Herbert W Armstrong

   In the book of Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, a book of prophecy. God said that just before the end of this world, he would send a messenger to proclaim the nearness of the end of this world and the second coming of Jesus Christ to bring peace, and happiness, and joy to this war-stricken, this evil, violent world, and to put an end to this violence, this war, and the terrible conditions in the world today.

   It would be a voice crying aloud, showing the people their sins. Now, just as John the Baptist was a voice coming before the first coming of Jesus Christ to prepare the way for his coming, a voice crying out in the physical wilderness of the Jordan River over in the Middle East in Palestine to prepare the way for the physical Jesus, the physical human Jesus, to come to his material temple made of stone, of wood, of gold, and precious metals, and other materials. Coming to his physical people, Judah, the Jews who rejected him, and coming to announce that in the far, far future, he would set up the Kingdom of God, that he would come again, that he would set up the Kingdom of God, and bring peace to the world.

   So just before that second coming, God said there would be a messenger, a voice crying out in the spiritual wilderness of the modern Babylon of religion and of all kinds of confusion, political confusion, social confusion, every kind of confusion, preparing the way for the supernatural Jesus coming in all the power and the glory of the great God with force and power to bring about peace and happiness on this earth. And coming to his spiritual temple, which is the church, changed from mortal to immortal, change from human to divine, a spiritual church, a spiritual temple, as it is explained in the second chapter of Ephesians.

   And this time coming to set up that kingdom in a prophecy in the Old Testament, a book of prophecy, God said to such a voice, "Cry aloud and spare not, lift up thy voice." It is speaking of lifting up the voice, which only the modern facilities of television and radio have made possible. At last, for one voice, merely in a studio such as this where I'm speaking now. I can speak into a microphone and be heard by millions and millions of people in all parts of the world, some in their own homes, some in automobiles, wherever they may be, lifting up their voice.

   It was a prophecy for our time, and with modern facilities, there should be hundreds, yes, even thousands of such voices warning people today because all of the signs are prophesied in the Bible. The Bible one third of the Bible is filled with prophecy showing the conditions that are going to happen in the world. About a third of it is history showing what did happen up to the time of Christ, and prophecy showing what is going to happen in the future. And about 90% of all prophecy refers to our time right now in the years, immediately ahead.

   And by years, I mean, the very few you can count on the fingers of your hand, there should be hundreds of such voices. My friends, I know of only one, and you're in tune now and viewing that one program that is a lone voice crying out in this world to prepare the people and showing them the time they're living in, what prophecy says about it and what is going to happen.

   Now, beside television and radio, this program is warning many heads of government. This program is warning the leaders in nations and other nations all around the world.

   Now, on a recent visit to Southeastern Asia, after I had a dinner with the royal family of Thailand - the king, the queen, and the crown princess - I spoke on the following night to a banquet of the leaders of the nation, the top people of the nation in Bangkok. Let me give you a portion of that message.

   "Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor to be here to speak to you tonight. Yesterday, I flew in a helicopter with Her Majesty, the queen, over to the king's project among the hill tribes over near the Burma border. I was quite impressed with the work going on there and the interest that their Majesties are taking in conditions. I remember when I first talked to His Majesty, it must have been about 12 years or more ago. They were raising poppies for the opium traffic, and he wanted to turn them into raising agriculture and food products. And we engaged in that and have accomplished a great deal. We've almost eliminated the raising of opium, and now they're raising many other products. I saw many new fruit experiments and things over there.

   But, I was impressed with the fact that there's so many people that are lacking in education, they have not come to the advanced status that we see here among you. And I've seen so much of that in so many places all over the world - in India, in Africa, in South America. And 50% of the people are living in abject poverty and filth and squalor, 50% are illiterate and having virtually no education. That's half of all the 4.3 billion people who live on this earth, living in a terrible conditions.

   Now, in what we call the more civilized areas of the world today, there is increasing trouble. You're living in a world that, in this 20th century, has made awesome progress. We've sent men to the moon and back; we have sent unmanned spacecraft that were made near Ambassador College with China President in Pasadena, California, that have traveled to the planet Mars and sent back photographs taken right on the very surface of Mars. The technological advancements are amazing that the world has made. And yet, the world still is experiencing, even in its civilized and educated part of the world appalling evils - crime is increasing everywhere, families and family life is breaking down, about one in two marriages is ending in divorce. Parents don't get along with their children or their children with their parents, and this whole civilization is breaking down.

