Herbert W Armstrong

   And greeting friends around the world. This is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow.

   We're being told we're living in the time of insoluble problems of constant quests and searching for answers and solutions. But the constant assurance of one absolute fact, and that is that nothing is absolute. People believe absolutely that there is nothing absolute. Well, my friends, why don't we quit kidding ourselves? Why don't you be honest with yourself? You know very well you can prove it. If you look into it, you can. There are some absolutes that you know of. You deal with them every day. You're living in an absolute world. You are an absolute person, and everything you run across and you know of as a law, whether it's with physics or the law of chemistry and science, all of the laws that you deal with every single day, the good old dependable ionosphere that bounces the radio waves back and forth so you can hear this broadcast, you deal with some unshakeable absolute, the orbital patterns of the great vastness of this entirety of the universe is pretty much dependable.

   Now, back in Washington D.C., there is a National Master Clock, and every now and then they have to adjust that master clock in Washington D.C. by a few seconds or a part of a second or so because it gets a little bit off. But now who do they check with? Well, they check with the scholar, they checked with the orbital patterns of the bodies, we call them the planets and the stars out in this vast universe. That's what they check with. So, the great entire huge master clock of the universe somehow was set in motion and had the beginning, it had to start somehow. Now that's absolutely provable. But just to illustrate the point briefly, that's pretty absolute.

   You know, we go through life dealing with thinking about talking about and really understanding if we stop to think about it, a lot of absolutes, and yet we have a lot of paid professionals trying to tell us there are no answers, there are no solutions, there are no absolutes and that is just a lot of ridiculousness and you don't need to believe it anymore. You can go to that one source that gives you the absolute answer to those questions that most college students ask and yet never get the solutions, the answers to what is man, where is he going? How does he get there? Why were you born? Why were you put on this earth? Have you ever thought about it very much?

   Now, that one source of knowledge has been overlooked by most people and that is the Bible, believe it or not as shocking as it might sound. And if you've never proved it to yourself, it might sound rather shocking because most people, even though professing Christians, even though having certain religious endeavors, even though feeling they may have made a shift in the course of the direction of their life and they may be living for the Lord as some people might phrase it, even though having a sort of an experience joining a church, so many people are willing to overlook the mistakes of Christ, they're willing to overlook the odd things that he did and they sound so odd to many people.

   Can you imagine saying the words Jesus did when he healed the blind man? You imagine making clay of saliva and putting it on a man's eye that sort of embarrasses. I think a lot of people who feel they are Christians who dress up very nicely to go to church. But I think that some of the things Jesus did and some of the things he said would be rather embarrassing to a lot of people and carrying a Bible in public. Well, that would be just about the height of embarrassment. I've offered that test time and again if you want to prove whether or not we are a God-fearing religious society. And I don't think you even need to prove it because you know better. But I mean, if some person still thinks that we are very Christian, why don't you try carrying a Bible under your arm? You don't even need to mark it up or have it dog-eared or look like you've ever read it. Just carry it. People will begin to sort of give you a wide berth. They will think, "Oh, here comes another." Well, you might pass as a Bible salesman, now that could be done. But otherwise, if they think you read it, you're liable to appear as if you are a real fanatic.

   I remember one time I ran out of gas or was it a flat tire? I was going to visit a person, and I had to walk the last couple of blocks, and it was a very, very lovely afternoon. The sun was shining. People were out on Saturday working on their lawns, and I walked by, and I had my Bible in my hand, and you ought to see the shock, surprised expressions on a lot of people's faces. It almost dropped their clippers.

   Here I was just a young man of the mid-twenties or so, walking along the street looking, I guess, rather serious or purposeful in some way with the Bible, which was obviously read a little bit, the cover was loose. As a matter of fact, in my hand. Now, I imagine they look rather fearful thinking. Oh, no. Here comes another one of these religious fanatics, and he's going to try to get me converted.

   Well, now my friend's religion doesn't have to go by certain labels. It just doesn't have to be that way. You know, if I didn't ever get around to telling you a little bit about the Bible and God on this program, you wouldn't know that there is very much to do with religion on it. You don't hear any organ music when I first come on. Of course, I don't play the organ. So that's not the only reason for it. I, we, we're just not gonna have organ music on a program and waste time, and we need to talk to you about the biggest things that face this world, the biggest problems of life.

