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

The World Tomorrow

The New Covenant

by Herbert W Armstrong

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There is good news in store, not only for you, but for our people and our nation after we've learned some very, very serious lessons. But in the mean time, we're living in a very upset world. And we here in the United States are going the way of ancient Rome - we're plunging on to our doom - unless we learn some lessons and turn from our present course. And we're going to do a little suffering before we learn our lessons.

But God Almighty is going to intervene. He's going to save us from ourselves. He's going to save this world from mass suicide. He's going to save this world in the midst of a time of trouble such as has never occurred, from the beginning of the world to this time no nor ever shall be. And it's the time of our own national trouble, as is prophesied in your Bible. And these prophecies are absolutely certain to happen - as certain as the rising and setting of the sun.

You know, my friends, these prophecies began three thousand years ago, and up to nineteen hundred years ago God continued to have His prophecies put into writing. God's prophecies are a challenge - they're a challenge to the skeptics, a challenge to the atheist or the agnostic. And you'll notice that though perhaps hundreds and hundreds of books have been written trying to attack the Bible and overthrow it, there's one third of your Bible that the unbelievers never attack and that is prophecy. No, they let it alone and they have some weak-kneed excuses that, 'Well, maybe the prophecies were written after the event happened' or, 'It could have just come out that way.' But my friends, prophecy began being fulfilled in some cases within fifty or a hundred years after it was written, and continued on and on and on.

Like the prophecy in Daniel, the eleventh chapter. They try to say, that of course, 'The prophecy of Daniel was not written by Daniel at all, but someone else years and years later.' Well, it's true, it starts out about fifty years after Daniel and it tells of events, one after another that happened. But you can absolutely prove that the book of Daniel was written by Daniel, close to, well from, about 550 up to 600 years before Christ. Over five hundred years before Christ, that book was really written. But in the eleventh chapter of Daniel, you'll find the longest prophecy in all the Bible. I hope some of these days soon to begin going through that and to show you. Events happened within fifty years, and then fifty years later, then other events and down to 168 BC. Then after that events in the time of Christ and the apostles.

And it comes on down to our time, and it tells us something that was to happen, that did happen in the year of 1934. In the spring of that year, God opened up that prophecy to me, back in the year of 1934. And I proclaimed then what was going to happen. And there is the prophecy of what Mussolini was going to do in going down to Ethiopia. And at that time, all the newspaper headlines were screaming that, 'No, Mussolini would never march - he would never be able to do it. The League of Nations was going to stop him.' But the League of Nations didn't stop him. And I proclaimed and proclaimed it over the air, back in that time, that was during the first year of this broadcast on the air. And I proclaimed even at that time, over the air, Mussolini would go down there with ships and with planes and he would take Ethiopia and he would add it and then after he did that, he would proclaim the Roman Empire re-established and he did exactly that six months after I had put it on the air.

I want to tell you, my friends, from that time until now, we've been putting on the air what is going to happen. Because God's prophecies are progressive. Now many, many of them have already been fulfilled, startlingly fulfilled, right on the dot, right on the very day, in some cases. That is wherever there was an exact day or precise day on which they would be fulfilled, they were fulfilled on that day. Of course, not all of them were given an exact time for fulfillment but every prophecy that was supposed to have been fulfilled before now, has been. And yet, most of the prophecies remain to be fulfilled in the next few years of your life and mine right in this twentieth century AD. Now, there are remarkable prophecies of what is going to happen to the United States of America in these next few years. You're living here - you're going to live through these times.

Time of Trouble (Play from 5:19)

Now we've been showing through the thirtieth and thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, this terrible time of trouble that we are really going to get ourselves into but we are going to be delivered out of it, by the second coming of Christ. We've gone through all of that, it's a prophecy for the latter days as we read in the last verse of the thirtieth chapter. It's coming as a punishment to correct our people. God says He'll correct us and He won't leave us altogether unpunished, but He'll not make a full end of us. Oh, no, our people are still going to survive and then they are going to begin to turn to God and to God's ways when this real trouble comes. And it is stated that in a condition of absolute captivity and slavery and in the very first verses of the thirty-first chapter that we will then turn to our God and He will return to us and be our God and we will be His people. And then, we're going to be delivered. And people of ours, from the land of the enemy, are going to be taken back to Palestine; the very land that God promised to our forefather Abraham and re-promised to Isaac and to Jacob. And we read here in the twelfth verse, of the thirty-first chapter;

"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the [Eternal], for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd [and so on]: ...Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them." (Jeremiah 31:12-13)

We shall then have learned our lesson. And then again later, it shows that we'll come here with weeping and with - that's in the ninth verse - with weeping, and with supplications, Christ says, will I lead them. As Moses delivered our forefathers out of Egypt, so Christ is going to deliver us out of Babylon. The Babylon that we're in, the confusion that we're in right now. Confusion of tongues, confusion of religious ideas, and doctrinal ideas and all that sort of thing. And then in the fiftieth chapter of Jeremiah, you read of it;

