The World Tomorrow

Why Were You Born? - Part 1

by Herbert W Armstrong

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Well greetings friends. This is Herbert W Armstrong with the good news of the world tomorrow. Why were you born? Very few people ever stop to wonder if they were actually born for a purpose. Did you ever think about it? Most people just take their existence for granted. They know that they have to eat, wear clothes, have a place to live, and they know that they like to get some pleasure out of life. And therefore, of necessity it seems they work in one way or another to obtain the money for these things and the things that they think they want.

But the main idea seems to be to just pass away this limited lifetime that we have in the most pleasing possible way we can, thinking mainly of the pleasing sensations of each passing moment. Of course there is enough vanity and selfishness in some people to have a desire to be successful in life. Now there are seven basic rules or principles of success and the very first one is to have a goal, a purpose, an aim in life - very few have any. That’s why very few ever make a success.

But how did you come to be here on this earth? The Almighty Creator not only created this earth, the planets, the heavens, He also created all that exists upon the earth. He is your Creator - you as an individual. He actually planned, He designed you, He caused you to be born.

Now listen: do you for one moment suppose that a God great enough to have planned, have designed, have created, imparted life to all that is living, all that we see; do you suppose that He is unaware of your personal existence? A God with the all-encompassing intelligence - the limitless power to have designed and created all of the millions of different forms of animal and plant life, the myriad stars and heavenly bodies and to have created force and energy and everything that moves, is a God of such infinite capacity that He is very much aware of you - you as a person, you as one individual and of your personal life.

Almighty God planned and designed this earth and all life upon it for a purpose. Yes, there is a purpose being worked out here below and your life and what you do with it during these few years that it is allowed to exist on this planet that we call earth - it's a vital part of God’s overall purpose. God Almighty did not permit you to be born for just no purpose at all; you were not an accident. Then don’t you think that it’s about time that you begin to stop right where you are and to know something about that purpose?

Some of us fix in our own minds a goal of our own. Some people are ambitious - they desire to be successful and they do have some goal or aim in life. And usually it is, in fact, only a sort of a temporary goal. It’s really an incidental purpose or aim. Now after a while they reach it and then they are left empty, frustrated.

It’s like a girl who was a freshman here at Ambassador College. It was reported to me by the dean of student personnel and the student body president that this young lady was in a state of depression - that she wasn’t doing very well in her classes, not as well as she had at first. And appeared to be bored. I called her to my office for an interview. She admitted that she was bored, frustrated, but why? "Well," she explained, "for the past two years I’ve had just one goal in life - just one aim. And that was to be able to come out here to Pasadena to Ambassador College. Well I’m here. Now that goal is accomplished. And there just doesn’t seem to be any further purpose in life. I haven’t anything now to look forward to."

Well my friends, there is only one true permanent overall goal in life for every one of us; one purpose for your life. It’s the only real purpose for every life. And the apostle Paul expressed it in Philippians the third chapter and from the eleventh on to the fourteenth verses – he said:

"If by any means [that] I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, [if] that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Jesus Christ. Brethren [He said], I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before [yes he was looking toward the future], I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:11-14)

That high calling, my friends was to attain to the resurrection of the dead, or in other words to be born into the Kingdom of God. In other words to be saved, to achieve salvation - just different ways of saying the same thing.

But my friends, the difficulty with that is that almost no one seems to understand what it means to be finally born again. What it means to enter into the Kingdom of God, which is the very divine family of God, because God is a family - a kingdom. One divine person is the Father of that divine creating, most high ruling family. Jesus Christ is the divine Son. There’s a Father and a Son, there’s a family relationship. The true church is the affianced bride to be married to the Son, and is pictured as the woman that is to be married to the Son at His second coming. And all of its members are spirit-begotten children of God.

Man Is a Free Moral Agent (Play from 6:12)

Yes it’s a family. There’s a family relationship - children, husband, wife, father, a family. It’s a family matter; a family that shall grow into a vast world-ruling kingdom! Now if we poor human mortals become convicted of our transgressions of the Father’s law, if we realize that God is not only the Creator, but He rules His creation, that He set every force, every energy every law in motion. That He upholds, He sustains this universe that He created and that God is the supreme, all powerful, ruler back of it all.

