(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
The World Tomorrow
Outline of Prophecy Part One
by Herbert W Armstrong
(PLAY FROM START)
Well greetings friends, this is Herbert W Armstrong with the good news of the world tomorrow, continuing now with an outline of prophecy. What's going to happen in the world from now on? I've been showing you that all Bible prophecies are coordinated in the book of Revelation; how about one third of the Bible is devoted to prophecy. Prophecies begin in the book of Genesis and they go through the Bible to the book of Revelation, which is very largely prophecy.
You find prophecy scattered all between in both Old and New Testaments. In the book of Revelation, John - who was used to write it, or record it to writing - records the prophecies in what he saw in vision. The book of Revelation contains also the word of God and the direct testimony, or words, of Jesus Christ, beside the prophecies. But most of the prophecies are recorded in what John saw in vision, and the main prophecy of the book of Revelation is, or begins, in chapter six. But when we come there we find it's all symbols.
So we remember that Jesus Christ is the revelator, not John. John is not John the divine or John the revelator at all. John was merely the one who recorded it to writing. Jesus is the revelator, the one who reveals the prophecy. He is the one who was found worthy to open the seals and reveal the meaning. But when He opens the seals, as we find them being opened here in chapter six, we find the first was a white horse and the second was a red horse, and the third was a black horse, and the fourth was a pale horse, and it's just symbolic.
And so it still is not made plain, but we find that just as Jesus explained the parables that He spoke which were used to cloud the meaning, in which the people did not understand, and which the apostles, or the disciples, really did not understand until they came to Him and told Him they didn't understand. Then He revealed the meaning to them in plain language. He said "...to the others it is not given to understand and therefore I speak in a language they do not understand, but to you, He said, it is given to understand" (Matthew 13:10-11 paraphrased). And He explained in plain language.
So it is my friends, and the prophecies have been closed and sealed until now, as you read in the twelfth chapter of Daniel. And yet, even now, we read in Daniel twelve, that the righteous would be able to understand (Daniel 12:10); knowledge will now be increased but the wicked will not understand. And the righteous are those who are keeping the commandments of God, and those who are obedient to God. And the wicked are those who transgress against God and try to cover it up by calling grace, license and lasciviousness, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, (Jude 4) and there is a great deal of that!
The Four Horsemen (Play from 3:05)
Well now we find that Jesus does explain these symbols with the same identical story, but in plain language, in His prophecy on the Mount of Olives, found in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, the thirteenth of Mark, and the twenty-first chapter of Luke, and so we've been going into that. And now we have covered quite a little ground already.
First, He said, would come false prophets. That's that white horse. It is not the second coming of Christ, but the false prophets, or preachers, preaching that Jesus is the Christ; saying, as Jesus said, "...'I am Christ.' [saying that He is Christ] and shall deceive [the] many.” (Matthew 24:5)
Well we've had those ever since the time of Christ. Next He said wars. Yes, ever since the time of Christ, but all of these things, as I have explained, growing more and more intense and continuing down to the coming of Christ, accelerating in their intensity. And so at the time of the end He says there would be world war: "..kingdom against kingdom... nation against nation..." [in world war] (Matthew 24:7)
We have reached that time now. We are in the stage between World War II and World War III. We know that there are at least three world wars because we have already had two of them, and one is yet to come. We haven't come to the final war that is foretold and prophesied to take place right at the very coming of Christ, the battle at Armageddon, and the battle of the Great Day of God Almighty, as it really is. We haven't come to that yet. Everybody would talk about an Armageddon and all that sort of thing; well we haven't come to that yet.
But we are down in the approximate time of the end. We are in the world wars. We're between World War II and World War III and the whole world is now getting ready for World War III. How is it coming? From whom is it coming? When is it coming? What will be the nature of it? We're going to find out. Just keep your ears open and your eyes open and get your Bible and open it and look into it as we go through it, and you're going to see.
Now then, along this time, after the series of world wars start, and war is the second, or the red horse of Revelation six. Next Jesus said would come famine and then pestilence. Well the famine is the black horse, and the pestilence, or disease epidemic, is the pale horse of Revelation. There are your four horsemen.
