Herbert W Armstrong

   What a world it would be if you could be guaranteed life from now on. People actually hope that science can achieve a fantastic breakthrough and promise us just there, there are associations formed now for people who believe that maybe if their bodies are quick frozen that some time, 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years, I suppose it doesn't really matter to them because they will be maintained in that condition for all that time.

   No matter how long it takes, that science, technology, I don't know what the theological aspect of this might be in their minds, but somehow science and technology might achieve a breakthrough and they can be given eternal life in some future generation by science that can thaw out their bodies, find out what it was that killed them, whether cancer or whatever else, cure the disease and grant them a kind of physical immortality.

   And just as you may have heard about people who, in the lunar walks, wanted to get with Pan AM to get a reservation to go to the moon. I guess people have actually got their names on the list and maybe even paid for their tickets or placed a little bit down. Not quite sure what the airlines are going to charge for this in the event that airlines ever take people to the moon.

   Well, people have actually hoped that their bodies could be preserved and that they could be brought back from the dead. Every day around this plague-ridden world of ours, this war-sick world. There are tens of thousands of human beings every week, every month, every year, thousands mouthing in the millions who die, sickness, disease, accidents, old age, you name it, murder, people die. You know many people in your own circle of friends who are dead.

   History is merely the obituary of all of mankind. In one sense, all these people we read of even back prior to the Civil War in the United States are now dead. I've lost close friends, relatives, my mother, my brother, other people, very close to me, a niece and so on. And so have you. We all have, death is not pleasant. It's not fun. We can sit back when we're comfortable, as I've said, the last couple of three programs and we can tell a little silly jokes about people dying to get into the, you know, mortuary or something, but is not very much fun when it strikes very close to us.

   Here we are with our modern technology, our knowledge explosion, all of our information about biology and chemistry and the many fantastic books that are available to us now with some of the unbelievable photography that is available to show us about the cell, about genes and chromosomes about sex and heredity. All of the fantastic knowledge that is available and still, death, the greatest enemy of man, the one biggest fear of so many people, it even causes suicide.

   It seems strange, but psychologists would tell us that there's some strange reasoning how people begin to sort of speculate about and concentrate upon the ultimate end of their own lives. And they get so despondent that they're driven to suicide. So death, while it's the greatest enemy of man still remains the one thing about which we seem to know less than anything else.

   Now, prior to the time of heart transplants, I could say, and I did say, no one has ever come back from the grave. And I was talking, of course, in modern terminology in modern times because when you go to the Bible, I see that people did come back and there's one in particular who did, and people don't seem to talk much about him. But speaking technically to people who don't believe the Bible and speaking to atheists and agnostics and others who doubt that the Bible is true, it was true that you could say, "Now, look, you don't know anyone who has come back from the grave to tell you what it was like to be dead."

   Well, the last couple of programs I quoted to you, and up to the moment statement from a man that now makes that untrue in our age of heart transplants who did come back from the dead. Well, maybe he wasn't dead. People aren't quite sure what constitutes death anymore. A very large medical body meeting in Scandinavia was not quite sure what was dead. They weren't quite sure whether or not when your brain didn't give out any more electrical signals, you were dead or whether when the heart stopped, you were dead or whether when, I guess, cellular disintegration or something of this nature caused death. As a matter of fact, they did decide when there was no more life in the brain that you were dead. And then I cited the case, the last couple of programs of the young fellow in Jerusalem who, in the fall, I think it was for eight days or a long period of time, I had the quotation, I quoted it twice and then put it away, that they put these electric sensors on the brain and they could detect no brain activity whatsoever. And yet, though they kept working on the body and the heart and giving him oxygen and so on, he finally, as they say, came back to life, came back to his own consciousness. He didn't suffer any brain damage. He is perfectly normal, yet for days on end, this young fellow lay there. And according to this one medical body, a perfect candidate for having his heart removed.

   So there are these problems that even medical science is not really sure what constitutes death or what is the moment of death.

