Sermon – Mr Herbert Armstrong – Feast of Tabernacles 50th Anniversary – October 1976
(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
Feast of Tabernacles — 50th Anniversary
By Herbert W Armstrong
October 1976
(PLAY FROM START)
Well, greetings all my little children. I address you as my little children because all of you who have and are led by the Holy Spirit are directly or indirectly my children in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I might say that this is the fiftieth Feast of Tabernacles for me, number fifty. And let me see, I think Mr. Rader did say last night, there were ministers that perhaps didn’t say up here, this is the twentieth Feast of Tabernacles for Mr. Rader. And Mrs. Rader is with him this morning, as she so often is. I think she has also been here most of the time. I could have asked her. I don’t know if it’s been every time since this tabernacle was built or not. But I have been, I’ve been here every time since the tabernacle was built, and so has Mr. Rader, and that is something.
Now, I call you my children for another reason. We are now in the second generation of this era of God’s Church. And those of you who have come in and become members in the last ten or twenty years are in about the same position of understanding about this Church as the person who goes into a movie right in the middle of the picture, or you tune into a motion picture on television and you get it right in the middle and you don’t understand what’s going on. It’s all confusing, you don’t know where they’re going, you don’t know what it means because you didn’t see what let up to it, you didn’t see all of the other events that led up to it. And some of you are just as confused about this Church.
Now also let me tell you, that those of us living now, and we look at world conditions now, and we read the Bible now, and we try to look at the world that we’re living in now at this time, WE ARE JUST AS CONFUSED because we’ve come in, not in the middle, but almost at the end, and we don’t realize enough what went on before, what led up to it, and where we are now, and why.
In other words, how did humanity come to be on this earth? Did God put us here? If He did, why? Where are we going? What is the way? Why do we have all these troubles in the world? Why is the world so upset? Tell me, why is it that man has such a mind that he can invent the computer?
Let’s see, we have an old plow right in front of me here, and even that kind of a plow is a fairly recent invention. But they’ve gone way beyond that now.
We can send men to the moon and back! Think what the mind of man can do and what a wonderful mind God gave us, and yet with our minds we cannot live with ourselves in peace.
What’s the matter? Why?
This morning I want to go clear back to the beginning. But I want to say that even in the beginning of this Work, very few of you know what it’s like. Even my son, Garner Ted, does not know.
I turned the microphone over to Garner Ted Armstrong back about 1955. I said, “Ted, here is a microphone. There are hundreds of stations out there. You don’t have to go out and get them started. You don’t have to supply the listeners; they’re already waiting for you. All you have to do is start talking.”
And you know, I don’t think he himself can quite conceive how it started. He was only three years old when the Work started.
start of the radio programme (PLAY FROM 4:22)
I found a chance to go on radio, and it was about the Feast of Tabernacles time in the year of 1933, and the local station of the smallest power, there were a lot of stations all over the country of the same power, it was the smallest power of any, one hundred watts. That was the only station we had up in Eugene, Oregon at that time. That’s where we were living at that time. And someone told me that they had a fifteen minute program on in the morning, it was sort of a devotional program, but they passed around to the different ministers of the different churches, but it hadn’t been on now for several weeks because it began at 7:45 till 8:00, and the ministers didn’t want to get up that early, they didn’t want to be bothered with it.
I said, “Well, do you think I would have a chance to get on and speak to an audience like that?” And of course, they didn’t charge for it. Well I said, “I’m going to find out.”
I went down, I didn’t get to see the owner of the station, I just saw a secretary. The station was small, they just had one woman secretary and one man announcer. That was the whole thing.
And she said, “Why yes.” She says, “How soon would you like to...what week would you like to take? You can have every morning, Monday through Friday, 7:45 in the morning, for fifteen minutes.”
Why I said, “I want to begin next Monday.”
Well, she just signed it and there I was. And I want to tell you, the first time there were thousands of people in and around Lane County Oregon, and maybe on the edge of a few adjoining counties, who heard about the Kingdom of God, and they heard about the promises made to Abraham, and that they were not heaven but that they were this earth, and that there was no promise in the Bible that we would go to heaven. And I read how Jesus said...
John 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven...
That started something.
About Thursday morning that week the announcer told me that the manager and the owner of the station would like to see me. I was shaking at the knees, I didn’t know what I’d...maybe I’d said something that I shouldn’t have said on his station.
He said, “Mr. Armstrong, I listened to you this morning. I’ve been getting mail. We never got mail from this program.”
He said, “Ministers didn’t like to get up this early and so we were just about to drop having it.”
But he said, “We’ve just been receiving mail from people that said, we go to church and Mr. Armstrong read this out of the Bible, and I turn and I found it in my Bible, and it’s just the opposite of what my preacher says. Why is my preacher telling me just the opposite of what the Bible says?”
Now, he said, “I listened in this morning,” and he says, “you have a radio voice.”
“Do I? Well, I didn’t now that.”
He suggested that I go on the radio as a thirty minute program every Sunday morning.
And he said...well, I told him I didn’t have the money.
Well, he said, “I’ll make my share as a donation. I’ll let you have it for a whole lot less than it cost me to keep the station on the air for that time and all the rest of it’s my donation. I’ll let you have it for two dollars and fifty cents a week.
Well, I didn’t know where I’d get that two dollars and fifty cents. I sent a letter out to the few people that I knew, they were of the Sardis Church, I’d been working with them, but this was in the middle of the depression, 1933, and all I could raise was about a dollar and thirty cents a week that people would send in for me to go on the air.
I said, “Alright, I’ll take the rest of it on faith and I’ll trust God to send it.”
You know, time after time, at the last minute, the money came. But we never missed a broadcast.
start of the Plain Truth Magazine (PLAY FROM 8:47)
Now, way back in 1947 I had had a vision of getting out a magazine. I had been in the magazine business all my life anyway, newspapers. I wanted to get out a magazine called, The Plain Truth. I wanted it to be a magazine of understanding. But I had no way to do it.
I said, “Where would I get circulation? Where would I get money to print it?”
And I began to announce a magazine, The Plain Truth, and I didn’t have any printing press. But I went down to the office of the mimeograph, and I knew the man there anyway, I asked him if I could get out a magazine and if I could borrow the use of his mimeograph.
I got some stencils that I bought of him and some cheap paper that I bought over at someplace where I could get paper cheaper even than the newsprint paper. I think it was either yellow or green or pink. It had some kind of a color. I cut the stencils on a window glass like this. I had nothing, no equipment; nothing to do it with. I’m giving a little bit now about the way this Work started, but February first...
But I couldn’t keep borrowing his mimeograph every month. And I found a chance to buy an old ancestor of the mimeograph that was almost worn out and had almost passed out of existence at that time, an old neostile. And I bought that for, I think, about five dollars, or something like that. And so we started getting out The Plain Truth every month.
Now, I was the editor, and I also set all the type, which meant I did it with a typewriter on stencils, and I laid the headlines myself. The neostile was a printing press, my wife wound it out by hand, there certainly was no electricity to it yet or anything of the kind and that is the way the Work started.
My wife also was the computer, and she kept the mailing list with pen and ink. And we had so few copies for the first year or so that we were able to pray over them and ask God to bless them and take them in our own arms across the street from where we had an office at that time, to the post office, before we mailed them.
Now, I have something to show you. Mr. Hart here has just donated to me, and I don’t know where he got it, an old style neostile the way the Work started, and the way The Plain Truth was printed. (Let’s see, where can we...put it right here.)
