(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)

The World Tomorrow

Law of God - Repent

by Herbert W Armstrong

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Well greetings friends. This is Herbert W Armstrong with the Good News of the World Tomorrow.

But now looking into the condition today and why is it, my friends, that we find that we are brought up in this world today believing that we have the Christian teaching; believing in Christianity and that Christianity is the religion of our western world? And yet when we have the courage to blow the dust off the Bible and look into it, we find we have been brought up to believe exactly the opposite of what the Bible says.

Why is it, my friends, that today we believe we are Christians – which means we should be followers of Christ; and we find we are doing anything but following Christ? We are following customs exactly opposite of those that Christ followed. We are believing teachings that are the exact antithesis of those which Jesus taught. Now why, what's wrong? I tell you it's about time we began to open our eyes.

And once again, I say get your own Bible, open your Bible and see this with your own eyes. Don't believe me, if you believe me, I'm just another single man here, telling you something different than you've heard a lot of other men tell; and you probably would believe the majority. So I say, don't believe any man. Your own Bible tells you that:

"...many false prophets are gone out into the world [today]." (I John 4:1)

Not one single false prophet, while all the rest are right, but there are many false prophets. Where are we suppose to get all of the truth anyway? They all claim to get it out of the Bible. That is the one text book used by what we call Christianity in this western world. Why is it then, that we don't hear the Bible preached? Why is it then, that we don't have the Bible given to us straight and honest and clear exactly as it is? Why is that we find the Bible turned upside down? Why is it that we find it maligned, mutilated, misrepresented, lied about? Until when we look at it with our own eyes, we find in it exactly the opposite of what we have been taught that it said? So I ask you, put this thing to the test. The Bible itself tells you: "Prove all things..." (I Thessalonians 5:21) And you prove it by looking into the Bible which is the Word of God.

Well we're ready to get into the thirteenth chapter of Luke, as we've been going through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to see what Jesus Christ did teach. And why is it, my friends, that they crucified Him because of what He taught? He taught a gospel about world government. He said He was born to be a King as He said before Pilot on trial for His life:

"For this cause, He said, was I born, for this cause came I into this world, to be a king. Pilot said, are you a king then? He said, Thou sayest I am a king." (John 18:37 paraphrased)

And He was accused of starting a movement against Caesar. Of being a traitor and of antagonizing the government of Caesar. Jesus replied: "...my kingdom is not of this [age]..." (John 18:36) Not even of this time, this age at all; "...My kingdom is not of this world..." (John 18:36). His kingdom is of the world tomorrow.

I wonder if you understand the real name of this broadcast; 'The World Tomorrow'. What is the world tomorrow? How many of you really know? Oh, I tell you, my friends, we are so close to our everyday work, our everyday routine, the things that our hands touch, and that our eyes see, the material things, material people about us, material objects, and gadgets, and machines, and this and that, and the other thing. And we are so far from the real truth and we just accept what ever came into our mind.

How did you come to believe what you believe? How did you come to believe what you believe about christianity? How did you come to believe what you believe about religion? I'll tell you why and how; you were born a baby knowing nothing and nothing of what you believe now was in your mind then, not a bit of it, it's all come into your mind since then. How did it get there?

Well you heard it, you've been taught it – other people believed it and like sheep you just swallowed it and believed it too, like all the rest, you have assumed it must be true. You have assumed like I used to. When I told my wife; "Why you can't tell me all these churches could be wrong! Why, these churches can't all be wrong!" But you know, I got to looking at it, my friends, and one church believes one thing and another church believes exactly the opposite on that point. And then that church believes something else and another church exactly contradicts it on that point. And so it goes and there are hundreds and hundreds of denominations and they don't agree. They all believe something different and they all claim to be teaching exactly what the book says and the book is the Bible.