   Now, last time I was showing you that churches, large churches, begin to say that the resurrection of the dead is not necessarily a central part of their doctrine. Now, that's all right. They have that right. And churches can adopt any doctrine they would wish. I don't think that many churches are ashamed of that. The only thing is that I look into the Bible and see what the Bible says. And I see that Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the way in the life." And that Jesus did believe in the resurrection from the dead, that Paul believed in a resurrection from the dead and went on trial for his life because of that belief and was in trouble with different Jewish sects and religious organizations of that day. The Pharisees on the one hand who believed in the resurrection, the Sadducees on the other hand who did not and created an absolute riot of turmoil as a result of saying of the resurrection of the dead, "I called in question this day, how Jesus taught it, Paul taught it, the New Testament does teach it. There are examples of resurrection occurring. Jesus is said to have performed one. Many people don't believe it. The last time I promised you as I concluded with a statement that is usually read at funerals that I read that we sorrow not. It's Paul's writing in I Thessalonians, the fourth chapter that says that if we know and we understand about the resurrection of the dead, we, we who know that, we who believe in it, we who have faith in that, will not sorrow as do others who have no hope.

   So, let me just speculate this much right now to say, and I don't like to do this. I'm sort of doing it because other people do it. But let me say this much, wouldn't it be wonderful? Wouldn't the psychologists say? And the psychiatrists say, and people who have to deal with suicide say, wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody did believe in the resurrection from the dead? If everybody had as an absolute well, uh just an anchor for their own confidence. A belief that when they die, they're just going to be buried, they'll be completely unconscious. But someday they are going to live again and walk this earth again. Now, wouldn't that be a fantastic thing if everybody believes that now for the moment, I'm just saying, it may be facetiously.

   Psychologically wouldn't it be wonderful because then people's hang-ups, all kinds of fear of death, the horrible sorrow over the loss of a loved one. Wondering Lizzie in hell or, you know, hoping that he went to the other place but maybe not really sure. A little worried about it. Different religions have different ideas on this. Some people believe that they are in different compartments and that maybe you can kind of graduate. It's like school. And if you go to church, often enough, you the living and on behalf of the dead, if you do certain things that maybe you can kind of spring them loose into the beatific vision, eventually.

   Other people believe that maybe a person dies, it wasn't quote saved the way they think about it in their church. And if they can go and they can get baptized that then God off there in the great never, never somewhere these souls are apparently all over the place. God. Shhh, there goes one by and this soul, oh, there's another one that isn't saved. And about that time, he looks down and somebody got baptized on behalf and he pulls that one over there and says, now you can come on up here, you don't have to wander around there anymore because somebody down below did it for you after you were dead. Now, that is a little strange to me that's not taught in the Bible either, but I better get around to what is taught in the Bible or else I'll use up all my time telling you what I don't believe, which I am prone to do sometimes because there's so much around this world that isn't worth believing in, believe me.

   Why were you born? To become a farmer trying to feed the population bomb? To become an entertainer to give people a fleeting moment of laughter, to be a millionaire with big houses and fancy cars and ulcers, to live out your last days at the end of a plastic tube in a hospital, to be the last to die in a war you don't understand? Is that all that is to human existence just putting in your time on a troubled planet? No, there's a great purpose for your life. A reason you draw breath and you need to know what it is. Read the free booklet. Why were you BORN? This knowledge gives reason to life adds meaning to all you do, for a true added dimension to your life. Be sure to read. Why were you BORN?

   A widespread belief in the resurrection from the dead was the extant religion, the conviction of people during Jesus' day. Now, on the account, when Jesus came to Lazarus too, Lazarus was a close friend of his. He was in another area. He came back and they told him that Lazarus was dead, and he saw all these people weeping and grieving.

   The last couple of times, we were talking about the grief syndrome of the psychology of grief and all of the careful and clever arrangements of floral patterns and of funeral processions and ceremonies and the arrangement of funeral parlors. And I don't want to step on people's toes or get sarcastic about that except that it is a grizzly and a macabre business of using this grief psychology to, as it were, ring every last bit of sorrow out of a person's poor distraught heart when someone they have loved so very much is gone.

   And I cited the case of the middle-income, immigrant family, the lady from Europe, somewhere whose husband died and she desperately wanted her husband to have a funeral in her mind was befitting what she thought of him. And she had to go to work something like eight months. I think it was and worked for all that time to earn enough money to give him the kind of a funeral she wanted and was so busy and it's a sick, sick joke was so busy when the time came for the funeral, she couldn't take time off from work to go. Now, let's, I don't know of course that it was her choice. But I mean, it's really sad. It shows you the psychology and the approach that many people have of this thing of funerals.

