(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
The World Tomorrow
Kingdom Coming
by Herbert W Armstrong
(PLAY FROM START)
The Government of God is coming, and what is government? Government is based on law; government is based on a basic constitution or a law. And a law or a constitution merely is a way that regulates our lives; it’s a way of life, a life style. And the whole trouble is we have laws that allow wrong life styles and wrong ways of living. And we’re going to have a government that will be based on the law of God which is outflowing love.
Now that’s a little too much for people to get because love has come to mean lust. They change the meaning, so I put it in simple words that a six year old child can understand. The right way of God is give. God is the Great Giver. Jesus Christ said it is more blessed to give than to receive. The other way is get; there are just the two philosophies of life - you have to go one way or the other.
God is working out a purpose here below and for that purpose He has worked out a Master Plan.
Now God called on me to build a college and before I got through I built three colleges. One in Pasadena California, one in Eastern Texas, one in England. However they were built only to teach and to train personnel, including ministers for local churches of God’s Church. But, much more than just ministers. They’re not just ministerial colleges by any means, they’re liberal arts colleges.
And as soon as we had enough personnel we did close up because they had fulfilled their usefulness - the college in England and in Texas - and it's just the one college now still going on, the original college in Pasadena California.
But I had to have when we were building the campus - I needed a master plan. I went to the largest firm of architects and engineers in the world. I said, "I would like to have your services; I want you to help me design the finest campus in the United States." Well, they were a little shocked; because we didn’t have too much then, as a matter of fact most of that campus is built on what was the only part of Pasadena that could have been called completely run down blighted area.
But we bought up those properties. And we have built some of the most beautiful buildings in the United States in their place. And incidentally, just recently for the third time we received the award for having the most beautiful, the best designed, the best landscaped and the best maintained campus in the United States.
If you want to see a better campus, if you don’t believe what I say just come out to Pasadena California. The sightseeing buses go by there every day anyway, that’s one of the stops. So you come out by yourself and look over the campus, and see the beauty in the waterfalls, and the fountains and the statuary and the beautiful modern building; And the finest auditorium on the face of the earth and Ambassador Hall that is now the leading place for the performing arts in Southern California.
Well, we designed a master plan and we built the college according to that master plan. God Almighty didn’t start to build what He’s doing for this purpose until He’d worked out a Master Plan for it. Now behind all was the supreme mind of the Eternal God.
We didn’t come from a lifeless nothing, resident forces without any intelligence. Brain didn’t come from nothing; intelligence didn’t come from the non-intelligence. Life didn’t come from the non-existent or non-life. Creation and life demands the pre-existence of a Creator of supreme mind who could think it out and plan and design.
When I look out the window in my home, and I see the birds, we feed the birds and they come in there every day, just swarms of them. And I see the beautiful trees. And half of our grounds are desert and half are garden and green. And I think the beautiful leaves on the trees, the birds, the animals, the dogs. We have a couple of ferrets. I remember I had a ferret as a pet when I was a boy, eleven years old. We have a couple of ferrets now.
God's Master Mind (Play from 5:42)
They were all planned and thought out and designed. It took a Master Mind to do all of that. You tell me that it was never thought out by a mind, that all these things just happened and I tell you, you insult my intelligence.
That Creator, that mind rules His creation. And He rules it with government and His Government is based on law - on a basic law or constitution - and that law is summed up in the one word love, which is give. Out-flowing love - that is the basis of it all and it is a way of life, and that law - the way of out-flowing love - is the basis of the Government that will rule the whole world.
Today we have laws and the whole lifestyle of all humanity is on the opposite way of get. The opposite way of love is based on get, on competition, on strife, on hate. Not on love, because they’ve lost sight of the word love, they don’t know what it means.
The Greeks have three words for it; you ought to look into that, you ought to study some of the Greek language and see what they mean by 'love.'
Now God is a Creator and God began His creation even before this earth, believe it or not, by creating angels. I wonder how many people know that God created angels before the earth even existed. Well, let me read it to you, here it is in the thirty eighth chapter of the book of Job: "Then the Eternal God answered Job out of the whirlwind" (Job 38:1). Began to talk to him, that’s in Job thirty-eight, that’s verse one. Job chapter thirty-eight now verse four, God said to him "Where were you Job when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have any understanding." (Job 38:4 paraphrased)
Now Job had built a great building, the greatest building on the earth and it remained the greatest building and the tallest and the highest building on earth until the building of the Woolworth tower in New York; and that building was the great pyramid in Egypt. I’ve been in it, I’ve been all through it, through its chambers, the king’s chamber, the queen’s chamber and the tunnels and so on.