Now I've said many times, you take a textbook on – well shall we say astronomy, and you hand it to an astronomer and he uses it teaching in a class. What does he teach out of that book? He teaches one certain thing. Now you go over to another college, that might be a college started by a different church denomination too, and there you find an astronomer teaching from that same textbook. What is he teaching his class? Something altogether different? Oh no; oh no, the book says just one thing and they all teach the same thing out of the same book. And you go to another college and there the professor teaches exactly the same thing out of that book. You show a book on astronomy to a hundred different professors and everyone of them will agree on what the book says.

But you show the Book of spiritual values, the Revelation from God Almighty, the Holy Bible to one hundred ministers in one hundred different church denominations and every one of them will disagree with every other one them as to what that Book says. I ask you why? My friends, listen, are we afraid to think? Are we afraid to open our minds and to question? Are we afraid to look into these things and find the answer and find the reason why? What's wrong with us? Is it intellectual stupidity, is it laziness, is it fear, is it ego and vanity, wanting to go with the crowd, what is it? Why don't we blow the dust off our Bibles, look into them with intellectual honesty, with the right curiosity to want to know what is the truth? And why aren't we willing to find it and to follow it when we find it?

Except You Repent (PLAY FROM 06:51)

Well, here we are the thirteenth chapter of Luke:

"There were present at that season some that told [Jesus] of the Galilaeans [that was way up north in Palestine], whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." (Luke 13:1)

Now some of this in here, my friends, I could devote a long long time. I could go into a technical exposition from the commentaries and some of the histories. And to get all of the truth of that, I would have to bring out some of the volumes of Josephus, which we have in our library. The history by Josephus written in 70 AD to explain some of that. I think it is enough just to say this much: that Pilate was an enemy of Herod and this was up in Pilate's jurisdiction; and he had killed some of the Galileans and offered them with their pagan sacrifices. And it was news now being given to Jesus. He probably knew it ahead of this time, but it hadn't been officially reported to Him before, so this was just news that they were giving to Christ there, at the time:

"And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?" (Luke 13:2)

Now not that Pilate knew who was a sinner and that he was trying to punish sinners. But that the idea is they believed that God would permit this kind of thing to come only on those who were sinners. And Jesus says do you suppose then that God allowed that because they were sinners above the others?

"I tell you, Nay: but [here's the important thing, listen my friends, this is what He said to the people and this is what He says now through my voice to you: but], except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3)

Now there's the significant thing. Except you repent! And to repent, my friends, in Bible language - the word repent means change your mind; but it means, in Bible language, change your mind in respect to sin. And in Bible language, what is sin? You find the definition in I John the third chapter the fourth verse:

"...sin is the transgression of the law." (I John 3:4)

Paul said that Law is spiritual. He said he wouldn't have known what sin was, except for the Law; "...except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Romans 7:7). He wouldn't have known that lust was a sin and that there was anything wrong about it.

And, James said that we must fulfill the law just like Christ fulfilled it and love is the fulfilling of the Law. And if we do we are alright, but if we don't we commit sin. And that the law has points, and if you break any one of the points, you have broken the Law. And he mentioned two of the Ten Commandments as two of the ten points of that Law. And it is a complete Law, the Ten Commandments, there it is, the Spiritual Law. It is sin to transgress.

God the Creator of All Law (PLAY FROM 09:50)

In other words, my friends, God Almighty created force and energy. God Almighty created all powers, all energy, all force, all of what we call natural laws. All of the laws that our professors of physics and chemistry have studied and have discovered a few things about. God left it to them to discover some of these things. The things though that they could never discover, the things they could never ascertain, the things the human mind never could learn without a separate revelation from God, God has revealed in the Bible.

Yes Newton was able to to discover the law of gravity. Other scientists and professors have been able to discover other physical laws that are actually energies and forces that God set in motion. But where did the laws come from? Where did nature come from? How did nature get that way? There was a first cause. There is a Supreme Mind back of it all and that mind worked it all out. The mind of God thought it out; planned it, executed it, created it. Set these laws in motion and God is the power Who sustains all these forces and these actions and keeps them in constant motion. And they work out exactly as God keeps them in constant motion. Now, my friends, you break any of these laws and you are going to get hurt; that's all there is to it.

