Sermon - Mr Herbert Armstrong - OUR SANCTIFIED CHILDREN - 28 July 1979 (NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)

OUR SANCTIFIED CHILDREN

By Herbert W Armstrong

28 July 1979

(PLAY FROM START)

Well, greetings everybody! This is the second time for me in three weeks, but it’s the first time for this group. Because we had another group just like you, here, last time I was here three weeks ago; and, they left after a day or two and you’ve all come, and now you’ve had a time up here. But what a wonderful place this is, and what a wonderful thing that we can have such fine facilities for the young people in God’s church. I’m thrilled with it; I’m overjoyed with it, and about it. And I’m glad that we’ve been able to have all of it.

New Youth Program(PLAY FROM 0:48)

Now, I want to say to you, that we have programs coming that are going to involve in a far greater measure the children, and the young people, and teenagers in God’s church, and in the families of God’s church, than we’ve ever had in the past. I have an article that I’ve just finished writing, it’ll come in the September Good News. However, the September number is going to press immediately. And it will be completely printed and in the mails by, or before, the 20th of August - and here August 1st is only about three, four days away. We’re almost down to it.

So, God has a very special interest in teenagers. And I’m afraid we haven’t been cognizant enough of that fact in the past. I know that when, my daughters were young and I was first converted, my whole mind was on the Bible and the things I was finding there. And somehow I don’t think I had enough time for my children, because I had two daughters at the time, and then two sons came along (ten years after the two daughters) and after my conversion.

But even so my time was so filled up with the Bible and getting the Work of God going, and things like that that I didn’t have the time that I should have taken. I had the time. That really makes me think about when I was in high school, back about where some of you have been. And I think this was in, about, third year high school. And I didn’t have a lesson. And the teacher asked me, “why?” and I said, “Well I didn’t have time.” And she said, “Herbert Armstrong, how many hours are there in a day?” Well I said, “twenty-four hours in a day.” “Well, how many of those hours do you have?” (Chuckle) You know, I was, sort of, chagrined, and floored, and embarrassed. “I have all twenty four of them.” She says, “You just didn’t spend those hours in the right way, that’s all that’s wrong with you.” (Chuckle)

Well, sometimes that is the case. But after my original Bible study that resulted in my conversion, I was so overwhelmingly interested in the Bible and the new knowledge that God was opening to me, that... well I thought I was giving time to my two sons as they came along, and also, to the daughters who were ten years older than they were. But, I know that I wasn’t giving them anywhere near the time that I should. I was thinking about adults and about the things - and you can’t do everything all at once.

God's Plan To Reproduce Himself (PLAY FROM 4:28)

Anyway, what has been accomplished, and the way God did use me, was in a way that no one else has been used in our time, or in 1900 years so far as we know. And, don’t know that I need to apologize for it. But, I am very thankful that the time has come that God’s church is going to take a new interest in parent and children relationships, and in the relationship of the children of our parents in the church. I’m going to speak somewhat on that this afternoon.

What the world does not know, doesn’t even understand or even dream, the Creator God set a Master Plan for the greatest achievement that even God could ever begin to think of achieving. It was a Master Plan when God Himself started out to reproduce Himself.

I am inclined to believe that there had never been such a thing as reproduction, until God started reproduction in plant life, and then animal life, and human life; all within that one, what we call, creation week (which was really a re-creation) because the angels had occupied this earth for a long time before man was created. And the earth had been ruined by them. Instead of improving it, they had tried to destroy it. And it was really in a very pitiful shape - confusion. And the words in Genesis are, in the Hebrew language, of “tohu” and “bohu,” which mean chaotic and in confusion; waste and empty and degenerated, when they should have improved the earth. They were put here for that purpose, but they didn’t do it.

Now God created man in His own image. That was a new thing in all of God’s creation! God had never created anything like a man before. He created angels, and angels are composed of spirit! They’re wholly spirit. They’re composed of spirit. And they are quite different from humans in that respect. They’re superior to humans. But by God’s plan of reproducing Himself, while He has made man now lower than the angels, man is ultimately to become much higher than the angels, just as God is higher. Because what actually, what God is doing through us humans, is to reproduce Himself.

In other words, He put the process of reproduction in plants, and in animals, and in humans. Now a young man and a young woman come to a certain age, about the age that most of you young people here are interested in… (Incidentally, if we have any parents here, that are here to see children, I just remind you that I’m speaking mostly to the teenagers today). And so I’m sure, any are older that they will bear with me in that. You older people don’t count today, it’s just the teenagers. We’ve been neglecting them long enough and I’m not going to neglect them any longer! And, we’re setting programs in affect in this church that are going to startle you, for not only teenagers, but little children, two, three, and four years old, and so on.