   And I don't spend time and praying in public because Christ said not to do that, said do that quiet and private between you and God. And I don't have to just use a certain tone of voice or try to whip you up into a great emotional fervor and then tell you to get a point of contact whatever that is. Now, you know, I do that with car batteries maybe, but not with people touching radios. Some things are rather hard to understand.

   But at any rate, does religion always have to be a hodgepodge of confusion and conflict? Does it have to be vague and nebulous? Does it have to sort of deal with the inner you? But not with the practical outer you? Does religion have to be confined to dealing with the soul with God, sort of the specialist, dealing with your soul trying to extract it by devious means from your body. But in the meantime, your life, your heart desires your energies, your aptitudes, your talents, your abilities, all of your wage-earning capacity, the way you live life is totally different from all of this ethereal nebulous nothing that you know of as your religion.

   What do you know about God? How much do you know about it? About his mind? His attitudes, his concept, his approach. What about his personality? What about his power? Is Jesus Christ alive today? Has he been alive ever since he walked out of the tomb in 31 A.D.? If so, what has he been doing ever since that time? And what are you going to be doing in the next five years? What's your life going to be like then? Where will your children be 10 years from now? If you don't have any, will you be married, settling down to a happy home in a purposeful worthwhile existence? Or will you be the victim of perhaps a horror accident? Some natural calamity or will a huge economic disaster strike or will we be in World War III?

   You know, most people just won't think about questions like that. They'd rather just erase them from their minds and go on in temporal pleasures and thrills and try to avoid the big, what-ifs of today. Can we believe the statement that says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth? And I've been announcing this booklet, Does God Exist? And. The Proof of the Bible, which absolutely lay the proofs there right before your eyes. And in layman's language, not in technical scientific jargon, you can prove it very simply and very easily. That's why I've offered these books. So, you can find out whether or not there is a source to which you can go and have a guaranteed source of absolutes that you can look into to find out what are the answers to life itself. The Apostle Paul explains how our society got the way it is. He explains how our ancient forefathers began to go galloping off after the various ideas of pagan philosophers who themselves were perverts and freaks many times and who admitted it and whose public lives were rather obscene, but in the vain, dark and demented ramblings of their labyrinths of demented minds.

   They came up with a lot of nebulae and hypotheses that didn't make a bit of sense and ended up, of course, in idolatry, in all of the licentiousness that goes along with the denial of God and his existence. And so, the Apostle Paul said that the philosopher, those upon whom the educational institutions of this earth are even today based, those philosophers did not like to retain God. The idea of God, the knowledge about God and his plan in their minds and their memory. And the reason for that, of course, is that the minute you admit there is a God, you're admitting there is a higher power, you're admitting there is someone who has the ultimate say so over your destiny and your future. And you're admitting that maybe there's someone to whom your conscience is responsible, that there is someone who has sat down or laid down before humankind, a certain standard for living for conduct, call it morality, whatever you wish to call it laws of God nevertheless do exist.

   And the minute you admit there is a God, you've got to admit He is the lawgiver and those laws are to be obeyed or else they're going to break the one who breaks them two and two makes four my friends in this world. The way it is, is the direct result of doing that, which comes naturally that which appeals to the carnal human, fleshly man. Now, the carnal mind is spoken of in the Bible, that means the fleshly physical mind with which every human individual is born as being automatically contrary to God and his laws, automatically resentful and rebellious toward authority.

   I saw a group of children, the other day, I was very thankful that they have seatbelts on airplanes because I'm just thankful that those children weren't running around inside of that aircraft the way they were allowed to do in the airport. And you know, what sort of struck home again, the naive gullible assumption of so many human beings who through natural bodily processes over which they have no power finally come to the place where they are able to become parents and apparently gullibly assume that with such bodily ability comes the automatic intelligence and wisdom that it takes to rear those children correctly.

   And here was a mother that would say something to a little boy come here and the boy is trotting around and blowing a whistle and screaming and jumping up and down just, just making a complete nuisance of himself. And it called the mind again. And there were several of them, not just this one, but a whole batch of them. And it was like being thrown inside of a cage of monkeys instead of being able to view them safely from the exterior of the zoo. And of course, everyone there was terribly uncomfortable.