Job was not the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh of Egypt hired Job to plan it, and design it and build it. So we say that the Pharaoh built the great pyramid. Well, maybe you can say I built the campus in Pasadena, but I employed architects and we employed contractors to do the work. I didn’t do the work, I had something to do with the planning of the campus and of our auditorium. I designed, it was my idea to have the great pillars rising up seven stories high of the auditorium out of an artificial lake. That was my idea and their architects went along with it and they were the largest firm of architects and engineers in the world. They built some of the biggest skyscrapers, not only in Los Angeles but other cities all over the world, even over in the Middle East, and some of the oil rich countries. They are a very large company of architects and engineers.
But Job had built a building; let me show you something more about it. So God is talking to him in the language of one who’s familiar with building. He says, "Where [on] are the foundations thereof [the earth that is], fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof [now He’s talking about a corner stone, who laid the corner stone]; when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:6-7)
The only sons of God at that time were the angels. They’re sons of God only by creation because He created them; they were not begotten or born sons of God as human beings can be, as Jesus Christ was. But they were sons of God and are here called sons of God and they are also in the first chapter and the sixth {1} verse, and in the second chapter, in the beginning of the second chapter of Job.
However, in the first chapter of the book of Hebrews you’ll find that they are not the begotten sons of God in that sense. Now, when the morning stars or the angels sang together and shouted for joy at the completion of the earth.
The building Job had built was one where the cornerstone was the capstone; the last stone laid, and in the ordinary building the cornerstone is laid first in the foundation before you begin to build the real building on top of it. But Job had built a building where the cornerstone was the final last stone laid, and apparently it never was laid, there is no evidence that the final top stone had ever been laid. And there is a reference to it in the Bible, and where Christ is called the capstone or the cornerstone that the builders rejected and wouldn’t accept. (I Peter 2:7)
Earth the Abode of Angels (Play from 11:09)
Now, God created the earth and He created it as the abode of angels first, not of man, that was long before man was created, that might have been millions or billions of years ago. No one knows, the Bible doesn’t say, it does not give you the number of years; it doesn’t go into those details.
But now turn over to second Peter for just a moment. There were angels, and we read here in second Peter the second chapter and the fourth verse that "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, [and the word hell is translated from the Greek word Tartaroo, the only place in all the Bible that word is used, it does not refer to any hell that people can ever go to, but a special kind of hell or place of restraint for angels it’s a different word altogether] and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment" (II Peter 2:4). So angels sinned.
Now over here in Jude [6] you will read that the angels kept not their first estate, I’m not going to turn to that I want to move along. But on the throne over that whole time God set a super archangel on the throne to rule over the angels, and He set His own government, the government of God. Now it had to have a foundation, a constitution of the government, a basic law and that law is the law of God which is the way of love; the way of outgoing concern toward others and not incoming lust for yourself.
Now in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah you read a little about the one that was set on the throne. And beginning here with verse 12, it says "how art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer” [Lucifer was the name of that super archangel. He was a cherub, notice, O Lucifer] son of the morning [and it means a morning star or a light bringer, one who brings light]. How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations [or a better translation, how art thou, who did weaken the nations, cut down to the ground], for thou has said in thine heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on, also on the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north:" (Isaiah 14:12-13). That’s where God’s throne is, in the sides of the north, on the mount of the congregation.
He had a throne, he was going to ascend from it and go to heaven. He was under heaven, he was on the earth, his throne was on the earth, let’s read a little further. He said, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds" [so he was below the clouds, his throne was on the earth. There was a throne on the earth and an archangel was sat on that throne and he was given the Government of God to administer. And he had an administration. "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds," he said]; I will be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:14), or I’ll make myself in the place of God, that’s what he said.
Now we see a little more about him over here in Ezekiel the twenty-eighth chapter. It speaks of this same being, beginning with verse fourteen. "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezekiel 28:14). This archangel was a cherub.
There are three kinds of angels; ordinary angels, Seraphs, or Seraphim which is the plural, and Cherubs or Cherubim, which is the plural for Cherubs. Now a Cherub is not a little child that you would see on a valentine or something like that, a Cherub is a super archangel next in power to any created being that ever existed next to God. "Thou art the anointed Cherub that covereth", his wings had covered the very throne of God, you read that back in the twenty-fifth {2} chapter of Exodus.
"Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. [Now let’s see,] thou art the anointed Cherub that covereth, I have set thee so, and He said, Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee." (Ezekiel 28:14,15 paraphrased)
God created a perfect archangel; God showed him the right way to live. He’d been at the very throne of God; he’d been trained there, just like we train ministers at Ambassador College and then we send them out into the field to pastor a church. He’d been trained at headquarters and then sent out to this earth to administer the Government of God. But when he got here he decided to turn against it. So you read here in verse 17, "Thine heart was lifted up," let’s see "Thou was perfect in thy ways till iniquity was found in thee (verse 15), now in verse 17 it says, "thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness and I will cast thee to the ground." (Ezekiel 28:17)
Well he tried to ascend to Heaven but he was cast back down to the earth. As a result of all of that sin they brought chaos to the physical earth. They were put here to improve the earth to finish the creation of the earth, the finishing touches God left for them to put on. But instead of that they had brought confusion and wasteness, and emptiness and decay to this earth. This Lucifer then became Satan and God changed his name to Satan, which means enemy or adversary, or competitor, that’s what it means and he’s all for competition, in the sense of hostile competition. There might be a kind of competition that is alright but not hostile competition.