But that God in His ruling has set before mankind a choice. That God has made us deliberately free moral agents and that He has set; "See I set before you this day on the one hand life and on the other hand death." (Deuteronomy 30:19 paraphrased)

On one hand the right way that God has laid down in His law that will bring blessings and lead to everlasting life, on the other way a way that will seem right to a man that will bring curses and finally death. And God said "Choose!" but He said choose life. Now the very fact that God said choose, and you’ll read that back In Deuteronomy the thirtieth chapter. The very fact that God commanded the man to choose means that God will not interfere with the way he chooses and that God made him a free moral agent. That God intended by His great rulership that man must make a decision. And man has made that decision and every man who ever lived has made that decision and every man who ever lived - but one - has made the decision to follow his own way.

That one was Jesus Christ and from the very beginning He made the decision to obey God. And when Jesus was being tempted of Satan the devil - taken up on the mount before He ever preached a word - the great temptation was whether He would obey the devil, obey His own impulses, His own appetites, the lust of the flesh pride and vanity that the devil appealed to, or whether He would repress those things and obey God. And whether He really believed that the government of God, the law of God was good - that it was right - and whether He would restrain Himself from any way that might look or seem right to Him. Anything that might feel good, that might appeal to Him, any lust or appetite or impulse that might come to Him; as they do to all of us. And that He would restrain Himself and do what with His mind He saw and knew was right - to obey God and He obeyed God.

And then He turned around and gave Satan an order and said, "Get thee hence" (Matthew 4:10), and the devil obeyed and slunk away and Christ was the Master. And Christ proved that He could give orders, but He also proved that He would give them according to the Word of God - according to the law of God. And Jesus Christ said "I have not spoken of myself, the Father that sent me gave me a commandment what I should say and speak." (John 12:49 paraphrased)

He even spoke what the Father told Him. He said, "Of myself I can do nothing, it is the Father that dwelleth in me", said Jesus Christ, "that doeth the works." (John 14:10 paraphrased)

And then again Jesus said, "...I have kept my Father’s commandments" (John 15:10). He obeyed God and proved that He could rule, but He would rule according to the law of God the Father. There can be no disharmony in God’s kingdom.

And so Christ was then after He died raised from the dead and He was born a son of God by a resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4) and my friends, He was the first born of many brethren (Romans 8:29), and the purpose of your life here on this earth is that you be one of those brethren; that you be one who belongs to Christ. That you become a co-heir with Him to share with Him His inheritance and He is the heir of all things - all this world and everything in it. He is going to come again as the supreme ruler. The King of Kings over every nation on the face of this earth.

You were born for a purpose. And most of you have been going along just existing. Just trying to keep body and soul together and keep shelter over your head somehow and keep yourself clothed and fed and to get a little bit of enjoyment and pleasure as you pass the time away. Wasting your time in this morbid boredom of an existence that has been the life of so many of you; and yet God had a purpose in your living and most of you have missed it. Well it isn’t too late yet and it is about time that a lot of us begin to wake up.

Time To Wake Up (Play from 10:39)

Now if we poor human mortals become convicted of our transgressions of the Father’s law and if we have truly repented and through Christ as personal Savior have been reconciled to God the Father. And if we have been begotten of His spirit, then my friends, there is an overall supreme goal in your life and in your Christian living toward which your life must be dedicated and devoted.

Now first of all, the supreme purpose of life is that we wake up. That we come to realize the way we’ve been living and the way the world is going. We’ve lived the way that seemed right to us yes, and we have followed our own impulses, our own passions, our own desires, and we have followed the way of other people. We have followed the way of the world. We have followed the way of the customs, the traditions - just the way everybody else does things.

Now why do we do it? Well now I started out through most of my life and till God had struck me down in a different manner, of course, than He did the apostle Paul. But when He was calling me, He began striking me right down - right at age thirty and when God opened my eyes and instructed me in His way I had my eyes opened. I came to see the truth, as God revealed it to me.

