(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
The World Tomorrow
How to Live by God's Law
by Herbert W Armstrong
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Herbert W Armstrong brings you the Plain Truth about today’s world news and the prophecies of the World Tomorrow.
And, greetings friends, this is Herbert W Armstrong with the Good News of the World Tomorrow.
But I can’t give you very much good news for today. Today’s news is never good. Did you ever notice that? Why is it, my friends?
You know there’s a reason for these things. Why is this world so unhappy? The fears and worries that you face and the troubles you have even right there in your own home. Those don’t get in the newspapers, but after all, you’re having troubles, too, aren’t you? You know we laugh about it when we have a little baby and the baby begins to talk in a sort of a troubled tone of voice and make sounds that don’t make sense, we don’t understand the words, you know a little baby that hasn’t learned to talk yet. And, you know, we laugh and joke of the baby telling us his troubles and say, 'Now come on, tell me all the rest of your troubles'. Yes, even the babies have their troubles. It seems that we all have our troubles.
Why don’t we have a good time? And why don’t we learn the way to peace and to happiness, to prosperity, and to everything that’s good instead of everything that’s so bad and so evil? There’s a reason for it. Now, I’ve told you before that God Almighty revealed the way to a really permanently continually good time to our first parents. To happiness, to peace, to prosperity, to everything good. To having plenty, and really enjoying it. That’s God’s will for us, we should have it.
God doesn’t just love the poor, He doesn’t want you to be poor. I guess He loves the poor alright, but I mean He doesn’t love to have you be poor. And that’s no credit to a man to just be poor. It isn’t always necessarily a disgrace. It depends on the conditions and the circumstances of course. But no man needs to remain that way if he’ll find the laws of God and observe them. And yet we have people, and we have a system in this world that perhaps sentences some people to remain poor in spite of anything they can do too. And that is not right, but that is society, the kind of society we have built. But you know the kind of society that God revealed to our parents, and has always revealed, is the Government of God. And not ruled by human beings that have set up a society on this earth that is all wrong.
God's Truth Rejected (Play from 02:17)
Now, God revealed the truth through all of His prophets. God raised up a special nation of His own, the nation Israel, way back there millenniums ago. He gave them His laws. He set them down as His nation for Him to rule under His Government. And you know, they prospered and they were just getting along wonderfully as long as they obeyed the laws of God and acknowledged God as their ruler. And as long as they went along with it, but just as soon as Israel departed from God, and wanted to be like the other nations around them, that had ways of human devising and human ideas, then Israel began to go down into unhappiness. And they were invaded and conquered and taken slaves and one thing and another. And so it has gone ever since.
God Almighty gave the Gentile nations after the Gentile ruler that conquered the last of His two nations, Israel and Judah. When Judah was taken captive, He gave Nebuchadnezzar the full opportunity to know God. He revealed Himself to that great king who then ruled the world. And He showed him the blessings that could come to him and to his people. If he would only, not only acknowledge God but yield to Him and put himself under God’s guidance, under God’s Government. And just be God’s tool or instrument or agent in ruling the people and let God be the real ruler.
But Nebuchadnezzar wouldn’t do that. He acknowledged God, but he wouldn’t surrender to God or obey Him ever. And then his son, and then the next ruler, and as long as the Chaldean Empire lasted, God revealed Himself to them, usually through His prophet Daniel. But, well, they had to acknowledge God, they were forced to do that. God showed His power by miracles to show those rulers that, if they would only yield to the Government of God, the laws of God, the wisdom of God, and go to God to find the way of living, that everything could be peaceful and happy in their land. But they wouldn’t.
And so, then God gave them over to, as you might say, believe a lie. And He gave them the mind in those Gentile nations, their leaders, the mind of animals, of wild animals. Ferocious, invading, conquering, trying to tear up and destroy and make a meal off everybody else. And they’ve been doing it ever since. And so, we’ve had agression and aggressors in the Gentile nations.
