(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)
The World Tomorrow
Jeremiah - Chapter 30
by Herbert W Armstrong
(PLAY FROM START)
What about the end of the world? We’ve been hearing a lot about it. What about Armageddon; is there going to be an Armageddon? Is the world coming to an end? Well yes it is, my friends – and very soon – when you understand what is meant by those terms.
The end of the world is not the end of the earth’s existence with the end of this world, this age, this pattern of civilization that man has built in defiance of the laws that God Almighty set in motion. And, consequently, we have been breaking those laws and those laws are punishing us. And this world is a mighty unhappy place.
There is every kind of crime and every kind of fear and worry and unhappiness. This world is filled with empty lives; it’s filled with a lot of things that are not good. And a better world is coming – the happy, the joyful World Tomorrow! But, as I’ve said so many times, we still have a lot of lessons to learn.
Yes all of these things that you’ve heard about, they are foretold, they are prophesied in your Bible. You hear about the Second Coming of Christ; you hear about Armageddon; you hear about The Great Tribulation; you hear about the end of the world. Those terms are used in the Bible, and in Bible prophecy.
And I want to tell you, my friends, those things are coming as certainly as the rising and the setting of tomorrow’s sun. And you’d better wake up and know what it’s all about because it’s going to come on you and you’re going to live through it. And it’s all going to come in these very next few years – this twentieth century AD. We are the generation that is destined to live in two different worlds – today’s world and the world tomorrow. You are living through it.
Now we’ve been going through this prophecy of the world tomorrow, and of the conditions in the immediate present, and the future immediately ahead of us now in the thirtieth and the thirty-first chapters of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Let’s go back real quickly and I want to carry on and give you a lot more. I want to go through these two chapters – the thirtieth and the thirty-first of Jeremiah. And I hope we can have time to get over to the fiftieth and perhaps even the fifty-first and a few other places.
But now here is a time prophesied when the captivity of ancient Israel and Judah is going to be brought again out of captivity and the people taken again back to the land that was promised to Abraham, their forefather, back to the land of Palestine.
In the second verse - This is - "The word that came to Jeremiah [now] from the [Eternal]{1}, Thus speaketh the [Eternal] God of Israel saying, Write thee all these words that I have spoken unto thee in a book [this is a 'thus saith the Lord.' Listen, God Almighty is speaking]. For, lo, the days come, saith the [Eternal], that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the [Eternal]. And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." (Jeremiah 30:1-3)
Now that’s all coming, if you know the prophecies of the Bible, at the Second Coming of Christ, but other things are going to happen before. And now He begins to show the condition of those people before the Second Coming of Christ. And He’s not speaking about just Jewish people only.
Judah refers to the Jewish people and, once again, if you don’t know where the United States is mentioned in Bible prophecy, you just have not the key that will unlock the doors of prophecy – and the doors are closed tight. And they are locked against your mind and against your vision and understanding. And you can’t understand Bible prophecy. You are ignorant of Bible prophecy, unless you have this key, because there is no other way to know because, my friends, there is more in Bible prophecy about the very people of the United States, and of the British Commonwealth, and the democracies of northwestern Europe than all the other races of mankind put together.
A Chosen People (PLAY FROM 04:44)
In fact, EVERYTHING in prophecy concerns our people, and only other nations if, and when, and as they come into contact with us. God’s whole program, and God’s whole plan, - the purpose that God is working out here below - is built around our people. We are the chosen people; we are the people that God has called as His instruments by whom, through whom, with whom, He is working out His purpose.
And even though we have not yielded ourselves and submitted ourselves as willing instruments in His hands, God is still going to make our people His instruments by whom and through whom He will work out His purpose, because God’s purpose stands!
And even though God, in His purpose, has said to us, as He did say to Israel originally, He said, "I have set before you life and death. I have set before you life and good on the one hand, death and evil on the other. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore CHOOSE." (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19 paraphrased)
And He has decreed that Israel must choose; that Israel must choose whether they will reject Him or obey Him – whether they will come under His government or reject it. And Israel did reject it always. And God has told what would happen if they would obey. They could have the promises He made to Abraham immediately, if they would obey Him. And if they wouldn’t, the promises would be withdrawn, withheld; they would go into slavery and captivity. And the promises would be withheld for a duration of 2,520 years.