The Re-creation of the Earth (PLAY FROM 8:53)

On the plane coming over, they were showing me some of the lessons and some of the things that parents will use with their children, and teaching children all about: For example: one series of one lesson is about the creation week, or really it’s a re-creation week, because the angels had been here before man, and God was renewing the face of the earth.

You’ll read that in one hundred fourth Psalm in verse thirty. It was not the first creation; that is Genesis first chapter, beginning with verse 2, it’s speaking of a re-creation. Genesis one, verse one is altogether separate by itself, and that is speaking of the original creation, and it doesn’t tell us when that was. But verse two is a much, much later time, and it’s speaking then of the result of the angels having been here; the chaos, and the terrible the shape that the earth was in as a result, and how God then set about to restore the face of the earth, and to make it ready for man!

Now the earth today is not in the condition that God put it in. God put it in a beautiful condition. But man has done just like the angels did. We have tried to destroy everything God has let us get our hands on. Everything that man has been allowed to touch, he has contaminated; he has polluted, he has perverted; he has tried to ruin, he has tried to destroy! Why should we do such things? And yet, that seems to be in the nature of man. And I want to speak a little about that nature too as we go along because God didn’t put that nature in man, and we weren’t born with it.

Development of Character (PLAY FROM 11:07)

Now the Creator God, what the world doesn’t know, is that the Creator God, at the time spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis, (which is really a re-creation) God set a Master Plan in effect. In that Master Plan, God is recreating himself. Now God creates everything in two stages, a process of duality. For example; when God first created the angels, their creation was not complete. In other words their creation could not be complete until character had been formed in them, either good or bad character; either good or evil.

Now character is something that God can’t just put into someone. If He did, it’s like a man putting something in a machine that makes it work just the way a man sets it to work. The machine can’t think, it doesn’t have any brain, it doesn’t have any mind, it can’t think. It just does what the man has it do. So there is no character there. Now character is the ability in an entirely separate entity that has been created as separate from God, and a separate individual entity, to come to the knowledge of the right as opposed to the wrong; of the good as oppose to the evil.

And for him, even though he may want to go the other way to choose the right, and even using willpower to force himself to do the right, when maybe he wants to do the wrong, and he must resist it. And then that grows as a habit until he grows into doing what is right instead of what is wrong. Now that is character. And that’s why you’re here. That’s why you were born, all of you, is to develop that character! Now, in God’s creating, or reproducing Himself, first He created man of the dust of the ground. That’s what we are, we’re just made from the dust of the ground.

Man's Creaton - Duality (PLAY FROM 13:40)

The most wonderful mechanism that has ever been devised out of matter; there is nothing that will equal a human being. The marvelous human brain and even animals have brains as fine as human brains. Elephants, and dolphins, and whales have larger brains than humans do; chimpanzees almost as large, and just as good. But they can’t think and reason the way we do. They don’t have the mental output that we do at all, by any means or anywhere near.

The difference is there is a spirit in man; and there is no such spirit in an elephant, or a whale, or a chimpanzee. A horse or cow doesn’t have it. And so they just look kind of stupid. And they’re not mentally alert in the way a human being may be. What a wonderful thing it is to be a human being. And what wonderful things God has in store for us if we can understand it! But there is the duality of process.

Now the angels God created out of spirit! But HE COULD NOT FORM CHARACTER! They had to have their OWN PART in that. And one third of the angels formed the wrong character. And they followed their leader who is a great super archangel, Lucifer in REBELLION against God; and in an attitude of rebellion, an attitude of selfishness, an attitude of vanity, lust and greed, of envy and jealousy, of competition and strife; and of destruction, and rebellion instead of construction.

And so they destroyed everything they came in contact with on the earth. Now, God is creating man in a process of duality! First, He created the first Adam way back almost six thousand years ago out of matter. And a MARVELOUS creation that man is. But God did not create character in him either good or bad!

You look in the first two chapters of Genesis and you’ll find that God spoke to the man. Now realize, here was a man God had suddenly created late on a Friday afternoon. They didn’t call it Friday then, that’s what we call it today. But, it was late on a Friday afternoon, and the Sabbath day was coming on, when the sun would set on that evening. And God had created other animals in the earlier part of the same day. But, now what God created in the man, there was a man, fully mature, probably about equivalent to a man of about thirty years of age as we would be today, but there was nothing in his brain. He had no knowledge. He had all the facilities for receiving knowledge; he had all of the facilities for thinking and for reasoning, and coming to decisions and conclusions. But he didn’t have the knowledge yet. And so God started teaching him and filling his brain with knowledge. Now God kept Satan away until after God had talked to the man and his wife Eve. He talked to both of them.