But before that as a boy I grew up observing Easter, for instance, and Christmas and all these things. Sure I use to observe Valentine day and why? Just because everybody else did, because my father and mother taught me to as a little boy and why did they do it? Well because everybody else did and they were nice fine people, they certainly were. I still have great love and respect for all of them. And yes they did the way that seemed right. They didn’t think there was anything wrong about it. And why did they do it? Well because the people before them had done it. In other words we are just like a lot of sheep, because we follow the crowd, because we follow along that broad way that is leading to destruction. We never stop to realize and to think it might be the way that is leading to destruction after all.

It’s like a lot of sheep, you know, on the way to the slaughter. Right in the slaughter house you’ll see them going down the pen, they are going to their death. But they follow the other sheep - they don’t seem to know why or what or anything about it. Listen my friends, God gave you a mind - God knows all about you. You were born for a purpose and a mind was put in you that these dumb sheep don’t have. Why should we be like sheep? We shouldn’t, we have minds we have abilities to know better. Let’s wake up.

Now listen, most professing Christians have little or no conception of the purpose in their life. First it is to be awakened to this condition and that we come to realize the way we’ve been going. That we become willing to turn around and go the other way - that we repent. Let the wicked forsake His way, that’s the way to find God. And the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to God. Because God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not like our thoughts or ours like His (Isaiah 55:7-9). And His ways are right, His ways are perfect and the way of God - the law of God is the way that is good for us.

I don’t know why it is that there are some commercial interests in this world that to sell their products will pick on the very slogans that ought to be the slogans of the very truth of Christianity. ‘Good for me – good for you.’ Yes the truth of God is good for you and good for me, but some of the things that use a slogan like that may not always be quite so good as some people would like to believe. Isn’t it about time that we wake up? Yes I think it is.

The Way To Blessings (Play from 14:12)

So God laid down the way that has blessings. He laid down before us the way of everlasting life - the way of the full abundant life. Now God created five senses within us all and naturally we like to have those senses pleased. Well now that in itself is not wrong. God intended the five senses to bring us very much pleasure and to bring us a full abundant life and to make life really worth living. But listen - there is a right and a wrong way; a legal way that is according to God’s law and an illegal way that will bring you harm and dissipation that will destroy in the use of every one of those five senses. And there is a nature in you that pulls you down just like the power of gravity will pull anything down toward the earth and it will pull you down toward destruction. And it is always making you seem to think that the use of your five senses - that is an elicit use and that is a lustful use is the way that will please you. Yes it will give you a fleeting pleasure, surely, but it is also like the boomerang - it is going to come right back at you and it is going to strike you dead.

Now there is another use of the five senses that is legal and you will get far greater pleasure and happiness and you don’t get it just for a fleeting moment. You will have it permanently and you’ll have it for eternity if you would only find it. God tells us to sharpen our senses in order that we may discern right from wrong and truth from error. Yes but why don’t we do it?

Now God’s purpose then is first to bring you to see the right way. To bring you to repentance of the wrong way to bring you to Jesus Christ and to be reconciled to God through Christ, but then, my friends, you’ve just begun. Then you are just beginning to live, then He will put within you His Holy Spirit and then you begin a Christian life.

And now what is the goal? Well let’s just read a few scriptures that most of you have probably never thought very much about. In the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation – Revelation five and verse ten we find here the people that finally attain to this salvation and to the resurrection that the apostle Paul spoke of - that’s the only real worthwhile goal in life - they are singing a new song and they are saying here, "...thou art worthy... [of Christ]" (Revelation 5:9). And then in verse ten, Revelation 5:10:

"And hast made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth." (Revelation 5:10)

Listen - God is a ruler and God is a family. God is a kingdom. God is a creator kingdom – He created a mineral kingdom, He created a plant kingdom, He created an animal kingdom and a human kingdom. An angel kingdom and the kingdom high above all is the Kingdom of God – the God Kingdom - the God family.