That does not include the democracies of Northwestern Europe, such as Holland and Denmark and Belgium and nations like that. They have never been aggressors. They would never invade and conquer other nations in that manner. Well, they’ve done a little colonizing and so have the British, but in the sense of just trying to invade other great nations and conquer them, to take their wealth away from them, they never did. Neither did the British, neither did the United States.
Although, we will have to say if we know history that there have been plenty of injustices that we have perpetrated and committed. I don’t know that we always treated the Indians correctly here in the United States. And the British have done a little bit of invading, in a sense, in their colonizing program and things of that sort. And they haven’t always treated those that came under their jurisdiction and their government as they should have been treated. No, we’re not living as we should live.
Well, they stoned and killed the prophets that God sent. God sent His own Son and they crucified Him, and rejected His message. Then they accepted His name, and all the power and authority that went with it for their own selfish means and uses. And substituted for His Gospel their own gospel about Him, and about His person. They deified Him, they exalted Him - but rejected His message. And so the world is miserable and unhappy today. Now, the message of Jesus Christ, the true Gospel, was the Gospel of the right way to live. And the reason that Jesus Christ had to die for you and for me, my friends, is because we have lived the wrong way. Because we have violated the laws, the rule of God. And we haven’t been happy. That’s the whole reason.
Now, you make the crucifixion of Christ and the blood of Christ of none effect as long as you reject the law of God and the way of God. And think that this civilization is of God’s making, and that we can live our own way. Or just any way we please, and follow the customs and the traditions and the ways of man that are contrary to the laws of God. There’s something in human nature that is resentful toward God and God’s ways. That seems to think that God’s law is harsh and stern and contrary to us.
Now, we have preachers that go out, and they absolutely take, appropriate and steal the name of Jesus Christ. Which they have no right to, because He has not called them. But they take His name, they come in His name, they say He is the Christ. And then they deny everything He came for and preached, and died for. And lead the people astray into the ways of the Devil, and the philosophies of the Devil. And try to represent that the law of God is a harsh stern thing, contrary to you. And they spit on it, they sneer at it, they do violence to it, they do everything to try to prejudice your mind and your heart against God, and God’s way, and God’s law.
And God’s law is what? Why the whole law is summed up in one little four letter word, L-O-V-E, love. That whole law is love. What’s wrong with it? Love toward God and love toward your neighbor, what’s wrong with that? Why is God’s law harsh and stern? Why don’t they like the law of God? Why do they say: "Oh, you’re not under that awful stern old law, you’re under grace today. You do as you please. You follow humanity. You do like we preachers tell you, and be under grace." Are you listening to that siren song? When the blind lead the blind you’re all going to fall into the ditch. It’s about time to wake up.
Christ's Instructions to His Family/Household (Play from 08:19)
Now, what did Jesus preach? Well, we were seeing how He instructed His disciples, as He was sending them out on a practice mission. You know they were His students, His learners. A disciple is a student or a learner, and He was teaching them for three and a half years. And now He was sending them out, two and two together on a practice mission so to speak. And He told them not to go to;
"...the Gentiles [nor even the Jews] ...but the lost sheep of the House of Israel." (Matthew 10:5-6 paraphrased)
And the House of Israel was something altogether different from the House of Judah. Now, the Jewish people were of the House of Judah, but the House of Israel was a different nation altogether. And four whole books in your Bible are devoted to showing the differences between the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. And the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were constantly at war against each other. And the very first place that the word 'Jews' is mentioned in your Bible is second Kings, sixteenth chapter and the sixth verse. And there you’ll find that the king of Israel was allied with the king of Syria, at war against the Jews;
"...and they drove the Jews out of the town of Elath..." (II Kings 16:6 paraphrased)
That’s the first place that the name Jew is mentioned. And Jews, or Israel, was at war against the Jews in driving the Jews out of a town. The ally of Israel was driving the Jews out of the town. So, there Israel and Judah are two nations that were at war against each other.
