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   Today's world views and the prophecies of the World tomorrow. And greetings friends this is Herbert W Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow.

   And so, once again, I say, let's have the intellectual honesty and the honesty of heart, to be willing to do exactly what the Bible commands to prove all things and to prove whether what we have assumed and been brought up from childhood to believe in a world that is engulfed in pagan superstitions, false religion Christianity. I say to you, it's about time that we open our Bibles. That we look and see what they really do say, and if we, if necessary, go to the public libraries and check into some of the history of some of these things that I've been telling you. Verify it, approve it to your own satisfaction, don't take my word for it. If you go and prove it, let's not just be afraid of it, let's not run away from it, but let's look at these things and prove them. Well, I tell you, there's nothing more interesting than to go through the Bible when you realize that you're going to find things there that are very awesome.

   The exact opposite of what you have supposed was in the Bible. It really is fascinating, it's thrilling, it's exciting. Getting back to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints, here it is, open your Bible, open your mind, get rid of prejudice, and open your heart and be willing to receive that, which you can see, absolutely prove with your own eyes, with your own mind, which really comes from God Almighty.

   Now, Jesus had gone into the house of one of the chiefs of the Pharisees. Now, this was a man very high up in religion. He was a man that had an important position in the church of the time, the congregation there of Judah and there was a man there, a number of guests, a number of people were there and one man had to drop saying Jesus had inquired whether it was all right, that he healed on the Sabbath because as I've been explaining some length after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, they had gotten away from the actual religion that had been given them in the part of the scripture that we now call the Old Testament.

   And they had added a great many ideas of their own. They had also incorporated many of the principles of paganism in what they believe. And so, they have added a great many do's and don'ts on the Sabbath Day to make it more strict, things that God never intended. God's laws were created, my friends, and set in motion, and they are inexorable and they are in motion and they were set in motion for our good, for our happiness for our peace and joy, and well-being in every way.

   God isn't a stern, angry God that has been pictured. God is a God of love. God put us here for a great purpose and it's about time we learned the purpose being worked out here below. And every law that God set in motion was for our good and our well-being. And if we observe these laws and go along with them, we enjoy the wonderful results of that. And, of course, if we, we fire them, if we break them, if we transgress them, they're going to break up and we are going to suffer in whatever we sow we shall reap. All that's wrong in this world today is that men have somehow got the idea that God is not a God of love, that God is not a God of wisdom.

   Who knows what is right, that God is not a God of good intention and love to us who desires our well-being and our good in very way. But rather that God is an angry God who likes to see us suffer and that God's laws are not good for us. Either that God doesn't know enough to put a force and affection in motion, the laws that are good, or else that God is wrong in all of his intentions toward us and that he is put in effect and in motion laws that are bad and that we should not obey God's laws.

   Because the carnal mind, the natural mind of man is antagonistic toward God. It runs away from everything of God. It's ashamed of God, it's afraid of God and it is not subject to the laws of God and doesn't want to obey God. The natural mind of man wants to go along the way that may seem right to a man, that's so important. The two scriptures inspired of God say there is a way that seems right unto a man the end there are the ways of death. That's the way man has been going. The ways of this world. They can see, my friends, that this world is a world hell bent. This is a world that is defying God and going contrary to the laws of God that this is a world that is made up of headaches and heartaches and every other kind of suffering and anguish that the human soul can possibly experience and that it is a world that has had one war after another and now is inventing such terrifying weapons of annihilation and destruction that we stare in the face annihilation of human life from off the face of this earth. It's about time we wake up and realize what is taking place and the causes of it. And the reason for all of these things.

   Well, the Pharisees and the Jewish people at that time, and of a few hundred years before the time of Christ, had been going the way it seemed right to them. And so they had added a lot of hard do's and don'ts for the Sabbath Day to make it a hard yoke of bondage. They had gone into the religion called Judaism, which is only a perversion of the religion that you find back in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And so according to their religion of the rules, the manmade rules, they had added, it would have been wrong for Jesus to have gone to the works of releasing someone from this terrible sickness and pain and suffering on the Sabbath day. So when he asked them, they were afraid to answer, you healed this man and let him go. And then he said, which of you that will have an ass or an ox falling into a pit will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day. They couldn't answer that at all.