Mr. Hart, would you rise? I want you to know, here’s the man who donated this to me. You work it here by hand. You turn out a copy at a time.
Some of you don’t know that women aren’t the only people that can know what birth pangs are. I had birth pangs getting The Plain Truth started. I had birth pangs getting the broadcast started. But by the time I turned over to Garner Ted, the broadcast, he had hundreds of stations out here, and it had taken faith, and it had taken every opposition.
Seven succesive stage of the Church (PLAY FROM 12:56)
Now, all this time, brethren, members of the Church of God, between, now let’s see, described in the first few verses of the third chapter of the book of Revelation, under the Sardis era of the Church. Now, the second and third chapters of Revelation have messages from Christ Himself direct after He ascended to heaven. There are seven successive stages, or eras, of the Church of God. Also they are the seven outstanding characteristics of the Church at all times.
Now, we’ve got too much of the Laodicean condition now although we’re the Philadelphia era. We have also got a lot of the Ephesus condition, although Ephesus was in the First Century, but they forgot their first love, they needed to get back to it. And there’s a lot of that in us.
Those things apply at all times to the Church of God, but the Ephesus condition dominated in the First Century. Right now the door’s opening to get the GET THE MESSAGE OUT TO THE WORLD IS THE THING THAT’S DOMINATING RIGHT NOW IN THE PHILADELPHIA ERA! AND IF ANYONE TELLS YOU THAT THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT INTERPRETATION OF THOSE TWO CHAPTERS OF REVELATION, TELL THEM THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT! I have said that for four years.
They’ll say, “Oh well, we had those conditions all the time in every church.”
Well, of course we do, I said that all along, but there also are seven distinctive periods of time, and this is the time.
Now, there’s something else I want to say right here before I go back to the beginning. Christ brought the gospel. The gospel He preached was the message of the announcement of the Kingdom of God that is not yet here, but the Kingdom of God that was to come and be set up. That was His message.
You know that before 60 A.D. they had turned it to a different gospel altogether? They had a gospel about the person of Jesus Christ and they did not any longer preach the government of God, the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the family of God into which we can be born, that we can become as much God as Christ is God, as the Father is God. THAT HAS NEVER BEEN PROCLAIMED UNTIL THE PHILADELPHIA ERA! It is a message of ANNOUNCING THAT THAT FAMILY IS GOING TO BE BORN OF GOD AND IT’S GOING TO TAKE OVER AND RESTORE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD THAT WAS ONCE ON EARTH AND WAS TAKEN AWAY!
And for eighteen and one half centuries that gospel, the true gospel of Christ, was not allowed to go to the world. And the world never heard it. The Roman Catholic Church turned it clear away. The Roman Catholic Church is merely the old Babylonian Mystery Religion, accepting the name of Christ and calling itself Christian. But instead of using Christ and preaching Christ they take the virgin Mary. Only they don’t call her Mary down in Mexico, she’s Guadalupe down there, and they have another name for her in other countries.
And the Protestants did not restore the truth of the Bible by any means. I was brought up in a Protestant church, and I want to tell you when, in late 1926, I saw the Bible said...
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death...
I looked at that and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Why,” I said, “My church taught me from the time I was a little child that wages were what you get paid for what you do. If what you do is sin, the wages you get paid, the Bible says is death! My church said it’s everlasting life, just the opposite.” Of course they said it was in hell fire, but it was everlasting life, because they said you could never burn up.
Now, I’m made of matter, I think you could cut off an arm or a leg, throw it in the fire, it would burn up. It wouldn’t keep burning forever. I’ll tell you, if you show me something that can burn, and burn, and burn, and never burn up I’ll pay you a million dollars. I haven’t got it, I could borrow it though. And I’ll make myself a multi billionaire. If you can find something that will just keep burning and burning, and you’ve got something you don’t have to keep pouring more fuel on to keep it burning, you can become the richest person in the world.
Then it said...
Romans 6:23 ...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Why, I’ve always been taught I ALREADY HAD IT! I’VE GOT AN IMMORTAL SOUL! And I began to realize that I had been taught in church exactly the opposite of what the Bible says! And I began, the further I studied, and I was on a challenge, and I know of NO LEADER of a religion in this world who was brought to the truth the way God brought me to it. God prepared me for what I was to do long before He called me and opened my eyes to the Bible, just as He did Moses, just as He did the Apostle Paul, just as He did others.
how the work started (PLAY FROM 18:24)
A lot of you don’t know how this started. I want to show you now this morning how everything started. You think...if I would ask you, is Genesis one, one, the beginning of things in the Bible, is that in time order where we begin and the beginning? I think most of you would say, yes.
You’re wrong. It isn’t. You know where you begin? You know the very beginning verse in all the Bible?
It’s in the New Testament. It’s John one, verse one. Will you turn to it. Now, let’s go through it real rapidly, as rapidly as I can. I want to give you a little bit about, if I can get to it, the start of this era of the Church, and what I had to do. When a lot of people see me around here and they say, “Well, what’s that Herbert Armstrong doing? How’d he get in? Does he have anything to do with this Church?”
Oh boy, has he! He only suffered the birth pangs of having it raised up. God raised this Church up through me. God started His Work for this era through me! So I’m going to let you know a little bit about what did go on if I can this morning.
And some young fellow walked up to me, I forget where it was recently, I think it was...well, one of the cities where I was, he says, “Could your name be Mr. Armstrong? Is your name Armstrong?”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Could you be the father of Garner Ted Armstrong?”
I said, “Yes, I am.”
“My,” he said, “It must be a wonderful thing to be the father of a celebrity, a man as great as Garner Ted Armstrong.”
Ted will be here in a few days, you can tell him that if you want to.
He says, “You must be mighty proud to be the father of a great celebrity like that.”
Of course he never thought I ever did anything. So I got it all started and handed it to him on a silver plate! No, I suffered the birth pangs like going to a mother and saying did she have anything to do with this son of hers? Well, I think a mother thinks she had something to do with it. She suffered the birth pangs. I suffered the birth pangs of starting Ambassador College and getting a few other things started and I have never had anything but opposition.
Now there’s one other thing I want to tell you, while I’m on it, before I go back here to the beginning. Not only was the gospel not preached, but false churches came up.
And who is the god of this world? Satan. And the Bible says ALL nations are deceived by him. The TRUE CHURCH OF GOD IS LARGER TODAY and this is the largest congregation, not just this but the others that are meeting all around the world, THAT HAS EVER EXISTED, so far as I know.
the announcement of the kingdom (PLAY FROM 21:33)
Now, I’m going to have that researched and make sure of that. And there’s a reason. Jesus brought the announcement of the Kingdom of God! They squashed it! It did not go out! They talked about the person but the message they did not give! The message, we can be born into the Kingdom, the message of the government of God that was once on this earth and was taken away, and the thing that is uppermost in the mind of Almighty God right now above everything else is restoring the government of God on this earth.
When the government of God was here there was nothing but peace and everybody was going the same way all together in harmony and in peace and accomplishing something. But that got taken away, and I want to show you how and why. That was before Adam was even put here.
You need to go back to the beginning, not start in the middle of the motion picture. You never understand it if you don’t know what went before and you don’t know what’s going on now, or why.
So, John one, verse one...
John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That’s the real beginning. Now, there is a person named the Word, and that Word was with another person who’s called God. But the Word was also God!
