Recently in the news, warnings of a nuclear winter. Now, we're warned that a nuclear war would produce an earth-covering cloud. It would cover the entire earth, anywhere from one to maybe 3 billion people would be destroyed by the nuclear weapons themselves, and the rest would starve to death because no food could be raised. The sun's rays would not reach the earth. There would be no sunshine, no food, there would be starvation.
It used to be only a few years back if anyone talked about the end of the world, he was called a sort of a doomsday crackpot. Today, that is not true. Today, the scientists see it coming, and the atomic scientists warned us months ago, now, months ago that they had set the doomsday clock forward one more minute from four to only three minutes to midnight, and all signals were go, and they were still counting, and only three minutes now to go.
The World Tomorrow, The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert W. Armstrong, internationally recognized ambassador for world peace, visiting prominent leaders around the globe, discussing the cause of world problems, and proclaiming the good news of The World Tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W. Armstrong.
Now, if you want to know the state of the world and where we are now, and what is immediately ahead and what is going to happen next, you have to get it from one source only. No human man can tell you. Biblical prophecy is unerring, and it has told us, and it is in biblical prophecy.
Now, in biblical prophecy, the present event in the panorama of world events going on toward the end of this world. And it is all prophesized in the Bible is found in the 24th chapter of Matthew and verse 14 (Matthew 24:14) where it says, "In this Gospel of the Kingdom." Now, that's a certain gospel shall be proclaimed in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.
But what is the gospel of the kingdom? He said when that gospel of the Kingdom is proclaimed into all the world, hasn't that gospel been proclaimed? Indeed, it has not. That gospel was not proclaimed for 1900 years. That was the gospel of Jesus Christ. You think you have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? You have been hearing a gospel about Jesus Christ, and that is something else, again, something altogether different.
Now, if you turn to the Bible to see what is the gospel of Jesus Christ, you're going to be shocked. You find it in the Book of Mark, Mark's Gospel in the New Testament. The first chapter and the first verse, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then for the next 12 verses, it talks about John, the Baptist preparing the way before the coming of Jesus. And in verse 14, after that, John was put into prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel.
But what gospel? What was the gospel of Jesus Christ preaching? The gospel of the Kingdom of God, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. You think you've heard that Gospel? My friends, you have not, that gospel was not even proclaimed for 1900 years until it went on the air. In this program, this very program to which you're listening now. And that's been on for over 50 years now.
Now, the very next verse, Jesus came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled." It was because Jesus had just conquered Satan, the devil, and he had qualified to be the ruler of that kingdom, the Kingdom of God. So the time was fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. It was in the person of Jesus, is at hand. And then he said, "Repent, ye, and believe the gospel." How can one believe the gospel when he's never heard it when the gospel was not proclaimed?
Now, then in Galatians, the first chapter, and verses six and seven, the Apostle Paul wrote this about 22 years after the gospel of Jesus had been proclaimed and Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. He said, "I'm marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you under the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that would trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ." And so, the gospel of Jesus was perverted. A false gospel replaced it, it came to be a gospel about Christ, not the gospel of Christ.
Now, there's all the difference in the world. A gospel about Christ is only talking about the person of Christ. But Jesus Christ was a messenger sent from God with a message. Now that message that God sent to the world by Jesus, he was the messenger who brought it from God. And that message was the gospel that he preached. That was the Gospel of Christ. And that message was the message of the Kingdom of God. That was the gospel. And so we read that in the first years after the gospel, there was a great controversy as to whether the gospel to be preached was the gospel of Christ, which was about the Kingdom of God, that is the message he brought, or whether it was merely a message about the messenger. In other words, man's gospel about Christ, and the gospel that had been proclaimed continued on the gospel about Christ.
Now, there was something that had happened to destroy all history records or historic records of the progress of the church for the first 100 years. So since about, oh, about 21 or 22 years after Christ ascended to heaven for 100 years until, well, until about 150 A.D. And then the curtain lifts on the history of the church. And we find a church calling itself Christian, but a church that is diametrically opposite to the church that Jesus Christ founded, a church not preaching the gospel He did. That is the message, the message that God sent by Jesus about the Kingdom of God that was not being proclaimed, but merely a message about Jesus saying that Jesus is the Christ and proclaiming that He was the Messiah.
Now about the gospel of the Kingdom. Just what is the gospel of the kingdom? What is a kingdom? And what is the Kingdom of God? That's where the whole world, my friends, has been deceived for 1900 years. The churches have been deceived, even in the churches. You won't hear that gospel proclaimed, I repeat in the churches. You will not hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed. Now that's a pretty strong statement, but you ought to think that over. Let me go back and explain something about this gospel of the Kingdom of God and why it's so important.
A man by the name of Nicodemus, he was a Pharisee. He came to Jesus. The Jewish people at the time of Christ were the captive nation under the Romans, and they were ruled by the Roman Empire. And the Roman government was using the Pharisees, which was one of the religious sects of that time. But now, in John, the third chapter, this Nicodemus had come to Jesus, and he said to Jesus that he knew who Jesus really was. He understood that Jesus was the Messiah. And he said, "We Pharisees know it." And then Jesus immediately said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said unto Him, "Well, how can that be? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Now, they're all mixed up on that today. Let's continue and see how Jesus answered that question. Jesus answered, verse five, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit." But now, what does it mean, born of the spirit? They're all mixed up on that today. "He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is something one can enter into, and he cannot enter into it except he is born of God.