   Now, there's the fear of nuclear war. The president of the United States has recently said that he fears that we are now approaching Armageddon and the end of this world - that the whole world is going to come crashing down, and it will be the end of this civilization. The atomic scientists, some of the greatest minds in the world, the most highly educated technological minds, have recently moved the doomsday clock from four up to three minutes till midnight. And midnight is the time they think that nuclear warfare could erase all humanity from off the face of this earth.

   Now, if it comes - and I can tell you on authority, it is going to come - it is going to hit Thailand, as well as every other nation in this world. And, we have come to the place where every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth can be obliterated and erased from off this earth. That is the type of world you're living in.

   Now, what is the answer? I have talked to the leaders all over this world, and they don't know the answer. They are puzzled. I talk to the heads of governments all over the world, and their problems are greater than they can handle. It's just problems, problems, problems.

   Night before last, I was dining with His Majesty, your king, and we were talking about problems that you have here in Thailand. And he is very much concerned with problems and doing everything he can to help solve them. You're Majesties the king and queen are devoting themselves to help this country in every way that they can. But evils in the world, and especially in other nations, are becoming so great that even the fate of all humanity is now at stake.

   Now, there has to be a cause for everything. There's a cause for every effect; something had to cause all of this. And the only way that you can get to an answer of the cause is to go back to the very foundation of civilization and humanity. But, the oldest history extant in the world today is a book called the Holy Bible. It is supposed to be the textbook of the Christian religion. I'm sorry, but I have found that most professing Christians do not understand it and believe almost the exact opposite of what it says. But it is a book that records accurate history of the past.

   And, the way all civilization started was with one man, one single man who was created by the great Creator God. And, he was created out of the dust of the ground, just out of matter taken out of the ground. He only had a temporary existence. But the God who created him is immortal and has self-containing life - immortality, inherent life, self-containing; He cannot die. He is immortal and will live forever. He offered life to this first man that He created, but the man had to make a decision.

   Before him were two choices. One was to go on what human knowledge he could have and which he could provide himself - on his own ideas and his own ideas of good and evil. The other was to be conceived or begotten by his very Creator and later to be born of the Creator and have immortality and immortal life. But he rejected that, and he chose to do his own thing, his own way. And used just what knowledge he had with his human mind and his human brain to decide good from evil and to choose his own kind of good. But you know, his kind of good was not good enough.

   His children, begotten and born of him and his wife whom God also created, went the same way. And all civilization has come on down to us today, and all nations of the earth have come from that one man, created by the one God who is the God of all the races and all the families and all of the nations on the face of the earth. All of one blood, all of one ancestry, all of us. The way that that man chose was the way that seemed right to him, and that was the way of vanity, of self-glory, of glorifying himself. It was the way of getting and taking away from other people, where the way of the creator was the way of give, or the way of love - having love to other people, to try to serve other people, to cooperate, to help, as your king and queen are doing here in this country. They're trying to help the people, but mankind in general has not lived that way. They have lived the selfish way.

   There are just two ways of living, and I call one, to make it simple, the way of give. I mentioned this when I was here a year ago. The other is the way of get - I want to get everything for me. And that's the way most people think and the way they live, the way they act and perform, and it has come down to this world as we are today.

   Now, what I want to tell you is this: this living creator God, who is a great spirit being and has, immortal life and supreme mind and intelligence, he sent his own son to be born as a human being about a little over 1950 years ago. He came to proclaim this way of give. One thing he said when he talked was, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' And he lived that way, and he called some people out of this world to start another civilization. But he only came to announce that he was going to come later and come in all the power and the glory of the great creator God who created all the nations on the face of this world, the face of the earth, to come and rule all nations with power and force and to force people to love one another, to be happy, to begin to give and to cooperate and to help one another, and then we shall have peace.

   There is no peace in this world because people don't love one another. And I'm here to announce to you tonight that God is going to let this world come crashing down, and he's going to send that same one who was Jesus Christ. And those who preach in his name as Christians are preaching just the opposite of what he taught. They send missionaries up here, and they don't preach what he taught, they preach something else.

   I don't come up here to try to make converts. We don't send missionaries, but I am telling you that he is going to send this Jesus Christ back in power to rule all nations in love and in peace and in cooperation until we learn to love one another. And then we're going to have peace at last, but there's no peace as long as we live the way people are living in this world.