Just the other night someone down here saw Garner Ted and Garner Ted was with Armstrong in a restaurant, and Garner Ted is also Armstrong. He and I met together at Big Sandy and we got to have dinner together for the first time in I don’t know when. Last year we got cheated out of it because the plans were made so that he was, I believe, clear up in...well, let me see...I believe he was clear up in maybe Salt Lake City or someplace like that. In the afternoon where he preached he had to get down to Big Sandy, and I was to meet him in Big Sandy anyway, he was unable to get down until after eleven o’clock at night, so we didn’t get to have our dinner last year. This time we didn’t get cheated out of it and we got to have it together.
Well, so much for that. But you see, Armstrong’s the family name.
Now, at this time the Word and God were two different beings, but God was not the Father of the Word, not at this time, not until much, much later, not until Jesus Christ was born of the virgin, Mary. Then God became the Father and Christ became the Son.
But here were two beings co-equal, but one was greater than the other. One was the boss. Two people can’t go along fifty/fifty. Many a wife resents the fact that God says the husband is the head of the wife. That’s what God says. How many of you women resent that? So, if one of you raised your hand I didn’t see it. I’ll tell you, I think about half the women in the world do. They want fifty/fifty. Do you know the definition of fifty/fifty? The wife is boss, that’s the definition.
ONE OF THE TWO IS GOING TO BE THE BOSS!
Now, a lot of people think that Garner Ted Armstrong and Herbert W. Armstrong are together, (oh, we’re together alright), but that we have equal authority. Well, I’m going to have to dispel that. That is not true. God turned the authority over to me when he was a little child three years old, yes, he was under four. The authority he has is what I gave him, which Christ had me give him. The authority that I have is what Christ gave me! And it’s nothing within me! The authority I have when I call you my children, the authority I have is CHRIST WITHIN ME, AND THE POWER OF THE LIVING GOD! And so far as I know, He hasn’t conferred that authority on anybody else yet. And I’m still only thirty-seven going on thirty-six. I get a year younger every year.
two beings (PLAY FROM 26:19)
Now, at this time there were only two beings. There was no matter, there were no other beings. The one was not the father of the other because the one that was called the Word HAD EXISTED ALWAYS. Never was there a time when He did not exist. To be the son of the other there’d had to have been a time when God existed and the Word didn’t. And there had to have been a mother and there was no one there to be the mother.
Now they coexisted! Their minds were exactly the same, in perfect agreement, perfect harmony! They were pulling together. They were thinking together. But the one called God was supreme in authority. Now it says...
John 1:2-3 “The same was in the beginning with God”. (3)” All things were made by him; and without him…” [that is the Word] …”was not any thing made that was made.”
But over in the fourteenth verse you find that later on, much, much later...
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,...
That’s when He was born of the virgin, Mary. And then God became the Father, and Jesus became the Son. But, in the meantime, you read in Ephesians the third chapter that...
Ephesians 3:9 ...God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Christ is the Word. You read in the Psalms...
Psalms 33:9 For he spake, and it was done;
Christ is the Word who SPEAKS, but the Holy Spirit is the power that does it.
I was sent, in January of 1914, when I was a representative of a national magazine, and my editors of that national magazine sent me to Detroit to interview Henry Ford. Alright, I saw Henry Ford in his factory, and at that time it was out on Highland Avenue in Detroit. And there was Henry Ford dressed in a business suit. I looked through a great big open door and there was a gigantic factory bigger much than this tabernacle, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of men wearing overalls working making Ford automobiles. But they had machines, and they had for the first time in history, the conveyor belt system, and the cars were coming along that conveyor belt and every man had to add his part as it went by. But they were using power, the power of electricity to turn machines.
Now, Ford was the maker, but he created the car, made the automobile, by those workmen who used machines and the power of electricity. God is the Creator who created everything BY Jesus Christ, who did it through the POWER of the Holy Spirit.
That make sense? I want you to understand it.
Now then, just as God gave us minds so God has a mind. God had a mind and the Word had a mind, and they thought together, and there was no discord between them. So God is a creator, and they began to think of creating, making something, and what do you think was the first thing they made? Angels!
angels created (PLAY FROM 30:10)
Now, before they made angels they had to think out how they would be made. They had to think out a plan, they had to make a design. And they created them and made them according to that design.
Now, there was no matter. I can prove to you by the laws of radio activity there was a time when matter did not exist. Then there was a time when matter came into existence. And I can’t conceive of matter coming into existence out of nothing gradually. I think it was just as quick as that. God did it suddenly. But how many millions of years God had been thinking and planning to create matter, I don’t know.
Now, when God created matter He created a whole universe. Our sun is the center of our solar system. Around our sun are many planets. The Earth is one, Mars is one, and from Pasadena right now we have unmanned satellites up there with cameras that are taking pictures right on the surface of Mars and it comes back. And the first ones flashed right into the Ambassador Auditorium on Ambassador College campus connected up with the government works out there, which they did for us, and many of us sat right there and saw the first pictures come in from Mars. And we find Mars just what the Bible says, a burned out hunk of decay. And it wasn’t created that way because God never created anything in decay.
Now, God decided to create matter, and when He did He created the whole universe. Now, there is Saturn, and there is Jupiter, and there is Uranus, and there are other planets in our solar system. This earth and our moon...and even our moon is a burned out old hulk, uninhabitable. It was not created that way! Something happened!
And you don’t hear Billy Graham preaching this, no, not at all. He’d say this was ridiculous. But I’m giving you what is the framework of the whole Bible, what is the main story flow, what is the real scenario of the picture. And people today don’t get the picture, they come in when it’s about seven eighths over or nine tenths over, near the end, and they don’t understand what’s going on because they don’t know what went on before.
Now there came a time, here were angels, and it was just in space. There was no matter. Now all of a sudden, God created matter. Now we come to Genesis one, one, in time order, and this was much later than John one, one.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God...
...and the word for God is Elohim, which means more than one person. And that includes the one who was the Word and the one who was God – two persons. Later they became Father and Son, a family relationship so that God became a family name.
Genesis 1:1-2 “In the beginning God created the heaven”[s]...[it should be plural. Moses wrote it plural in the Hebrew language] “...and the earth. (2) And the earth was...” [or came to be] ”...without form, and void.”
Now, those are the English words. Moses wrote the Hebrew words, tohu and bohu, and that means waste and empty, in confusion and decay – decayed, and waste, and empty. That’s the way we find the Moon, that’s the way we find Mars.
Now, decay is something that was better and has had a destructive process going on that has brought about decay. God never created anything in a state of decay. Something caused the earth to be that way, and something caused mars to be that way at the same time.
Now, the words here...
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven[s] and the earth.
...in the Hebrew words imply a perfect creation.
You turn over here to Job...and Job had just created, or had directed the building of, a very great building. It was a building where the cornerstone was on top, the last stone to be laid. And that’s...the only kind of building that is made like that is a pyramid. So undoubtedly Job is the one who the Pharaoh of Egypt hired to come and build the great pyramid for him. Now...
Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,…
...and in verse five, and the thirty-eighth chapter now I am, of Job...Job thirty-eight...
Job 38:4 “Where was thou...” [Job] “...when I laid the foundations of the earth?...”
You created a building, you built the great pyramid, but I built the earth. Now, how big do you think you are compared to me? Where were you when I built the earth?
Job 38: “6 “Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?...” [verse six] “...or who laid the corner stone thereof;” (7)When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
...at the creation of the earth!