And Israel, who had the birthright promise, went into national captivity and slavery in the year of 721 BC. And that 2,520 years expired in the year of 1800 AD. And, as I have said so many times, we find in the year of 1800 AD they are over in the British Isles and here in the United States of America.
And then, because God had promised these national blessings UNCONDITIONALLY to Abraham, because Abraham had kept God’s commandments and laws and statutes, we have been the recipients of the choicest blessings that have ever come upon any people or any nation in the history of this world.
I want to tell you, my friends, it’s the most astounding, the most amazing fulfillment of prophecy that has ever happened in the history of all this world. It’s in your Bible. And you can’t even understand your Bible till you have that key; and you need to know where we’re mentioned in prophecy.
Get our booklet: 'The United States in Prophecy.' Read this and see it in your own Bible with your own eyes for your own self. You’ll find a lot of scoffing against it; you will find a lot of ridicule.
Listen, my friends, let me just ask you one question – first let me say this, though: that you read in the Bible that many of the prophesies were closed and sealed till the time in which we’re living now – the time of the end. This is the time portrayed in prophecy in your Bible as the time of the end – the latter days. That’s the time which we live in today.
And these prophesies were closed and sealed till now – till the time when universal knowledge is increasing. And you find knowledge increasing in every phase of life: scientific and technological knowledge – and even biblical knowledge is opening up. And prophesies are opening up that have been closed and sealed until now!
True Church Accepts Truth (PLAY FROM 08:29)
Now then, let me just ask you this question candidly. A good many of you belong to some church denomination – let me just ask you candidly and you look this in the face and answer it your own way: has your church denomination, within your knowledge, ever admitted that it had been wrong and in error in its doctrine – that it had been teaching the people errors that were not true? Has your church denomination ever made that admission, ever made that acknowledgment and said, "We are sorry that we have been in error; we didn’t know it"?
Of course they hadn’t known it. I don’t think any church denomination would come out and say that we had knowingly been in error.
I don’t know whether some of the - well, in fact, I have known of one case where one man at the head of one of the rather minor denominations admitted that his old church denomination was wrong. But he refused to do anything about it, because he said that, well, they would lose their oldest members, and the ones that were the substantial contributors that kept the thing going, and they would lose the money. And he said, "We just can’t afford to do it."
Well he was selling out. And he was in a position of authority enough to pretty well direct his whole denomination. He was willing to sell it out for the money! That’s just one example. I wouldn’t mention the name, but I had such an experience about 50 years ago.
But I just want to ask you frankly: do you know of any church that has ever come out and said, "We’ve been wrong; and we want to correct it; and we want to change it. We want to repent of it! We want to turn around and get right." Have you known of any church denomination that has ever come out and said, "Well, we have not had all of the truth, and we see that new truth is opening up that had been closed and sealed in the Bible until now. And now it’s opened up and it puts new light on some things we’ve believed; and we have been teaching a few things wrong, because this newer light, now opening up, proves that we’ve had a few errors and we want to repent of that; and we want to publicly acknowledge that we have been wrong, and misleading the people; and we’re accepting this new truth that is now opening up." Have you known any church that would ever do that? Now just ask yourself.
My friends, unless you have, you don’t know a church that can know this modern knowledge, because here is knowledge that was closed and sealed until getting pretty well in to this twentieth century AD. And it is only - well perhaps some of this knowledge began to be opened up a little before the turn of the century, yes, but it certainly has all been since 1800 AD; and not very much of it was known back then. It’s mostly coming very, very recently – and in our present lifetime.
And unless a church denomination is willing to admit new light and new knowledge that is now shed forth which God’s Word said had been closed and kept dark until now, there was no disgrace in not having known this thing before. But somehow it’s human to feel that if we admit we didn’t have it all, and didn’t know it all back then, that we were ignorant; and we’re afraid to do it. Now just how about it?
Do you know, my friends, that you go back in the olden days, that God could not use an organized group of His at any time to do His work, because the organized group usually turned the wrong way? And He had to take a man, a prophet, and send them to Israel with His truth. And what did Israel do? They rejected the truth every time and said, "No, that isn’t what we believe. We’ve got our established truth; we’ve got our established doctrine!"
And the men at the head - well why? They were afraid that if they acknowledged the truth, that they, the men at the helm, and the men at the head in some organization that had been set up and organized, would lose their jobs! That’s human. Oh there’s a lot of human nature around, my friend, and it’s always been here.