But there are things and values that you can't see, that you can't feel, and you can't smell, you can't taste, you can't reach out and touch or feel. There are spiritual values and there are Spiritual Laws, and those laws, my friends, determine your happiness, or your unhappiness. Those laws determine whether we have world peace, or whether we are having strife and warfare. Now men don't know anything about those laws. Men don't know the way to happiness. Men don't know how to get rid of their fears, their worries, and their mental headaches. Men don't know all of those things.

Health Laws (PLAY FROM 11:59)

And while I'm on it let me say this, with all of our science and all of our medical science and everything that we have today like that, my friends, you know the doctor still can't tell you how to keep you from getting sick. When it comes to the little simple thing that your body was made in a certain way and of all of the material things that we can see and know, that God Almighty ever created; there is nothing that is more fearfully made and put together than our human bodies. Men invent machines. Some of them are very intricate and complex and we are amazed at them. But a man never invented anything as wonderful as a human body. The way it's put together, the way it functions; and you know that your human body is sustained by the food you eat, the water you drink, the breath you breathe.

Well, what I'm getting at is this. The food you eat is converted into something in your body that replenishes the broken down cells and rebuilds. And we still don't know how it functions. And doctors don't know what foods are good for us and which foods are bad; and they are beginning to learn something about food combinations and which combinations go together and which are going clash and have a fistfight in your stomach. But they don't know too much about those things yet.

You know, God Almighty told us, my friends, way back here thousands of years ago, He revealed in His Bible something that some of the doctors are just now beginning to find out. And some of the doctors don't even know yet. And that is that; certain things will not function properly. Will not nourish your body; that they are going to set up a clash, and they are just like poison in your body, if you eat them.

Now, you can't eat everything of the plant world that grows. Now some of the things in the plant world, carrots very good food, spinach very good, and a lot of things; a potato, if you know how to cook it properly is the king of all vegetables and it's good food. You've heard the potato is all starch; that's not so. You cut out most of the starch when you peel it and you boil out about forty percent more when you cook your potatoes, and that's all that's wrong with it. I don't mean the starch – it's the alkaline elements I mean that you, you peel off, and you that boil out; and you leave the starch. That's what I should have said, so that the potatoes, the way most of you serve them are starchy. That's true, but if you would eat them properly and if you knew a few things more about it, you'd find that a potato is very well balanced and there, there are enough alkaline elements with it to be a very nourishing thing. I'm speaking of Irish potatoes, incidentally.

But, there are some things in the plant kingdom that are not good food. And there are some things that are deadly poison. And if you take them, they will kill you and they will kill you quick. And other things are a poison that are not quite so deadly and they do you harm and if you continue to take them, they will shorten your life after maybe ten, twenty, or thirty years. You know, they are poison too, but instead of killing you in five seconds, or in a minute and a half, or something like that, they kill you after thirty years.

Now, my friends, the same thing is true in the animal kingdom. Everything that is in the animal, or the fish, or the fowl kingdom is not fit to eat. And everything of the fowl and the - shall we say of the sea animals and those categories of the animal kingdom; God did not create all of them in such a manner that they digest in the human stomach, that they enter the blood stream and nourish your body and build up the broken down cells. That they will supply bone and muscle and tissue and flesh and skin and that they will give you the proper energy that you need and keep you going.

Now some of them are poison. And some of them are very slow poison. They will bring on certain diseases after so many years. And today we have a lot of heart disease, and we have a lot of cancer, and we have a lot of things; and the doctors do not know what causes them. But years and years ago, way back in the time of Moses; through Moses, God revealed to us that all animals are not food, were not created for the purpose of food and are not fit to eat.