Now I said that God creates in a form of duality. The first man was only made of matter, but character was not established one way or the other there. Now God said to Adam, “Adam, I want you to name all of these animals and give names to all the animals I have created.” Now you’ll find that Adam went right ahead and did it. And there was nothing in that act that showed any special fine character, or righteous character in one way or the other. But, he certainly didn’t disobey. There was no hostility. Adam just, well okay, he just did it! And Adam gave names to all of the animals and everything that God had made and created.

Then Satan came along. And Satan managed through the wife Eve; he got to Eve first, got to the man through his wife. And, I think most men like to please their wives or go along with their wives quite a lot in a lot of things. Now, there have been some very wicked wives. But there have also been some very good wives. And I had one that lasted till death did us part. And now I have another. And I’ve had two very good wives. So there are... there can be nothing finer, it seems to me, than a really good woman.

But as I say character had to be developed. Now the creation of man is a dual thing. Man, by the time God has really reproduced Himself, we will then have to be SPIRIT! God is composed of spirit. And when we’re reproduced by God we will be spirit. But we’re not spirit now; we’re matter. And so the first phase, the physical material phase of man’s creation, began with Adam, the first Adam.

Now the spiritual creation of man, which is the character creation, began with Jesus Christ, the second Adam. You know, in the Bible Christ is even called the second Adam. And the word Adam really means man anyway. Now as God created (or re-created) He renewed the face of the earth in six days, and he rested the seventh. So, since we find in the Bible that a day is like a thousand years with God, and a thousand years are like a day; that those first seven days represent seven thousand years in God’s program. The first six thousand, mankind as a whole has been shut off from God.

The Two Trees (PLAY FROM 21:14)

Now what the world does not know, or even those that in the religion called Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, and I’m afraid that even many in God’s church don’t fully know and understand; is what we really, what it means that when we read back here in Genesis, in the third chapter, near the end of the third chapter beginning with verse 22:

Genesis 3:22 And the [Eternal] God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand and...[eat] also of the tree of life and [take] and eat, and live for ever.

The tree of life represented God’s Holy Spirit. It was symbolical of the Holy Spirit of God which freely offered to Adam. All he had to do was reach out and take it. But there was another tree, and Adam had to decide which of the two trees he was going to take of. The other tree was the knowledge of good and evil. Now God was giving him the knowledge of what is good, and what is evil.

But rather, when Adam sinned, he reached out and took to himself, the knowledge of what is good and what is evil; instead of letting God give him that knowledge. He decided he would... that’s the prerogative of God, and he took to himself the very prerogative of God. First his wife took of the tree, but she was deceived; but he wasn’t, he was deliberately disobedient and rebellious.

Man - Cut Off From God (PLAY FROM 23:11)

Now; Therefore the {1}[Eternal] God sent [the man] forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, [those are super archangels] and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

So that no one could get back in and have access to the Holy Spirit, and that now simply is symbolic of having access to God. In other words, what that means in modern language, let me put it in today’s language: it means that God said to Adam, “Adam, you have made the decision, you are the father of what will be the whole world, which will be reproduced by a process of reproduction, will come from you and Eve. And you have made the decision, you have rebelled against me, you have rejected my government!

“You have rejected me as your GOD and your savior! You have rejected me as the revealer of knowledge. You’ve decided you’d create your own knowledge. So I say therefore GO! And CREATE YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE! And raise up your own institutions of learning.” And that has resulted in the kind of schools and colleges and universities that we have today; influenced by Satan, but cut off from God.

Now, you might think that one over a while. Now I only know of one that is not in that category, and that’s Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. God said, “GO AND FORM YOUR OWN GODS AND YOUR OWN RELIGIONS!” And just look at the kind of religions we have in the world, every kind of religion; Oriental religions, religions in different kinds of countries, over two hundred fifty denominations in what is called Christianity, and many cults and little groups beside that even.

And then, He said, form your own governments. And look at the governments we have. Now, I get around and I speak to the heads of many governments. But I tell you, now I happen to know for example; both President Sadat of Egypt, and Prime Minister Begin of Israel. And they have, until recently, been like this, fighting at war against one another. And it’s a war that has continued between Egypt and Israel since way back in the ancient children of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt, hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ.