Now, Jesus sent His disciples to the House of Israel, the lost sheep of the House of Israel. They were not Jews, they never had been called Jews. And so He was telling them how to go and what to say. He said He sent them forth as sheep among wolves. He said that they would even be delivered up and tried before councils. But not to contemplate in advance what they would say, the Spirit of God would tell them how to answer, and what to speak with great wisdom. And then He said, as we were seeing yesterday, that the servant is not above his master, and if they persecuted Him they would persecute His servants also and;
"...If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" (Matthew 10:25)
And I was bringing out in the preceding program yesterday how it is a household and you’re called into a family, my friends, into a household. And Jesus preached the Kingdom of God which is the reign, the rule of God. And God rules by His laws but it is a family that does the reigning. It is a family of God, it is a family relationship. And Jesus said it is a Kingdom, or a family, which we can be born into. And you must be born again. And very few understand what it is to be born again.
In the false doctrines, the false gospels that they preach today, they take the things of the Bible, they twist them, they distort them, they take them out of context, they represent them as being something altogether different. And so today, they just make you think that if you’ve been ducked in water, if you’ve shaken the hand of the preacher, or if you’ve wept a few tears down at the altar or something of that sort. In a manner that they never did under the apostle Paul. They never did under Peter, or under Christ and they didn’t come and weep at the altar like you people do today. You can’t find that in the Bible the way you do it today. But if you go through some of these motions that they give you, and some of them are pagan incidentally, and you profess Christ, then they say you are, and have already been born again.
My friends, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jesus talked about being born of God. If you’ve been born in the flesh, you are flesh that’s what you are. And you must now be born of the Spirit. And when you’re born of the Spirit, you shall be, you shall become, until you will be Spirit — not flesh! Why then the apostle Paul said; "...flesh and blood cannot [enter into] the kingdom of God..." (I Corinthians 15:50)
Family relationship (Play from 12:00)
Jesus said that a mortal human being cannot see the Kingdom of God till he is born again. And Paul explained that you won’t even be flesh and blood. There’ll be no blood circulating in your veins when you enter into the Kingdom of God. But you will be as the angels of heaven, spirit. But you’ll be even more than the angels of heaven, you’ll be above them, you will be divine, you will be of the very family of God. And the Kingdom of God is that family grown great into a great Kingdom, a great government.
Now, it’s a family relationship. Jesus spoke of His Father. That’s a family relationship. God the Father is the head of the God family, the God Kingdom. And here is the family relationship brought out. Now, the disciple is a student and learner.
"It is enough [that he should] be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" (Matthew 10:25)
Now, the Father has made Him Master of the house. But He even acknowledged the supremacy of His Father and He said;
"...my father is greater than I." (John 14:28)
And He is Master of the household, but we come into the household of the saints and of the household of God. It’s a family relationship. I wonder if you ever noticed that in reading your Bible. Oh, we read over the Bible and the important things are just meaningless. We don’t let them mean anything. We don’t let them sink into our minds because we’ve been so misled. Until all nations have been made drunk on the false wine of false pagan doctrines, and philosophies, and beliefs, and customs, and practices that all seem to blindly follow, because they have Christian names tacked on to them.
What a deception has ruined this world, and made it so unhappy that we read the kind of the news we do in the newspapers, and hear the kinds you do on the newscasts. No happiness, nothing but everything that is wrong, crashes, great destructions, physical violence, unhappiness, crookedness, dishonesty and death, pain and suffering. We don’t need to be that way, my friends, we could be happy. God gave us the way to happiness. Jesus came preaching it. Now, listen to it. He said;
"Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known." (Matthew 10:26)
I mentioned that you may have a 'skeleton in the closet' so to speak. In other words, things that you have done, you think nobody knows it but yourself. Your children don’t know it or your parents, as the case may be. You think your husband or your wife doesn’t, your brother or sister or anybody. You’re keeping that a secret - nobody knows that but you. Listen;
"...there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed [that’s going to be revealed and other people are going to see it]; and [nothing is] hid that shall not be known." (Matthew 10:26)
Unless, there is an 'unless' incidentally, unless you have it covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. And the blood of Jesus Christ will not cover it unless, or until, you repent. And repent means to turn around and go the other way. Repent of your way, repent of the way of man and of humanity and the customs of civilization. And turn to the ways of God, and search the Bible diligently to find them, and live by every word of God.