And doctors are just now beginning to learn that one reason a lot of people get ptomaine poisoning is that they will take certain sea foods, like lobster, crab, or some of that type of thing. And they drink milk with it and associate it with wrong things and well they, they call a doctor quick; and they wonder why? And a lot of people think that it is all foolish to think that you can't eat anything that you want.

You know, you find a little baby and a baby has no knowledge. Now you take a little calf, or a little dog, or something like that and by instinct it knows what to eat. Do you know why? It doesn't know anything, as a matter of fact about it, but God thought it out; God thought out what it should eat. God formed a certain brain in the first dog and the first cow and each reproduces after its kind, so each one has the same kind of brain.

And you know what's in the brain of that animal? It is something that God has already sort of preadjusted. God thought it out and God fixed the brain so that it acts instinctively as a matter of instinct to cause the dog for instance; to eat what it ought to eat, and to turn down some things that are not good for it. There are some things that are not good for a dog and if you give it to it, it will smell it and it will walk away. It won't have anything to do with it. I don't mean by that, that a dog automatically always picks exactly the right food. Because I know there are some things you can feed an animal and they will eat and it is going injure them or make them sick, or kill them. But, there are a great many things that an animal, just by instinct, will not eat.

God Made Man in His Image (PLAY FROM 17:54)

Well God thought that out and put it in them in the form of instinct. But God did not put instinct in the human family; and the result is, we have to work by knowledge. God made us in His image and God is the All Knowing Great Supreme Mind. And God can think. God has knowledge and from that knowledge He can reason, He can think, He can plan, He can make and design. And then He can create what He has thought out and planned; and that's what God has done. That's what God is; GOD IS CREATOR AND GOD IS THE RULER OVER HIS CREATION. And that's the point I'm trying to come to.

Now, God gave us minds like His, except that our minds are so limited. We are so limited in our knowledge. We are so fallible in our reasoning and we make so many mistakes. And we reason in such a faulty manner sometimes. And we come to wrong conclusions and we jump to conclusions from insufficient knowledge of the facts and all that sort of thing. So we make a lot of mistakes and God doesn't make mistakes.

And God limited our abilities and our powers – thank God He did. Look what we are doing with what He gave us. Look what we are doing with, now that scientists are able to harness some of the elements. They have learned how to create atomic bombs, and now hydrogen bombs that have to be triggered by atomic bombs used for destruction. And there we are; look what we are doing with the knowledge we have. Well God knows better and guides everything into right channels.

But, here we are not knowing what we should eat. Not knowing what we should do. And as I say, doctors are just now beginning to discover that some of these things are not fit to eat. By the way; if you want anything on it, and what the Bible teaching is, you've been all mixed up about it, and you've understood that God made every kind of animal, anything you want to put in your mouth, clean in the New Testament. He didn't do anything of the kind. Some people give you some New Testament text that gets you all upset, and you put a wrong construction on them, and think that they say something they didn't say at all. They don't even say that at all. It isn't a case of interpreting them a different way, it is just a case of what they really say. And I think we still have an article around here about what kind of meat you ought to eat; ' PT February 1980 Is All Animal Flesh Good For Food?' {1} If you really want the knowledge, we'll give it to you.

And if you're prejudiced and you don't want it, your think that like a little baby I started to say, everything goes to its mouth, you know. And a baby thinks that anything is good, because it has no knowledge. Now we have to learn, a baby hasn't learned yet. You and I are suppose to be grown up. We should know something, but most of us don't. Most of us are just like babies and we don't know any more than a baby when it comes to food, everything goes to our mouths. If it taste good we eat it, if it doesn't taste good we don't. And your taste is no barometer as to what is going to happen in your stomach. I'll tell you that. Some things taste very sweet in your mouth – they are going to make your stomach mighty bitter. You'll find some scriptures on that too. Well, you write in for it, if you want that article.