   Now, I'm called an ambassador with our portfolio for World Peace, and I work for peace. But I'm telling you the only way that peace can ever come. I want to preach the way of give and love as far as I can. But I know that not a great many are going to accept that. And so I'm just telling you and announcing that there will be a new and a better world, and this world is going to die, but it's going to be replaced with a far better world that will be filled with love and with peace and joy and happiness and with greater production by far than anything we've dreamed of having yet, and where everybody will be well educated and rightly and properly educated. Education in our great universities today has become entirely materialistic. It is teaching people to deal with things. It is teaching people the selfish way of getting and not teaching them how to live and to live the way we should live with love with one another. That's the world we live in.

   I repeat again, the atomic scientists who know what is going on in the world say that we are now just three minutes to midnight. And that means the end of this world and the coming of a far better world, and it is going to come in this generation and in your time. Now, I know you haven't heard anything said like this before.

   But I have been sent here by that eternal living creator God, the God over all races and all people and all nations, to tell you the truth, which missionaries above failed to tell you, which religions have not known, have not been able to tell you, which the colleges and universities do not teach, which science doesn't even understand. But you have been told tonight. I feel the responsibility, and a voice has to cry out in this wilderness of religious confusion, this wilderness of a Babylon of ideas and everybody having different ideas and everybody against everybody else. Someone has to cry out with that message and announce what is going to happen, as certain as the sun is going to rise and set tomorrow.

   And now, just before closing, I want to announce our very latest booklet. I think I may have announced this only once before. "Where is the True Church?" Jesus Christ came saying he would build his church in Matthew the 16th chapter and verse 18 (Matthew 16:18). Jesus said, 'I will build my church, and the gates of hell,' meaning the grave, 'shall not prevail against it.' In other words, it would never die out, that church would exist. He did not say churches. He did not say many different and differing denominations. He said a church, and we find that church as the Apostle Paul said in the first chapter of First Corinthians, they must all speak the same thing. There's no disagreement. They are welded together, as you read in Ephesians, the second chapter, and the fourth chapter, just like metals that are welded together, all absolutely together in harmony. One church. Where is that one church?

   Now also let me announce before I close "The Plain Truth" magazine. I've told you all about "The Plain Truth" magazine. It's one of the great magazines published in the world today. Profusely illustrated. Now here is the cover, 'Turbulent Mideast takes a new turn.' Now we come to the lead article, "Holy War in the Middle East?" Is it coming in the Middle East and all this strife that is going on over there in the Middle East? Here's another one, "What Is Man?" You know, humans have knowledge about almost everything except themselves. Man knows about everything but himself. He doesn't know what he is himself. He doesn't know why he is, why he is here on earth, where he is going, what it's all about. Here's another article, "Are You Prepared For 1985?" Giving you an idea of what is coming in 1985. Times are changing rapidly. How are you going to endure in 1985 that is coming up? Here is another article, "Otto Hapsburg, a Man With a Mission". He has come to Pasadena and spoken before Ambassador College here. I have come to know him well, personally. Here's another article, "Don't Let Life Pass You By". It's an inspirational article that you need. Here's another one, "The Bible Shows Where We're Headed Now". And what's going to happen in the near future. Then here are two articles on the real truth about child abuse. That is something most people don't understand the full truth about, and you need to understand. There's another article, "Napoleon and the Pope", of what had happened in the Middle Ages and coming on down to today. That is only a forerunner of what is really in the works right now in Europe and what is coming to pass. And the very next thing that is prophesized to come to pass in Europe.

   Now, there is no subscription price, as you know. I've mentioned time and again, you don't have enough money to buy a subscription price, but you can't have this magazine unless you request it for yourself. It discusses world news and gives you the explanation so you can understand, understand what is happening in the world. Understand the news when you see it, you need "The Plain Truth". There's no subscription price. You just send your name and address for a subscription, and we'll be happy to send it to you and that booklet, "Where is the True Church?" You just send your request then to me, Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California. Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California, 91123, or better yet. Go to the telephone right now. First thing you do before you do another thing, go to the telephone jot down this number in case you have to call a second time, it's a free call. 800-423-4444, 800 a free call, then 423-4444. There are many waiting there to take your call if the lines are busy, try again. So, until next time, goodbye. Friends.

   For the free literature offered on this program, write Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California 91123 in Canada Box 44, Vancouver BC or in the continental United States including California. You may call this toll free number 800-423-4444 in Alaska and Hawaii call collect 818-304-6111. If the lines are busy, please try again. The preceding program and all literature were produced and sponsored by the worldwide Church of God.