   It wasn't because I'm religious that this bothered me. It bothers me whether religion has anything to do with it or not. I just don't like to see noisy, dirty raucous, rebellious little brats, pardon the expression instead of trained, clean, quiet, respectful children. And I think regardless as to your ideas on psychology or what you might feel that you would agree with that statement. I don't think you like to see noisy rebellious raucous children running loose with no controls on them whatsoever.

   Well, now I was a baby. And so were you and the thing we need to realize is every little human child is not going to finally develop into or grow into a delinquent by all kinds of pressures. Every human baby is born delinquent when he's first born and comes into the world, he is dirty. He just is, he doesn't have the sense to clean himself up. His mother has to do that.

   He has no morals at all. You've got to teach him every standard of morality. He doesn't have any consideration for anyone else. He's lustful, he's vain, he's grasping, he's greedy. He's a glutton. He will eat so much. If you let him, he'd get a terrible stomachache, develop colic and actually get sick. He doesn't have a bit of restraint. He doesn't have a bit of self-control. He's got to learn every single lesson of life patiently from the time he's a little infant in his mother's arms.

   Now, why is it that all of a sudden when he is able to get up and walk instead of crawl, parents begin to assume they don't have to teach him anymore. But now they can wait for a few years given this big broad gap which will be conveniently filled with six hours a day of television. But they can wait until the kid finally absorbed like a dry sponge in a storm. All of the vile pressures of modern society into his little mind which molds and shapes and also perverts distorts and twists him into someone else that they would hardly recognize.

   And then finally, out of it all emerges a perfectly respectful adult with whom they can reason. I've heard many, many parents say I'm not going to teach my children anything about religion. I'm gonna let them grow up and make up their minds for themselves. What a dumb way to look at it. Sure. Thankful that our government doesn't look at it that way. Sure, thankful that public school systems at least require a little bit of American history and American politics.

   Now, you know, the government just doesn't see it the way of many parents. They don't figure that we should not tell them anything at all about how this country won its freedom or how your country where you live. I don't care whether you live in, in South Africa or Australia or Great Britain, you are taught your country's history how it is. You enjoy the liberties and freedoms of life that you enjoy wherever you live and your government requires that all of the public or parochial schools for that matter, teach a certain amount of history, a certain amount of the required three R's of reading and writing and arithmetic as they say. And that's actually an R a W and an A, isn't it? But anyhow, it's amazing how much the government requires that we are taught civics or a certain amount of politics and history and that the government requires that each little pliable mind learns a little bit about how it is that he enjoys these liberties and what he must do in order to continue to enjoy.

   Now, does it make a bit of sense that these little children, the very fruit of our own body should not be taught that there is a God that, that God is the great lawgiver that, that God has laid down laws for a successful home in a marriage that, that God is the great lawgiver by whom and from whom comes all law and authority, ultimately. And of course, the best way you can possibly learn is by parental example, the only way any child learns anything really is by parental example, how many days of the week and how many hours during that day or a minute do you ever take with a child of say 6, 8 or 10 to sit down and diligently talk deeply and teach patiently and plainly about certain subjects? Very, very seldom.

   Of course, many parents never, absolutely never. Many parents would answer. Others would answer seldom or rarely or once in a while. But you see the bulk of the time they're observing you, they're observing, you watching or walking to and fro or eating, they're watching you. They're watching the wife. As she's cleaning the kitchen, if she does, they're watching parents, they're watching other adult human beings and they learn by example.

   Now it's been said, well, you are what you eat and that's true. But also your mind is what comes into your mind by all the pressures and the teaching and of course, the little child, it sits absorbing a lot of grotesque, ridiculousness of rape and murder and robbery and all of the horror pictures and it seems like they kind of come and go in rashes and we're right now in the middle of a huge seven-year case of a gigantic rash of horror movies of screaming maniacal demoniacal idiocy being funneled out of this video tube in the millions of people's unsuspecting minds. Well, those little minds become what they're used to seeing and thinking and looking at and I just couldn't help but ponder as I sat there in the waiting room of the Dallas airport about all these little unrestrained, uncultured, untaught, but yet very, very pliable demented little minds where the little children don't even know how to sit still where their mind is in constant turmoil and torment. They were frustrated children, they were unhappy children, one little girl.