ANGELS WERE ALREADY HERE AND SHOUTED FOR JOY WHEN THE EARTH WAS CREATED! Therefore, angels were created first, and before matter, and angels are created out of spirit. And now, God created matter.
Why did He create matter? Because such wonderful things can be done with and through matter, and God is a creator. Look at the energy that is in matter – force and energy, the power of gravity, lightening, electricity, now we have nuclear energy. Oh I tell you, such marvelous things can be done with matter.
Now, I’ll tell you how God created things. As far as God created, everything He did was perfect, but it did not necessarily mean that it was completed or finished. As far as it went it was perfect, because you’ll read in the thirty-first verse of Genesis one...
Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good....[never very bad.]
archangel created (PLAY FROM 36:45)
These angels, He created an archangel to lead them and to have him sit on the throne over them with the government of God, ruling them with the government of God. And He made that archangel perfect in all his ways from the time he was created. God doesn’t create things any other way.
Now then, He intended those angels to take this earth, which was not yet finished, and build it up, and finish it, and make it beautiful, and make it great, and use the energies and the powers and everything in matter in doing a wonderful thing.
But now there’s something else about angels you have to stop and think about there. He gave them a mind to think with, but there’s one thing God cannot create in you automatically, and that is perfect righteous character. That means the character like, for example, God will never go contrary to the right way. It’s impossible for God to sin. The only way He could make it impossible for the angels to sin would have been to make them like a machine or an automaton where they couldn’t think, they had no mind, they automatically had to do what God said for them to do, but they couldn’t think for themselves. They would have had no personality, no individuality, they would not have been individual beings.
So God created them with minds that were able to think. God created them with minds that could reason, that could come to conclusions, that could make decisions, and that could make a choice.
Now, there are only two ways of life – two broad ways of life.
When I speak before a king, a prime minister, or before a group of distinguished people at a banquet, I tell them there are two ways of life, and only two, and I’m going to make it real simple. I’m going to treat you just like you’re about six old, and I’m going to make it so simple you can understand it. One way is the way of get, the other is the way of give. One coming in, its self-centeredness. That is the way of vanity – I love myself – that’s the way of lust and greed. But also toward others is the way of envy and jealousy, it’s the way of competition that leads to strife and violence and war, it’s the way of resentment against others and resentment and rebellion against authority. That’s one way of living.
The other way of living is GIVE! That’s outgoing. A better word is love... l–o–v–e – and love is an outgoing concern for the good of others equal to your own concern for your own good. But love comes from God, and love is also God-centeredness where you know that the mind of God is perfect and that He doesn’t try to get anything away from us, He wants to give, and that His mind is perfect, His way is perfect, and if we obey His way we make no mistakes.
So one is the way of God-centeredness, the other is the way of self-centeredness, and this world is on the getting way, and that’s what’s wrong with the world.
Now, the one is spiritual. Love is a spiritual way. Loving your neighbor as yourself, that’s a spiritual principle. The law of God is a spiritual law, and the law of God is love, but it’s a spiritual law. Laws that man make are not spiritual, they are carnal and they’re all based on the get principle.
Now, angels had to form their own character. God started them out by showing them the two ways. He showed them the way of love and of righteousness, and He said, “You have to think it over. I want you to develop that way until you believe in it. But when you make your final conclusion, there you are set. You’re made of spirit and spirit can’t change.” And once spirit had made a decision it could never change.
Now, why did God have to have government over them?
Well, He had a GREAT WORK He wanted done! You can’t do it hitting against each other. And if one man starts to build something, the next one comes by and knocks it down, and then that man starts something and this guy knocks it down, you don’t get anywhere. God said, “You’ve got to pull together. You have to work in peace, you have to work in harmony.”
government set up (PLAY FROM 41:41)
So He set a government over them, and government is always based on law. You have a government here in the state of Wisconsin, and it’s based on a state law. We have a Constitution of the United States and Congress is making laws, and we’ve got all kinds of laws made by men.
EVERY GOVERNMENT IS BASED ON LAW! And law is the thing that guides and directs the way we live. Men’s laws, well, they’re all based on carnality, and they don’t work. God’s law is a way of life, but it’s a SPIRITUAL law.
WHY ARE WE ABLE to go to the moon and back? WHY ARE WE ABLE to build computers?
Because the carnal mind is dealing with matter, and is subject only to matter. And those are physical principles, and in physical principles there is no limit to what a human mind can do. God said, when they were building the Tower of Babel that...
Genesis 11:6 ...and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
...if we don’t go down and stop them.
But, well, I’m coming to that later. Man needs a second spirit, the Spirit of God, which he doesn’t have, and so man is confined, normal man, and man as he is born is confined to matter, and material thinking, and material things.
Now, let me see, God had to have government, so He gave them a government. Now, He put one on the throne over that government. (Let’s see, I lost most of my notes and I made some others, and I don’t know whether I have them...yes, here we are.) He put one over that government, and his name was Lucifer. Lucifer is a name that means shining star of the dawn, it means light bringer.
He was the most PERFECT individual being that God could possibly create. He was far greater than an ordinary angel. He had power so much greater your mind can’t understand it.
Now, we read about him in the forty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, and in verse twelve it speaks of him...
Isaiah 14:12 “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,...” [that’s the super archangel] “... son of the morning!...”
...light bringer...
Isaiah 14:12-15 “...how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” [or, how are you who weakened the nations cut down to the ground.] (13) ”For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,...” [He was on earth, he was below heaven, and he was going to ascend up from the earth to heaven. “...I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:” [The congregation are those angels before God’s throne in heaven, at the seat of God’s throne in heaven, the headquarters of the whole universe.] (15) “Yet...” [said God] “...thou shalt be brought down to hell,...” [the grave] “...to the sides of the pit.”
God said He would cast him right back down to the earth.
Now, he got to reasoning that the get way would be better.
He says, “I’d rather get. What do I care if I hurt someone else? If someone else suffers or I make other angels suffer, that isn’t going to hurt me. If I make God suffer, I won’t feel it, let Him suffer. Why do I care?”
He said, “Maybe God is greater than I because He made me, but God can’t be greater than all of these angels put together,” so he convinced the angels that they ought to get angry at God and resentful of authority.
It’s just like you have a lot of apples in a crate and you let one of them get rotten, and if you don’t move it out of there it will rot the ones next to it, and they’ll rot the ones next to them, and pretty soon the whole crate is rotten. And that’s the way he did. He got one or two leaders, he convinced them to go his way of rebellion, his way of vanity, of lust and greed. They got others until ALL THE ANGELS WERE READY TO SWOOP ON UP TO HEAVEN WITH HIM and try to knock God off the throne. They were sent right back down again.
You read more of him in Ezekiel twenty-eight, in the twelfth verse...
Ezekiel 28:12 ...Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
In other words, this archangel was so great he sealed up the sum total of perfection, wisdom, and beauty. You read of him here again...
Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth;...
That’s referring to the cherub that covered the throne of God. You will read of that back in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew {3}, and verse twenty, where it shows that there were two cherubim, archangels.
Now, ordinary angels don’t have wings, did you know that? Seraphs, or seraphim, have wings, cherubim have wings, but ordinary angels don’t. But the highest of all are the cherubs or the cherubim, and yet, how do they picture cherubs? Like little babies or little children, little girls with little tiny wings that wouldn’t lift a fly in this world. That shows you how far off the world is. This cherub was a mighty, mighty archangel.
In verse fifteen it says...
Ezekiel 28:15 “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created,...” [God never creates any imperfection. He was perfect in his ways] “…till iniquity was found in thee.”