   And then he put forth a parable to those that were bidden to this dinner Sabbath afternoon or evening dinner. As I presume it was, when he had noted how they chose out the chief position, the chief rooms that is here in the King James translation are the chief places of honor. And so he said to them (Luke 14:8-11), When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. You'll be demoted, you will be put down where you belong. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; and that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at food with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself, and here is the great principle, [inaudible] death, whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

   My friends there are, are two conditions to really becoming a Christian. They are summed up in two words, if you want to just sum them up very briefly, repentance and faith, but very few people know what repentance is. And I think even still fewer people seem to know what faith really is. The kind of faith that saves. Repentance is coming to really abhor the self and the way that the self has lived and the things in this human nature that are not good. And there's a great deal of human nature that is not good. There is both good and evil in human nature, but there's a great deal of evil and it's a bad mixture and the evil usually dominates and the hearts of man is deceitful and wicked above all things. So says God Almighty, and this inspired message to us and the one characteristic perhaps of human nature that dominates about every other normal, natural characteristic in human nature is vanity.

   Everything in this world. When you get down to it is vanity and it's natural to sort of exhaust our own self. We want to be well thought of by other people. We're not so much concerned about being well thought of by God because we don't see God, we don't realize where God is. God seems to be invisible to us. But nevertheless, we do want to be well thought of by those people that we see. And that's only a type of vanity, pride and vanity. And that is really the main source of greed, which is the other great fundamental characteristic of human nature, selfishness. It's all selfishness, even embarrassment and a sense of sort of false modesty. And well, it's embarrassment in front of others if the matter itself is just self-conscious conscious of the self wondering how other people look at you and they maybe they're criticizing and it's a feeling of itself, we need to get rid of self.

   We all are imbued with a great deal of it and it's not good, now whosoever exhausts himself and as natural and normal to do that, he shall be a abase, but he that humbles himself. Now, you aren't just naturally humble. That is not very many of you are. There may be a few people that are just naturally humble and I think personalities differ and all that sort of thing, but it is not normal and natural for the average person to be humble, but Jese said, [inaudible], he that is humble, he that humbleth himself and a man to humble himself is a man who is normally proud and vain, but he gets control of himself and who by the power of will and of mind over nature. That is the nature of the human nature within him, humbles himself and brings himself down.

   Now, that's one of the things you have to do. That's part of repenting. That's part of the real spirit of repentance and that you repent said Jesus, you shall all likewise perish. I tell you right now, I could reach the next 2 or 3 sermons or whole broadcast on that one passage, "whosoever exhausts himself shall be abased and he that humble himself shall be exhausted."

   Oh, I tell you as a young man, I can look back and remember now that the one great ambition of my life and I was ambitious. I had a great deal of ambition and it impelled me to a driving of myself to study night way, late nights, I did burn the midnight oil a great deal and I tried to prepare and fit myself for something of accomplishment. But what was the real driving force in those early days? It began at age 16, once I was sort of brought to myself and awakened that his ambition was awakened within me at about that time. And the whole thing was an ambition to be well thought of by important men in the world and to be able to feel that I was important and exhausted among men. And that I had been successful and made a lot of money and so that I can have all of the fine things and the good things that money can buy. I was very ambitious for that I realized would have to work and pay the price. I knew I would have to study. I knew I would have to develop talents, personality, everything I would have to gain experience. I'd have to work at it almost night and day. But I was willing to pay that price.

   Not what was the real motive in those early years, it was a desire to exalt myself. I look back on it now and I know I know that now God gave me evidence. I've mentioned it on the air before and I'm not even going to make mention of the nature of it this time. Very shortly after I was married at age 25 that he was calling me. In fact, he was calling my wife and me together under his service. I was just embarrassed. I tried to get that out of my mind as fast as I could because while I had been brought up in one of the old, smaller but very highly respected Protestant denominations. I had gotten away from it at about age 18.

   And so the overwhelming urge and ambition to make money in this materialistic world soon caused me to lose all interest in church attendance. And I, I hadn't attended church from the time of 18, except just rarely, occasionally I would drop in and visit a church once in a while. But because I've been brought up in the habit, but, uh, very, very seldom. And so consequently, at age 25 I had been out of church attendance for a long time and, and this thing really came from God. I didn't recognize it. I didn't recognize it at all. I was merely embarrassed by it and I tried to shove it out of my mind. I told my wife go and tell some preacher about it, but don't bother me because I don't know anything about this thing. I was too busy trying to make money. Well, at age 30 God took away my business and I was making some pretty good money by that time, more than the governors of most states are making and God took away my business. God took away everything, all my standing with the so-called big men.