Now those two men have been trying to have some peace. And they have put their arms around each other in front of cameras. And that’s been a nice thing to see. But is it going to last? That’s the question. Well, I hope so. And I am to see both of them again very soon. And, well there is something important there that I am not really at liberty to reveal to you just yet. A number of fine things are coming along in the work that I can’t reveal just yet. Let me tell you, the work of God is going along now in a way it never did before.

But, nevertheless, we’re in a world where man has formed his own governments. Man has formed his own god’s and his own religions. Man has formed his own knowledge and his own... there’s no end to the number of books in libraries. There are just millions upon millions of books written by men. Now there’s one fairly young man, he’s in his thirties, and that certainly is not middle age yet; he wrote to me and I just received the letter and was just reading it last night. He said, “Well, I’m a book worm, I read a GREAT deal.”

And that’s the trouble; he’s reading the books written by men, and he’s not spending the time he should be spending in the book that is dictated and really authored by God. And I’ve had to kill some articles he has written for the Plain Truth because they were written based on books written by men that are completely contrary to the word of God. And I can’t let that get into the PlainTruth.

Now people think that if you just read enough of books that is a mark of distinction. And actually they don’t realize that it simply is reading all of the books that men have made, and that were not inspired by God, and that God is the real one who inspires us with the true knowledge. So, we have man’s world. But Satan has been left free. Man has been cut off from God! But he has not been cut off from Satan! And Satan has been getting to man!

The Spirit in Man (PLAY FROM 29:25)

Now God created a spirit in man. What is the difference between the human brain and the brain, and the brain of an elephant or a chimpanzee? The difference is there is a SPIRIT IN MAN! And there is no such spirit in the animals! A cow just looks kind of, you know, she just looks stupid and dumb, and she hasn’t anything to do but eat hay all day long, if she can get to it. She has a brain, but she can’t think and reason with that brain. She can’t drink in knowledge and put it together and think and come out to conclusions, and think thoughts like humans can.

Do we realize what we can do that animals can’t do? It’s that spirit in man. Now that spirit is LONESOME, and it NEEDS ANOTHER spirit to go with it! And that spirit that it needs is the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD! And that was offered to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There was the tree of life, which simply was a symbol of the Holy Spirit of God; but, they didn’t take that. They took the tree of taking to themselves the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. So God cut them off.

Only a Few Called Now (PLAY FROM 30:55)

Now later, when Jesus Christ came two thousand years ago, Jesus said... well I might just turn to it and read it right here; it’s in John the sixth chapter, and verse forty-four.

John 6:44 No man [said Jesus Christ, no man] can come to me, except the Father which . . . sent me draw him.

Now, God had said to Adam and Eve, “I am cutting you and all of your children off from me. They are CUT OFF FROM ME, THEY CAN’T HAVE ACCESS TO ME AT ALL!” Now how do we get to God? We get to get to God through Christ. There is no other way to get to God except through Christ. Jesus said if any man tries to get up to God in any other way he’s like a thief and a robber; that there’s no other way except through Christ.

And yet Jesus said “No man CAN come to me, except the Father . . . [draws him].” And God the Father has drawn NO ONE, EXCEPT THE VERY FEW, THE VERY FEW that He has called for a definite service preparing for the Kingdom of God!

NOW EVEN OUR MEMBERS DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT! I CAN’T POUND THAT INTO EVEN OUR OWN MEMBERS! GOD HAS REVEALED THAT TO ME, AND I WANT YOU TO GET IT! I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND IT! I WANT YOU TO BELIEVE IT! God has not called people just for salvation! God is going to call EVERYBODY for salvation in the end.

Those who endure and are still living on will ALL be called in the millennium; that’s the thousand year period that’s ahead after Christ comes. Also, in the great white throne judgment – a period in the resurrection that will take place after the thousand years, that’s more than a thousand years away from now. At that time, everyone who’s been cut off from God and lived and died, is going to be resurrected! And they’re going to be called to salvation. And there won’t be any devil around to deceive them. Now those that are called in the millennium, they won’t have any devil to fight.

Is God unfair? Is God unfair to call some now and not others? Why those of us he called - that He’s calling now - we have Satan to fight! We have to overcome Satan even as Jesus did, in order to qualify to sit on the throne of David, where Satan is now sitting. And He said if WE overcome Satan, even as He did, WE SHALL SIT WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE in Jerusalem when He comes to rule all people, and Satan is put away.