Iniquity is lawlessness, rebellion, against law. As long as he did administer the government of God there was happiness and joy on this earth beyond the bounds that your mind can conceive. But he got to reasoning, and he finally made his mind up, and when he made it he couldn’t change it. And he’s immortal and he will live forever, and he’s going to live forever in hatred, rebellion, the most unhappy personage in all the universe that ever was or ever will be.
It says later down here...
Ezekiel 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground,...
He had said, “I’ll rise.” He had a throne. The throne was on this earth, he ruled over the angels, THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD WAS HERE! But now they rebelled. AND NOW THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD WAS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH! AND THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD WAS NOT HERE ANY MORE!
Now, the GREATEST PURPOSE IN THE MIND OF GOD IS TO RESTORE HIS GOVERNMENT OF LOVE back to this earth once again.
But now just consider, where did this leave God? Because that brought destruction to the earth. God had given them light and truth and they turned to darkness. Go back to Genesis in the second verse...
Genesis 1:2 “And the earth was...” [or became] “. ..without form, and void;”
That is, it came to be waste and empty, it came to be degenerated, it came to be (what’s the word I used awhile ago?) in this condition that it didn’t start out but it degenerated down to decay.
Genesis 1:2 ...and darkness was upon the face of the deep...
The deep means the ocean. There was no land, but later God made the land appear. It was all ocean, and it was covered with darkness, and it was waste and empty.
Now, God was faced with this, His great purpose, now, was to do something and finish ALL of the planets, not only of our solar system, but our solar system is only one tiny bit of a part of a galaxy, and our galaxy is only one of millions of galaxies! And there is no end to outer space. On, and on, and on, it goes. Brethren, I tell you, it’s mind splitting. It’s SO AWESOME that your minds can’t contain it. You can’t receive it, you can’t understand it, and it’s so great.
GOD WAS THE ONLY ONE, NOW, THAT WOULD NOT EVER SIN! GOD HAD DECIDED that He would take the give way, and God CANNOT change because God is spirit and He won’t change.
You know, I think God must have thought about that time like I’ve thought a lot of times. I just have more things to get done than I can get done. I try to get them done and I can’t. I just say there aren’t enough of me. Sometimes I wish there could be at least two of me, and maybe I need a dozen of me. And God must have thought that.
Here I am...here was God and here was the Word, they’re not Father and Son yet, they could be relied on, they would never change, but they wanted MILLIONS here to do this job. And they had millions of individuals, but those individuals were angels, and they had turned the wrong way. If God would start creating more angels, and I think He probably did because it seems that these were only one third of the angels, they probably would sin too, and God had to be assured of someone who, and having millions of beings who would not sin, who could be relied on to always go together, to pull together, to go in harmony and work together and get the job done. And He wanted them being love, He wanted them to be happy! He wanted them to enjoy life! The only way God could do it was now to do the greatest thing that even God had ever done, greater than even creating this great mighty Lucifer.
God to reproduce Himself (PLAY FROM 51:48)
Lucifer now became Satan, the devil. Those angels of his became demons. And now God said, “I WILL REPRODUCE MYSELF! I WILL REPRODUCE MYSELF!”
As we were driving to the restaurant the other night, I was explaining to my son, Ted, what I’m preaching. I just gave him a real quick outline, and I had mentioned how great was Lucifer, and Ted said, “Dad, did you ever stop to think, Adam was even greater, a greater creation?” Because Adam was made of matter, but Adam had the potentiality of becoming God and born into the God family, and Lucifer never could have done that. Even Adam, but Adam was made so he had to make up his mind. Adam was given a spirit to impart intellect to a brain.
Now, let me explain something right here. This takes time to go through all this, and you can’t understand the scenario of the whole Bible, and where we are today, and where we’re going, and why this Church is here, and why YOU WERE CALLED, AND WHY YOU’RE SITTING THERE, if you don’t understand what I’m trying to get over to you right now.
Now, I dare say that you have never heard all of this put together and given to you at one time ever before in your life. So little children, open your ears. You’re hearing something great! You’re hearing something mighty! You’re hearing words you’ve never heard spoken before, YOU’RE HEARING SOMETHING THE WORLD IS NOT GETTING AND DOES NOT UNDERSTAND! This is great, it’s greater than your mind can contain.
God said, “I will make man of matter, not of spirit,” because if matter goes the wrong way it can change. Spirit can’t change once it’s got set, matter can. Also, if he were made of matter and he would make the wrong decision, matter could die, spirit cannot. Also, Christ was able, the Word was able to become Christ, to give up the glory He had with the Father and come down and be born as a human being, and He, being God as well as man, WAS ABLE TO DEFY SATAN, WAS ABLE TO LIVE ACCORDING TO GOD’S LAW AND NOT SIN ONCE, THOUGH HE WAS TEMPTED EVEN MORE THAN WE ARE, and being our Maker He was able...and being human He was able to die, being our Maker His life was greater than all of our lives put together, and He was able to pay the penalty for us that all of us have incurred.
WHAT A MARVELOUS thing God thought out of reproducing His own self!
Now, in the meantime, as I say, here was the earth in this terrible condition. The earth was decayed, a state of decay, and not fit for life or anything.
In the one hundred and fourth Psalm, verse thirty, it says...
Psalms 104:30 “Thou sendest forth thy spirit,...” [God sends forth His Spirit, that’s the power that does it.] “...they are created:... “ [The Spirit does the work of creation.] “...and thou renewest the face of the earth.”
The face of the earth had been defaced. It was now in a state of decay! It was waste and empty! Now go back to Genesis one, put it together and notice...
Genesis 1:2 ...darkness was upon the face of the deep....
I just read that.
Genesis 1:2-3 “...And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” [God here, now, sent forth His Spirit. He’s going to renew the face of the earth.] (3) “And God said,...” [the Word said. CHRIST SPEAKS AND IT IS DONE, as you read in another Psalm. He said...what’s the first thing He did to renew the face of the earth for man?] “...Let there be light:..”.
Satan had brought darkness. Light is not only light that your eye can see, it also represents truth that your mind can conceive and understand.
Now, in six days God made this whole surface of the earth, He renewed it, made it beautiful once again, but not perfect yet for man, and now He’s going to have man He had made out of matter, because you read in the seventh verse of the second chapter...
Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,...” [He made us out of matter.] “...and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became...” [an immortal soul!]
Did I read that right? Well, that’s the way the Methodists and Baptists read it. No, it doesn’t say that.
Genesis 2:7 ...and man became a living soul.
Man was made of the dust of the ground, and the dust of the ground became a living soul. The soul is made of the dust of the ground.
Now, God told them right in this same chapter that if you sin you shall die.
Genesis 2:17 ...you shall surely die.
...to those two souls that He had created, Adam and Eve, male and female.
Twice in Ezekiel it says...
Ezekiel 18:4 ...the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die...
Look how far off the world has gotten from the truth of God.
man given a mind (PLAY FROM 57:30)
Now, He gave man a mind. And I have to explain right here that man has a brain. The brain is a marvelous thing. And dead people, we take the brain out and cut it up and look at it. It is a marvelous thing. But do you know, the brain of a chimp is just as marvelous, it’s just a little bit smaller, but made the same way? The same thing and made exactly the same way only smaller. You can hardly tell them apart. The brain of a dolphin is the same way but a little larger. The brain of a whale or of an elephant are still larger and just as perfect. And yet they can’t think, they can’t reason, they can’t come to conclusions, they can’t imagine.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? WHY IS MAN SO DIFFERENT? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HUMAN MIND AND AN ANIMAL BRAIN?