I don’t tell you to live by what I say. I just want to say things to induce you to open your Bible and see it there. And I tell you to live by what you see in plain language in your own Bible. You can’t go wrong doing that. How can I mislead you when I tell you to do that? But I tell you that there are many false prophets in the world today, and you should beware. Now, Jesus said now;
"What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light: and what you hear in the ear, proclaim it upon the housetops." (Matthew 10:27 paraphrased)
And I have seen a possible dual meaning there, I don’t think it was the literal, intended, only meaning at all. But in these days of radio and TV, we proclaim things in a certain small room, and they come out and are actually proclaimed to you, on the housetops on an aerial that comes down into your TV set or your radio. Now, of course, we have built-in antennas on the radio sets today so that you don’t all have them up on the housetop. They used to be all on the housetop and many are yet. And if you want a really good one that’s where it will be.
The Soul Can Die (Play from 16:25)
"And be not afraid of them [now listen to this, be not afraid of them which] kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul..." (Matthew 10:28 American Standard Version)
Now, listen, my friends. Does that mean that the soul is immortal and can’t be killed? A lot of people read that far and they don’t read the rest and they say, "There, you see the soul is immortal, and we are just the immortal soul that is in a body of flesh." That’s what a lot of people believe. But did you read the rest of it? There’s just a colon after that, that’s two dots, that’s not the end of the sentence. Now, one dot would be the end of a sentence, but not necessarily even the end of the thought. But that is not even the end of the sentence.
"...be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him [who are you to fear? him] that is able to destroy both soul and body in..." (Matthew 10:28 American Standard Version)
It says 'hell' but should be 'Gehenna.' The original Greek word was 'Gehenna' and hell is not a correct English translation at all. But I want you to notice first;
"...rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body..." (Matthew 10:28)
So, the soul is something that can be destroyed. Now, a lot of people stop after that first colon, and they say, "Be not afraid of him that can kill the body and can’t kill the soul." And because some men can’t kill the soul, they decide that the soul couldn’t be destroyed and is indestructable and is therefore immortal. Why, the very next breath of the same sentence refutes that and shows that the soul can be destroyed.
"...rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body..." (Matthew 10:28)
So, the soul can be destroyed. That’s in your Bible, that’s in Matthew {1} the tenth chapter and the twenty-eighth verse. Will you turn to it and read it? Matthew 10:28 {2}. If you don’t read it, my friends, it’s your own fault, it’s a witness against you, I’ve given it to you. Am I a false prophet because I give the truth in this age of deception and delusion? And when everybody has been fooled and deceived, and had the wool pulled over their eyes? Of course, you’re honest, of course, you’re sincere. A deceived person always is. If you knew you were wrong, you wouldn’t be deceived and most of you don’t know it. Well, there it is. Will you see it with your own eyes? Will you believe what God says to you in His own Word with your own eyes?
"...rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in [you have it] hell." (Matthew 10:28)
But now if you have a Bible with marginal references, you’ll find a little letter there, and you’ll find that the Greek word is 'Gehenna' and Jesus was speaking of Gehenna fire. Now, people say to me, "Well, aren’t people to be destroyed in a hell fire?" Well, I wouldn’t use the word 'hell', actually. That’s a mistranslation altogether. But they are to be destroyed in a lake of fire. That’s described back over in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. And it’s also described by Peter. And this whole earth is finally going to be a molten mass, the elements, all of the solid elements that is, are to melt with fervent heat. And it’s going to be a vast lake of fire. The whole earth finally will be, and it is going to consume and destroy all souls.