Now we've been going into that and we have seen that this time of famine and of drought, of course, that will bring on famine and the disease epidemics that will follow, is described in the first chapter of Joel. And I've been showing you that that will come just prior to an invasion of our country, which is the fifth thing to happen, which is the Great Tribulation.
Now one of the factors of the Great Tribulation will be an invasion of our country and our people. That's only part of it because there's going to be a great deal more of it than that. But that's the way it will start and the way it will affect us, and it will come. This invasion, my friends will come at a time when America and Britain, yes and Canada - you people up in Canada, this affects you too - when our people, have been so weakened by universal drought, with the sun just burning up our pastures and the sheep and the cattle having no pasture - perplexed, bewildered because there is no pasture. And the disease epidemic that will follow.
Repentance is Needed (Play from 6:33)
And I have read to you in the fifth chapter, I believe it is here, of Ezekiel's prophecy, how one third of our population is going to die of this disease epidemic and the famine. One third of our people. It's going to be very, very terrible. Now I also have read to you my friends, since the invasion is to come at approximately the same time, that God does promise protection to many of our people if they will repent of their sins; if they will turn to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and if, as Jesus said, they will "watch... and pray always." (Luke 21:36)
We're not doing that. Our land is filled with churches, my friends, and we make mention of God in our prayers, but as the prophecies say, we do not put our heart in our prayers. We are full of a form of godliness, but we deny too much, the power thereof, as Paul wrote to Timothy (II Timothy 3:5). And there is a great deal of that, or a great deal of the formal ceremony, but I want to tell you people are not putting their hearts in it.
And I read to you in the preceding program what God said for us to do, and if this nation would do it, I tell you this invasion would never come; where He says to "...sanctify a fast [and], call a solemn assembly (Joel 2:15): And He said to "come with fasting and with weeping and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments...Blow the trumpet in Zion..." (Joel 2:12,13,15 paraphrased)
Zion, of course, really means the church from a spiritual sense. But in a more literal, a more national sense, it refers to America.
"Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly," You find that in the very {1}second chapter of Joel where it is telling about what's going to happen and the time of the Day of the Eternal - or the Day of the Lord coming.
Then, "Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people..." (Joel 2:15) [and cry out]. "And [let them] say,{2} spare thy people, O Lord [and], give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them..." (Joel 2:17)
And if we do, God says He will turn and repent and He will prevent this thing from coming. My friends, there is a reason, not because of any goodness on our part. Not because we have been so good, or anything of the kind, but there is a reason why God, who brings about the outcome of all wars, has seen to it that we have won World War I and World War II, and I want to tell you, my friends, as a minister of Jesus Christ speaking by His authority, that the United States is just about through winning wars, unless and until we are going to turn to our God who determines the outcome of wars. He fights our battles.
A Revival Needed (Play from 9:21)
God Almighty fought the battles for His people in the Old Testament. He won the wars. There was a time when three allied nations, three allied armies were coming down on Judah, and they were totally unarmed and unprepared. And their king sought God in prayer and God said, "Arm your people with their hymn books and start singing hymns, and you start without any guns or swords or anything of that sort, just marching right down towards your enemy that is coming against you." God says that you won't have to fight in this battle, that God will fight your battle for you (II Chronicles 20).
And so they did. In faith, they obeyed. And you know, when the Jewish people, Judah, got down to the place where these soldiers were - the invading soldiers - they found that they had turned against each other. They had fallen out among themselves, the three different nations that had allied, and allies nearly always fall out, my friends. And they had fallen out and they had turned on each other, and finally the last two men had killed each other and they were all dead! And all that Judah had to do was to take the spoil. And there it was. God fought the battle for them.
I want to tell you my friends; I wish that the members of congress could understand. I wish that the President of the United States could have that kind of faith. They are sincere men, of course, we know they are. I think most of them go to church, and they believe in God, but oh my friends, we have come to the place that we don't really know God after all. We don't really understand, and we don't really put our trust in God.