He continued right on, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and those who are proclaiming a gospel about Christ and saying that they are born again Christians, they are flesh. They are not spirit. They are flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And I say to you on the authority of Jesus Christ, they are not spirit, they are flesh, but they say they're born-again Christians. They simply do not understand. You will read in your Bible in Revelation, the 12th chapter that all nations, the whole world is deceived by Satan the devil. And that includes the churches. Today, they're preaching a different gospel, a false gospel. The true gospel is not proclaimed for 1900 years. 1900 years. Now, I want you to notice what "born again" really does mean. We're going out to the 15th chapter of I Corinthians where we find it again. And the 15th chapter, I Corinthians is the resurrection chapter.
Now, why has it that in most of the churches that call themselves Christian? You hear nothing about a resurrection on Easter Sunday, as they call it? They talk about the resurrection of Jesus, but they never talk about the resurrection of people that have died. No, no. They say that the people who died have either gone directly to heaven or to hell. And if they went to hell, as I presume, most of them must have, they're supposed to be burning alive and burning and burning and burning and never burn up. But I would just say you better believe your Bible instead of believing that sort of thing.
Now, in I Corinthians, the 15th chapter, and beginning with verse 19 (I Corinthians 15:19), where the Apostle Paul said, "If in this life only, we have hope in Christ," that's what they have in the churches of this world because they're so deceived. They don't understand what God's real promise is, and they don't understand about the Kingdom of God. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead? Yes, they admit that and become the first fruits of them that slept." In other words, the first fruits of other people who have died. And he is the first fruit by a resurrection from the dead as I'll show you a little later.
Now, the next verse 21, "For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead, and by one man, Adam came death, by the second man, Jesus Christ, came the resurrection of the dead." The next verse, "For as in Adam, all die, everyone who has ever lived has died. Everyone except those that are under 150 years old and living to the present time today. And I don't think there's anyone on the face of the earth as old as 150 years at the present time. I'm not very short from 100 even myself even now. And I hope I shall reach it, God willing. But there is nobody that I know of 150 years old today, and everybody else who has ever been born has died. Where are they? And what has happened? That says as in Adam, all die, and they all did, so In Christ, shall the same all be made alive. Everyone who ever died is going to come back to life in a resurrection. You think about your loved ones who died, the people you knew, maybe your own children, maybe your own parents, they are all coming back to life by a resurrection. And you better believe that instead of the fairy tales that so many of you have been believing, you better look into the Bible, which is the word of God and not the word of man. And then and believe what you find in your Bible, not what I preach or other ministers preach. Don't believe me more than them. Look in your own Bible and believe what you see there. And if I preach His word faithfully, you better agree. You better agree with what you find in the Bible.
Now verse 23, "But every man in his own order, Christ the firstfruits. He's the first to be resurrected. And you find in the Romans eighth chapter, he is the firstborn of many brethren who will also be resurrected and brought back to life. Christ, the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ, those who accepted Christ and have been really Christs and been Christians, they will come later and then will come the end. After that. There is more later. I hope I have time to get into that in this program.
Now, I want you to continue now on verse 42 and see about this resurrection and about the Kingdom of God. "So also, is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption. When people die, the body goes into corruption, it rots, and it is raised in incorruption, in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. And those who say they're born-again Christians, they are in a natural body. They are in a natural body, and it is sown. The human who dies is sown in a natural body. It has raised a spiritual body. It's a different body altogether. Jesus said that which is born of the spirit is spirit. It's composed of spirit. It's a spirit body. It doesn't mean just accepting Jesus in your mind and therefore you're born again. It's a change in the whole body. You won't even have a heart pumping blood anymore. You won't have to breathe air. Your body will be composed of spirit. You won't ever be sick. You can't catch a cold or be sick once you're in a spirit body. So there is a physical body and a spirit body, and in the resurrection, all who have ever died in Christ are going to be made alive.
Now, continuing on in verse 49, "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, that is a body composed right out of the earth, of flesh, we, meaning Christians who really are converted and have God's spirit, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly, that spiritual, it doesn't say in heaven but a heavenly type body.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood, and all of those who think they are born-again Christians are now flesh and blood. I call you to understand that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. So the Kingdom of God is something that can be inherited, but you can't inherit the Kingdom of God as long as you're a human being in a human flesh and blood body and you are not born again. As long as you are in a flesh and blood, human body, behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, or that is simply Bible language for be dead, but we shall all be changed. Our body is going to be changed in character in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. At the last Trump, for the trumpet shall sound. And that's spoken of as the last Trump in the prophecies of the Bible, the dead shall be raised by a resurrection, raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed if we're still alive. For this corruptible must put on incorruption to get into the Kingdom of God, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Now, regarding the end of the world, Jesus was speaking to his own disciples. They had been in the temple at Jerusalem; they had gone outside the temple, and the disciples were showing Jesus the buildings of the temple. And he was telling them that the time would soon come, and it did come in their lifetime in 70 A.D., that the temple would be destroyed, and not one building would be left on another. If you read that in verse three here in Matthew 24, you also read of it in the 13th chapter Mark and the 21st of Luke. And as Jesus sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him. Actually, it was four of them privately, saying, "Tell us when shall these things be?" Now, the things he'd been discussing was the destruction of the buildings of the temple.