"In those days and at that time ...the children of Israel shall come [that is our people and the British people] they and the children of Judah together..." (Jeremiah 50:4)

That is the Jewish people. And now once again, my friends, if you don't understand our identity in prophecy, you don't understand one third of your Bible and you don't understand very much of the rest of it. You can't understand it unless you have this key. Where we're identified as Israel, the House of Israel, the Kingdom of Israel and the Jewish people as the Kingdom of Judah, in your Bible. Get our booklet, 'United States in Prophecy,' there's no charge. It will point it out. Read it in your Bible. See it with your own eyes, in your own Bible, the most astounding, the most startling proof, that the Bible is the very Word of God. There is prophecy fulfilled, the fact that we have the promises of God who promised it to Abraham, the birthright promise; the scepter went to Judah, that included the coming of Christ and salvation. That went to the Jewish people. But the promise that went to our forefathers and that we inherit, and we have, and have inherited since the year of 1800 AD, my friends, is the birthright that Jacob took away from Esau, that Esau sold for that mess of pottage, or a bowl of red soup.

We have that today and we have that prosperity and we are mentioned more frequently, more often in the Bible prophecies than any other nation. And listen, my friends, that too was to happen in a definite year. There was a definite time set when we were to come into that national prosperity and we did not begin to come into it one year before the time. And neither did we become into it one year after but right on the dot in the very year. God keeps His word! Today, you know, we sort of gotten away from believing that God means what He says. God has challenged infidels and has challenged atheists from the very beginning when He said this shall happen, that shall happen when God has predicted the future because He rules.

God is the one who makes and unmakes nations. He causes the rise and the fall of nations. God sets the bounds of their habitation. God has determined that the Russians must be inland, when they're in Russia where they are, and they're bottled up where they don't have the access that they wished they had to the oceans. They have some access but not in a way that they can carry on trade like the British. And as I have mentioned before, trade has been carried on through the sea lanes and by navies. And so we have had the great navies and the great merchant marines and we have had every gate by the seaways from every nation and through and to every nation on the face of this earth. Every important sea gate we possessed, just as God promised Abraham we should. Listen, if we're not Israel then we have the promises that God made to Israel. And, God has kept them. I want to tell you, this booklet, 'United States in Prophecy,' is something that no atheist can refute. It is proof positive that the Bible is the very Word of God! You know, I've asked this question; 'Have you ever really proved that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God?' Now, I have, have you? Well, I've proved it. You know, God's Word stands vindicated - it stands proved.

Now, here is something that is just as certain to happen. We're going to be brought back and God says here in the nineteenth verse of Jeremiah fifty;

"...I will bring Israel again to his habituation, and...In those days, and in that time, says the [Eternal[, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah [the Jewish people], and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I [leave as a remnant." (Jeremiah 50:19-20 RSV)

I tell you, my friends, God is going to punish us in the meantime. And in this punishment, we're going to learn a lesson. And we're going to return to God to the extent, that when people try to find our iniquities and our sins, they won't be able to find them - there just won't be any. And we'll be living like we ought to live. And we'll be living according to the very laws and rules that God set in motion. By which we should have peace, peace in the world, peace in our nation and peace of mind, and in your own mind of every individual. And, we're going to have every blessing of God, we're once again going to be up elevated back at the top of all the nations in the world. With a glory that so far surpasses anything we have now, or ever have had, that your mind can't even conceive it - that is our destiny!

But I want to tell you by the authority of Jesus Christ, and the authority of the Word of God, that so many people seem to mock at, so many people have Bibles and they take it carelessly. 'Oh yes,' they say 'I know the Bible says thus and so, but then you see, here's the way I look at it.' Maybe you don't agree with the Bible. Let me tell you, my friends, you'd better start to do as the Bible itself says, to tremble before the Word of God. This is the very Word of God, and it carries authority.

A New Covenant (Play from 12:50)

Now, here's what's going to happen to us in the future. We've been going through this thirty-first chapter and it comes down to the time of the second coming of Christ, and He's going to make a New Covenant with us at that time. Now, let's begin again, the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, and you'll find the same thing in the eighth chapter of Hebrews in your Bible. Jeremiah 31:31, you can remember that, and you ought to have that marked in your Bible. Get your Bible, do you have it open? You should always have your Bible open when I come on the air. Now open your Bible to the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah and beginning with verse thirty one, that's a very long chapter, there there are forty verses and these verse are fairly long, most of them, and so you find this about a little over half the way through the whole chapter, about two-thirds, and here it is;

"Behold, the days come, saith the [Eternal], that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." (Jeremiah 31:31)

He does not say that the days comes that I'll make a new covenant with the Church. He says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and when God speaks that way, He is speaking nationally, and not spiritually. Although this has a spiritual connection, a spiritually meaning, don't misunderstand me, but I mean He is identifying us as a national nation rather than as a spiritual people. Now, haven't you heard, that the Old Covenant was made with Israel back there? 'But you know we're not Jews,' people say, 'We're not Israel, we're Gentiles.' Oh no, we're not!