And God is not limited, my friends, to just one person. The Father is a person, the Son is a person. And listen the Holy Spirit, my friends, can come into you. The Holy Spirit is not limited to being one person, but the Holy Spirit in you can impregnate you and endow you with eternal life till you can become one divine person. And can impregnate me and my mind, and change my mind, and renew it in meeting with my mind - impregnating my mind - enlivening, energizing my mind and giving it eternal life until I can and shall become one divine person. And we are to be glorified together with Jesus Christ. We are the co-heirs with Him of all things. We are to be on His level - we are to be resurrected up to His very level. He is coming as the King of Kings - He is coming as the ruler over this earth. God is ruler as well as creator.

And the Father has turned over all of the rule and the executive branch of His government to Jesus Christ. Now we, if we are His are to be lesser kings and priests under Him. "...hast made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign [where? Not up in heaven], we shall reign on the earth." (Revelation 5:10) That’s in your Bible - Revelation chapter five and verse ten.

Overcoming (Play from 18:22)

Now go back here to the second chapter of Revelation. Revelation 2:26-27 Jesus Christ is speaking.

"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end" (Revelation 2:26), You hear a lot of talking today there are no works, no works. Jesus says "I work and my Father works" (John 5:17). Jesus came to do a certain job when He was here on earth and He did it. And, my friends, I want to show you that the church is His body doing the work of God today and that is the purpose of the church.

Now, "...he that overcometh and keepeth my works..." (Revelation 2:26). Are you going to listen to Jesus or you going to listen to the siren song of those misguided people today that think there aren’t any works today? Contrary to what Jesus said somebody has it all wrong. Now either Jesus was mistaken or a lot of people today are mistaken. You better read your Bible, my friends, because it’s going to judge you. And here it is:

"...and keepeth my works unto the end [you’ve got to keep it up too], to him will I give power over the nations: …he shall rule them [the nations] with a rod of iron; (Revelation 2:26-27).

If we overcome. Now that means you have to overcome your own self, you have to root out the bad habits. You have to get rid of the error in your beliefs that is in your mind. Jesus came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying "Repent and believe the gospel". You have to believe the truth. The gospel is the truth. It’s prophetic - it’s the truth of what is going to happen.

Now if you overcome, if you keep His works - that means you grow in grace and in knowledge, you develop in character until the end - He will give you power over the nations. Why of course, and you shall rule them as a lesser ruler under Him. He is the King of Kings. Who are the other kings on the earth going to be? When Jesus Christ comes in our generation and our life time, who are the other kings going to be under Him? They’ll be those in the Kingdom of God.

Listen, my friends, when Jesus Christ comes there’ll be no human government on earth. There will be humans on earth, but divine persons will be ruling and governing the human persons and there’ll be no human government.

What’s wrong with the world today? Why are we having wars? Why are we in fear of continents being wiped out by hydrogen bombs, guided missiles? Why are we in such a condition today?

Just one reason, my friends, one reason and one only – human government. Because men have defied the rule of God, the laws of God - which is the way to peace and the way to joy and the way to happiness. And we are going the way that seems right to a man; the way of human passion, the way of greed, the way of vanity, and the way that seems so right; the way of a lot of sheep just following any leader. That’s the way we’re going and it is bringing a lot of heartaches and a lot of headaches too and a lot of physical suffering and a lot of spiritual agony to this whole earth.

Now again here in Revelation 3:21, Jesus again speaking to the church. The very last church, the lukewarm church right down in our time and the time yet future.

"To him that overcometh..." (Revelation 3:21). You have to overcome your own self and everything that is wrong and evil in human nature. And there is plenty wrong with you, if you will admit it and you will have to admit it or you’re just going to, well you’re going to reap the whirlwind. You’re sowing the wind; you’ll reap the whirlwind. And you are going to reap a lot of curses and a lot of evil.