   Finally, when her mother went over to pick her up and put her on her lap, she started to scream, and I mean, scream, and I wouldn't even try to duplicate it. I'd break the needle in there on the recorder or ruin the radio studio equipment or something. It hurts your ears. It hurt everybody's ears. So, the mother, of course, to stop her from screaming, took her gloves in her lap and sort of popped the kid across the mouth. Now, that looked pretty bad too. Nobody likes to see a mother slap a child across the mouth with the gloves. What was she going to do? Insert the gloves, spank the child, let the child run loose again. There are vehicles going back and forth and airplanes coming and going. You can't just let them go with no restraint whatsoever.

   Well, my friends, let's get the point. The restraint, the teaching about law and obedience and respect for authority should begin absolutely at birth and it should continue. Why is it then that you're being told that when it gets to religion, when it gets to the biggest issues of all, when it gets to the very reason for which you are on this earth, there is no restraint. There is no absolute, there is no law, no responsibility, there is nothing that you've got to own up to or confess. There's nothing wrong really because there's no law is there. The law has been abrogated and rescinded and done away. They tell you there's no law to obey.

   Now, if you were to go and ask about 1000 ministers and say, tell me, do I have to keep the Ten Commandments to be saved. You know what your answer would be. Now, you might stumble across one that would tell you the truth. But I mean, what if you were to just take a sampling of your neighborhood or your own friends and people, you know, asked them, should I keep the Ten Commandments? They'd say? Well, of course, not your poor deceived person. Now, come on, let's be modern. That's a Jewish law. Only the Jews were supposed to honor their parents. Only the Jews were supposed to be monotheistic instead of polytheistic.

   It was only the Jews that were prohibited to fall down before a bunch of grinning, leering stone idols and obelisks and slaughter their own children. That was an old Jewish law given to the Jews. Well, now there's only one problem with that. The Jews were a minority group back then. There were 13 tribes and they were only 1/13. They were only one tribe. Furthermore, Moses wasn't a Jew; he was a Levite. Now, of course, some people look upon Levites as Jews in the house of Judah. But I mean, if we're being real specific about the tribe of Judah itself, then Moses was a Levite, and they think Moses gave that law.

   Well, now, of course, if you'd write for this article, I've been announcing on, Were the Ten Commandments in Force Before Moses? You would find that Moses did not compile that law. He didn't receive it as a matter of fact, Moses came down from the mountain and broke the first two tablets he received, and God sent him right back up and wrote with his finger, the finger of God, the one who became Christ as it's revealed in your Bible. He wrote again all the words of the Ten Commandments. And I have shown in other programs how even pagan gentile kings and pharaohs knew and were acquainted with the principles of the Ten Commandments and knew that it was required and obligatory upon mankind to obey them and knew that disobedience through them, netted death knew that it was a capital offense punishable by death to break any of the points of the Ten Commandments of God.

   But now forget for a moment what all these others might tell you if you ask them, should you keep the Ten Commandments to be saved? And let's find out what Jesus would say if you ask him. Now, I know every now and then some ministers listen to this program and that's fine. I hope that a lot of them do and I hope a lot more will. Now all of us, let's turn together to the book of Matthew chapter 19 and verse 17 (Matthew 19:17). And let's see what Jesus Christ said. When this very same question was asked him.

   If you're a long-time listener to the World Tomorrow, you've heard me quote this time and time again, verse 16 (Matthew 19:16), behold, one came and said unto him. That is Christ, good master. What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And he sort of mildly said, well, now, wait a minute, there's just one that is holy or totally good, that is perfect. He meant spiritually speaking, being a spirit being and that is God. And he just mildly and gently rebuked the man for saying good master looking up to him in her spiritual capacity. Actually, even though Christ was to be respected, you know, Christ said, don't call any man on earth father.

   Now, I understand that some people do this. But anyhow, Christ said, don't do that. And then he said, of course, if you will hear and teach and live by even the simplest, what you might call the least of these commandments that he gave in the sermon on the mount. And that's a way to inherit eternal life is to obey God to live by his word. But he said, and I quote right from your own Bible, it's in the same Bible Columbus carried it's in the one in the top drawer of all the motels and hotels across the land. It's carried in some airplanes and trains, even it's in your Bible. And I didn't put it there and I'm not responsible except to tell you about it. I didn't write it, if you will enter into life. Said, Jesus Christ, keep the commandments.