I wish I could get that knowledge into our church, and get our people to understand it, because no Protestant church understands it. The churches that call themselves Christianity don’t understand it. They just don’t understand it. Only a very few years from now we will come into that seventh millennium. And then Satan will be put away, and Christ will be here ruling. And then Christ is going to call everybody to salvation. But they won’t have Satan to fight.

On the other hand they are not going to qualify to sit with Him on His throne either. And we have to overcome Satan now. We’ve got a much harder job now than they will have then, but we get a much greater reward. Now we’re not saved by our works, but we are rewarded according to our works. And we’re going to have to put in more works of overcoming Satan than others will later, but we get a greater reward - that we will rule over the other nations. We’ll be given power over the nations. We’ll sit with Christ in that throne. We’ll have qualified by overcoming Satan and his ways of selfishness and of self, and greed, and of rebellion, of competition and strife, and all of the things of the attitude of Satan.

The Married/Unmarried (PLAY FROM 36:04)

But now here is a great truth that we’re just coming to, to understand, and it’s in first Corinthians the seventh chapter. I didn’t fully understand this yet when I was here three weeks ago. You know I am thinking of back in the years of 1934 when I was preaching in a country schoolhouse called Alvadore, about fifteen miles northwest of Eugene Oregon. I carried on a campaign there six nights a week for six weeks! And there was an elderly man who was then eighty-four years old. Well, -- a little younger than I am now. But, nevertheless, I thought he was pretty old then. And of course a lot of people think I’m pretty old and they think I’m going to die before tomorrow night. Probably I’ll die yet before tonight.

Well, anybody could, any one of you could, regardless how old you are you know. You don’t know when you’re going to drop dead. Who was it? Some football player suddenly just dropped dead the other day in the very pinkest of condition and good health, and nobody could understand what had happened. Well, it does happen once in a while.

But, in first Corinthians seven, let me just show you in verse eight he said, “I say therefore to the unmarried and [the]widows,” and so on. Now for two verses he talks to them. Then in the tenth verse: “And unto the married I command,” Now he’s talking to the married. Now next he says in verse twelve: “But to the rest speak I.” Now who can the REST be?! He’d talked to the unmarried, and then to the married. There can’t be anybody else. You’re either married or unmarried. Doesn’t that include everybody?

But if you read on you see he’s talking to members of the church where the man is married to a woman who does not believe and is outside of the church, or the woman is married to a man who is outside of the church. Now in many cases the non-believer, who is not in the church, gets angry at the one who is converted and in the church, and then says I just won’t live with you. I know what that is because when my wife took up with the Sabbath, to me that was fanaticism. And that’s a long time ago now, fifty-two years ago, almost fifty-three.

But I thought that was fanaticism. And I just said, “Well I’m not going to live with that.” And I tried to talk her out of it. But I couldn’t. And I said, “Well, the Bible says thou shalt keep Sunday.” She says, “Show it to me and I’ll go back and keep it again.” Well I said, “I don’t know where it is but I know it’s there.” Well she said, “Why do you know it’s there?!” I said, “Because all these churches get their religions from the Bible and they all observe Sunday,” except that one sect that keep the Jewish Sabbath. I thought they were terrible people. But my wife would say, “You have to show it to me in the Bible.” So finally I began to search the Bible to try to find it. And I wound up finding facts and truth that God has not revealed to any other man in nineteen hundred years. And I think some of you believe that. And some of you probably don’t believe that. Doesn’t make any difference whether you believe it or not that doesn’t change the fact.

Sanctified -- Set Apart (PLAY FROM 40:19)

Now notice what he’s speaking here. And there are things here that the church has not, even our church, has not understood until very recently.

I Corinthians 7:12 “But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother [now that brother would be a member in the church] hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.”

If she’s willing, and she’s not making any show of it, and she’s willing to live with him, the fact she’s not a believer does not give him any right to divorce her whatsoever. Now, but let’s read on:

I Corinthians 7:13-14 And the woman which hath a husband [who] believeth not, and if he is pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. (14) For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife...

Now I want you to get that. A woman now is in the church, but her husband is not. And if he is willing to live with her, and isn’t making a big issue of it, he is sanctified by the wife. Now sanctified does not mean made sanctimonious, or holy. Sanctified means set apart in a different category. And it has nothing to do with being holy. It has nothing to do with being converted. But it does mean he’s put in a separate category. He is set apart. Now notice how’s he is set apart:

I Corinthians 7:14-15 ...by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: [if the husband is in the church. Else, now get this] else were your children unclean; [or not sanctified], but now [they are] holy. [And other translations would make it more plain, but it’s a case of being set apart and sanctified rather than made holy] (15) But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart...