Grow In Knowledge (PLAY FROM 12:37)
But let me tell you something: the very first requisite if you want to be a Christian, if you’re going to be a child of God, if you’re going to be begotten of God, and born of God into the Kingdom of God, and come to all the glory of salvation that is promised, the very first requisite is that you must be willing to admit where you have been wrong! And you have got to begin to grow in knowledge, and admit new knowledge into your mind - of the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – the knowledge that is in your Bible that you never knew before.
And the minute you stop growing, the minute that you stop admitting new knowledge – and not only admitting it, but walking in it – you have got to, not only admit it in your mind, receive knowledge in your mind, you must put it to action in your life, and live that very knowledge that is revealed of God.
The minute you reject any knowledge that you understand, God stops revealing knowledge to you. Just that minute you are cut off from receiving any more true knowledge that is revealed from God. You must walk in it. And then you must continually grow by receiving more knowledge, and letting it be inculcated into your very life, into your very character.
Now listen, my friends, any church group, denomination, or organization of any kind is merely a collection of individuals, is it not? It is merely a group of people organized together. And every individual in that group must continually grow in knowledge and in grace.
Grace is pardon because of what you’ve done – and the unmerited favor and the privilege of coming into the right way, now that you have come out of the darkness and the wrong way, and walking in the light. And the minute you cease to walk in it you’re cut off. And you have to grow; and you have to continually overcome. And that means that you have to root out of your personal nature the bad habits, and the wrong beliefs, and the wrong actions.
Now listen, a group of people together, then, have to do the same thing. And the church is merely a group of people organized together. And so any church that is not growing continually and, as a church, receiving new continual knowledge out of that Bible…and don’t tell me that anybody living has ever mastered everything in the Bible so that he knows it so well there’s no further knowledge for him and that he can’t grow anymore. There’s no such individual; and there’s no such church on the face of the earth, because the church is made up of the sum total of its individual members.
And so, just as the individual must root out error, and bad faults, and habits, so must a church; and a church must find out where, maybe, some of its ways, its customs, the things that it has done, as a church, are wrong, if any.
Well do you know any that’s perfect? They’re not all alike. One thinks, "Well our way is right." And another says, "Ours is." Now who is right? Perhaps you’ll find that God is right, and not very many, if any, human beings on this earth are right.
In fact, one came to Jesus, called Him good. And He says, "Why do you call me good? None is good, but God." (Matthew 19:17 paraphrased)
Well then none of us is very good. And we need a lot of cleansing; and we have to continually clean ourselves up; and we have to admit where we’re wrong; and we have to change our ways, our faults, our habits. So must your collective group, my friends. Do you know any that’s been doing that?
Let me tell you something, the Church that Jesus said He would build is the Church that is doing those things; and if you don’t know such a Church, you haven’t found the real Church that Jesus built.
Well that’s pretty strong, but that’s something for you to think over. I’ve said nothing about anybody; and I’m not singling out anybody to accuse, at all. I don’t want to accuse – the devil does the accusing. And I don’t want to be an accuser.
God’s Time to Open Prophecy (PLAY FROM 16:50)
But God has sent me as His messenger to open the eyes of the people, and to preach His truth, and to show you, my friends, that many of us have been deceived, and that we need to get our eyes open, and that we need to grow in the positive knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and inculcate it into our very being, and into our ways of living, and into our very lives! And if one must do it, then a group must do it.
Well, now you’re going to find a lot of scoffing and a lot of opposition to a truth that was not known until recently that has been sealed and closed until now. And this very key is the thing that had been thrown away, and the key that unlocks prophecy. The fact that this key was not known is the way God has preserved these prophecies. They had been here; people could read them, but they couldn’t understand them until now, because they didn’t have the key that would unlock it.
And I say to you, that you’re not going to find anybody that will admit this key, unless he’s willing to admit he just didn’t know it all yesterday, or twenty-five, or fifty, or a hundred, or two hundred years ago. That’s what it takes.
Now perhaps you can do that as an individual. And if you can, and if you hunger and thirst for the real treasures and the good things of God – for the full abundant life – a life that’s happy and joyful, that is so pleasant that just makes it a joy to be alive – a life that’s full and abundant, and then to have eternal life and to go on living forever – a life of joy, a life of accomplishment, a life of happiness. There’s only one way, and you’ll find it in the Word of God. And you’re never going to find it any other place.
