Herbert W Armstrong

   The World Tomorrow. The worldwide Church of God presents the World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong, ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W. Armstrong.

   Your Bible says that all nations are deceived. All humanity has been deceived, didn't I mention this morning or was it somewhere else I mentioned it. A cigarette manufacturer said millions can't be wrong. Oh, yes, they are. And the millions are wrong on this earth. And people say, well, surely all of these men can't be deceived. All of our great scholars, all of our great intellects are great scientists. How can they be deceived? Well, God said you are going to be cut off from me. And all humanity except those God has called, has been cut off.

   You wonder why you have been called crazy by your relatives and maybe some of your next-door neighbors and all that sort of thing. Believing this what they call a Jewish Sabbath. And you don't believe in Christmas. And you keep these Jewish festivals and you don't eat pork and unclean foods. Oh, that's crazy. And you try to tell them that this is the true church and they laugh at you. Yeah, they ridiculed you. They said, well, you're crazy and it does seem crazy to them. Sure, it does. That's, that's as far and they can't help it and you can't make them see it any other way. You might as well quit wasting your breath, let them see your good works, but not your good arguments.

   You know, when I was first converted, I wanted to get all of my family converted. I didn't get any of them converted. Except of course, my wife was already converted and she was along with me. Well, now, then God had shut humanity off. And remember he not only kept humans out from the tree of life or the Holy Spirit, but if Jesus said in the New Testament, no man can come to me unless God, the Father draws him. Now, God calls some for a performance for a duty. Always it had to do with preparing for the kingdom of God. Everything God has done was looking forward to restoring the kingdom of God.

   Now, Adam failed to qualify. But the second Adam Jesus Christ did qualify. The second Adam Christ when he came 4000 years later Satan tried to kill him when he was an infant. And then when he was 30 years old, Satan tried to deceive him in the temptation when Christ had fasted 40 days and 40 nights without a morsel of food or a single drop of water. And if Jesus was I tell you was hungry, if you've ever fasted that long and not one of you has, I'm sure you would know what I mean. And Satan gave him temptations that went right to hunger and vanity, the hardest temptation for any man to resist. But Jesus Christ quoted scripture and obeyed God and rejected Satan. And he qualified to replace Satan as the ruler on the throne of this earth.

   But here's the thing Jesus Christ had to do what Adam had to do. But Adam failed to do that is to reject Satan's way to resist Satan to accept God's way of give, of love, of outgoing love and concern, the law of God, which is summed up in the 10 commandments, the law of love, love to God, love to neighbor. And Jesus Christ did that. And Jesus Christ qualified then to rule on the throne of the earth over all nations. However, God had sentenced the world to 6000 years and only 4000 years had gone by. And so, Christ has been in heaven as our high priest ministering to those that have been called ever since. Now, He raised up his church.

   Now, let's get back to one or two things here along the way. God calls some for a performance, but he never called anyone just to give them salvation. God has not called anyone from the time of Adam just to be saved. You know, there is a commercial going on now, Anita Bryant is leading it. It's not just for breakfast anymore. You know what I mean? That Florida, oranges and orange juice. Well, that's all right. That's good. And orange juice is good for you and it's good for you in the middle of the day or the latter part of the day too. That's all right. But, sometimes those slogans apply more to the things of God if they only knew it.

   Now, God has not called us just for salvation. He has called us for something to do that has to do with preparing for the Kingdom of God. Now, what he's called the church for today is to get back of the apostles that he has called and chosen, to whom he has given the responsibility of being sent forth. Apostle is a word that means one sent forth with a message.

   God has not called you as individuals to go to the King or the Prime Minister. Not the Prime Minister; I met him too, but I mean, the Haile Selassie was the Emperor. But since the other government has taken over, I haven't been able to get back there yet. And until things change, I don't think it'd be very healthy for me to try to get in there. But I have also known very personally and had a very private talk that lasted over 30 minutes with the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito. And I tell them that there are two ways of life. One I call give, that's outgoing, it's the way of love, and the other is get, and this world is on the way of get, and that's what's wrong. All of the evils are traceable to that one thing in that way of life.

   Now, then Christ has gone to heaven because the 6000 years was not yet up. So, he's been up there for almost 2000 years now. But we're almost to the end of that 6000 years. And we're in the generation that is going to see the end of it. Then Christ is going to come again. And when he comes, he's called us to get back of his apostle in getting this message, the Kingdom of God out to the world as a witness, not to convert the world.

   Herbert W Armstrong will return right after this message.

   Men shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore? When, when will the dreams of man become reality? The whole message of Jesus Christ is about a soon coming world government that will bring peace to our troubled world. For a full understanding of this message of hope about the Kingdom of God, request, Just What Do You Mean... Kingdom of God. Call this toll-free number 800-423-4444. That's 800-423-4444.

   The people that God has not called are not being judged. The greatest error, as I say, is thinking that everybody is automatically lost. If you don't get saved, the people God has not called are neither lost nor saved. They are just not yet judged.