Now, they thought that his second coming would be at the same time, the end of this world and the beginning of the world tomorrow would come at the same time. They thought it was going to happen in their lifetime. All of Jesus' disciples believed that thoroughly. They never did quite understand it was going to be more than 1900 years later. And they said, "What shall be the sign of thy coming?" Jesus' coming, they thought would happen at the same time and at the end of the world. And then Jesus answered to them, those disciples, and said unto them, "Take heed that no man deceive you." He was talking to his own disciples. "For many shall come in my name," as his ministers, "but they would be false ministers. They would be turned to a ministry about Christ, but not the ministry of Christ, not the gospel of Christ, but a gospel of man about Christ. Many shall come in my name, saying that I am Christ." They would come saying Jesus is the Christ, coming and preaching the gospel about Christ, that Jesus is the Christ, saying that I am Christ, and shall deceive the many. How would they deceive? Because they would deceive them about the Kingdom of God because they would deceive them and just saying that Jesus, the Christ, and not give them the gospel. Jesus said, "You must believe the gospel of the Kingdom of God, repent. You see, the Kingdom of God is the government of God, and all governments are governed by a law, and the law of God is a spiritual law. It's a way of life. And if people live the way of God's law, there would be nothing but happiness and peace on the face of this earth, and all the unhappiness and all of our problems and all of the violence and the wretchedness and the wars have come by living a different way altogether because they're not living the way of the government of God or of the Kingdom of God.
Now, let's go on. The next thing to happen after this gospel of the Kingdom is proclaimed in all the world for a witness, and it is being proclaimed on this program, and Satan, the devil, knows it, and he hates this program. Incidentally, the next thing that will happen, I just about have time to get this in, beginning in the 21st verse of Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:21), 'For then after this gospel of the Kingdom is finally proclaimed, and it had not been for 1900 years, then shall be great tribulation, or a time of world trouble, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this same time known or ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, those days of such world trouble, there should no flesh be saved alive, but for the elect's sake, that's those in God's own true church. Those days shall be shortened, unless that happened. And it has to be the time of nuclear warfare, and nuclear warfare has only come since this Gospel of the Kingdom has been proclaimed on this very program. And I don't know if it's being proclaimed on any other, God save us and God help us. I'm sorry to say it, but I know of no other program that does preach the gospel of Jesus Christ about the Kingdom of God.
I wish I had time to go on and give you a little more about what is that Kingdom. I have a book on it if you want to write in for it. But I must, running out of time, and I want to have you get a booklet that I have about this very time, and it's, "A World Held Captive". And it talks to you about the world and the condition it's in right now, "A World Held Captive". That is our latest book, and you find bars over the world here, and the whole world is behind the bars. It's being held captive. That is our latest book. I've only announced that, I think, about once before on this program.
Also, once again, let me announce this booklet, "The United States and Britain in Prophecy". Where is the United States mentioned? Our country, the United States. Where is it mentioned in the biblical prophecies, and what is going to happen to the United States according to Bible prophecy in the next 1, 2, 5, 10 years or so? I can't set the time, but approximately very few years. In the last chapter you'll find that in this book, and there is no charge.
Now, over three and one half million people have requested this book and it's been sent Gradus and without charge to over 3 1/2 million already. I'd like to add you to that 3 1/2 million. I doubt if any other book has recently gone out on any, any similar subject to as many people as that. And then The Plain Truth magazine, the finest magazine published in all the world and one of the largest major circulation magazines outside of Reader's Digest and the National Geographic. There are very few magazines published with a circulation as great as The Plain Truth. Its circulation is over 7 million, going on toward 8 million. Here is an editorial by me "Understanding The Way To Peace". And another article, the "Election of the Decade". Now we don't take any part in politics, but we do view what is going on just as God views it. Here's another about the "Colossus in the Making in Europe". The Plain Truth tells you about world conditions. The world news and explains it in the light of biblical prophecy. You need The Plain Truth. Millions are waiting for it every month.
Now, you just send your request to me, Herbert W. Armstrong, at Pasadena, California, Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California. The ZIP is 91123. Or many people would rather just go to the telephone and get it immediately. So go to the telephone and there's a free call. You dial one, then 800-423-4444, 800-423-4444. That's a free call. Just call and ask for that booklet and < ahref="https://www.hwalibrary.com/cgi-bin/get/hwa.cgi?action=magazines&GetMag=PT">The Plain Truth if you're not already a subscriber it will be sent to you as quickly as possible. And so until next time, this is Herbert W. Armstrong. Goodbye, friends.
For the free literature offered on this program, write to 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 1-800-423-4444. In Alaska and Hawaii, only call collect 1-818-304-6111. If the lines are busy, please try again in 10 to 15 minutes.
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