   Well, Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus. He'd been buried for four days, and they were talking to him about it. This is chapter 11, by the way, the book of John, the gospel of John, Matthew, Mark John, number four of the books in Your New Testament and chapter 11 in verse 21 (John 11:21), Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you'd have been here, he wouldn't have died. You could have saved him if he was still alive. And she didn't seem to realize that Jesus with the power of God had the power to reach beyond that moment of death that comes to a human being and to cause him to live again.

   And so Jesus said, your brother shall rise again, verse 23. And he meant right now, see, he was going to perform a tremendous miracle. God was going to do it through him, and he said, your brother will rise again. And Martha said, well, now I know he's going to rise again in the resurrection at the last day. She believed in the resurrection. At the last day, Jesus said unto her, this is a text that I'm sure is quoted time and again in pulpits all over the country and around the world where the Christian religion is believed and taught.

   Although I don't know how many people as I look around some of the statistics and some of the quotations that I have seen from the mainstream of Christian thought, how many people these days believe really believe with all their being in a resurrection? But Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. Now, does that mean that he spiritualized the way the doctrine, the fact of a body coming out of a tomb and having life again by saying I am it? And then if you believe in him, well, it never happens to you. Well, let's go on and see. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. He believes in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And that's unto the age, the Greek expression is unto the ages. He's going to remain alive. She said, yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, which had come into the world. Well, you see the rest of the account here in the 11th chapter of the book of John, you will find that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by the power of God.

   Now, the last chapters of all the gospels are the account of the resurrection of Christ that he himself walked out of the tomb over in the last of the book of John. And just before the book of Acts, you'll find some of the accounts where he appeared to people time and again, some of them hadn't really learned the hard way.

   In the 21st chapter of the book of John, and verse one (John 21:1), after these things that was after the time when Thomas actually inserted his hand into what was a very great gaping spear wound in the side of the one with whom he ate, slept, walked, talked, lived, he heard his voice. He had been in one session after another, an argument, an event in the midst of turmoil and the riot. He had been in the homes of Pharisees of leaders. He had been in the presence of Roman soldiers. He had been up and down the length and breadth of Galilee, down to Jerusalem, up to Northern Israel, up the Tire and Siden, he had been all over with the same person Jesus Christ.

   He had seen him alive by years and he'd seen him kill had fled forsaken him, came back and had to go through the experience of actually inserting his hand inside of inside of a gaping wound in a human body. He had to learn the hard way many, many proofs occurred. Jesus appeared suddenly where the doors were closed. It says in verse one chapter 21 after these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples of the sea of Tiberius, and he was standing there, and you can read the rest of the story. I won't take time now because I want to get along with this on the resurrection.

   But he by many infallible proofs, it says in the first chapter of the book of Acts demonstrated to an unwilling group, they forsook him, they fled, they didn't want to believe he was alive. It didn't really sink down into their hearts. They didn't get it, they didn't get what he said that he was going to rise again. He told exactly how long he would be in the tomb.

   The central fact then that so inspired, that so filled with zeal and enthusiasm, those early disciples as they became the very foundation, a part of the foundation, the apostles and the prophets with Christ himself, the Chief cornerstone, the very foundation of the New Testament Church. What was it that imbued them and filled them with such excitement, such zeal, such dedication that many of them were forced later and called upon to give their lives for what they believed?

   It was the proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and the proofs are right here. He gave them proof. They didn't wonder anymore when they'd seen him 40 days, time and time and time again. They could be walking along the road talking somewhere. Somebody turns a corner and approaches them. It's Jesus Christ. They're in a meeting together. They're worried because they think maybe some of them are going to be beheaded and he suddenly appears in the midst, the doors were locked at the big stone building and there he is, they're up at the Sea of Galilee about 90 some miles north. They're out in a boat and fishing all night. And somebody is standing on the shore, he says, fellas, do you have any meat that was common? People might ask, can I buy a fish of a boat that went by, and John said, it's the Lord. So Peter throws himself in and swims ashore. The rest of them, take a little boat and drag a whole net of fish ashore because he said, put it on the other side. And so they did, and over 300 great fish are there. And so they dragged 150 and 3 better be accurate on that. And so they found a coal, a fire, a fire already burned down the coal and they were able to have a meal with him.