THE DIFFERENCE IS, GOD PUT A SPIRIT IN MAN! WITH YOUR FIRST BREATH THAT SPIRIT ENTERS! IT’S ONLY SOMETHING IN MAN, IT IS NOT THE MAN!
And that spirit can’t see. The brain, physical brain, sees through the eye. The spirit can’t hear. It is the physical brain that hears through the ear. The spirit can’t even think! It’s the brain that thinks.
But why can a human brain think and an animal can’t?
Because the spirit is like a computer. Knowledge comes through your eye. You see something, it’s programmed instantly into the computer, in your spirit. The animal doesn’t have that computer, that spirit. You read, you get knowledge. You hear someone read and through hearing you get knowledge, it’s programmed immediately, and it enters your memory, and your memory is in the spirit. NOT THE GREY MATTER OF THE BRAIN, AS HUMAN SCIENTISTS TRY TO TELL YOU! There’s a little of it there, just as much as a dog or an elephant can remember, and that’s very little.
Of course now, you can go up and you can get very angry at an elephant and harm it, and I’ve heard of this happening, and five years later you come back that elephant will remember and it will go after you. So they have a little bit of memory, but it’s nothing compared to the memory in the human mind.
GOD MADE MAN WITH A SPIRIT, (I have to call it a human spirit), AND WITHOUT THIS NO MAN COULD KNOW THE THINGS OF A MAN! That’s First Corinthians, third chapter, and I think verse nine.
1 Corinthians 2: 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?...
IN THE SAME MANNER, WITHOUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD, no man can know the things that God has prepared for us.
I Corinthians 2:11 ...even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
The spirit in man allows him to know only what he can see, it doesn’t see itself, it’s only what the brain can see, what the brain can hear, and what the brain can think. And that’s why the greatest and most ignorant people we’ve got in the world are the great scientists, and the great educators, and the great college professors. They’re the most IGNORANT PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH!! I think ninety-nine percent of them.
You know why? They don’t have the Spirit of God, and the greatest knowledge is spiritual knowledge, and the Spirit of God adds something to your mind, and now your mind can comprehend and understand spiritual knowledge. What a wonderful thing.
Now, here was man. You read here in the twenty-fifth verse of Genesis...
Genesis 1:25 “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,...” [There were the birds, and there were the fish, and the land animals, and clear down to insects.] “...and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:..”
ALL AFTER THEIR KIND! AND THEN...
Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man...” [us, not me, more than one person] “...Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:...” [after our kind, in our likeness.] In other words, let’s make man after the God kind.
made in the image of god (PLAY FROM 1:01:52)
God has a nose. God has two eyes. God has two ears. God has a mouth. He has arms and ten fingers. He has legs and ten toes. And God made man to look just like God, except we’re pale anemic and of different colors, and we get angry at one another and all full of prejudice if we’re of a different color than someone else. Puny, little, pitiful man. What a shame. Yet we’re all human. I don’t care whether you’re black or whether you’re white. I don’t care, as Garner Ted says on the radio and television, whether you’re pink, or polka dot, or what. And sometimes you get measles you may be polka dot. You’ve got a human mind.
But there is a spirit that is a human spirit in that mind, and VERY FEW HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD. THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD impregnates you with the life of God. THAT PUTS IMMORTAL LIFE, DIVINE LIFE, GOD LIFE, WITHIN YOU! Just like the male sperm imparts human life to a female egg cell or an ovum in a fallopian tube on the way into a human womb or uterus. And that’s how we all got born, and that’s how our children get born. AND HUMAN REPRODUCTION IS THE EXACT TYPE OF SPIRITUAL REPRODUCTION.
WE ARE, EACH OF US AN OVUM, AN EGG, AND WE HAVE TO BE FERTILIZED BY THE SPERM CELL FROM THE FATHER, AND THE SPERM CELL THAT COMES FROM THE VERY BODY OF THE FATHER IS HIS HOLY SPIRIT, AND THAT IMPREGNATES US WITH IMMORTAL LIFE. But we weren’t made with it until we receive it.
NOW, ADAM HAD A CHANCE TO RECEIVE IT! And God immediately began to instruct Adam and Eve, and He man male and female SO WE COULD REPRODUCE! BECAUSE GOD IS REPRODUCING, NOW HE MADE US SO WE REPRODUCE OUR KIND! Angels couldn’t. That’s another reason that Satan now, the former Lucifer, is very angry at us. That’s why he’s angry about sex. That’s why he tried to make everybody and all of us think that sex is nasty and evil, and one of the greatest sins there are, and shameful, and we’re ashamed to talk about it. WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX! WE NEED TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN ABOUT IT! BUT WE NEED TO KNOW IT FROM GOD’S POINT OF VIEW AND SEE IT AS THE CREATOR SEES IT AND THE USE HE INTENDED TO MAKE OF IT!
GOD GAVE US THE THINGS HE DID FOR OUR HAPPINESS, and what do we do? Sin isn’t the thing, sin is the wrong use of the thing. You put sex to a wrong use and you’re going to be in trouble. You can get all kinds of trouble from the misuse of sex.
I GOT THIS OUT OF THE BIBLE! I wrote a book on sex, it’s the only book I know of written on sex that has been written from the point of view of God! All the rest are writing it from the point of view of self, of lust and greed, and of get, but not of give.
I was married for fifty years. Now, if I say there was no sex I wouldn’t...you look at my son, Ted, and you know there was sex. We didn’t intend him to be born, but God did. Beside that I had another son now dead, and two daughters. But let me tell you something, God gave me enough of His mind that in sex it was always giving, it was always loving and sharing. Not trying to get, not trying to take, not thinking of self. And yet all of the manuals and all of the scientific works on sex today are written from the standpoint of selfishness – be selfish, take it all to yourself, get all you can, don’t care about the other one. And then the devil has filled us with the sense of shame, of everything wrong. Well, God help me to open a few minds to God’s truth and to realize that I’m teaching you the truth of God and I’m trying to set you the example of God.
god instructs adam and eve (PLAY FROM 1:06:30)
Now then, God instructed Adam and Eve, and He restrained Satan and didn’t let Satan get to them to show them their way of self and the way of get until God had shown them His way. And right in front of them was the Tree of Life which was the symbol of the Holy Spirit of God that would give them the love of God that would open the law of God that would enable Adam then to have reestablished the government of God on earth.
BUT HE HAD TO REJECT THE WAY OF SATAN! HE HAD TO REJECT IT AND ACCEPT THE WAY OF GOD! And so now, finally, God let Satan come. And Satan got to him through Eve. And he said, “Listen, you don’t believe what God said, do you? God was lying to you. Did He say you’d die? YOU’RE AN IMMORTAL SOUL, YOU CAN’T DIE! God knows better than that. Why do you believe what He said to you?”
Adam and Eve didn’t believe what God said, so they took the other tree, the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They took to THEMSELVES the knowledge of what’s right and what’s wrong. God had said what’s right and what’s wrong according to His law. His law is the way of right. That’s the way of giving, of serving, of sharing, of loving, outgoing concern. And all he had to do was take it and they’d of had eternal life. They didn’t even have to repent, they hadn’t sinned yet.
Now, when Satan got to them they made a decision, they made the decision that GET is better than giving, that SELF is better than God. That’s what some people call the fall. That’s not a correct word, it’s Satan who fell.
