Herbert W Armstrong

   Well, greetings, friends. This is Herbert W. Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. Now, let's continue where we were. I was speaking yesterday about the fact it is good news. We are going to have a world of peace at last.

   Yes, my friends, the world today is a very unhappy world. It's filled with suffering, it's filled with unhappiness. It's filled with agony, it's filled with fear and with worry. There are good things in this world today. We get a lot of pleasure out of it. It has its pleasures, it has its compensations, but it also has a lot of fears and worries. It also has a lot of pain and sorrow and suffering and anguish and a lot of disillusionment and a lot of unhappiness.

   Now, why should we have all this unhappiness? You hear a lot about a millennium, you hear a lot about a utopia, and we laugh at it as if it's totally impossible. My friends, why should it be impossible? Why shouldn't we have utopia? Let's take it out and look at it for a moment. Is there any reason why we shouldn't have it? Why do we have suffering? Why do we have anguish? Why do we have frustration? Why do we have the unhappiness in the world today? It's only because we don't know how to live. We don't know the way of peace. It's because we are not obeying the laws that God Almighty set in motion in this earth.

   Actual laws, they're not all physical laws. Some of them are spiritual laws that our scientists know nothing about. Scientists are confined to the physical realm. They only know what they can see or what they can hear or feel or taste or smell because there's no other way that knowledge can come into the mind of man by any normal natural process. And so that's all they know. And when it comes to spiritual principles and spiritual laws that regulate our happiness, the real joy of the human heart and the ways to peace and it would give us the things we want in this world. Scientists know nothing about it because it gets into a mixture of the spiritual with the physical and they know nothing about spiritual things.

   Why is it, my friends, that our great statesmen cannot bring us world peace? In the first place, they don't know the way of peace. Now, if they do know the way of peace and they're not giving it to us, then there's something very wrong. If they know how to bring us peace and they're not doing it, then I think we better impeach them in a hurry, don't you? And so, it's an axionic fact that they don't even know the way to peace. And why don't they know? Because they have natural minds. They have good minds. Most of the great statesmen of the world are men with very superior minds and nevertheless, they don't know the way of peace.

   Now, I think the statesmen that we have and the British, really the men at the top. I think they're sincere men. You know, the weight of responsibility on those men is so tremendous that I wouldn't think they'd want to be dishonest with it. And I have no reason to believe they're dishonest. Now, there's a lot of good and there's a lot of intelligence and a lot of ability in a normal natural human mind. But until a mind, my friends, has so completely been conquered by God and until it has come into complete submission to God in a way that most people don't even realize or know is necessary. And because we've heard so little preaching that you have to come to that kind of a being completely conquered before you can even become a Christian. Because there's so little understanding of what repentance is, the very first condition of salvation. Not very many of our great men have come to that experience and not very many of them have the spirit of God to energize their minds, to give them the knowledge and the wisdom of God. And so, they don't have the knowledge of these spiritual things that can only be revealed by the spirit of God. The natural mind of man doesn't know these things as the Bible itself says, their foolishness to him.

   Yes, the principles that would bring us world peace, the principles on which happiness is based, and all of those things are foolishness to the natural-born mind of man. It makes no difference whether he has an IQ of 80 or 100 or 145. It's still foolishness to him.

   You know, a converted mind finds that the things that once seemed foolish are now the all-important things. The things that seemed once important, that he attributed a great deal of importance to and it seemed like the real values, now become foolish. How many of you, I wonder, have ever gone through that change of mind? A transition of mind until what once seemed so wise and important now is silly and foolish, and vice versa.

   Well, you see, we haven't known the way to peace. Now, where are we now? We're in a world that is just about to blow itself up. We're in a world where they tell us that the weapons are now available that can lay waste an entire continent in one night. And scientists tell us that we're right on the eve of the time when the terrific weapons and means of destruction being invented can blast human life from off this planet. And so, they tell us world government is the only thing that can save us.

   Well, we're going to have world government and we're going to have government by God Almighty when he's going to send Jesus Christ once again to this earth. And he's going to come as the King of kings to rule every nation on the face of this earth and to restore the way of God, the laws of God, which includes the spiritual laws of God and the way to peace. Now, there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't have peace and why we shouldn't have utopia.

   You know, we take it for granted that we were made in such a way as if God had not done a very good job when he created the human body. For instance, in the human system, we were made to be sick. We think that it's just natural that all these colds and the rheumatism and all these aches and pains and all these various sicknesses ought to be coming upon us all the time. My friends, the most unnatural thing in the world is sickness. We should never be sick, and we never are sick except as a result of the violation of the physical laws that God Almighty set in motion to regulate our bodies.