   So, time and time again, by this and that and the other common everyday human occurrence, they were able to see him eating, walking, reclining. They were able to see him in every conceivable situation to call back many of the experiences they had had together. They weren't willingly going to believe any of this. They all said, "I go fishing." Peter said, "I go fishing," and they said, "I'll go with you." They all forsook him and fled. They didn't want to believe that Jesus was alive. He had to prove it to them over and over again.

   In the first chapter of the book of Acts in verse three (Acts 1:3), it's talking of Jesus and the disciples. And it said, to whom speaking of the apostles, if you read it, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days. And speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, 40 days, that's a month and 10 days, and 10 days after that came the day of Pentecost. Pentecost means count 50, Pente cost, you know, five. But in this case, 50 Pentecost is count 50. That's all the world it means in the Greek language. And so why people want to call themselves count 50 I don't know. But at any rate, it had to do with the method that you use to arrive at a certain annual High Day and Holy Day, a day in which God said he had put his presence and placed his name, a day that was always observed by the people back in the Old Testament, that observed by Christ, that was observed by the New Testament apostles and became the very birthday, the day on which June 18, 31 A.D., actually the day on which the church was founded, the day on which God's Holy Spirit was given to those apostles, that was 50 days after. But for those first 40 days, Jesus was showing himself alive over and over and over again.

   And the Apostle Paul said that on one occasion, he appeared to more than 500 of them all at the same time. Men don't go out and give their lives and preach with all of their beings for something they know is a hoax or a fraud. One thing is sure, even though many broad mainstream churches or religions might cheerfully admit that they do not emphasize the resurrection from the dead as a part of their doctrine today. I'll tell you this, the early New Testament church and the apostles who were the disciples of Jesus Christ, not only emphasized it, but they shouted about it, and it was the absolute central theme and the greatest message they continued to preach over and over again before masses of thousands of people, and some of them lost their lives because of that belief.

   Why were you born, to become a farmer trying to feed the population bomb, to become an entertainer, to give people a fleeting moment of laughter, to be a millionaire with big houses and fancy cars, and ulcers, to live out your last days at the end of a plastic tube in a hospital, to be the last to die in a war you don't understand. Is that all that is to human existence, just putting in your time on a troubled planet? No, there's a great purpose for your life, a reason you draw breath, and you need to know what it is. Read the free booklet. Why were you BORN? This knowledge gives reason to life, adds meaning to all you do for a true added dimension to your life. Be sure to read, "Why were you BORN?"

   When you're called in a courtroom as a witness and maybe you've seen something, maybe the judge is asking now, were you on the corner of such and such at such a time, and maybe somebody's life is hanging in the balance, and they've been hauled before the judge because they're guilty of maybe you know, manslaughter with their automobile, and maybe you know this person. And so you get up before the judge, and the judge, and they swear you in, and you're sitting there in the witness stand.

   Now, you witnessed, you saw something happen, and the judge says, "Now tell us in your own words what you saw happen on the morning of such and such." And you say, "Oh, judge, he's such a wonderful man." The judge says, "Who do you, who, who are you talking about?" Well, the driver of the car. "Oh, he's such a wonderful man, and I just love him, and he loves me. We're close friends, there. Now, I've witnessed for him." Well, as a judge, is that what he really wants to know? Or does he want to know what happened? What did you see? What was it like? What kind of a day was it? What were the conditions? Was it raining? Were the brakes good? Was the automobile under control? Was it going too fast? Was the pedestrian walking against the light?

   You know, when these people went out and they were witnesses for Jesus Christ and Nazareth, you can't find one single case in the entirety of the New Testament where they went out and told somebody else, "Let me tell you what he's done for me." They went out and they talked about what they'd seen and what they had heard. I intend proving that to you here in the first chapter of the book of Acts (Acts 1:3), it says, to whom, talking of the apostles, verse three, he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen within 40 days. And speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them, commanded that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which they had heard, said he, of him.