   Now, in the church, I want to call your attention to something. It's back here in First Peter, the fourth chapter, in the 17th verse (I Peter 4:17). "For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God." We, brethren, we in the house of God are being judged. We are being judged now.

   Now, you take this thing of judgment and in this world, your judgment is in a court of law, and a man is being judged for what he is accused of doing. And either he did it or he's innocent, and he pleads not guilty. And he's being judged to see if he was innocent and is falsely accused, but he's always judged for something that happened in the past, not for what he's doing right now.

   Now, God is judging you for what you're doing right now. There are, in a sense, two phases of judgment in the Bible, and I have to talk about judgment. Now, the rest of this afternoon, that's what this day is all about. We're not only being judged daily as we go along, but when Christ comes, he's going to call us to an account, as you read in the parable of the Pounds and the Parable of the Talents, the 19th chapter of Luke and the 25th chapter of Matthew. He's going to call each to account as to what we have done.

   Now, get this also. We are not saved by our works; we're saved by grace, but we're going to be rewarded or not rewarded, one or the other, according to our works. So works count. Works don't earn your way into the Kingdom of God. That's God's free gift to those that God has called. And if he has chosen you, he has chosen you to do something. And if you don't do it, you probably won't get in.

   Now, you take one of the parables and one sermon this week went into some of the parables and but you take the parable of the pounds and the parable of the talents where God gave a pound to each one in the parable of the pounds. Now, one man took that and that represented a certain degree of the Holy Spirit of God. And he intended us to increase only one person Jesus Christ has ever come with a full measure of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ didn't have the Holy Spirit by measure. That is a portion. He had it all completely. But you and I started out with less but we grow in grace and the knowledge according to the last verse in the second Peter that he wrote, we must grow in the grace of Christ and in the knowledge of Christ.

   And you grow spiritually and you grow in the amount of the Holy Spirit that you have. And God has given you people in the audience out here that are in the church, the job of getting back of the Apostle. And when you tell me you're back of me 100%. Well, that's fine. And I hope you really do mean it because that's what God, God is judging you about if you are and if you are loyal and if you are faithful, but you must grow in grace.

   And God gave you the job of getting back to the Apostle as the means of increasing your own righteous character of receiving more and more of His Holy Spirit growing in grace and knowledge unto a full-grown man. As one of the scriptures says in Ephesians and ready to be a king or a priest in the kingdom of God.

   Now, God gave you a means of developing yourself. If you say, well, look, I'll go out of the church and I'll just build my own character. I'll have my own relationship with God. Oh, don't kid yourself. You see the church is like a temple fitly joined together in every joint kind of compacted together. And that is the body, that is the body of Christ that he's going to marry. And if you're out there alone, you're like, well, there's another illustration. Christ says I am the vine and you are the branches. But if you're cut off from that vine and that vine is the church, it's the body of Christ and Christ is that vine and that is his church. And if you're cut off from that church, you're cut off. It's like if you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer. But if you're out of the church, you're just out of God. Now, believe me it, it's funny the way the advertising agents can find the good slogans that really belong in the work of God. They don't belong in their commercial advertising.

   Well, now, now, then God cut off the world except those he called. You see what that means. That means that those that are not called, have not had a chance. Therefore, the responsibility is not theirs. God isn't holding them accountable for the fact, he didn't call God is the one who is responsible. Now, that doesn't mean God is guilty. It just means the responsibility is hidden. He's gonna acquit. He's going to a acquit, acquit himself of that responsibility.

   Now, once again, John 6:44 Jesus said, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him". You can, any scripture that refutes, that would mean a contradiction in the Bible. And it would be a contradiction of when God put angels to guard anyone getting back into that tree of life because God just isn't calling everybody to salvation. And those he calls it is not just for salvation. It is for a job that you're to do and the church is to get the gospel of the world, but not every member of it.

   Now, the church is well organized and you find that in the 12th chapter of First Corinthians, you find it in the fourth chapter of Ephesians and how God has set different offices in the church and each one has a certain thing to do. But when someone tries to take the apostleship away from God's Apostle and tries to make himself the Apostle, he gets kicked out sometimes that's a pretty hard thing to do and something, and it involves a great deal of suffering, but God hasn't made our way easy in this life. And sometimes we have to suffer to do what we have to do instead of what we would like to do.

   Herbert W Armstrong will return right after this message.

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   Now, no church or religious denomination has a knowledge of the master plan of God. God has revealed it to his church through these holy days, and no other church that I know of keeps him. Now, then God gave us these seven annual festivals and seven annual holidays. Now, they're not quite the same. The first festival is a holy day and the next festival is a festival that has two holy days, but the first festival is not a holy day, I mean it, it's a Passover and it's not a holy day, but it is a festival then comes a Feast of Unleavened Bread.