Satan Still on His Throne (Play from 17:16)
He became Satan. Satan is a spirit being, he’s not human like we are, he doesn’t have to breathe air, he doesn’t have a heart pumping blood he has self-containing life, he is an immortal spirit being and he will live forever and ever, he has immortal life.
Now that Satan is still on that throne, believe it or not, to this day but people can’t see him - they don’t realize who is on the throne of the earth today and it is not God Almighty. God is allowing Satan to be there.
Alright now let’s go right on with the theme here. He’s still on that throne but the Government of God has been un-operative ever since he changed and ever since he quit administering it. And so the earth came into a state of decay. Now you go back to the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse and the second verse. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was [or became] without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:2). Or that is over the fluid surface of the oceans.
The earth became in a state of confusion, without form and void as it says in the Bible as translated out of the Hebrew words that Moses wrote originally. That was written by Moses in the Hebrew language. Just all we have is the translation in the English language and the Hebrew words are 'tohu' and 'bohu' and they mean chaotic, confusion, waste, and empty or decayed; that’s what they mean and that’s what happened to the earth. And decay came to the earth as a result of that.
Now God had a purpose, and God’s purpose included something that had to do with mankind. I’m coming to that in just a minute but first I want you to notice the one hundred and fourth Psalm, one hundred and fourth Psalm and verse thirty. Here’s something very few people realize ever happened. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit" (Psalm 104:30). God sends His Spirit which is the power that does the creating. Christ is the Word who speaks and it is done. There’s a Psalm that says He spake and it was done (Psalm 33:9). "Thou sendeth forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:30). God had renewed the face of the earth. The face of the earth had become devastated - it was in that condition.
Now let’s go right back to the first chapter of Genesis. And notice again the last part of that second verse, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:2) It was all waste and empty and it was full of darkness - the light had gone out - Satan had brought darkness. And also he brought spiritual darkness which means a lack of truth, and there was darkness but God is the author of light, not darkness.
Then God said "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3) and there was light, and then in six days God remade the surface of the earth, He renewed he face of the earth, in order to put man on it. Now He created the fish in the sea, then He created the birds in the air and then He created the land animals.
Coming down to the sixth day, and then coming to verse 26, after He’d created the cattle after the cattle kind, other animals after their kind - like horses after the horse kind, dogs after the dog kind - then God said "Let us make man after our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). In other words let us make man after the God kind. He made man after the God kind.
Man was made in the image of God; man was made to have a contact with God. Man was made to have intelligence that animals don’t have, and very few people know why that is because God put a spirit in man that does not exist in animals. And that spirit imparts the power of intellect to the physical brain. I don’t have time to go into that, but in the second chapter of Genesis and verse seven. "And the Eternal God formed man of the dust of the ground, [He didn’t make us like He had angels out of spirit; He formed us out of matter, out of the dust of the ground] ...and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). Not an immortal soul - there’s nothing in the Bible that says that - a living soul. Man was made from the dust of the ground but he had the spirit in him and that spirit needs another Spirit to go with it.
Now then, the man that He created, and He created a wife for him, so He created both a man and a woman. But the man is mentioned because man was made to be the head of the family household as Christ is the Head of the Church; people don’t believe that today either. Adam was the progenitor of all of the human race; he was the progenitor of humanity, of the world. He was the start of the world.
The Two Trees (Play from 23:12)
Now in the Garden of Eden were the two trees. You read on just a couple verses after where I was; "And the Eternal God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Eternal God to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and that was good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:8,9). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is the tree of creating knowledge in your own mind, deciding for yourself what is good and what is evil.
Now here was this Lucifer, now called Satan and he was right there, he’s still on the throne. However, he’s invisible and he wanted to get to Adam and he was smart enough and shrewd enough to know he could get to the man through his wife. Now, Adam made a choice. Adam had to make a choice for all humanity! Here was this Lucifer, was sitting on that throne administering the Government of God, he had made that Government un-operative, he had turned to the opposite way.
Now, here was a man who could have said, "I will reject the way Satan has gone, I will accept the Government of God, I will administer to my children who will be the world". Instead Satan was so clever that he got to Eve and she took her husband by the nose and led him right along and she took of the tree of good and evil. In other words she took to herself the manufacturing of the knowledge, the producing of the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. She took of the tree of good and evil, she took that knowledge to herself and gave it to her husband and he went right along, the poor sap, and he did just what his wife led him into.
How many husbands are going right along with their wives today and letting their wives lead them? Well, I don’t know that every wife is going to lead her husband off the wrong way but certainly old mother Eve did.
Now, Adam made that decision for all posterity, he was the founder and the head of the human race, he was the head of all humanity. And he made the decision for all humanity.