Anyway, my friends, God Almighty is the Supreme Ruler and the one thing that God has revealed to man, is that He made us a free moral agent. We can accept His rule or reject it. But from the beginning to the end of human life on this earth, the message of God to mankind has been submit to the rule of God. To the Laws that God has set in motion and you'll find happiness.

Reject God's laws and go your own way and do the thing that seems right to a man, and you are in trouble and you are going to suffer; and bring heartache and headache and retribution and suffering on the human race. And when you do things that are wrong when you break the Laws of God they not only break you, they also result in your being a source of injury and unhappiness and suffering to other people. And the result is that you are suffering from the sins of other people.

Scriptures to Make Us Wise To Salvation (PLAY FROM 22:01)

Because we have rejected God - listen every prophet that God Almighty ever sent to this world had one message only and that is; surrender to the rule of God Almighty. Which means repent. How are you going to find God and get converted? Do you know that the apostle Paul said to one of the young evangelists that he was sending out, he said to him:

"...from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, [that] are able to make thee wise unto salvation...which is in Christ Jesus." (II Timothy 3:15)

What holy scriptures had Timothy known from a youth? The only scriptures he knew, the only ones completely written at that time were the Old Testament scriptures. Able to make us wise to salvation. And then here was this Ethiopian eunuch, a gentile. God, by the Holy Spirit, called one of His own men that was filled with the Holy Spirit, and He sent Philip down there to see this Ethiopian eunuch and he had the Book of Isaiah. And he was in the fifty third chapter and he said; "Well who is he speaking of?" And he explained it was Christ. And so he explained about Christ, and the Ethiopian eunuch was converted. He repented and he was baptized.

Now just two chapters further over in the fifty fifth, here is one of the scriptures able to make us wise unto salvation. The New Testament Church is built on the foundation, the Church Jesus said He would build, the True Church. I don't know about your church, my friends, I don't know what church you belong to. I know that there are many hundreds of thousands of you people listening right now and you belong to all kinds of different churches. And they can't all be the True Church that Jesus built. Jesus said:

"...I will build my church..." (Matthew 16:18)

I know everyone of you think that the church you belong to is that church. You believe it, don't you? Well everybody else thinks their church, which is a different one, is that church. You see how mixed up we are? Why don't you look into your Bible and see? But here is what the Book that says we are able to be made wise unto salvation and here is the scripture. And the New Testament Church, the Church that Jesus built is based on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Now here is one of the prophets:

"Seek ye the [Eternal] while he may be found [how?], call ye upon him while he is near [how are you going to do it, how are you going to really get salvation?]: Let the wicked forsake his way..." (Isaiah 55:6-7)

Verse seven, Isaiah 55 "Let the wicked forsake [what?] his way..." (Isaiah 55:7). You know; "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man [that's inspired by God in the Proverbs; the end thereof is], ...the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 16:25). And death is the penalty of sin, so the way that seems right to a man is wrong. It's sin:

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the [Eternal], and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:7)

But you will have to forsake yours – in other words, that means repent. You know before Jesus, John the Baptist came preparing the way. What did he preach? Repentance. When Jesus came, He said; "...repent or you will perish!" (Luke 13:3 paraphrased). Now what does perish mean? Well I tell you, a lot of people think perish means that you will live forever in hell fire. That you will live forever in hell fire. A lot of people think that is what it means.

But Jesus said in plain language here are two things; they don't stress repentance today and if they do it's only repent from your own ideas, and your own conscience. And always the message of God is repent of the way of man, repent of the way of the customs of the time. People say well that's out of style now. We do so and so, or here's what we believe today.

God isn't concerned with what we the people believe today. It's what God says and God's truth is the same yesterday, today, and forever; that doesn't change. What was right a hundred years ago, is right today and if it was right a thousand years ago, it's right today and if it was wrong 2000 years ago, it's wrong today. God does not change His standard of right and wrong every 25 or every 50 years, or something like that. But mens' styles and mens' ideas keep changing and mens' customs. Jesus said in plain language:

"...except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3)

In other words, that means repent.

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