Now the decision that the church has come to, based on this, does not mean that the church member can just say because I’m married to someone outside of the church I can divorce him. Oh no, if they are willing to live with him they must continue to live on.

1 Corinthians 7:15-16 But if the unbelieving depart.” [That doesn’t say if the believing departs, or if the believing gets a divorce. If the unbelieving depart] let him depart, [or let her depart] a brother or a sister is not under bondage [that is not bound by that marriage, is what it really means] in such cases: but God hath called us to peace, [not to the kind of strife that often comes between a husband and a wife when one is in the church and the other is out. (16) [But] what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?

Now he’s sanctified by the wife, but that doesn't mean HE’S SAVED! That doesn't mean HE’S CONVERTED! That doesn’t mean he’s made holy or sanctimonious. IT DOES MEAN THAT HE IS NOT CUT OFF FROM GOD! Now remember I said that God said to mankind, “YOU ARE CUT OFF FROM ME!” and mankind is CUT OFF FROM GOD! AND THEY CAN’T GET TO GOD! And what is more, they don’t even want to get to God if they could! You’ll find that the people that are not called by God, not only cannot come to Christ, they don’t want to!

But here is one who is put in a separate category, and he may later be saved, because he is not cut off from Christ, but that doesn’t mean that he is made converted or anything of that kind at all.

I Corinthians 7:16-17 [How] knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save they husband? or how knowest thou O [husband], whether thou shalt save thy wife? (17) But as God hath distributed to every man...

And then it goes on then to say in the occupation that you were called in, and so on. And that’s really the end of that part of it. But your children are put in a separate category. In other words then the children: if one member is in the church, the children of that member are NOT CUT OFF FROM GOD, like other children are. They are in a special category; they are sanctified, set-apart, and they CAN have access to God and to Christ.

And, now then, let me get to this. What is human nature? Human nature is not something God created in us. Jesus took up (I don’t need to turn to all of this in the scripture) Jesus took up little infants, and said of such is the Kingdom of God. He said except you become as a little child, an infant, you can in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God. Now, little children are not born with this evil nature. They’re not at all. Adam was not created with that evil nature. But Satan pumps it in to them.

Cyrus' Spirit Stirred Up (PLAY FROM 47:11)

You will read back in Ezra, the first chapter in the first verse, where God wanted to get the King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation to send a number of Jews back to Jerusalem to form a colony to build there, the second temple. Now this was seventy years after Solomon’s temple had been destroyed; and remember that when Solomon’s temple was destroyed, Judah, (or the Jews) had been conquered in war by Nebuchadnezzar, and they had been moved away from their land, and made slaves up in the land of Babylon.

Now, that only included the parts of three tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. The others of Israel were not Jews and never were called Jews. But they had gone to Assyria, and had migrated clear over into England long before this had happened, actually. The world doesn’t know that, but that’s true.

Now then, here were these Jews sent as a colony. God wanted them to go back and build the second temple to which Christ did come, about six hundred years - or five hundred years later when Jesus came the first time. So, He did not appear in person in front of King Cyrus. He did not speak to him in person as he did Moses. He did NOT speak to him like he did the prophets in either a vision or a dream. But HE STIRRED UP THE SPIRIT IN CYRUS!

Now remember I told you in every human being in every one of you is the spirit! And this spirit is in contact and connection with your brain; and that spirit imparts intellect to the physical brain. That’s why we have intellect, and cows and chimpanzees don’t. That’s why they’re rather vacant minded. It’s the spirit in man that does this. But the spirit is in connection with the brain. Now the spirit is not part of the man.

{2} Suppose a man accidentally swallowed a little small marble, no bigger than a pill? The marble is not part of the man; but it’s something in the man once he swallows it. The spirit I’m talking about is not part of the man. It’s just something that’s apart from him, but is in him.

Now the way God spoke to Cyrus, he stirred up the spirit that is in connection with Cyrus' brain; and Cyrus got the message! And so Cyrus issued the proclamation and sent the gang of Jews down there.

Now that’s rather important because the leader of that colony of Jews was Zerubbabel. And I’ll tell you, if you studied it a little farther you’ll find Zerubbabel was a type of me - of myself. And that rather strikes home to me. And I’m quite concerned about it. Zerubbabel was building the temple to which Christ was coming the first time. Now then, John the Baptist prepared the way for the first coming of Christ.