A lot of you have been whiling away a lot of hours at other things – you’ve been wasting your time. You need to begin to put in a little more of this time finding the way – the way of God.
And you need to know the real meaning of what’s going on on the earth today because Jesus warned us we must watch, or trouble is going to come on us. That’s a command from Jesus Christ – to watch (Matthew 24:42; Mark 13:33-37; Luke 21:36).
And how can you watch what’s going on if you don’t know prophecy? You have to know it so that you can understand what is going on in the world, because His gospel was the Kingdom of God, which is the government of God which is going to be set up over all this earth – the divine government, the supernatural government of God by Jesus Christ, who is soon coming as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and rule all this earth.
Well, you’d better write in for that booklet, 'The United States in Prophecy,' and read it with an open mind and without any prejudice. And don’t believe it because I say so; and don’t disbelieve it because you’ve heard it scoffed at or sneered at, because most people, for political reasons, cannot accept new light, or something that they have not already had.
Now just think that over. And just remember, my friends, that your salvation doesn’t depend on some group or organization of men that may scoff. Your salvation is a private, personal thing between you and your God. And you’re going to be held accountable. So you look this over, and you look into your Bible, and you believe what you find in your Bible!
Now here it is, and I say to you, that Israel was divided into two different nations: Israel and Judah. And Israel had the birthright promises of national greatness, and national power, and national wealth. And to Judah went the sceptre promise, of whom Christ was to come; and Christ came of Judah.
But where has Israel been? People say, "Well Israel got lost." Oh no, they just got lost from mankind. They’ve never been lost from God. And now we have found Israel. And where do we find them? Why our own American people and the British. My friends it’s the most amazing, startling, it’s the most terrific discovery of our time. And it’s generally scoffed at and sneered at.
Do you know how to get around an argument that you can’t by logic, or by reason, or by factual evidence, get around? Just laugh at it and sneer at it. And a lot of people, if you can sneer at it, people think, "Well, it’s been so belittled, I guess it just can’t be true." And you can influence a lot of people that way when you don’t have the mind power, or the truth, or the logic, to do it honestly.
Prove All Things (PLAY FROM 21:26)
Well I think just trying to sneer a thing down is quite a dishonest method. I don’t want to reject anything because I heard someone sneer at it. But if I find it’s not true, then I’m going to turn it down because I find it’s not true.
Listen, you know I get literature, everyday literature comes to me. People from all over the - not just over the United States - I get lots of it from England; and I get it from, oh, from other continents, even, and other parts of the world. People send literature in here to try to open my eyes to something that they think is just true; and they really believe it.
Now what do you think I do, just sneer at it and contemptuously say, "Just slop that in the wastepaper basket - I know it all already. I don’t want to look at it"? Why no, I don’t want to do that at all.
Here’s something came in the mail and I recognized the name of the man. He had come to me years and years ago. And there were three or four big, kind of booklets and charts, and things that unfolded, and great big pieces of paper. And he had come to me some years ago with the idea that God’s true Sabbath, and the very Sabbath that God rested on at Creation, is the day that we now call, 'Friday.'
Well, I opened up my mind and I listened. And he just had one proof on one scripture which didn’t mean what he said. And it was one of these vague scriptures you could read a meaning into it – which he did. And I pointed it out; and he lost his temper. And he flew into a rage. And I had to calm him. So finally he left. That was several years ago.
Well, some literature written by that man, I found it, I sat there for over an hour looking through it, because I said, "Well, it’s been a good many years now; I’m willing to always look and listen. I’m willing to open up my mind. I think I know in my own mind that this man is absolutely in error. He probably was entirely sincere; he’s just misled. He thinks he’s right. Oh yes, he puts all of his whole life and energy in this idea. He’s got a wonderful new discovery."
Well now what am I going to do? I have to practice what I preach and what I tell you. I said, "Well, it’s been a good many years. Maybe he’s come across some new evidence and I want to see it." So I looked into it, but I found error after error – absolutely proved right in the Bible that I know.
Now I can’t accept error; I can’t just swallow every wind of doctrine that everybody brings around. Well neither should you, my friends. Now maybe I’m just giving you some new wind of doctrine. I know that; I have to tell you that that might be the case.