You know we need to think about it once in a while and wake up, because we are riding to the greatest fall that ever happened to a nation unless we can wake up! Well if we don't God is going to punish us. I explained that in the preceding program. Because we are God's people God loves us, but we are injuring ourselves by the things we are doing! I want to tell you my friends, right here in the United States we need an awakening. We need a revival.
Right here in the United States there is more crime, there is more divorce, there are more broken homes; there is more juvenile delinquency; there is more sickness and disease in our hospitals; there is more insanity, than in any other nation on the face of the earth today! Now why should that be? Why should we be the prize winners in leading the world in things like that? Because we're... well as a nation we have always had, in the main, we have had nice altruistic and fairly Christian ideas and attitudes toward other nations, that's true.
We have done many nice and noble things. Another nation invades us in war; God gives us the victory which we haven't deserved. But because God had promised it to our forefather way back there a long time ago, because he obeyed God, God has given us the victory. He has given us every chance in the world.
Well we've been rather magnanimous in a sense, after the war is over and when God gives us the victory and they're defeated and we stand as the victor over them by God's grace. Instead of stripping their factories of all the equipment and machinery and shipping it back to the United States. Instead of taking all the spoil, instead of robbing those people of everything they have and taking it for ourselves, which has been done down through history by most nations that have invaded and conquered, why what do we do?
Well we keep an occupation force over there for a while, but they're on a very friendly basis and then we just ship them millions upon millions, untold millions and even billions of dollars to help rebuild them and we help them get back on their feet. And instead of taking away from them, we begin to give. Yes, and we can see those things and pat ourselves on the back. We can think we are a pretty good nation. But what do we do among ourselves?
Going the way of Rome (Play from 13:22)
And you look back in our history and have we always been so good? We took this land away from the Indians didn't we? Now maybe that was right and we can justify it, and in a way I'm sure God intended us to have it too. I'm not sure we took it God's way; maybe He would have given it to us in a better way. Nevertheless we haven't always been a hundred percent perfect now; we don't need to think we have been, we haven't.
But we get to looking at some of these things and we think we're just about alright, but we don't realize how we do with each other - try to beat each other in a business deal. Competition is pretty keen here in the United States, and it's in many cases it's what they call a case of sort of dog eat dog, isn't it? And the going gets pretty rough sometimes in business. Competition in many industries gets very tough and then we have a lot of strife among ourselves.
We have strife between Capital and Labor don't we? We have strife among individuals. We even have strife in our own homes, strife between husbands and wives; they try to fight it out in the Divorce Courts. We have a lot of juvenile delinquency and there is a lot of parental delinquency back of that my friends, and it is about time we woke up to realize it and what is causing all of these things.
Now, we are on the way down and out. We are going pleasure mad, as I have said many times. We are going the way of ancient Rome, far faster than Rome ever did and we're riding to the biggest fall that ever happened to a nation. And God is calling on us to cry out to Him, "...spare thy people O God." (Joel 2:17)
But the first thing is to repent and turn to God and seek His ways and His way of life. We are not living God's way.
My friends listen; we talk and brag a whole lot about our American way of life. God help us to make our American way of life GOD'S way of life. Or is our American way the way that WE think is good?
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man", says your Bible, "and that way is going to wind right up in death." (Proverbs 14:12 paraphrased)
Now when our American way of life... of course what we mean by it, is that's very fine, but actually if you look down under the cover my friends, we're not living God's way, and when you don’t live God's way, you're not living the way of peace and you’re not living the way of permanent and stable prosperity. You're not living the way of happiness. You're not living the way of real goodwill, every man to his neighbor, not at all! And neither have we been.
Yes, we need an awakening. And listen my friends, it isn't just someone else. It's alright to say, “Well I'm alright, it's the other fellow that's wrong.” When the United States is going the way it is, it's all of us! And you have your part. Now nearly always, I find that it's about a fifty/fifty deal, the wife is about as much to blame as the husband, and the husband is about as much as the wife.