Now man, then, had rejected God and God’s government. He had the chance, he accepted Satan. Now God set a seven thousand year program. He said, “I will accomplish what I have started, but man’s cut himself off from me. And now man has cut himself off from having everlasting life.” God said, “I will let man build his own society.”
Mr. Rader was showing you this morning that what we have is a society of men trying to build a society and civilization of their own and making up their own laws and their own ways of life, and all based on GET.
Look at the troubles in the earth. We have rejected the Holy Spirit of God, and the spiritual law of God. That’s why we can’t live at peace.
Now that God said, “I will intervene in a few instances where necessary, but for the first SIX THOUSAND YEARS I’M GOING TO LEAVE THIS SATAN HERE. I’M GOING TO LET HIM TEMPT YOU! I’M GOING TO LET YOU MAKE THE DECISION. THEN, IF LATER I CALL YOU AND YOU MAKE THE DECISION, YOU’RE SICK AND TIRED, YOU’VE GOT A BELLY FULL OF HIS SINS, MAYBE YOU CAN CHANGE BECAUSE YOU’RE MADE OF MATTER AND MATTER CAN CHANGE.”
Then Christ came down here to live a perfect life BECAUSE HE WAS GOD AND ALSO TO DIE FOR US BECAUSE HE ALSO WAS HUMAN, AND CHRIST CAN RECONCILE US TO GOD AND TAKE AWAY THAT BARRIER THAT’S BETWEEN US AND GOD, AND RECONCILE US TO GOD BY HIS DEATH! But His death doesn’t save you. The blood of Christ doesn’t save anyone.
Oh, did you think it did? Read the fifth chapter of Romans and study it all over again. Romans five, if you think that. Jot it down don’t forget it.
The blood of Christ reconciles you to God, takes away the barrier between you. In other words, it pays the penalty you incurred. That’s what cuts you off from God. But that doesn’t give you eternal life, it just gives you contact with God, and God has eternal life to give. Now, that has to come from receiving His Holy Spirit, and then in the resurrection you will be changed from man to God, from matter into spirit. But we have to build the character while we’re in this life, while we can change! We have to come to the way of God and accept the way of giving instead of the way of getting.
Now where are we?
God not trying to save the world (PLAY FROM 1:10:55)
God did not set out to try to save the world at that time. You can only find the names of THREE PEOPLE for the first nineteen hundred years that God had anything to do with, or that accepted God, or God’s way – righteous Abel, (the son of Adam and Eve whom Cain killed, and who will come up in the resurrection), Enoch (who walked with God), and Noah.
And of millions, and even a few billion people on earth from the days of Noah, about nineteen hundred years after Adam, there was only one man. God had called him, and he was willing to listen to God and do what God said.
He built an ark and everybody said, “He’s the craziest fool that ever lived building an ark out there in that dry land, in the desert. He said that there was going to be a sea there or something. He built a ship but no water.”
But then water began to come and the others were all drowned and the ship floated.
Then God dealt with Abraham. Four hundred and thirty years God called Abraham’s children, that then were about three or four million people, and made a government out of them, BUT HE DID NOT PROMISE THEM ETERNAL SALVATION, HE DID NOT PROMISE THEM HIS HOLY SPIRIT, HE ONLY PROMISED THEM NATIONAL BLESSINGS.
He said, “You obey me and keep my laws, and I’ll make you the head nation on earth and not the tail. Five of you will chase a hundred, a hundred of you can put ten thousand to flight if other nations attack you. That’s how powerful you’ll be.”
He didn’t offer them any eternal life. The only ones that were given the Holy Spirit were the prophets.
AND WHY WERE THE PROPHETS GIVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT? WAS GOD TRYING TO SAVE THE WHOLE WORLD?
NO! GOD GAVE THE PROPHETS THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR A PURPOSE TO USE. He gave them the Holy Spirit to do the job He had for them to do, and that was God’s Work at that time. That’s why He gave them the Holy Spirit. Now, of course, all the prophets are going to be in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus said to the Pharisees at one time how they’re going to feel...
Luke 13:28 ...when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
Now we come to the time of Christ, and Jesus Christ came down to this earth and Jesus brought the message of the RESTORING OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD THAT HAD BEEN TAKEN AWAY! THAT WAS THE MESSAGE! THAT’S THE THING SATAN TRIES TO WIPE OUT! THAT’S THE THING SATAN’S RELIGIONS, AND I’LL CALL THEM SATAN’S RELIGIONS, THE BAPTISTS, THE METHODISTS, THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, BUDDHISM, TAOISM, THESE ARE THE RELIGIONS OF THIS WORLD, AND SATAN IS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD, AND ALL NATIONS ARE DECEIVED!
There isn’t a nickel’s worth of salvation in all that they’ve got. This is a very, very deceived world. Please try to understand, brethren. God is not trying to save the world for this first six thousand years. He’s left Satan here to be the god of this world and deceive the world, but He is calling some.
Now, God chose apostles. He said...
John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,...
YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE GOD, HE CALLED YOU! No one is called of God unless they have been preordained by predestination to be called of God. Jesus said in the sixth chapter of John, and verse forty-four...
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:...
This is not the time. Christ did not come trying to save the world. He didn’t come on a soul saving crusade. Oh if Billy Graham’s eyes could be opened and he could know how he’d been wasting his time serving the devil thinking he’s serving God. Oh, he’s sincere. Oh, I think he’s sincere, just deceived. Poor man...poor man.
No man can come to Christ unless the Father has picked him out, and chosen him, and drawn him. And predestination has nothing to do with the decision that someone will make, but whether you get called now or not. God is only calling a few now!
Now, God educated His disciples in His message, the Kingdom of God, THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD IS GOING TO BE RESTORED, AND IT’S GOING TO BE RESTORED AND ADMINISTERED BY THOSE WHO BECOME THE BORN CHILDREN OF GOD. AND GOD IS ONLY CALLING A FEW TO THAT SALVATION NOW SO WE CAN REIGN AND RULE WITH HIM A THOUSAND YEARS WHEN CHRIST COMES. THAT’S WHEN WE’RE GOING TO...WE’RE GOING TO GO OUT AND SAVE THE WORLD, AND SATAN WON’T BE HERE WHEN WE DO.
WHY, IF GOD IS TRYING TO SAVE ALL THE WORLD, does He make us fight Satan and resist him and they won’t have to after Christ comes? Is there unfairness with God? Why?
BRETHREN I CAN PREACH TO YOU TILL I’M BLACK AND BLUE IN THE FACE AND I WONDER IF ONE OUT OF TEN OF YOU BELIEVE ME! DO YOU BELIEVE GOD?
GOD IS NOT TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD!
called to get a job done (PLAY FROM 1:16:55)
I go out and I see kings, and presidents, yes, even some vice presidents, and prime ministers, and they say, “Well, how many have you got saved, Mr. Armstrong?”
“I’m not trying to get them saved.”
“Well, don’t you tell them about salvation and about the Lord?”
“No. That’s not what God wants me to do”
“Well, why don’t you preach the gospel?”
“I do, but you don’t know what the gospel is, because the world has been deceived with the false gospel!”
GOD IS NOT TRYING TO GET THE WORLD SAVED, and if you really have the Holy Spirit of God, and you don’t all have, brethren. I look out over you, and I say that those of you who have and are led by the Holy Spirit are my children in the Lord, the rest of you are not. And I can’t judge which of you have God’s Spirit and which have not. I just love you all anyway. But I know that a lot think they have the Holy Spirit who must not have it, because they don’t believe what God says. And I tell you, I believe what God says.