   Or you might call them big shots as some people call them that I had come into contact with. And I was brought down in every way it wasn't a matter of lack of good sense. It was a matter of being so possessed and so filled with the ambition for materials that said that I didn't even have the knowledge that I ought to humble myself. I just didn't realize it. But God humbled me. He brought me down. And I don't believe I can say that I humbled myself until my mind had been awakened. And I had to be very, very low. And I had to be humbled, now, if we are humbled, God will exhaust us in due time, not necessarily in this world or in this life or in this, this time, but in the world tomorrow, I expect that God will give me some kind of exultation in the world tomorrow if I serve him well in the world today, and I'm willing now to put forth all the effort and activity.

   And I have been working night and day now for over half a century, giving myself to God, but still trying to do the work that He leads me to do so that someday I can hear those wonderful words. "Well done. You have been faithful." I tell you right now that's worth more than all the riches in the world. Once I was ready to work and to work night and day to study, to deny myself, to plug myself on, to do anything that was necessary to have great economic and financial success, material success that he looked up to by important men in this world to feel that I was important and to exhaust myself.

   Thank you, God. He punished me. He made me suffer. I didn't enjoy the suffering. But I am glad if I couldn't have had the sense, I didn't seem to, to have learned it any other way that God knocked me down as certainly as he knocked down the Apostle Paul, only in a different manner. And that he brought me to a place of humility and to a place where I would consider that I was nothing and give myself over to Him and thank Him, to have been working night and day striving merely for that thing that I hope I can do it someday. "Well done. Good and faithful servant." That's all the rewards that I want now.

   I believe I'm going to get it someday because in spite of all of the human short comings, God knows all of that and he looks on the heart and he looks on our intent, our motives, the spirit, the attitude, and how hard we really try and push and shove ourselves and to what he sent them, we yield to him and we rely on him and come to him for the power, the strength, the wisdom, the guidance, everything that we lack and oh how I had to come to learn how much I lacked.

   Have you come to see that? Have you come to see how far short you come, how much you lack, how much of God you need? Have you come to go to Him to get what you don't have so that it can be added to what you do have and realize it comes from Him and it only He can be gloried and that there is no exalting of self, but there is only an exalting of God, a praising and worshiping of God and never of yourself. I tell you my friends, you can't even know the way of peace of mind, of happiness, of joy of a thrilling and exciting day, day, hour by hour, light. Until you come to that point. As long as you are seeking the cheap things of this world, its pleasures, its economic benefits, things that money will buy.

   And that's what your whole interest is. Well, you're filling up a few passing moments here and there, but you wake up now and then to realize your life is empty and when it's all over there, nothing but vanity, nothing but trying to exalt yourself and enjoy yourself in the fleeting passing moments and your life is going to pass so much faster than you can realize. And when it's all over, you will have seen you have accomplished nothing that will endure whatever you've done and accomplished, it's probably mostly gone already, and it soon will be. And all you've done is exalt your vanity and you've been striving as the preacher says after the wind.

   Nothing but trying to strive to get a handful of wind and that's about all and you won't have anything you can take with you and you'll finally wake up when you get a little older, you realize that you don't have many more years or months to live. And then where are you going? And how much of what you've striven for in this world are you going to take with you? I tell you, there's nothing in this life that is of any value. It's just that, which adds to that which you can carry on over with you into the world tomorrow.

   There is no goal in this life that is worthy of anything except the goal of attaining to the resurrection and to being born again as a very child, a son of born son of God in the kingdom of God, the character that is put into your life here and now, all of the true values that you must get from God and every bit of it must come from God with your cooperation in the sense that you have used yourself, that you have humbled yourself, that you have come to repent, that you have hungered and thirst for these things that you don't have, that God has to give you and is so willing to give to you and that you have come to Him for it, the wisdom, the knowledge, the character, the will, the power, the strength, the faith, everything that God will give you, including his very life. It all comes from God and every bit of these things, my friends that you get from God, a part of Him that is added into you. Well, what was born in you and everything material is going to drop off. It isn't going to last very long.