   Now, the Passover is the beginning of God's spiritual creation. It pictures to us the sacrifice of Christ. That's the beginning. The next thing is we have to come out of sin and put sin out of our lives. And the seven days of Unleavened Bread pictures that to us, that is the second festival of Unleavened Bread with his two holy days on, on the first and the seventh. Now the third festival is the feast of First Fruits. We got to calling it in the New Testament Pentecost, which means count 50. It's count 50 days beginning on a Sunday. And it brings out the 50th day a Sunday. And that is to show that we are only the first harvest. Now, God did not call Israel. He called them to be his government to have his government and his laws, but God did not give them any chance of salvation. God did not give the Israelites the Holy Spirit only the prophets.

   Now, why was that? And almost nobody seems to understand why God had ancient Israel when he didn't give them any salvation. Moses had the Holy Spirit of God. So did Isaiah, so did Jeremiah, so did the prophets. Now, the fourth feast is the Feast of Trumpets which pictures the second coming of Christ and he's coming for his church and he's the vine and his church were the branchs joined to that vine or we are the temple built up to a holy temple. We are the temple that he's coming to. He's not coming to a physical temple over in Jerusalem. He's coming to us. We are the temple and we've got to be joined together and anyone outside is not part of it.

   Now, the fifth one then is the Day of Atonement that has to do with putting Satan away. When Christ comes, he's qualified, he's gonna take over that throne. And when he takes it over, Satan will be put out. And that's pictured in the 20th chapter of the book of Revelation. How the angel with the key of the bottomless pit comes down and lays hold on that old dragon, which is the Satan and serpent, which is Satan, the devil and puts a seal on him and seals him up for 1000 years. So he can't get at the church. Now, he's immortal. He'll still be alive, but he won't be around us during that millennium. It'll be a millennium. The world can't be at one with God when it's cut off from God. And when it is being swayed entirely by Satan, who is the God of this world, the world, the God that the world looks to God is Satan. They don't know who the true God is. It's funny that the whole world could be deceived, but that has happened.

   Now, the sixth festival is the Feast of Tabernacles that pictures the 1000 years reign of the Kingdom of God, which is the family of God made immortal that will rule over all of the mortals. So, in the millennium, you're gonna have both mortals and immortals and all of the mortals of people that are still living will then be called. Then God's gonna call everybody, but there won't be any devil to overcome them. We have to overcome Satan the same as Christ did if we're going to sit with him on his throne, ruling. You see, but they won't. There is a very great difference. Then finally comes today this Last Great Day of the feast.

   Now, I want to show you about this. We've come to it, all that are still living on earth because many people that are living now will die between now and the time Christ comes. And there are prophecies that show that a third of the people in, in our country are going to die with pestilence and disease coming from very great famine. Another third by an invasion, a military invasion and probably by nuclear warfare. If not neocon warfare, or neutron, it's going to be horrible. It's going to be terrible.

   God has promised that his church will be protected through that great tribulation. You better be in that one body and not out of it because there's no protection for those that are out of it, let me tell you, and you wonder about the fact that now for many years, I've been getting the gospel over the world and been giving very great personal favor in the eyes of Kings and Prime Ministers and Presidents and heads of government. And then many of their heads, their cabinet members and their lawmaking body and so on. I wonder if you ever stop to think that maybe God is using that tool to give us favor in the eyes of some one of those as a place of safety during the great tribulation. And maybe it means it'll save your life. I mean, your physical life.

   Now the kingdom will be reigning over all of the people on the earth for the 1000 years. But now we get to the billions of people that have lived and died and God never called them and it isn't their fault. You see, God decided that because of what Adam did long before they were born. And so, it was not their fault. It is God's responsibility. He's not holding them responsible for it, and God has to see to it. God has to take care of that situation because God is no respecter of persons. He's not going to be unfair to anybody.

   There are billions. What about all of ancient Israel? They were not given salvation. What about them? They're not going to be in the kingdom of God. Only those that have had God's Holy Spirit will be resurrected to be in the 1000 year reign with Christ. But now we read into that 1000 years in the 20th chapter of the Book of Revelation. The fourth verse shows how many of us will be sitting on Thrones ruling for the 1000 years (Revelation 20:4). But come down to verse 11 (Revelation 20:11), "And I saw a great white throne", white is the color of perfection and purity. And it's a throne before which people are going to be judged, "and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God", a resurrection of people that have been dead standing before God. "And the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life." Therefore, some are going to have a chance of gaining eternal life because many of their names will be written in this book of Life, and every one of them will then be called. This is a resurrection of all of the billions upon billions of people that have lived and have never been called and have never had a chance. And now they're going to be called, let me tell you no church on earth will teach you this. They don't know these things. This is the is the knowledge and the wisdom of the eternal God. And God has wanted it to be written in human suffering and in human sorrow and anguish and pain to show that that way, which is the way that this Lucifer turned to and the way Adam then turned to is a wrong way.

   And that love and outgoing concern is the only way that can give you happiness and can lead to eternal life. God will not give humans eternal life except in happiness and in glory. You ever think of that? And that's the way it is.

   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, you may call this toll-free number 800-423-4444. That's 800-423-4444 in California dial direct 213-577-5225. The preceding program and all literature were produced by the Worldwide Church of God.