, we don't have to be different but where they are and where we are to be different and where God says so and where God rules it that way, then that's where we're to be different and be the light of the world. What agreement has the temple of God with idols. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Are you going to say, "Why did you make it this way? I'm going to change it the way I want it. "For you are the temple of the living God." I wonder will the Holy Spirit stay inside of such a face that's all painted up? I just think you don't know the mind of God. If you think you he will, you can say, "Well, I think he will." Oh yes. Well, then you just don't know anything about God and the Holy Spirit. If you can say a thing like that, God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Listen. If you are a Christian, then Christ is living in you and he will live in you. The same life he did live when he was here. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let me put it to you this way. Maybe this is an argument, but we are to follow Christ and this is after all, not an argument, but the teaching of the Bible.

   God chose to send Christ a little over 1900 years ago, didn't he? Well, he could have chosen to send him now, in this middle of the 20th century, couldn't he? He could have. God chose to send Christ in the form of a male. Now, God is neither male nor female. There's no sex with the angels, there's no sex in God. There isn't any man and woman, God. And when we are made God, when we are in the kingdom of God, we will be neither male nor female, but as the angels of heaven. So, God caused Christ to be born and he had to be male or female to be human. Now, he could have been female, couldn't he? And would have been a she. Supposing that Christ were to come now in right now and start his preaching right now in the world. Supposing he were here 30 years of age right now, starting his ministry. But God had made him a woman, instead, of course, God wouldn't have done that because God forbids women to preach. But I mean, if, if things had been a little different, God could have done it differently, you know, and supposing Jesus Christ were here as very God and the human flesh. But in the female flesh setting setting an example for you women. Can you by any stretch of a wild imagination imagine Christ here in the form of a woman setting an example for you painting lips and fixing his eyebrows, copying the harlots of Paris? Now, I ask you, can you imagine such a thing?

   Now, of course, if you want to be carnal, you say, "I'm not supposed to and I'm just supposed to go over the word of God and God says nothing about that." Yeah, that's a nice argument, isn't it? You just want to get around it. You can't face it. Can you? How many of you women think of Christ as living his life in you as a female? And he is a female and you and living that life in you? How many of you think that Christ is the one who's putting this stuff all on this makeup and fixing those eyes and all that sort of thing? Well, if you do, I say you don't believe the same Christ, I do and you just don't know him.

   Now, if you, if it's Christ living in you, there isn't going to be any paint and lipstick and makeup on your face. Frankly, some of you women here have any, I don't see any, any place. But if there is a woman here that has any on her face, I hope she goes and washes it off because I want to tell you it's physical dirt too. You go to any chemist and get his actual chemical definition of dirt and it's any foreign substance. It doesn't make any difference whether it's red or pink or what another thing you women aren't just painting nature's color back on. Oh, no, you go a lot farther. You paint your lips and colors. That nature never would have made anyone. What a freak you make nature out to be anyhow. If you could just realize how disgusting it is to anyone that does have the spirit of God.

   Well, now we're to be a different, a separate and peculiar people but how not only by the letter but by the spirit of God's law, the principle involved. Now, what does it say about makeup? Well, there isn't any direct teaching on makeup alone as such, but there is something in the Bible about makeup. Now, we considered it very carefully and I'm not appealing to you whether you want to decide this or that. I'm just telling you why we decided the way it is decided by the power of the spirit of God and God's church with authority. First, I want you to notice something about this harlot Jezebel, the origin of all this makeup in all history as far back as we can go in history is in your Bible. Open it now to I Kings 16:30, I Kings 16:30. Let's see if it came out of harlotry or if it came out of something pure and clean and good. Well, it was in the 30 the eighth year of Asa, the king of Judah that Ahab, the son of Omri began to reign over Israel. Ahab, the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years. And Ahab, the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Eternal above all that were before him. This good or evil? This is evil above all that were before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Then he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of the Zidonians and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. The most abominable idolatry there is to God. Now, this woman was what? She was a paragon of harlotry in some respects, she has been even called the mother of harlots and abominations. This woman, Jezebel is the type of what God calls that woman of filthy fornication that is described in Revelation 17 and 18 that has made all earth drunk with the wine of her fornication. And he, he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

   Now, then turn over to II kings. I want you to get that first and see who he married. And, and how abominable she was. Now, II Kings 9:22-30. I'm going to read that out of the Revised Standard edition. It's a little plainer language beginning with the 21st verse here. Then Joram, the king of Israel and Ahaziah, the king of Judah set out each in his chariot and they went to meet Jehu and to meet him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. And when Joram saw Jehu, he said, "Is it peace Jehu?" And he answered, "What peace can there be so long as the harlotries and the sorceries of your mother, Jezebel are so many?" Now get it. The harlotries and the sorcery of your mother, Jezebel.

   Now notice verse 30, "And Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel, or when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. And she painted her eyes and she adorned her head and looked out of the window." Why? To seduce the man with sex with her harlotry, with her seduction, her seductive feminine charms, the way of a harlot. Now at that time, they painted the eyes 40 years ago, they painted the cheeks. Today they paint the lips. It doesn't make any difference. It's paint on the face. Same thing. It's just a matter of a fad at the time as to where they put the paint.