   Of all of the machines that have ever been invented, the human body is the most marvelous. It's a mechanism that far supersedes anything that the mind of man in science has ever built in the way of machinery. It will take more punishment too, I think, than any machine made out of metals or anything that man can produce. It will absorb a lot of punishment. And still, we sort of go past this law of diminishing returns, as it were, and we sort of exceed the speed limit when it comes to putting punishment on the human body. And so, we get sick now and then. Well, we bring it on ourselves, or we inherit it because of the sins of our parents before us through heredity. And it isn't always something you do.

   But, my friends, if nature's laws were never violated, you would never be sick. And if the spiritual laws that God set in motion that are active, living things in motion, if they were never violated, you'd never be unhappy, and there wouldn't be any war. There wouldn't be any suffering; there wouldn't be any of these things on earth.

   But then, now, God could have made us so we couldn't do the wrong thing. Of course, God could have made us so that we just had to do the right thing and everything would have been peace. Certainly, God could have created a world like that. Do you ever stop to think about it? Do you ever stop to think about what it would be like if he had? Yes, we'd have peace. But there wouldn't be any character, and the very purpose of God to reproduce himself and make out of us what he has purposed to make of you and of me could never be accomplished. We'd be just like a spineless automaton with no volition, no character. We'd have nothing more than some inanimate object that can only do what someone else does with it and has no mind, no volition, no power of its own.

   But God gave us a mind, something like his. He gave us the power to choose. He gave us wills. He gave us these things that only God possesses because God is reproducing himself, believe it or not. Well, now, when Christ comes, he's going to set up a government on this earth. We've been going through that. Let's get on into this and go right along with it again.

   And as I explained, we have a constitution as the foundation of the government of the United States. And when it came to more than one nation going together to set up some kind of a world operation, like we had in the League of Nations, and the United Nations has only superseded it, they had the covenant of the League of Nations.

   Now, in other words, the nations had to enter into a sort of a contract or an agreement between themselves to make a foundation for the type of government, so far as it was a government that they wanted to establish. And they intended to put government in the League of Nations. That was the teeth in it that Senator Lodge didn't like, if you can remember back that far, as I can, and that the Senate finally turned thumbs down on and would not accept.

   Well, my friends, when God set up the nation of Israel on the earth, he made a covenant with them, which was an agreement between God and the nation because it was God's nation. God was its ruler. God gave it its laws. They didn't have a congress, they didn't have a parliament, or a diet, or a rightstog or anything of the kind. They received their laws directly from God. And the question was whether they would obey God. And God promised them that if they would carry out his laws and rules as he gave them, and his government, and let him rule them, they would have the blessings of that rule. Among those blessings was to be prosperity that would make them the wealthiest nation on earth. They would have become the greatest military power on earth. They would have the most abundant crops. They would have had peace as no other nation had. They would have been, as he said, the head and not the tail of all the nations of the earth.

   Well, they didn't obey God. Now they promised, but they didn't obey him. He made that covenant, and that was the basis, the foundation, of their government, the same as the constitution is the foundation of the United States government.

   Now, we've been reading that Christ is the minister of a new and a different covenant. That at that time, Moses was a mediator and the ministry was in the hands of the sons of Levi. At that time, between the time of Moses and Christ, there was a ministry or a priesthood set up. Now, Israel was made not only one of the nations of the earth; Israel was also made God's church. It was church and state combined, as a nation, it was called the Kingdom of Israel. As a church, it was called the Congregation of Israel. And congregation is synonymous with church—it means the same thing.

   Now, we had the Levitical priesthood, and they were the ministers of that church of that earthly nation, just one of the nations of this world. As one of the nations of this world, it was one of the fighting nations. They had an army part of the time, part of the time they didn't. But now hath Christ obtained a more excellent ministry than that of those Levitical ministers because he is the mediator of a better covenant established on better promises.

   And I read to you in the preceding program, it's going to be made with Israel. Now again, most people seem to think the Old Covenant was made with Israel, but the New Covenant is to be made with Gentiles. And they think we're Gentiles, none of which is true, of course. Again, they think the Old Covenant had a law, but the New Covenant has no law but only promises, and that the Old Covenant was the Ten Commandments. And since it's done away, the Ten Commandments are done away.

   Well, if so, then you can go out and rob and steal all you want. You can commit adultery, and you can worship all the idols you please, and you can dishonor your parents, and it's all right today, and murder is all right. Anything of that kind is perfectly all right if the Ten Commandments are done away. But you know, spiritual principles, and I tell you, my friends, it's just as wrong to lust and covet something that is not yours today as it ever was. It's just as wrong to steal today as it ever was. It's just as wrong to be unfaithful to your wife or to commit adultery, or to commit a murder, or to worship an idol, or anything of the kind, or to curse and swear. It's just as wrong today as it ever was. Those are inexorable, eternal principles, and they are spiritual principles. And if we kept the principles in the spirit of the Ten Commandments, and the whole world kept them, there'd be nothing but peace and prosperity and happiness over the whole world because that is the way to peace. That's the way that we don't seem to know anything about in this world today.