   But everything that you go to God and get from Him and add to you and your character and your life now that is permanent, that is eternal and that you will carry over into the world tomorrow that you will take with you when you die. Oh, I tell you how many people know the real purpose of life. How many know the true values of life? How many know where they're going? How many are putting your time to any value? I tell you my friends, I look back and I can see now that anything I accomplish before God called me, was thrown away and it was all in vain.

   Some of the experiences I had, I believe God himself guided me into because there were certain things learned that now with a spiritual application and applying them to the work of God are of very great value. And now adding to them, what God is able to give those things can be carried on over throughout all eternity and into the eternal life. That is the gift of God. It is not a life you were born with it is the gift of God. How many of us know that, now Jesus is telling us here not to exalt ourselves to humble ourselves and He will exalt us.

   He will put these thing in us that exalt us. And that is the only thing that's of any value it comes from God. We take it with us. When we die, we have it with us for all eternity. Well, continuing now, verse 12, (Luke 14:12) then said he also to them that bade him.

   Now this was to his host that had invited him. This was a very important Pharisee high up in the church circle. When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. In other words, it is selfish of calling people like that. Then they'll invite you to their dinner and you get repaid and you get something back. It's just a matter of swapping or trading.

   But Jesus said, when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

   Now, when are we to be recompensed? When do we get the reward that comes from God? Do you go immediately to heaven if you die? Do you get it now in this life? No, you get an earnest of the spirit which is in real estate? Language, a down payment. That's all it's only. And as a matter of fact, an earnest isn't a real down payment. It's a part payment towards the down payment only. It's just a little tiny token payment. That's part of a down payment to sort of tell your good faith and find a bargain and make it legal. That's all. But you will be recompensed. You will come to your reward then, at the resurrection of the just and the resurrection there is to be more than one resurrection. But Jesus said that the time is coming when all that are in their graves now hear his voice, they're not hearing it now. But the hour is coming after the fifth chapter of John. When all that are in their graves, now hear his voice and come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life, the resurrection of the just. That's what he's talking about here. They that have done evil under the resurrection of judgment. That's 1000 years later. A lot of people don't even understand that, but that's true.

   Now, the resurrection is the only hope given for any life in the Bible. And when one of them that sat, sat at this banquet with him heard these things. He said unto you blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God. That's in the world tomorrow, the Kingdom of God is the family of God. And also it's the government of God and it is the governing family. It's the family of God that is to create the governing family of heaven and earth, God is the creator and the ruler of heaven and earth. But the kingdom of God will be the God ruling family on this earth with Christ at its head.

   Oh, I wonder if you can understand the Kingdom of God. That's what Jesus was preaching. The resurrection of the, just that's what Jesus was preaching. God help us to understand. Well, I see that clock got clear around again and I have very little time. And so finally, my friends listen, if you want to attain to the glory, that is your potential destiny to really fulfill the tremendous purpose for which you were put here on this earth. You must not only surrender unconditionally to God in real repentance. And receive Jesus Christ as personal savior, you must be converted, that is changed by continual, overcoming and growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   You must, as Jesus Christ said, actually live by every word of God that is by every word of the Bible. You need to come to really understand the Bible, but you need help. At last, you can enroll for the Ambassador College Bible Course by correspondence and study it in your own home. If you want to really understand the Bible, if you are willing to set yourself to devote a half hour or more every day to the study of your Bible. With this wonderful Bible study course, then we will start sending you the lessons by mail. We're not charging any tuition, we mail it to you without charge, trusting God by faith to supply the need. I'm quite sure that you have never seen a Bible course that will even compare with the Ambassador College Corresponding Course. First of all, it will take you through those Bible prophecies, revealing our tremendous world of evil presence. And what now lies on immediately ahead. It will make plain to you the purpose that God is working on here below. It will make clear such subjects of salvation, the original creation, all about your questions. But the one textbook, remember is your Bible and you have to be willing to devote sufficient time to really study it if you hope to comprehend and to clearly understand it and it is non-denominational.

   So now, what's your first lesson in the Bible Correspondence Course? There's no charge whatsoever. There will be no request for money whatsoever. Just tell me the call letters of the station to which you're now listening and send your request to Herbert W Armstrong in Pasadena, California. That's Herbert W Armstrong, Pasadena, California. And so now, this is Herbert W Armstrong saying goodbye, friends until tomorrow and daily on most of these stations.

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