After Jesus Christ preached to many, many thousands for three and a half years, there were only a hundred and twenty that believed what He said, only a hundred and twenty.
I told you I was going to preach long. I’m already overtime and I’m not through yet. I’m going to keep you because this is the most important sermon you’ve ever heard. You’d better believe it, and you’d better believe what I’m telling you.
The only reason God ever gave the Holy Spirit to anyone was to get a job done, not because this is the time He’s trying to get them saved. God did not give you the Holy Spirit just so you could GET into His Kingdom. He didn’t give you the Holy Spirit just so you could GET salvation, so you could get on the getting side.
AND I TELL YOU THAT MOST OF YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE GETTING SIDE! YOU WANT TO GET SALVATION! YOU WANT TO GET INTO THE KINGDOM, and I wonder what you think the Kingdom is and what it’s going to be like when you get there.
You think we’re going to be sitting around in idleness and ease like...in other words, I think some of our people think the Kingdom of God is exactly like the Baptists and the Presbyterians and the others think heaven is, only it’s going to be on earth instead of up in heaven.
Do you think of heaven as being a planet like the earth?
God just doesn’t tell us whether it is or whether it isn’t. I doubt very much if it is. No, we’d better believe these things. This is not the time God is trying to save the world. This isn’t the time.
Now, Jesus proclaimed His gospel...I want to read you just a little here from the first chapter of Galatians. This is along about 58 A.D. The Church was founded in 31 A.D., this is only a few years later, not a whole generation. And Paul says to those at Galatia in the Church...
Galatians 1:6 “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:” [or Moffatt translates it, “a different gospel.”]
THEY HAD ALREADY TURNED TO A DIFFERENT GOSPEL ABOUT A CHRIST WHO CAME TO DO AWAY WITH HIS FATHER’S LAW. THAT’S THE GOSPEL GOING TO THIS WORLD, A CHRIST THAT DID AWAY WITH THE GOVERNMENT, WHEN THE VERY THING CHRIST CAME FOR WAS TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE LAW OF GOD WOULD GOVERN THE WORLD AND EVERYBODY’S GOING TO HAVE TO OBSERVE IT or they’ll be as though they had not been, they’ll die.
The devil has tried to turn everything upside down and preach the exact opposite. And this world has been deceived and your Bible, which is God’s word, says all nations have been deceived.
Do you believe what He says when He says that? Do you realize that such an infinitesimal few are really saved?
It’s a pretty big congregation here. I had one just as big yesterday I spoke to, the day before, the day before that. They’re all over the United States. We are the biggest Church, the biggest number in the Church, that has ever been in the true Church of God, so far as I know, since the First Century, and probably bigger than even then.
Now, there’s a reason for that. The world has been deceived with a false gospel. It’s come down now to the time when Christ...we’re almost to the time of the Coming of Christ and the setting up, of restoring the government of God.
Look here in Acts the third chapter, verse nineteen, twenty, speaking of Jesus Christ...
Acts 3:21 “Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things,..”.[the restoring of the government of God!] Christ is in heaven until then.
christ will save the world (PLAY FROM 1:22:09)
God isn’t trying to save the world until Christ comes to do it. CHRIST IS COMING TO SAVE THE WORLD, and why did we observe the day of the fast day, here just a few days ago, about twelve days, thirteen days ago? No, let’s see, ten, five...eight or nine days ago, the day of Atonement. That pictures the putting of Satan away.
Why are we observing the Feast of Tabernacles? To represent the time of the great harvest when God does try to save the world.
Why do we observe the day of Pentecost? To show that we’re only the firstfruits and God’s not trying to save the rest of the world now.
And yet we don’t believe it, do we?
I really barely believe that half of you don’t believe it. I wonder. If God will keep renewing my youth until I’m a hundred and five years old, and I’ll preach it and still you won’t believe it. I can wear myself out up here preaching and it’s...I want to tell you brethren, it’s one of the most disheartening things in the world when I can preach until I’m so tired I can hardly stand on my feet, and I find that half or more of you don’t believe a word I’m saying. You believe what the Protestants say! So much Protestantism has rubbed off on you, you think that God is trying to save everybody and Satan’s trying to get them lost! AND THAT IS A LIE! THAT IS NOT THE TRUTH! THAT IS NOT WHAT YOUR BIBLE SAYS! And it’s not what God says.
GOD HAS GIVEN YOU THE HOLY SPIRIT TO HELP GET THE JOB DONE! TO GET BACK OF ME IN GETTING THE ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE WORLD, AND FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE EXCEPT as a means of you getting your own spiritual growth and growing up in the spirit, and growing in grace and knowledge, so that you can be there with me on the throne of Christ with the power of ruling the nations when we go out to save the world. That’s when we’re going to save the world. We’re only called now to get the training, and to learn these things so we’ll be ready to save the world when the time comes.
God has raised me up as a special apostle with a very special mission, and we get all competing and think we’re just like any other church. We’re so different from any other church as different as God is from Satan, because they are Satan’s churches. Don’t think I’m just making a lot of false accusations. That’s not true.
Now, the time is coming and the end of this age.
Let me just turn, finally, to Matthew twenty-four. Jesus said......and they wanted to know for a sign of His coming and when the Kingdom of God would restore to this earth.
He said...
Matthew 24:5 “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ;...” [that is saying they are the representatives, the ministers of Christ] “...and shall deceive many.”
They come in His name saying that He is Christ. They preach Christ to the nation but they preach a Christ who’s a smart aleck young man who came to do away with His Father’s law, who knew more than His Father. The Father had a stern law. An aunt of mine, I remember, used to say, “Well, look, I can believe the Christ of the New Testament, that Christ is love, but I can’t believe in that old hateful God of the Old Testament.”
You know that the God of the Old Testament was Christ before He was born of the virgin, Mary? She didn’t know that.
Jesus said...
Matthew 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
And the whole world has been deceived with a false gospel.
But He said in verse fourteen...
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Brethren, I’m going out with that gospel to all the world, and God is now opening doors to kings, and presidents, and prime ministers, and others can now follow me into those countries to preach the gospel! But their doors had been closed and God is using me to open the doors! And yet some of you think I’m just gadding around, having a good time.
And one minister who went out of the Church even said that it was profligate, and corruption, and everything else, spending money to do what God says He wants done. Let me tell you, Satan certainly has his followers. He’s got a lot more of them than God, but God isn’t trying to get them. God is letting people get a belly full of this get philosophy until you don’t want it anymore!
Now we’re at the time when the Kingdom of God is just about to appear on earth and the government of God is going to be restored. And now God wants it announced.
A newspaper man asked me yesterday, down at the Lake of the Ozarks, he says, “Well, you call yourself an ambassador for peace, how much peace have you been able to produce so far?”
I said, “Mister, you have no understanding whatsoever. I represent the man who is going to bring world peace and my job is to announce it. And once I announce it and tell you it’s coming, your ears have heard it. You’re the one who is responsible, I’m not! I’ve done my job. I’m not going out to try to save the world.”
He looked kind of foolish. I don’t know what he’ll print, if anything. I won’t see it anyway. It doesn’t make any difference. God has called this Church to get this gospel out, and that’s why there’s so many of us. And He has given us this job of getting back a hundred percent of getting this gospel out as the means of building our own spiritual characters so that we can also sit on Christ’s throne.