If you want the proof of that, it's the strongest proof of the veracity of the Word of God; get this booklet, 'United States in Prophecy,' It'll dumbfound you, it'll certainly startle you, it's the most amazing thing you ever read. I hope by this time that most of you have written in for it, but I've been putting it on the air every day recently, every night that I've been in on these prophecies. You can't understand your Bible unless you have this key. It's a veritable key, you're just ignorant of it otherwise, you cannot understand it. You'd better get this key, you'd better check it, test it for yourself. Put it to the proof, God says 'Prove all things' and you can prove it with your own Bible - our identity. Write for that booklet, 'United States in Prophecy', {1} Precious truths that are changing the lives of many people.

Now, today you hear so much, that the Old Covenant was made with the Jewish people or with Israel as most people think that it is. 'But,' they say that 'We are not Israel, you see, and we're Gentiles.' and they think the New Covenant is made with the Gentiles. Now, I want you to notice that the New Covenant is not a Gentile covenant. You are not under any Gentile religion whatsoever. The apostle Paul did not bring any new and different religion just for Gentiles. So many people seem to think that he did. Well, he didn't. Listen;

"Behold the days come, saith the [Eternal], that I will make a new covenant [here's the New Covenant, this is the New Testament, my friends, who with?] with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:" (Jeremiah 31:31)

Now, my friends, let me just turn real quickly over into the eighth chapter of Hebrews in the New Testament. Will you turn in your own Bible, the eighth chapter, of Hebrews now, in the New Testament and here it is again beginning with verse six;

"But now hath [Christ] obtained a more excellent ministry [this is the ministry of Christ under the New Covenant], a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant [it's a better ministry than Moses had under the Old, a better Covenant that the Old Covenant], which was established upon better promises." (Hebrews 8:6)

Better Promises (Play from 17:15)

Notice, not on any different law, not without a law, not on different conditions, but on better promises! The promises under the New Covenant are so much better. Let me show you what they are;

"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith... (Hebrews 8:7-8)

That is with those to whom it was made, the children of Israel. Why, the fault wasn't with God! Now what do you hear today about this New Covenant? Why, you hear that God made the Old Covenant with Israel; 'But God made a mistake, you know. Isn't that too bad?' To think, a lot of people seem to believe today that God made a mistake. The Ten Commandments were all wrong, the Ten Commandments were saddling a yoke of bondage on people.

You know, a lot of people today, and they're no better than atheists, as a matter of fact, they're a lot worse. An atheist can be proved that he is wrong, and I've known atheists that have admitted it. I remember one man that I forced to admit that God does exist and that his atheism is false but this man said 'Well, I won't worship that God if you do make me admit He exists.' Well, that was his right and privilege; I wasn't called to force him to accept Christ or believe in God, not at all.

But he did admit that God exists. And he had to admit it by the very laws and the facts of science. It was proved to him scientifically and he had to admit the truth. Well I couldn't, you can't make any man accept Christ, you can't make any man repent. That something God has reserved for every person. God will not force you, He will not allow any man to force you, I can't force anyone, nobody can.

But, my friends, listen, here they think that we're Gentiles and that God made a terrible mistake, that the mistake was God's, and that Christ came along and Christ found fault with His Father. Of course, they think it was the Father, and not the one who had became Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ, they think it was the Father that gave the law and the Ten Commandments, but Christ came and saw where His Father's ways were all wrong. And so, Christ did away with His Father's law - the Ten Commandments, and Christ is making a New Covenant through the apostle Paul with the Gentiles, whereby there's no law to keep whatsoever. Now, have you believed that kind of a lie, that kind of tommyrot, my friends? Well then, open your Bible and look into it and believe what you see there with your own eyes.

Look; "...finding fault with them, [God said...]" (Hebrews 8:8)

Why the fault was not God's, you cannot find fault with God, just think of what a blasphemous thing it is to find fault with God and say that the Ten Commandments were wrong. Did God make a mistake? I should say not! Finding fault with them, why? Because they did not keep the commandments, there's the fault.

God said; "...Behold, the days come, saith the [Eternal], [now here it's quoted right back from Jeremiah 31:31, this is a quotation in the New Testament], when I will make a new covenant with [this is in the New Testament now, quoted] with the house of Israel and the house of Judah." (Hebrews 8:8)

Not with the Gentiles, not with the Church, but with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah. I want you to get that, my friends, because all of the covenants and the promises of God, pertain to the people of Israel. That includes the two houses of Israel and Judah, of course.

"Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt [why?]; because they continued not in my covenant [you see, they broke it, He found fault with them, they continued not in my covenant, says God], and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel... [not with the Gentiles, not with the Church, but with the House of Israel. Read it in your own Bible, my friends, this is the tenth verse now, Hebrews the eighth chapter in your New Testament]. I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:" (Hebrews 8:9-10)

And that is the House of Israel. Now, my friends, that is in Hebrews the eighth chapter, in the New Testament. Now, let's get back here to Jeremiah thirty one, that's quoted directly from this, here it is;

"Behold, the days come, saith the [Eternal], that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the [Eternal]: (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

Christ - God Of The Old Testament (Play from 22:24)

Now, actually, this was the pre-incarnate Christ that is doing the speaking. He is the Word, the Logos that was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). All things were made by Him, without Him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:3) He is the mouthpiece, He's the Spokesman, the Logos, the Word that does the speaking. The Bible is the written Word - He is the living Word, the personal Word and He was made flesh and He was named Jesus and He was the Messiah when He was begotten of God through the virgin Mary, and born of the virgin Mary, but begotten of God.

Now, I want you to notice, this was written by Jeremiah and this my friends, was written way back in about the year 600 to 580, 580 to 600 BC by the Prophet Jeremiah, and notice;

"But this shall be the covenant that I [now this is the God of the Old Testament speaking, this will be the covenant that I] will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith..." (Jeremiah 31:33)

This is Yahweh or the Eternal, and falsely translated in some cases as Jehovah or Lord. This is the God of the Old Testament. And it also, is not the Father but the one that became Jesus Christ, and my friends, that's a dumbfounding thing. Oh no, now, you start to say right away that I don't know what I'm talking about. Listen, you're the one that doesn't know what you're talking about. And you had better begin to study your Bible and blow the dust off of it and read quotation after quotation in the New Testament speaking about Jesus Christ and quoting the Old Testament where it speaks of Christ and it is speaking of the God of the Old Testament who is Christ.

Why, that so absolutely fully proved in your Bible! But I don't know any theologian that knows that. I don't suppose it's taught in very many seminaries. No, the learned Dd's don't seem to know much about it, but it's in your Bible, if you just study it a while you'll find it there. Well, that's a challenge, why don't you study it instead of just trying to say I don't know what I'm talking about. Because God has revealed a lot of things to me, my friends, and a lot of you are beginning to realize it, already. Listen;

"...this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days saith the [Eternal] [this is the God of the Old Testament] I will put my law [Now that was written about 600 years before Christ. What was God's law then? What was the law of the God of the Old Testament? It was the Ten Commandments. He didn't say Moses' law. Of course, even the law of Moses came from God and in one place it's called the law of God, that's true, but nevertheless, He's speaking about the spiritual law the Ten Commandments.] I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:33 paraphrased)

I was reading it the way it is in the New Testament by memory just a second there. But this is 600 years before Christ. What was the law of God? That's the law that is going to be written in the minds and in the hearts of all of those that come for the New Covenant. Now what is the better promises of The New Covenant? Turn back once again to Hebrews. Notice, the New Covenant is established upon better promises than the Old? Well now, if you'll turn right over one more chapter in the New Testament, to the ninth chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter nine, and here it is, fifteenth verse;

"For this cause [Christ] is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called [now that's speaking in New Testament language. They that are called], might receive the promise of eternal inheritance [the promise of eternal inheritance]. For where a testament is, there must also be...the death of the testator." [Who is Christ and He died, to make it all possible.] (Hebrews 9:15-16)

Now what is the better promises then? The promise of eternal inheritance. Why, under the Old Covenant, my friends, they were only promised temporary inheritance, not eternal inheritance. That will be a time when they will not say;

"...everyman to his brother ...Know the [Eternal] for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the [Eternal] for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:34)

Why, yes, it is the time I just read to you in the fiftieth chapter, they'll seek for the sins of Israel, the iniquities of Judah, and they'll not be found because God will pardon. We shall have learned our lesson when this New Covenant is made. God is going to punish us and after that, my friends, after we have learned our lessons, and we are going to suffer as no people have ever suffered in these very next few years to learn a lesson if we won't wake up and return to our God and begin to really obey God. And to live by every word of God, and to recognized the authority of the very Word of God, the Bible, instead of saying 'Yes, I know the Bible says so and so, but then, I don't see that's makes any difference and here's the way I look at it.' and all that sort of thing.

We've got some lessons to learn. God is going to punish. We're going to suffer such national punishment and chastisement as has never come to any people or any nation. And do you know why? It is because God Almighty loves us. But, my friends, we are going to learn our lessons. And we're going to return to God when we're punished. Now, I've just scraped the surface, I've only begun, there's so much more coming yet. But we'll have to pick up there in the next program.

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