Now, the word 'soul' was first used in the Bible back in very first chapter of Genesis. And the first place that the word soul was used, it comes from the Hebrew word 'nephesh.' And the first place that it is used in the Bible, let me see, I believe it’s this twentieth verse here, I think it’s the twentieth verse, the very first chapter of the Bible;
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving nephesh [now, I’m giving you the Hebrew word, nephesh, the moving nephesh] that [have] life, and the fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament... And God created [verse 21] great whales [or as the margin will give you, let me see, great sea monsters], and every living nephesh that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas..." (Genesis 1:20-22)
Now, those are not human beings. They are the kind of animal life that swim in the seas, and live in the waters and twice they are called 'nephesh.' Now, verse 24;
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living nephesh after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing[s], and the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so." (Genesis 1:24)
And they are called 'nephesh.' Now, you turn over to the second chapter of Genesis and the seventh verse and here we read;
"And the [Eternal] God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [just as He had breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of animals]; and man became a living nephesh." (Genesis 2:7)
Now, as Moses wrote that, Moses wrote that in the Hebrew language. You’re not reading the language that Moses wrote. God inspired the word 'nephesh'. The word that God inspired was in the Hebrew language. He inspired Moses to write it. He didn’t inspire the men that translated it. He couldn’t have because they disagree. And if God inspired all these translations then how come that they disagree, and some translate the Bible one way and some another? There are differences in translations.
Now, the differences are very slight and it doesn’t mean, I don’t mean to upset your confidence in the Bible at all. But there is no one translation that is one hundred percent correct. I think that all of them are substantially correct. I would say that, well I don’t believe I know of a translation that is a well known, much publicized translation of the Bible, that isn’t better than ninety-nine percent correct, or perhaps ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundreths percent even. The errors are comparatively small but there are errors of human devising. And one translation will have it one way in one place, and certain places another will have it a different way.
But here the language in which God inspired this was the Hebrew language. He inspired it through Moses and Moses wrote the word 'nephesh.' So, that man became a living 'nephesh.' And prior to that He had said the earth would bring forth the living nephesh after his kind, cattle and the creeping thing and the beast of the earth, they are 'nephesh.' And all of these moving 'nephesh' that have life in the waters, and the fowls of the heaven that fly in the air, they are all called 'nephesh.' And man became - not that man has an immortal soul - but man became a living 'nephesh.'
Now, what does the word 'nephesh' mean? It’s a Hebrew word and it means the life of animals, or animal life I should say. And it is the kind of life that comes by the breath of air oxidizing the circulation of blood in your veins. And it applies only to animals that have their life by the blood which must be oxidized by the breath of air. Now, that is a 'nephesh', or a soul. And now here, Jesus said;
"[to]...fear him [that] is able to destroy...the soul [or the nephesh] and the body in Gehenna fire." (Matthew 10:28)
The soul then is something that’ll burn up in fire. Now, spirit can’t burn up in fire. Fire has no effect whatsoever on spirit. Because what is fire, my friends? It’s a chemistry matter, fire is combustion. It is the uniting of the oxygen in the air with the product being consumed. And it is a rapid chemical action that creates very great energy, causes heat and it changes the composition of whatever, as we say, being burned. In other words, the air, the oxygen in the air unites with this product in rapid-fire chemical action that generates heat and energy. Part of it goes up in gas, part is smoke and the rest is ashes. And you know it is said that of the wicked people, that are not converted they shall, after they burn in Gehenna fire, after the nephesh is destroyed;
"...they shall be ashes under the souls of [our] feet..." (Malachi 4:3)
That’s what God reveals in your Bible. Will you read it?
Beware of Denying God (Play from 24:51)
Now then, then He continues;
"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not therefore. You are of more value than many sparrows. Everyone therefore, who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 10:29-33 paraphrased)
Do you know how you can deny the Lord Jesus Christ? You can deny him in works being abominable. It’s Titus 1:16. I want you to read that and see how you can deny the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, I have it;
"They profess that they know God [here are the ones that worship Christ, accept His name, they profess that they know God]; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, unto every good work reprobate." (Titus 1:16)
And that is those that believe the preachers that tell you, there are no works to salvation. Will you get your eyes open and believe the truth?