John the Baptist was in the wilderness, the physical wilderness of the Jordan River. And he was crying out, preparing the way for a physical Jesus born as a human being as well as God, to come to a physical people Judah, who rejected Him and didn’t receive Him, and coming to a physical temple as Jesus did nineteen hundred years and some ago.

End-Time Zerubbabel (PLAY FROM 51:33)

Now at this time, God has set and raised up someone to prepare the way for the second coming of Christ; a voice crying out in the SPIRITUAL WILDERNESS of all this religious confusion that we have in the world today, preparing the way for a glorified Christ; not a human Christ, but a Christ of all power and glory who sustains the entire universe to come in that great power and glory as the ruler of all the world. And He’s coming to His temple.

Now we use to worry about that temple. We used to wonder, are the Jews going to tear down the Dome of the Rock that is such a holy temple to the Arab people, and build a new temple for God. Well look, if the Jews build it, it still wouldn’t be the kind of a temple for God, because they as a race to this day reject Christ. And we wondered about that.

And now, what do you think? I come and find out that God has called me and has used me to build that temple. And that temple is built, but it isn’t ready; it’s in a very, very corrupt and bad condition comparatively! The SPIRITUAL Christ is coming to a spiritual temple WHICH IS HIS CHURCH; AND YOU PEOPLE ARE THAT TEMPLE, and the parents of you students, and you children, and young people, and teenagers who are here.

Church Made Ready (PLAY FROM 53:29)

But the church is not ready yet. And that is the great job that still lies ahead to be done, to stir up this church and get this church ready for Christ coming, because it’s going to be changed. The dead in Christ will rise first. We which are alive and remain will be CHANGED INSTANTANEOUSLY from mortal to immortal, from human to divine, and rise up in the air to meet Christ in the skies as He’s coming. And we’re not ready yet for that. We are not ready for that. And that makes me sick at heart when I realize it.

The church has been raised up. Now there is a sifting time and many in the church are going out, and I have found that most of those that are leaving; and there is an effort - of course my own son is trying to pull away members after himself, and he’s getting some. But in nearly every case I find that the members he is getting are those who were causing trouble in the local church, who had a rebellious attitude, who were not in harmony with the church, or with the church’s program or with the government of God in the church.

And so, the church is being cleaned up. Now I don’t like to see it cleaned up by having to lose people and have people go out, but I guess that’s better than having them in. If you have a whole crate of lemons and one lemon becomes rotten, it’ll rot the one next to it; and each one of those will rot the ones next to them, pretty soon the whole crate will be rotted if you don’t get that one out before it rots the ones next to it. So if we’ve got a few rotten lemons among the members of in the church, I guess we shouldn’t weep tears if they leave; because it’s good, well, I don’t like to say it this way but I guess it is really good riddance. All of that is not a nice way to say it.

How Satan Broadcasts (PLAY FROM 55:49)

Now then, this spirit in man, I told you how God got the message across to Cyrus, King of Persia. Well, Satan the devil is the prince of the power of the air; he is a MIGHTY spirit being, very mighty, very powerful next to God! Now we’re going to be equal with God some day because we’re already begotten children of God if we we’re converted. But, we will someday be greater than even this former Lucifer. But he is now greater than any human being. And Satan is so very, very powerful, we don’t realize it.

He is a spirit being! He communicates with little children, as soon as their minds begin to absorb knowledge and begin to think; Satan begins to speak to them as God spoke to Cyrus by stirring up the spirit in him. Now Satan doesn’t talk in words. They don’t hear words; they don’t hear sounds of any kind. But he just imparts to them certain attitudes; attitudes of selfishness, attitudes of rebellion, attitudes of not wanting to do what they’re told to do by their parents. And it begins as early as children begin to grow.

Now this is important, get this, please. This is very important. And this has happened to you teenagers. And that’s why Satan keeps doing that. Now Satan sends the same message out to all people, but all people don’t respond in the same way. For example: one will respond a lot more readily than another to Satan’s, well I say, broadcasting. Satan is the prince of the power of the air. I couldn’t have understood this until I was broadcasting on the air, and then I began to understand it.

Look, there are several sounds in the air right here, right now. There are pictures even, in the air, and you don’t see them and I don’t see them. But if you had a television set here and tune it in you would see them. And it’s already in the room going on. But you don’t see them because you are not on the wavelength tuned in. But everybody’s mind is tuned in on the wavelength of Satan. And Satan is broadcasting.