So I turn to the husband and I say, “Now look, you can only straighten out your part, you're not going to be able to browbeat your wife into admitting where she's wrong and straightening up her half of it. But you clean up your half. You change. You admit your part and change, and you've got your solution half made.” And then I tell her that if she'll straighten up her part that she's made half of it and then we've got a whole solution.
But invariably he says, “No sir, you let her straighten up first. No, I won't admit anything unless she will. You let her do it first.” And she says, “No, let that old brute, let him do it. Let him admit he's wrong first. No sir, I won't do it until he does.” And there they don't budge. Now when I get into a case like that, there isn't very much I can do is there? Well if you think it's just the fault of the other person, you let the rest of them straighten up and you don't do it yourself, I don't know what's going to happen to our nation.
God Fights Our Battles (Play from 17:07)
You are part of this nation, every one of you listening to me. Why don't you look into that looking glass and see how your life is and see whether you are living the right way? "There is a WAY that seems right to a man - that’s the way of death" (Proverbs 16:25 paraphrased). There is another way that is God's way, the way of God's laws, the way of living by every word of God. That will make you happy in your home. That will make you happy as a citizen of the United States, and if we all begin to live that way my friends, we're going to have a wonderful happy nation.
We aren't going to have any more wars because when you live that way you are trusting in God REALLY, and God will fight our battles for us. Now when you have a personal battle, you don't need to worry about it. I have enemies. I have people sniping around and trying to attack me, of course! I wouldn't be God's minister if I didn't my friends; it's the best evidence in the world. Always falsely accusing.
And this I have noticed, that those who go around accusing - of course the devil is the accuser of the brethren - and those who go around accusing, are always guilty of the very thing that they falsely accuse others of.
Now I don't have to worry about things like that because God fights my battles, and no matter how angry, no matter how bitter, no matter how vicious a person can get, God has His ways of taking care of such people.
"Vengeance is mine... saith the Eternal" (Romans 12:19) and He'll take care of everything of that sort.
Now I learned long ago that God fights my personal battles. I don't have to fight. I don't have to fight. My name, both my first and last name has something to do about being a warrior, and my last name means a “strong armed warrior.” I forget what my first one is exactly; I saw it in a dictionary here the other day. You can look it up if you want to in the back of the dictionary, but it has to do with being a warrior.
Well if there is anything I hate and despise, it's warfare. If I'm backed into a corner where I have to, I never back down, I always fight. But I never choose a fight, and I won't get into a fight if there is any possible way of keeping out of it, because I let God do the fighting. And He'll do your fighting, and listen; He would do our nation's fighting if we would let Him.
Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world, if [it] were... then would my servants fight." (John 18:36)
That isn't Christ's way. When Peter lost his temper and sliced off a man's ear with a sword, Jesus rebuked him for it and Jesus, by divine power, by a MIRACLE, put that ear back on, it was instantly healed. No, He is not a fighter. Some people have a terrible lack of understanding. God have mercy.
Now here's coming this famine and this pestilence, and God has a way of escape for those who will take it. THE WHOLE NATION, if WE WILL CRY OUT to Him, and you as an individual, if the whole nation won't heed, I've read it to you here in the twenty-first chapter of Luke where He says;
"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape ALL these things that shall come to pass." (Luke 21:36)
And He had just been mentioning here that, "...these be the days of vengeance that all things [which are] written may be fulfilled" (Luke 21:22). And speaking of our people, He says we "...shall fall by the edge of the sword, and [shall] be led away captive into all nations..." (Luke 21:24): and all of those things;
"So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is NIGH at hand." (Luke 21:31)
It hasn't even come yet! A lot of people think the kingdom of God started back there nineteen hundred years ago. No, it's near at hand today. It hasn't come. Now then my friends, one other thing. Right at this time there is a way of escape for those that are going to rely on God, and before I come to the Great Tribulation I must make that plain.
The sign of His Coming (Play from 20:57)
But there is something else right here that Jesus mentioned in Matthew twenty-four, He intervenes right here in the fourteenth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter right after He has said that:
"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." (Matthew 24:9)
And I just read to you in Luke's account of the same identical speech where Luke shows that we are to be invaded. Now, just prior to this time, and in ample time for warning, here's what's going to happen.