   And so you read in verse seven (Acts 1:7), he told them it was not for them to know the times and the seasons about restoring the kingdom. And he said, you will, the Father has put this in his own power, but you, verse eight (Acts 1:8??, shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me. He told the apostles, this is the early New Testament day, actually 10 days before the day of Pentecost when it occurred, "You shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." They were to be witnesses unto him.

   Now, what did they witness about? Let's take a look. When Matthias was chosen, the very first message came back. They saw him go up, an angel's voice came and said in verse 11, that same chapter, the first chapter of the book of Acts (Acts 1:11), "You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you've seen him go into heaven." Why does he need to come again? If God has a soul factory and his souls are going to heaven every day, isn't he content to stay up there and not have to come back down to this wretched earth where all the problems are.

   Well, it's a question, something you ought to resolve for yourself and look into it for yourself. At the conclusion of the statement made by these leading apostles as they chose Matthias by lot to replace Judas Iscariot who had killed himself after his betrayal of Jesus. It is said in verse 22, chapter one of the book of Acts (Acts 1:22), beginning from the baptism of John, under that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us, of his resurrection, a witness with us that he's alive but he was dead. All right.

   The second chapter of the book of Acts, today of Pentecost, Peter is preaching. He says in verse 24 (Acts 2:24), the conclusion of the first sermon ever recorded in your New Testament, speaking of Christ, whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should behold another. He said again in verse 32 (Acts 2:32), "It is yes of the same chapter, this Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses." What were they talking about? They were talking about Christ being raised from the dead, the resurrection from the dead continually.

   Down in chapter three, in verse 24 (Acts 3:24), "Unto you first, God having raised up his Son, Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning everyone away from his iniquities." Chapter four, and verse two (Acts 4:2), "The Sadducees and the priests were grieved that they, the disciples, the apostles taught to people and preached through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead." All right. Their doctrine was the resurrection from the dead for everybody. And they preached it through Jesus, meaning since he has been resurrected, so can you be. That's the way they preach.

   In verse 20 of that same chapter (Acts 3:20), they said, "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." I'm going to skip over right quickly to chapter four and verse 33 and let you read that (Acts 4:33), "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection. Now, they witnessed about the Lord Jesus, all right, but not one of them ever said, 'Oh, let me tell you what he's done for me.' They said he's alive. They talked about what he can do for you. This save dead business wasn't something that inspired them. They were thinking about life. They were thinking about the unbelievable phenomenon, a person can live, and he can live a full and a happy abundant life, and die, and God is not going to leave him dead, that he's going to take him out of the grave. The resurrection from the dead was the very focal point of the preaching of those apostles continually. They said with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus."

   Over in the 13th chapter of the book of Acts, many of them, the 13th to 17th and others. But here in the 13th chapter and in verse 30 (Acts 13:30-31, 37), "But God raised him from the dead," said the apostle Paul, and verse 31, "was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. And we're their witnesses. We're his witnesses unto the people." Verse 37, "But he whom God raised again all the way through the book of Acts. And I've got to break off for lack of time, and I'll finish it next time on the subject of the resurrection and bring up a couple of questions that may have bothered people.

   I don't remember anything at all about the day of my birth. Matter of fact, I don't think my parents even told me very much about it except to say that I was born and told me which hospital it was in, and later the hospital burnt down, and I hoped and prayed there was no connection. But I remember seeing my birth certificate once or twice. I think it's been lost since they did a dirty trick to me when I was born. They, they put my little feet on ink pads and then held up a piece of paper and gave me some ink footprints. I guess that was so they figured if I ever robbed a bank and did it barefoot, they could track me down. No.

   But anyhow, I didn't know a thing when I was born. Everything I learned I learned since that time. I've had to unlearn a lot of things and I've been able to learn other things. But the one thing that I didn't even begin to understand until I was well on up into my twenties and even then it wasn't my doing, but it was a blessing from God that it was given to me. Knowledge came to me about the purpose for human life. What was I doing on this earth anyhow? What is your own personal goal in life? What are you doing here? What are you after?

   Write for this booklet on "Why were you BORN?" What is the real purpose in human life? All you need to do is to request it by sending your letter to Post Office Box 345, Sydney, New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call letters at your station. We need that. That's all there is no cost. But tell us the name of the radio station to which you've been listening, the call letters, and then send your letter to Box 345, Sydney, New South Wales. Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have been listening to the World Tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales.