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   …anything else? It is when someone begins to mention from the Bible prophecies, something concerning the second coming of Christ.

   When I was advertising manager and assistant general manager on a daily newspaper, we were in the newsroom with the reporters and around the city desk one time when a number of the reporters, all of whom were college graduates from various Colleges and Universities that the speculating on what would make the most sensational possible eight-column banner headline and the speculation. It was an interesting bit of conversation in the newsroom of this newspaper, and the conversation or the question was, what would be the most astounding headline that could possibly be written?

   Well, one of the reporters said, I think New York City blasted off the map. Of course, at that time, we didn't know how New York City could be bombed off the map. The bombs of that day, even one or 2000 of them dropping simultaneously on New York wouldn't have bombed it off. It never has been possible to completely annihilate New York City at one blow until the advent of the hydrogen bomb.

   Well, another one would say, at that time, he said World War II, we had had World War I. World War II hadn't come yet. Someone thought World War II. And then another one who was a graduate of one of the great State Universities said, ah, he said those are tame. I'll tell you the biggest banner headline, the most sensational thing that any of you could write. He said the second coming of Christ and they all, ha, ha, ha, wasn't that a good joke?

   You know, they had encountered the doctrine of evolution in college and like the dumb sheep, they were, they just swallowed what the book said. Hook, line, and sinker. The books were written by some of these college professors who had never mingled around very much in the affairs of the world and had devoted most of their time with young men that are a lot younger than they were and were growing up and just still going to school and their minds had not fully matured and they philosophized and fought impractically in their, in the confines of their own classrooms or offices, but were not very practical and didn't know very much about what does make things tick around the world.

   You know, there are that kind of college professors and they have written textbooks. And as a matter of fact, a good many of these textbooks are only the theses that they had the right to get their doctor's degree anyhow. And it was just something that was forced on them as an assignment and they had to do it, well, anyhow, the customary educational procedure in this world is that starting from the first and the second grade, children are taught to blindly accept whatever is taught them. And as soon as they learn to read, they must accept whatever the textbook says.

   And the whole process of education in America. And I think pretty much in the world wherever we have schools and education is that you study what the book says, you memorize it. It's merely a course. I've mentioned this many times and I intend to repeat it in other times because I want our American people to come to understand what is the basic error in American education.

   Instead of being taught to question whether it is true to think, to investigate and to have real honesty of mind and the open mind students are taught like sheep to conform, to go along to believe what the textbook says, to study it, to memorize it, then we come to the exams and then finally the final exams at the end of each semester and the student is asked questions as to what the book said and he is graded on how well he is memorized and how completely he agrees with the author of the textbook. And if he would disagree with it, it would undoubtedly, and most Colleges and Universities, I think count against his grades.

   I know some Colleges and Universities pride themselves on encouraging investigation and speculation and the open mind and all of that. But in practice, my friends, it isn't followed very generally in most of the institutions of higher learning in the United States.

   Well, we come up to college with that same process and it is just the customary thing. Most people go along in the rut in the groove in which they have been; they were born into this world believing certain things, most of which are not true at all. And we have memorized them, we have accepted them. And if I should ask you, how did you come to believe the things that you believe? And if anyone disagrees with you, they affront you, you are angry and emotions begin to play on you and you begin to breathe hard. You've got chips on your shoulder and you're willing to fight right back. You bristle up and you defend whatever you believe it never occurred to you to stop and inquire in retrospect how you came to believe it. How did it find lodgment in your mind? How did it get there? Why do you believe it? Have you seen the proof? You usually haven't? No, you've heard it, you've been taught it, you read it in the book, you accepted it, you memorized it, you believe it and it hurts your vanity to have anybody disagree. And as I've said, so many times, the most difficult thing for any person to do is to admit it when he is wrong. And so there we go.

   Well, these fellows of course, had, had evolution in college and so they laughed. It was a good joke. Second coming of Christ. Well, God knew that those people would be here. And he says here on the through the apostle Peter and Peter's second letter, II Peter, the third chapter and beginning with the third verse (II Peter 3:3), knowing this first that there shall come in the last days. And we're now in the last days when knowledge has increased and people are running back and forth to and fro all over the earth. Now, I was going to say United States, but I should say the whole world knowing this first that they shall come in the last days. That's in this 20th century, we have finally arrived at it. Now, this was written 1900 years ago. It wasn't something that happened back in the days of Moses or in the days of King David or in the days of Jeremiah or any of those days. 1900 years ago, Peter said this shall happen knowing this first, there shall come. That was in the future in the last days. Now, we have finally come to the last days. Scoffers walking in their own lusts, that is their own desires and their own pride, vanity, and greed and selfishness. And that's exactly what people walk in today and saying, where is the promise of his coming? That is where is any promise of the and coming of Christ scoffing at it, ridiculing the idea.

   Let me tell you something, my friends, when you don't have the facts, you don't possess the documentary evidence or the factual knowledge to refute anything. And when you can't explain why anything is wrong and we're sort of backed in a corner and you don't want to accept the truth when we can't get around it. The human way to do then is to begin to scoff and ridicule. And that puts the other fellow down below you, you're ridiculing him and you rise up above him. And that seems to make it so in most unreasoning and rather unthinking minds. So they come and say, where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. In other words, evolution.

   Now, evolution postulates and I say postulates advisedly because it's nothing but a fable, it originated in the minds of men who are devoid of knowledge except a little infinitesimal bit of physical material knowledge they have acquired. And someday when we learn how much knowledge there is available that God Almighty knows. We'll realize how infinitesimal is the knowledge of some of our egotistical human beings on this earth. And evolution postulates that all things have come by natural causes now in force and effect and that are continuous now as they always have been by resident forces and causes not by any, any outside force or cause like any God that could work on resident forces, but purely by resident forces and laws which they postulate have always existed. And that all things continue in time and space the same as in the living present, in the same slow-moving manner of the physical laws of nature. Now, that isn't exactly a definition of evolution, but that is what evolution postulates. And evolutionists all believe that, in other words, they don't believe there ever could have been a sudden cataclysm like the flood that covered the whole earth. They don't believe there was a time when in six days, God created everything we see on this earth and all the plant and the animal life and everything of that sort. They think that's impossible. It had to happen gradually over a course of many, many, many millions of years. Oh, they, they throw millions of years around, you know, so lavishly and extravagantly as if it were a matter of a few seconds.

   Now, continue. God says for this, they willingly are ignorant of, they're not only ignorant, they are willingly ignorant of it. In other words, they refuse any knowledge to the contrary. They are reluctant to believe the truth that by the word of God, because they don't believe there's any God that His word would have any power. So they are willingly ignorant that by the word of God, the heavens were evolved and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. In other words, they are willingly ignorant of the fact that there was any flood. I want to tell you, that when you come someday to see the real truth exposed, you will find that our geologists have missed the boat so far because there was so much that did happen by a real flood that our geologists are vainly trying to account for in some other manner that their real ignorance will finally stand exposed. But of course, in their egotism, in their intellectual vanity, many of them wearing their goatee beards and with dignified expressions which they have practiced before a mirror, they stand looking very important and ridiculing and snaring anything of God Almighty, God have mercy on their miserable little shriveled up souls.

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   But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store. Now get this, they are now being kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and traditions of ungodly men. And that's this whole world reserved unto fire. You know, all matter is subject to, all solid matter to burning and to the application of intense heat or temperatures, high temperatures, but beloved be not yet ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as 1000 years and 1000 years as one day, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. As some men count slackness but is long suffering that his patient to us or toward us, not willing that any should perish. In other words, the earth is not going to be destroyed by fire until everyone has had a chance.

   Now, get this my friends, the earth will not be destroyed by fire at the second coming of Christ. But over 1000 years later, at least 1000 years later, but he says the day of the Lord will come. Do you know anything about the Day of the Lord? It is a period prophetically, the part most prominently described in the scriptures is the part prior to the second coming of Christ when God Almighty first begins to intervene in world affairs to take a hand in world affairs as he soon now will do preparatory and prior to the actual advent of Jesus Christ in person, back to this earth, the same Jesus which was here 1900 years ago. It's going to start by such terrible, terrifying signs in the heavens that men will be filled with stark fear. And some of our greatest scientists then are going to practically lose their minds in flight and in fear, they're going to know that there is a God. They're going to realize how shriveled up and how puny are their little human minds and how little they have known compared to what there is to be known. Once it's revealed, there is so much that only God can reveal to us that is inaccessible to us just now. And some of these days, they're going to come to realize that they're going to wake up, but probably too late for a good many of them, the day of the Lord will come and do you know my friends that from one end to the other in the prophecies of your Bible. And a third of the Bible is prophecy. There is so much about the Day of the Lord, it is a time, a period coming when God will supernaturally intervene in the affairs of this world to shake this world to make this world know that there is a God that they have denied, that they have rejected, that they have forgotten about a God they have thought has gone way off and isn't concerned about us anymore.

   And they're going to know that God is very much in action and concerned about this whole world. He's going to begin to shake it as it has never been shaken. And that will last a little while probably about 3 1/2 years. I'm not setting the exact time, but there is reason to believe that that probably is the duration and prior to the second coming of Christ. Then that that first phase and it is the first phase of the Day of the Lord will climax with the second coming of Christ. Actually in the Bible, the period known as the Day of the Lord continues on through the whole 1000 years, commonly spoken of as the millennium after the second coming of Christ.

   And there are two or three passages or prophecies that refer to the day of the Lord as the period during the millennium or the 1000 year period during which Christ will reign as the King of kings over all this world supernaturally, when God's rule and the very reign of God over this earth will bring us peace at last. And we're never going to have peace until God does rule and reign. As long as men are permitted, as long as in God's great power he chooses as he has chosen. And as he has made the decision to permit men to defy him and to run things their way and to run the governments of this earth, we will have nothing but strife and wars and unhappiness and human anguish and suffering and empty lives and heartache such as we're having in this world today.

   Men don't seem to know the causes of all of these things. And, then through that 1000 years, we'll come to really know the way of peace because Jesus Christ is going to rule as the King of kings with a rod of iron as it is rather symbolically explained and, and set his state mighty firm hand and with absolute justice, absolute justice. That means punishment for the guilty as well as justice for the innocent. That justice will be absolute.

   And then Peter here is speaking about a little period that is still the Day of the Lord going on the other side of this 1000-year period. And here's what will happen. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Some men can't slackness. No, he wants all men to come to repentance. And that includes the period going clear on to the end of this time of the reign of Christ on this earth, not ending at the present end of the present world, but ending at the end of the world tomorrow, or not necessarily the end of that world. But at the end of the 1st 1000 years of it, let's put it that way. Now, let's get it, into which the heavens see the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

   Now it comes prior to the second coming of Christ, but it continues on until over 1000 years after that. And in to which, see the day of the Lord is not over yet. In to which, the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. How many elements are there? Now, iron is an element. Gold even is an element and lead is an element and calcium is an element. There's a lot of calcium inside of your body. Most of your bone structure that is calcium is the main element in the bone structure of your body and matter is made up of elements, and so, when it speaks of the elements, it's speaking of matter.

   Now, some of the elements are in the liquid form. What is water? Water is a liquid and we call it H2O. You've heard that expression. That's a chemical expression. That's two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen. And in the type of solution that forms what we call water. And then air is even the atmosphere, air is merely some of our elements in a certain form. There is oxygen in the air, the other elements.

   Now the elements will melt. Of course, that is referring to the solid elements of the solid portion of the earth. And scripturally, the Bible recognizes that the air is a part of the earth and very often it speaks of men as if human beings are not on, but in the earth, if you ever have you ever noticed in your Bible that in a good many places you find the expression in and not on the earth.

   Now, in other places, the Bible speaks of being on the earth. There is the earth that refers to the solid portion, which is the part we see. You don't actually see air unless you see something in the air out here in the Pasadena and the Los Angeles area. We see a lot of things in the air. We see a lot of things we call smog and we wish we didn't see it, we wish they could find a solution for it, but that's merely particles floating in the air. You don't see the air itself, you see other things you see right through it apparently, it's invisible to human eyes and yet all of the solid elements then are going to melt with fervent heat that is terrific heat.

   You know, that iron will melt, gold will melt. And if you go to the great steel mills, you will see, as I have seen many of you perhaps have and see iron actually being poured out like water and it is so white-hot under such terrific heat to have melted it, that it will probably almost blind your eyes to look at it. It's, it's very, very brilliantly light.

   Now, the elements, that's the elements of this whole solid earth, the whole surface of the earth will melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are there in shall be burned up seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, the elements dissolved by heat, they will melt into liquid form. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and Godliness looking for and hasting under the coming of the day of God, the day of God. That's not just the coming of Christ. He comes during that day, but it's a period that actually begins, as I say prior to his coming and lasts over 1000 years after wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements.

   Now the heavens, that's the atmosphere of the air and the elements here referring to the solid elements of the earth melting with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we according to his promise, when God has promised anything, my friends. He's going to keep that promise. Now, God is not only promised eternal life under certain conditions which we can have. God is not only promised happiness and joy and peace and everything good that you want.

   God is not only promised that if you surrender to the laws he set in motion to produce happiness and a peaceful state of mind and everything that you want, that you shall have it. God is not only promised that if you surrender to him and trust him and follow his way, that was put in motion for your good and your happiness, that he will supply all your need and that he will deliver you from every trial and trouble you get into, that he will give you the wisdom to know what you want to do so that you will avoid mistakes and errors that are going to be very costly for you, that he will prosper you, that he will do all of these wonderful, good things for you.

   But God is also promised, and he's promised you this and he will keep this promise that the wages of sin is death and God will keep that promise just as much as he will keep the other. Now, God loves you entirely too much to let you go on in your misery and your suffering forever because sin and sinful men wax worse and worse according to the Bible. And sin brings on unhappiness and all that sort of thing. And, and you know, after a few million years, you'd be so miserable, you stand it and yet you'd have to have to go on living.

   God isn't going to let that happen. The wages of sin is not eternal life in hellfire. God doesn't say that Jesus paid that penalty that you have incurred by your sins in your stead. And Jesus did not pay a penalty and is not today paying a penalty of living forever in hellfire in a torment and a torturous condition in hell. If that is the punishment you have incurred, then that my friends is the punishment that Jesus had to suffer. And I submit to you that if eternal life in hellfire is the punishment for sin, then Jesus Christ has to be there still being tortured and tormented and suffering in your place yet today. But Jesus was only in his grave three days and three nights and he was resurrected and risen as our High Priest and has been very happily in heaven ever since. And so he died and he was risen, not from a state of life in hell, but from a state of death in the grave. And the death couldn't hold him and his body did not even see corruption, but he was dead and buried and he was resurrected from the dead and not from the living.

   Now, he was the firstborn of many brethren and you can be born too. But the penalty is death. And here it's explaining how that death is going to take place. That lake of fire my friends into which is the second death into which all of the wicked are to go. And God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come. What? He didn't say to accepting Christ and professing Christ. He said that all should come to repentance. That's the first thing. And then you accept and profess Christ.

   After that, of course, you have to do both the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth. You see, it will all cool down and the form of the surface of the earth will be somewhat changed. Everything that man has done and everything that man has done to this earth will be changed in form, it will melt and it will cool down and God will have cleansed all of the sins of man and everything man has done to the sin-cursed earth by fire. And then there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

   And finally, he ends by telling us, seeing these things beware lest you also being led away by the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that is wonderful advice here. Here I've taken too much time. Don't have time to tell you what I wanted to about getting this Plain Truth magazine and knowing what's prophesized immediately soon. And at least in the very next few years to happen to the United States of America. My friends, no…

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