   Now, I want you to look at Israel and Judah in the 23rd chapter of Ezekiel. God is revealing here the truth about Israel and Judah, and they are compared here to two women. Now notice what he says about these two women. Ezekiel 23 verses all from 1 to 40 (Ezekiel 23:1-40). I'm going to read various parts of it but not all of it. "The word of the Eternal came unto me, saying: Son of man. There were two women, daughters of one mother. They played the harlot in Egypt." Verse four, "Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah was the name of the younger sister. Now God says they became mine and they bore sons and daughters as for their names. Oholah is Samaria." He uses that name now to compare it to Samaria, which was the capital of the 10 tribes. "And Oholibah is Jerusalem," the capital of Judah of the two nations of God's people, Israel. Now Oholah, that's the house of Israel played the harlot while she was mine. She doted on her lovers, the Assyrians, verse five. She bestowed her harlotries upon them choices, men of Assyria, all of them. She defiled herself with all the idols of everyone on whom she doted.

   Now, actually, what was all of this? This is speaking of it symbolically, but actually they wanted to be like the nation around them. And the only reason in the world that any woman uses lipstick or anything of the kind today or paint on her face is to be like the women around you because you're afraid of what they're going to think because you want to look prettier or you want to be well thought of by the world, not by the people in God's church because they won't think well of you. In other words, it's either wanting to conform to the world and be like the world to think God condemns or it's vanity, whether you know your own mind that well, or whether you don't. And I tell you a lot of women don't know their own minds where vanity is concerned. It's just so much a part of their natures. They don't even know it. They will swear up and down. "I have no vanity." I know one woman that I know very well. She says, "I have no vanity. I just don't have any vanity." That same woman says, "I would rather be pretty than have character and brains." The thing God put her on earth for, "I'd rather be pretty to the world." No, she has no vanity. That's just like the wrestler that's gouging the eyes of a guy that he says, "No referee. I'm not doing it. No, I'm not doing it at all." But he's just gouging as hard as he can gouge. No, I haven't any vanity. Not much except that I'm just filled with it.

   "She did not give up her harlotry, for in her youth, men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her. Therefore God said, I delivered her into the hands of her lovers," in other words, her allies that she hath made alliance into the hands of the Assyrians. Now verse 10, "These uncovered her nakedness, they seized her sons and daughters, they slew her with a sword." Now verse 11, "Her sister Oholibah," this is Judah, the Jewish people, "saw this yet she was more corrupt than she," than she, that is, in Israel in her doting and in her harlotry, which was worse than that of her sister.

   Now, if you will drop down to verse 16, "When she saw them, she doted upon them and she sent messengers to them in Chaldea and so on." Now, verse 18, "She carried on her harlotry so openly and flaunted her nakedness. I," God says, "I turned in disgust from her." Is God going to turn in disgust from any of you? I hope not. "I turned in disgust from her as I had turned from her sister. Yet she increased her harlotry, she increased her harlotry." Verse 22, "Therefore, O Oholibah, thus saith the Lord God behold, I will rouse against you, your lovers."

   Now verse 27, "Thus, I will put an end to your lewdness, your lewdness and your harlotry brought from the land of Egypt," and this kind of thing comes from Egypt too. You go back and you get the pictures and everything else and learn how the ancient Egyptian women painted their faces and painted their mummies and everything else after they died.

   Now, verse, the very last part of verse, 29 and on to verse 30, "Your lewdness and your harlotry have brought this upon you because you played the harlot with the nations and polluted yourself with their idols. You have gone the way of your sister." Now, verse 35, "Thus says the Eternal God because you have forgotten me and cast behind you, cast me behind your back. Therefore, but of course, they said, no, we're not doing anything of the kind. I just don't agree with you. They said, I don't believe a word of it. We're not doing it. Therefore, they are the consequences of your lewdness and your harlotry." The Eternal said to me, "Son of man. Will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds." Now listen, abominable deeds. What are these deeds? "For they have committed adultery, and blood is upon their hands. With their idols, they have committed adultery. Moreover this, they have done to me, they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day, they profaned my Sabbaths."

   Latter part of verse 39, "And lo this is what they did in my house. They even sent for men to come from far to whom a messenger was sent, and lo they came for them. You bathed yourself, you painted your eyes, you decked yourself with ornaments. You sat upon a stately couch with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil." Now you see the category that God puts this painting in the face in.

   Verse 48, "Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. And you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Eternal."

   Always, when a woman paints her face, it is an attempt to change the appearance the way God made her. I know all these arguments about men's neckties. The trouble with that is that's only a little decoration on the clothing and God allows that and He allows it with women. And all you women on the average have a lot more decoration and different colors on your clothing than the men have. We're supposed to dress like men do in men's clothing, and that's part of men's attire today. That's perfectly scriptural. That's why you have to have a church rule on these things. Some women haven't any more sense and any more wisdom than to try to put those two things in the same category, but there's no connection, whatever I see a lot of girls and women down here with neckties on. It's all right. There's nothing wrong with it, perfectly all right. We're not criticizing the neck ties and women wear them too once in a while. Why all, all, all of our girls wear it in the corral when they're being shot with television. You know, they have these little neckties up there in those blouses. Yes.

   But it's another thing to change your face. It's always an attempt to change the appearance of the face to appear and by pretense more beautiful than they are a vain effort out of vanity to attract attention. Or else it's wanting to conform to the world because the world does it. You're afraid the world will think you're different. Well, I've heard women say, "I'm feeling dressed, I'd feel like I wasn't dressed without my paint and my makeup on." You better get over that feeling. They just want to conform to this world. And God says not to be conformed to this world. Always it is connected in the Bible with abomination. Things that are abominable to God. It's connected with harlotry every place that's mentioned in the Bible. It's connected with those things that are an abomination to God. You still? "Well, I don't see it. No, Mr. Armstrong, I don't see it." All right. That's why the church had to rule because you can't see it. That's pretty plain, isn't it? Now, the question is, are you going to obey the church, you'll come to see it if you do. That's the whole question now. We aren't going to argue about it any further. I'm just explaining. I'm not arguing. There isn't any issue either. The issue has been settled.