Jesus said in verse fourteen "And this gospel of the KINGDOM shall be preached in ALL the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." (Matthew 24:14)
Now what are they asking? Here's the question they had put to Him, they said; "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and [of] the end of the world? "...when shall these things be? [and] what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (Matthew 24:3)
Now the wars and rumors of wars is not the end. He said that isn't the end. The false preachers, that's not the end. The famine and pestilence isn't the end, but He said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness..." (Matthew 24:14)
Now the apostles went out, and to the world at that time, they preached the gospel of the kingdom, and I've been giving you the history my friends, of exactly what happened to that gospel. Finally men got to substituting a gospel ABOUT the PERSON of Christ SAYING that Jesus is the Christ and DECEIVING the people because they left out the REAL TRUE GOSPEL: of what SALVATION IS - of what IS the reward of the Christian? - of what IS the condition of the Christian? - WHERE is it going to be? - WHAT is it going to be?
Let me just stop right here to tell you, it isn't so much a matter of geographical location as to whether it's in heaven or on the earth or where it is, as it is a condition that you will be in. That's what will be your real reward. What will be your state? It's the state in which you are, rather that the place in which you are. You know, if you are all bitter and, oh, just full of resentment and anger and bitterness and jealousy and malice, like some people are.
You know even if you were taken to heaven, and the kind of heaven that people think they're going to go to, you wouldn't be happy there. You would be miserable. No, happiness my friends, is not a geographical location. Happiness is WITHIN you. People just don't seem to know what happiness is. Some people think, “Well if I could just be somewhere else I'd be happy.” They'd go there then they are not happy! No, that place is cursed too, and where ever they go they're unhappy.
Happiness comes right within you. You'll have to get rid of that bitterness and all that anger and that malice, and resentfulness, that jealousy, get that out of your heart and all that root of bitterness. And let the blessed Holy Spirit of God come in. And then "grow in grace and in [the] knowledge." (II Peter 3:18)
Now "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness [not to convert all the world but as a witness] unto all nations; and then shall the end come." (Matthew 24:14)
And my friends, that gospel is going to all the world now.
It's All About the Heart (Play from 24:15)
They've been hearing a lot about a gospel that is called salvation by many people who do not understand what salvation is. They don't really know, and I'm going to bring you a message very soon, and I'm going to show you just what that salvation is. And I'm going to show you how, the real state and the real salvation that God has for us is SO FAR, so INFINITELY SUPERIOR to what most people conceive as eternal bliss in heaven, that your mind just can't grasp the difference.
When I read to you where if we're Christ's, we're ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN and HEIRS according to the promise made to Abraham, and God promised Abraham this earth. Now study that according to your Bible. What authority have you for going to heaven? Well listen, it isn't a matter of going to heaven or where. What's wrong with you, it's just a curse on it, just what's in the hearts and the minds of people.
And I want to tell you that God has in store something for us if we will yield ourselves to Him. If we will surrender to Him that is so INFINITELY superior to what most people thought going to heaven would be. Oh it isn't anything less, it is something so much GREATER; "the glory [that] shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)
"Eye has not seen, ear has not heard neither has it entered the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those that love him." (I Corinthians 2:9 paraphrased)
Now we're going to have a lot of troubles coming. God will protect you through all these troubles if you will get your HEART right with Him. God looks on the heart. What's your spirit, your attitude of mind? Where is your heart? That's the thing that counts my friends. So you need have no fear of the things that are coming as we look into the prophecies, if you get your heart right with God.
Oh I see the time is about up. Listen, once again I'll mention, you need faith for answered prayers. Why don't you write in for our booklet on ‘What Kind of Faith is Required for Salvation’ and 'What is Faith' so that you know what faith really is and why you are not getting an answer to your prayers. Jesus is there on that throne of God as your High Priest. It's an amazing booklet and study it in your Bible. Check it CAREFULLY. Believe what you see in your Bible. This will show you where to find it.
Listen; write in for these booklets, there is no charge whatsoever. Until tomorrow then, "Goodbye friends."