And Satan is broadcasting in attitudes of vanity, and lust and greed, in attitudes of selfishness, of self-centeredness, of competition and strife, of jealousy and envy, of rebellion, of opposition, of destruction instead of construction until, when they grow up; (and many teenagers fifteen and sixteen years of age, the age of some of you here) many of them turn into becoming criminals. And you will find that any police department will tell you that the biggest amount of crimes are committed by teenagers around fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years of age! Why? It’s because Satan has been GETTING TO THEM, and THEY haven’t realized it! They haven’t heard a voice speaking. But they don’t know how it got in their minds, but attitudes of rebellion, attitudes of resentment, attitudes of defiance, attitudes of competition and strife, and destruction have gotten into their minds.

Now when you stop to think of that, and when you realize that in the church of God, the children of even one parent who is in the church are sanctified, that is set apart and a separate CATEGORY! THEY ARE NOT CUT OFF FROM GOD! Now they are still not cut off from Satan either! And Satan will broadcast to them. Satan did broadcast to even Jesus Christ from the time he was born, do you know that? But Jesus Christ was God as well as man. And Jesus Christ even as a child recognized when a wrong thought or sentiment was coming into His mind and Satan was putting it there, and he rejected it; and He never once committed a sin! But He was tempted in every way as we are, and He was tempted by Satan. And He was tempted CONTINUALLY by Satan!

Parents to Teach the Young (PLAY FROM 1:01:30)

Now then, your children are going to be, (you parents I’ll talk to for the moment), your children, and for you young people, your parents you need to know. And when you are married and begin to have children a few years from now, you will find that they are born pure and sweet, and they are neither holy, nor are they evil, they’re neither one. But they are lovely and sweet, they sure are.

I’ve had four and I know how sweet your own young babies can be. They can be so lovely. They just are the most lovely thing that you have ever seen in the world. And we use to look at them and say, “Look at that little devil. He looks so sweet and all, but there’s that terrible human nature in him,” no it isn’t. That human nature is not in him but Satan’s going to be, and putting it into him very quick. But, the children who are in the church of God are in a separate category, and they are not cut off from God, and it means that the parents CAN IF THEY WILL, IF THEY DO, they can counteract what Satan is doing.

And just like the Spirit of God in Jesus counteracted it so that Jesus never committed a sin, parents can teach their children in such a way, and keep so close to them that they can more than outmatch Satan and all that Satan is doing. And as I read to you here, O wife, how do you know may in the end save your husband because he’s sanctified? Well, in the same way, how do you know you may save your children, because they too are sanctified?

Now that is the message that is new, has never been preached in this church before, and you are the first congregation or audience, to hear it. And it is new knowledge to me, its new knowledge to you, and it is TREMENDOUS knowledge! And the church is going forward now on a program of helping parents to get close to their children, and to counteract this thing of Satan getting to the children while they are even infants and getting to them real young.

We’re having programs for children, and just before school age, and I hope they’ll be ready to circulate by the time of the Feast of Tabernacles this year. And by the way, I’m hoping to have another book all completed and ready to give to all of you at the Feast of Tabernacles this year. It is an update of the book we’ve had before, but it’s revised and updated, and should even if you read it before it’s been changed and updated, and as I say you should read it again – Tomorrow, What It Will Be Like - what it will be like in tomorrow’s world. And I hope to have that ready for the Feast of Tabernacles. We’re getting things ready.

By the way, I just received from the publishers; the Everest House who publish our books, a special deluxe leather bound copy of my first book, The Human Potential, the other day with my initials in gold on the first cover, H.W.A. And it’s just a beautifully bound book that they sent with their compliments to me. Now, I find that we can order a few extras as their cost is a little more money than they normally bound books, but we’re having two or three dozen offered, and we will give them to, well, I may give one to President Sadat of Egypt, for example, and one to Prime Minister Begin of Israel. And I’m sure that I will give one to Prince Mikasa, the brother of the Emperor of Japan, and others that I know, and others that I shall meet and know.

Now I hope I’ve covered that subject enough to have given you something new, something vital something different today. I think it’s one of the most wonderful things that has ever come to this church. And I’m just elated over it. And if you think I’m senile, I’m going after the little youngsters now, (chuckle) I'm getting back where...I'm going to be concerned about these little fellows, two and three months old, two and three years old, and on up and especially teenagers. And we’re going to have more programs for you young people than we have ever had in the church before. And I think that that should just give a thrill to every one of you. Well, that’s my message for today. Thank you all.

---