   Well, now, we were coming to this: he's going to make a New Covenant, and that New Covenant, as I explained, is to be the foundation and the basis for setting up a government, a kingdom on this earth that will be a Divine Kingdom, and it will rule the entire world, and it will bring us world peace. That's the thing that's going to bring in utopia. This covenant, then, is the foundation of it.

   Now again, what is the covenant? Well, it's an agreement between two parties. Now, here again, the Greek word used was "diatheke" if I pronounce it correctly. And it doesn't mean primarily covenant at all. Primarily, the meaning of that Greek word is "testament" or "a witness will by which one person bequeaths to or regulates the rights of others over his property or what is his inheritance at his death." And of course, it takes the death of the testator before the heirs can become possessors.

   Now again, let me call your attention that this is then the last will and testament of Jesus Christ, this covenant. And it takes effect only after the death of the testator. That's why Christ had to die first. And another thing: we are now only heirs because you will find, as Christ said here to the Galatians in the third chapter of Galatians, and the very last verse, the 29th verse (Galatians 3:29), they were Gentiles. But he said, "If you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's children," in other words, as I explained at some length in the preceding program, no longer Gentiles, but now Israelites and heirs according to the promise.

   Now, in this life, we're only an heir, not an inheritor, not a possessor, merely an heir. And an heir does not yet possess the inheritance. He is only one who is an heir to possess it after death.

   All right. Now, let's go a little further. On the other hand, we find over here in Hebrews 9:15 and 9:18 that the word "testament" is used. Now, the same Greek word is used both places as Paul wrote this. The Apostle Paul wrote this, and as he wrote it, the original Greek word was this word "diatheke," and it really means "testament," and it is translated "testament" over here in the ninth chapter. But in other places, it is translated "covenant."

   Now, why did they translate it "covenant"? They didn't make a mistake. It means something altogether different, but it is actually a covenant because what it is, my friends, is a will, but it is a conditioned will. It is an instrument, a legal instrument conferring the inheritance of Christ on his co-heirs, and we become his co-heirs, and we're heirs according to the promise. But it is a conditional testament. Now, there are conditions.

   Now, let's get at those conditions. The conditions I just read to you in Galatians 3:29: "If you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." You're not an heir unless you are Christ's. "If you be Christ's," there's the great big little two-letter word "if" standing in front of it. "If you be Christ's," now, what is it then to be Christ's?

   Well, in Romans, the eighth chapter and the ninth verse (Romans 8:9), you read that we are none of his and we are not Christ's, that is, we are not Christians unless we have received and are being led by the Spirit of God. In other places, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God. Now, in Acts 5:32, God gives His Spirit to them that obey Him. Unless you have completely yielded to God, unless you have been conquered by Him until you are coming like a little child, submissive and trusting, you are not His. You cannot have the Holy Spirit. God will not give His Spirit, which is His mind, His life, His very character, His love, all of the essence, all of the prerogatives, the character of God, of His nature. And as Peter says, we become partakers of the divine nature.

   Now we have human nature. You know what human nature is, a lot of good in it. But there's also a lot of evil in it, it's a mixture of good and evil. Well, through Christ, my friends, through conversion, you're a changed person. You become a new creation. You are then a partaker of the divine nature, as Peter says. Now, if that has happened, if you are begotten of God and the very seed of God, so to speak, through His Holy Spirit has come into you just as much as a begotten baby that is not yet born has been begotten of its father. And just as the sperm cell that comes from the father transmits to the baby that is to be and transmits the very nature of the father and many of his characteristics, even so the Spirit of God coming into you or me puts into you and me the very nature of God until we become like Him. And we must be like Him, and we must be holy, or we shall never see Him. We must be perfect as He is perfect. We are to be like Christ who now is very God, for we shall see Him as He is, our bodies changed like unto His glorious body. Oh, can your mind possibly conceive it? Can you, my friends, grasp the great thing that God has in store for us?

   Now, if you are now a begotten child of God, there is the great condition. There it is. Now there are conditions. Notice again back here in Galatians, the third chapter in the 16th verse (Galatians 3:16). Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. To Abraham and his seed. You become an heir to the promises God made to Abraham. And as I explained yesterday, you cannot find any place where God promised Abraham heaven. Heaven is God's property and God's throne and He has not willed that over to you. Now, it's about time we wake up to a few things, my friends, and we look into our Bibles and get all of this prejudice and some of you are rising up in heated anger perhaps right about now. Well, just put that down because it isn't going to get you anywhere. Just look into the word of God, my friends, and see what God has given us. You know, God has promised you something a lot better than you think. You know, we want our own ways, don't we? We're just like a lot of spoiled children if we can't have our own ways. Well, a lot of the things we believe are not true. Either we are deceived and this whole world is deceived, or your Bible isn't true because it says that in these days, the whole world would be deceived. So, open your mind and look.