   The man said which and he went on to describe exactly which set of laws he was talking about. So, there it is. Now, I know you might have a lot of people tell you, you don't need to obey God to be saved. But that's all right. That's, that's just what people say. And of course, people aren't going to save you. But God will, if you look to his rules and his law, now, if you just begin to keep the Ten Commandments, does that save, you know, you've left something out?

   But we read in verse 12, that's the fifth chapter of the book of Romans in verse 12 (Romans5:12), how all have sinned and come short of the glory of God? And I see that painted on cars and rocks along the road and people are waving the flag about come you sinners and seek the Eternal. I've seen it on the roofs of Barnes. You're familiar with that. That's not something new. There is the statement of the Bible repeated many times. As a matter of fact in the Psalms here in the book of Romans that all have sinned, that everyone is guilty of sin, not guilty of what Adam did, guilty of his own selfishness, guilty of his own vanity, guilty of his own breaking of God's Ten Commandments, guilty of his own breaking of the principles of life, of the moral standards, the moral code that Almighty God lays down by which man ought to live in order to be happy.

   So, he says all have sinned. But until the law, meaning a time when God gave a codified law to a civil people, until that law sin was in the world. What is sin? It's the breaking of God's law I John 3:4, and sin is not imputed when there isn't any transgression. And I've explained that thoroughly. I won't go back and say it several times over again, such as the traffic sign. I've used as an example. You don't get a ticket for running a sign which is not there. You simply must break a law in order to be apprehended for having broken a law and sin is the breaking of a law.

   So, there was a law in existence and I've explained it over and over again. But many people take God's forgiveness, which is called in your Bible, grace. Notice verse 21 of the fifth chapter of the book of Romans that as he said (Romans 5:21), sin has reigned unto death, and that's the wages of sin, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. Our Lord through Christ is eternal life given.

   But he goes right on chapter six and verse one (Romans 6:1), what shall we say then? Am I trying to say this, said the Apostle Paul, who was only one more of those men, Jesus had put into a certain office to continue expounding and explaining all the terms and conditions of the new legacy, which is called the New Testament, that new section of your Bible, shall we continue in sin? He asks that grace may abound. God forbid. He said, how shall we that are dead to sin? That is Christ's death. His life has been offered in our place and ours doesn't need to be. How shall we that are dead to sin? The law has been satisfied. We are dead to sin, live any longer there in. If you're not to live in sin, then my friends, what is sin? Sin is the breaking of God's law. I John 3:4, read it. If you're to continue, then in conformance to, as Jesus himself said, as we read in Matthew 19:17, in obedience to God's law that doesn't net you a thing except all the automatic rewards of happiness that doesn't get to eternal life yet though it takes repentance of your past sins. It takes the blood of Jesus Christ and it takes the living Christ in heaven above to do that.

   Write in for our booklet that explains it very thoroughly. It's entitled "What is Salvation?" just, What do you mean... Salvation? What's it all about? You've heard a lot of these seemingly religious terms? But what does it mean? Can you unravel it in simple terms? And like for the current number, the Plain Truth magazine up to the minute articles on world news.

   Now, this magazine is published on three continents. It's published in Australia, Great Britain and the United States is read by perhaps 4 million people every single month. Articles up to the moment articles on the really big world news events on the outflow of American wheat to foreign countries articles that deal with the growing problems in Great Britain of the economic problems there, written from our editors abroad in Britain from on-the-spot pictures that show you exactly what's happening in the United States race for the moon with Russia. And our overseas editors and photographers always have pictures from on the spot in full beautiful color from world leaders on the scene.

   There is never any solicitation, never any unwanted follow-up of any kind or shape or form and your name is carefully guarded and kept in the files and not given to someone else. There is no request for money whatsoever for any of this literature. Send your name and address to Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California, the Plain Truth magazine and the articles I've announced are absolutely free. There is no follow-up and no request for money. If you send a letter to Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California. That's Herbert W Armstrong Box 111 Pasadena, California. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station. Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have heard the World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong, for literature offered on this program, send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W Armstrong Post Office Box 111 Pasadena, California 91123. Or you may dial this toll-free number, 800-423-4444.