You know you can find a lot more than 57 varieties of religious doctrine and teaching today. And you shouldn’t swallow everything that comes along. But let me tell you, my friends, your eternity is at stake and it’s a personal, private matter between you and God. And your Bible says MANY deceivers; MANY false prophets are gone out into the world (I John 4:1). And many of them, listen, many of them are absolutely sincere.
Now I have no reason to believe that this man I just talked about is insincere. Now shall I get angry at him and go around and call him names? Why I should say not.
No, people do that about me, but that’s rather foolish; that’s rather silly. You know I even think that some of those people can be absolutely vicious – and sometimes I think that they probably are sincere. They really believe that the wrong track they’re on is right.
A lot of people seem to think that black is white; and up is down; and that east is west. Yes they do; they’re going backward. This whole world, your Bible says we’ve gone away backward (Isaiah 1:4). We’re going backward. We’ve got the Bible turned upside down.
Now it’s your personal responsibility between you and God that you get this thing straightened out, because your eternity is at stake. And remember that a lot of these false prophets are sincere. That doesn’t make them right. You'd better open your mind and throw prejudice away; don’t be prejudiced.
Listen if anyone can prove to me that Friday is the true Sabbath that we ought to keep instead of Sunday, or Saturday, or any other day, I’d be willing to do it. Now I’ve already proved that. I don’t have to prove it again. I’ve already proved it. But I’m not going to be blown about be every little wisp of doctrine that comes along.
You know, people that have ever tried to change me find I don’t change easily or quickly, but my mind is open. But I need to be sure, because there are thousands upon thousands that are going to be influenced by what I say. I know that very well. And I know the responsibility that is on my shoulders; and I know exactly what God Almighty is going to hold me accountable for. And I have to be careful; I would tremble to be otherwise.
I’m going to have this checked over by other men. And I’m not going to tell them my findings. I want them to look at it on their own and with OPEN MINDS! And anything that is true we shall accept.
But of course you need to be very careful. And your Bible says PROVE all things (I Thessalonians 5:21); don’t just carelessly accept something.
Now this booklet, 'The United States in Prophecy,' I’ve talked to you about. If it isn’t proved, don’t accept it. I think I’ve mentioned to you before, some little time ago now, how I had written a man, he was a minister down in the State of Florida, had written an article on another subject. I wrote to him about it. And incidentally, in his reply, he mentioned had I looked into this matter, he said, about where the United States is mentioned in prophecy? And he said, "If you don’t understand that, you are IGNORANT about the Bible." He said, "You don’t even have the first key that will open it up."
Well I’ll tell you what that did to me. That really hit me. If I was ignorant, I didn’t want to be ignorant. That sent me directly to the library; and I spent hours and hours, and days, and weeks, and months in the study of this thing. I found books; and I could find all kinds of ERRORS in books that were teaching this truth.
Now should I just reject the whole thing because I found an error? No, I rejected the error, but I also found some truth in these books and I accepted it. You have to pick a lot of wheat out of the chaff, or pick the chaff out of the wheat, and throw it away.
And there’s so much error in this world. This whole world, human nature, is good and evil mixed. And in this world you find truth and error mixed. And we have to find the truth and prove it, my friends, prove all things and be careful.
Well I didn’t get started on what I intended to tell you in Jeremiah 30. I’m going into that now in the next program. And, God willing, I hope to just go right through and cover a lot of ground.
But listen, get this booklet; study it with your Bible; pray over it as you do.
You know how I studied this question originally? I studied it on my knees. I would get a Bible; I would set it on the chair, not on the table; I used the chair for a table. I got down on the floor on my knees. And I would read it a while; and then I would close my eyes and pray to God about it; and ask, "Oh God open my eyes, open my understanding. Help me not to be misled or deceived. But whatever is truth, help me to see it and receive it."
Why don’t you study it that way – with your Bible – and believe what you see in your Bible!
Listen, write for that booklet, 'The United States in Prophecy,' if you haven’t gotten it yet. And get your name on the mailing list for, 'The Plain Truth Magazine.' You’ve never read a magazine like it. It’ll make the Bible a new book to you; it’ll open up the prophecies; it will make the whole Bible understandable. Until tomorrow, then, goodbye friends.