   Now here in the third chapter of Galatians, the 16th verse (Galatians 3:16): to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And if you go back to Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and Genesis 17, and so on, you will find back there what God promised to Abraham and to his seed. What He promised was this earth as an everlasting possession and everlasting life along with it because you can't possess the earth forever unless you live forever to possess it.

   Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Who or what is that seed? He sayeth not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, to thy seed, which is Christ. In other words, to Abraham and his son, Christ, were the promises made. Christ then, by having risen from the dead, has already become a possessor and inheritor. But he had to go to heaven to get the approval of God on it. And he's going to take over the possession, and he's going to take possession of the earth as its King, its Lord and Master, and the King over all the kings of this earth when he comes at his second coming. He has gone to heaven to have this legally conferred on him. And also, while he's been up there for 1900 years, he has been on the very throne of God interceding for you as your High Priest. He's your Lord and Master and your High Priest. Now, if you are yielded to him, if by faith you have accepted him as your Savior.

   Now, what was the Old Covenant, my friends? Was it also a testament? Let's turn back for a while to Exodus, the 19th chapter. I want you to notice in Exodus 19, beginning with the third verse (Exodus 19:3). Moses. Now let's get back. This is that old nation Israel back in the Old Testament time. Just listen to this. It was in the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, and Moses went up unto God, and the Eternal called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, or to the kingdom of Israel, and tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself by miracles, bringing them out of slavery and serving them in Egypt. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice— Is there a condition there? Is this a conditional covenant? It certainly is.

   Notice: Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant— If you keep this covenant, this agreement, in other words, because the covenant is an agreement— Then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, but God is going to bequeath it over to them. The heaven, even the heavens, are the Eternal's, but the earth hath he given to the sons of men. Well, you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

   So, Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and he laid before their faces all the words that the Eternal had commanded him. In other words, it's a proposition. There's an if to it, and he laid the proposition before them. Now it's going to be a contract or a covenant. And that's an agreement by and between two parties. A covenant, in this case, is a covenant where God lays certain conditions before the people and promises certain promises on performance of the conditions. Now, for instance, you enter into a covenant with a contractor to build a house, and there's a bid and a definite amount of money. Now you stand bound to pay that money if he performs his part. But if he doesn't build it according to the specifications or if he doesn't build the house at all, and he lays down on his part of the contract or of the covenant, you don't have to finish your part by giving him what you have promised to give. Now, God has promised payment or reward on condition that we perform certain things. That, my friends, is a covenant. That's what a covenant is.

   The Ten Commandments are not a covenant. They were the conditions of the covenant. A house may have a lot of doors and windows in it, but the door of the house is not the house. The window of the house is not the house. And because you find the expression "tables of the covenant" in the Old Testament, some people conclude, there, the tables are the covenant. Is that so? No, the door of a house is not a house. It's only the door to the house. It's only a part of the house.

   Well, the people promised anyway, very glibly, that they would carry out whatever God had said. They were so willing to do that.

   Now, the Old Covenant was not made in the 20th chapter. The Ten Commandments are enunciated in the 20th chapter where you read, "God spake all these words, saying, I am the Eternal thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt make unto thee no graven image. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them," and so on, "or serve them. I am the Eternal thy God. Thou shalt not take the name of the Eternal thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Eternal thy God. Honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, his wife, or whatever is your neighbor's," and so on.

   And all the people saw the thundering and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they were removed. And all the people heard the voice as you read in Deuteronomy 5. Now, that was not the making of the covenant. There was no agreement agreed to there. But you turn over here to the 24th chapter of Exodus, and here is the covenant, beginning with the third verse (Exodus 24:3): "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Eternal and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, 'All the words which the Eternal hath said will we do.'" There, they agreed. There's an agreement entered into now. Notice, it had to be sealed with blood.

   This topic will be continued on the next edition in the series of "The World Tomorrow." Because of the importance of this subject and other related topics, we are pleased to offer the following free literature:

   What causes pain and frustration when everything seems to go wrong? Have you ever asked yourself, why? Is there a cause for every effect? Your Bible reveals that God set into motion living guidelines that affect your life. Properly observed, these guidelines guarantee happiness, peace of mind, and success. Broken, they produce anguish, despair, and frustration. These living guidelines are commonly known as the Ten Commandments, and they can lead you to a more fulfilling and rewarding life in today's society of moral confusion. For a clear and simple explanation of how these laws can benefit you, request your free copy of the book, "The Ten Commandments."

   Send your request to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God. For literature offered on this program, send your requests along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong, Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California 91123.