But "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne..." (Revelation 3:21), Jesus is going to sit on the throne of David right here on this earth and rule all nations of this earth. And He says He’ll grant, if you overcome to sit with Him on His throne, even as He also did overcome - "I also overcame," past tense and "am now", present tense "...set down with my Father in his throne." (Revelation 3:21)

That’s up in heaven. The Father’s throne is in heaven. Jesus' throne - the throne of David - is on this earth. Well now there you are.

Why You Were Born (Play from 22:19)

Now, my friends, if we’re going to rule with Christ, we have to qualify. We have to overcome, we have to grow in grace and in knowledge and we have to prepare ourselves. Now what is the purpose then of this life? Why were you born? You were born to be converted; you were born to start under God obeying His commandments, to get into such close communion with Him and to be led by His spirit so that your whole life will be changed.

You are to be born by the word of God, so you must begin to study that word until it just comes in and begins to permeate your very mind and your life. Until it becomes your life, so that you can be like the apostle Paul said when he said, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless [Paul said] I live; [he wasn’t dead actually, it was just the passions and desires and impulses that are wrong in human nature in him that was crucified]; Nevertheless [he said], I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:" (Galatians 2:20)

And that’s the kind of life you’ll have to live. And if you are and if you follow Christ’s footsteps, you read the Bible, you’re in contact with God and with your High Priest Jesus Christ, there at the right hand of God, as your High Priest; continually through much prayer and you are being changed by the power of God you will be then ready to be changed totally from mortal to immortal. Changed in composition from matter to spirit. That which is born of flesh is flesh and flesh is composed of matter; sixteen elements of matter.

But Jesus said that which is born of the spirit is spirit and you shall then be spirit. And you shall be glorified and then, my friends, you’ll be given the rule over the world. But like Jesus, He had to first prove that He would obey the laws of God, that He would carry out God’s government, that He would be merely an instrument of God carrying out the laws of God on this earth and enforcing them. You will have to prove that in your Christian life. Now that means you have to overcome your own self, you have to root out the bad habits, you have to get rid of the error of your beliefs that is in your mind. You have to believe the truth.

You know when you come to understand what the Christian life is for, you wonder where do these people get any idea of a death bed repentance? They seem to think that the better way is the way of sin, which is the transgression of God’s law. So you must get all the enjoyment out of life you can and then cheat God at the last minute. Listen, the only way of happiness and peace that you can know is the way of having God’s spirit in you and following God’s way. It is the way of a happy, a peaceful, a joyous and abundant well-filled life right here and now. And any other way has a curse and is just going to end up in death and destruction.

Now notice real quickly I Corinthians 6:2-3. "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge in the smallest matters? Know ye not that we [we who are Christians] shall judge angels? how much more the things that pertain to this life?" (I Corinthians 6:2-3)

Yes we have to get a little practice and experience in this life. We are going to judge angels. Now angels are much superior to us, they are much more powerful.

Now turn over to Revelation 20:4 and 6, where you read here the vision of John: "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them [who are these?]: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus[these are the people that kept the word of God and the commandments of God and were killed for it, lost their lives, the martyrs] and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads ... and they lived and reigned [yes they’re kings and ruling, now that’s the purpose of the Christian life to train you to rule and to reign] ...they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:4)

We are going to reign on the earth - it will be a thousand years. Now the rest of the dead won’t live anymore until the thousand years are finished, this is the first resurrection, but now verse six. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: [they that are Christ’s at His coming], they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years." (Revelation 20:6)

My friends are you putting your life to the purpose for which it was given you? Are you learning God’s way, God’s law - conforming to it, and or are you so busy in this world’s entertainments, amusements, the shows on television and all that sort of thing, that you are neglecting God - that you are not overcoming. Are you throwing away the precious life that can be given immortal life and all eternity in the very Kingdom of God? I tell you it’s time to wake up.

Listen, my friends, you want to keep close to God. Get the correspondence course, the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. There is no enrollment fee there is no tuition whatsoever. But it will take at least a half hour and you should give it an hour or more of your time every day. Unless you are willing to do that, don’t send in for it. And so this is Herbert W Armstrong saying, "Good bye friends, until tomorrow."