Sermon (August 29, 1981)

by Herbert W Armstrong

Greetings, everybody. Well, it was only a few weeks ago I was speaking to brethren back in Vancouver. Next Sabbath I hope to be in Montreal. I’ve been speaking to brethren all over the United States, and expect to continue doing it for some time – at least every other Sabbath, and sometimes a little more often. Well that was a wonderful reception we had, and that chorus. I’m sure you all enjoyed it. I did. Very, very wonderful!

Brethren, we are in very serious times now (whether you realize it or not). We are very close to the end of this world. The world itself doesn’t realize that at all! We’re in a world of awesome progress today. The progress in this world: the things that the world has accomplished and done are absolutely awesome. On the other hand, we are seeing in the world APPALLING troubles and evils – troubles and evils that man is unable to solve. In spite of our ability to fly men to the moon and back, and cavort around up there on the moon and send back live pictures that we can see in our own living rooms on television (of them cavorting around on the moon, leaping) … And they take a higher leap up there because there is very little gravity. (I was just thinking: you could high jump or broad jump quite a distance up there. Long jump, we call it today.)

The modern computer, the mechanisms, the machines: Think of things that every woman (every wife) has in her home today to help her in her kitchen, in her laundry. Yet one half of this world is in utter ignorance, without education, cannot read or write. One half of this world is living in abject poverty, filth and squalor; and actually thousands are starving to death. There are a few starving to death actually every day in some part of this world (especially over in southeastern Asia, parts of Africa, and even some parts of South America).

Why this paradox? Why is it we are able to do such AWESOME things, and still the world is in such trouble? Why is everybody against everybody? Why is it husband and wife can’t get along? Parents can’t get along with children or children with parents. Families can’t get along with next-door neighbor. Capital and labor can’t get along. Capital and management can’t get along with labor. So we have strikes, strikes, strikes – even against governments. You’ve had a postal strike up here recently. We have one in the United States now with the air controllers. If man’s government was what it ought to be, there would be no such thing as strikes. There would be no need of it, and it would never be allowed.

Nation is against nation. Now we have a fearful problem in the United States: protecting from Russia. And we don’t know that God says our real enemy is not Russia, but it’s coming from another direction all together. Now, man can go to the moon and back; but man can’t seem to solve his problems and his troubles! Why? What’s the matter with the human mind?

We are in a world, also, of religious confusion. In the religions of the world – and the world is full of different religions, many different religions, many different sects in religions (especially in Christianity); but in no religion do they know who and what God is. Not one religion on earth, except the true Church of God, knows what and why man is and how we came to be on the earth. What is our purpose? Why are we here? Where are we going? What happens now? What’s going to happen?

Christianity teaches that God is a trinity. Many people seem to think that God is one single person. Most people believe in the immortality of the soul. You’re already are an immortal being, and you will go to heaven or hell depending upon what you do according to your own convictions and beliefs and what you think is right and wrong. If you just get the password (Jesus Christ), they believe in the Christian religion that throws the switch at the end of the line that you are traveling of your life. The switch is automatically set to send you down to hell when you get there. But, if you get the password (You say “I accept Jesus Christ.”) – you get, you receive, you take to yourself – that automatically throws the switch at the end of line; and you’ll be shot up to heaven.

What are you going to do there? One woman was asked, “What do you expect to do for all eternity in the next life up there? For millions and millions of years, what will you keep doing?” “Well, I’ll just sit at the feet of Jesus; and I’ll look up at His wonderful face.” Wonderful as that is, I’ll tell you: just that, with nothing else to do, would become very monotonous. Christ Himself knows that better than we do!

The world doesn’t know what salvation is. They don’t know what man is. They don’t know why he is having all of the troubles he does. So, why all this confusion? Why this paradox of such terrible troubles, more troubles than the world has ever known before? And prophecy says we are headed into a time of troubles still worse, such as never existed and never will again!

You, brethren, are in the Church of God. Now, what is the Church? The word “church” really means “called out ones.” It comes from the Greek word ecclesia. It’s a group, a collection of people. It could be a howling mob, and it was called that in the Bible once. It came to take Jesus to crucify Him. The church of Luther is merely the group that follows Luther. The Church of God is the congregation, or the group, that have God’s name and follow God. There is quite a difference, and there is a great deal in a name.

This world is full, I said, of religions. We live in the world of Christianity with its many, many different denominations: all believing different things, all thinking if they just have the password (Christ) they’ll go to heaven.

I want to read you what God says to us. It’s in the 18th chapter of the book of Revelation. John is recording here things he saw in vision – looking into our time now. In vision, he was taken ahead about 1900 and some years into our time. He was seeing then things that are happening to you and me now, and this is what he is recording.

Revelation 18:1-3 After these things I saw [What he saw in vision. “I saw … ”]another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. (2) And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. (3) For ALL NATIONS have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Fornication: having a relationship with the governments, the kingdoms, of this world. Christ is the coming King. God is the Ruler who rules the universe. They were going to the governments of men.

Revelation 18:3-4 All nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (4) And [Now listen.] I heard another voice from heaven, saying, COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE.

“God’s people, come out of this religious Babylon!” That religious Babylon, I’ll be open and frank, is the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches of Christianity – professed, traditional “Christianity.” Now it’s both modernist and it’s also so-called fundamentalist. It’s “born again” people who don’t know what born again means; and it’s people that really don’t believe in God, but just profess a religion.

Revelation 18:4 I heard another voice from heaven, [crying], COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE [Are we God’s people? Then this to us, and He says “Come out of this Babylon. Come out of this world’s Christianity.”], that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues [because the time of those plagues is coming very soon].

Now, who is that Babylon? You find it described in the preceding chapter. In my Bible, it is right across the page – verse 5 of the 17th chapter of Revelation.

Revelation 17:5 Upon her {1} [This woman, which is a church – a great church. “Upon her … ”] forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

She is a great whore, committing fornication (not adultery). You see, ancient Israel was married to Christ. They would have committed adultery. So it isn’t ancient Israel. It is Gentile. She committed fornication, which is an act committed prior to marriage and by unmarried people (who are not married to Christ); and the name is not the name of God.

We are THE CHURCH OF GOD! We bear the name of God. This church bears the name of Babylon: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT. In other words, the Babylon Mystery Religion having now become great – ruling over kings of the earth, participating in the ways of this world. This world has ways that have brought nothing but trouble upon the world; and the religions are part and parcel of it, and with it.

We are told to come out of that! Babylon The Great is the mother of harlots. They came out of their mother in protest, calling themselves “Protestant.” Now, brethren, that’s very, very plain language. That’s right in your Bible. I only read that out of the Word of God. I wonder how much of the false teachings of this Babylon and her daughters have rubbed off on us. How much of it do we still hold? How much have we come out?

God has been revealing A GREAT DEAL of additional knowledge; and He’s revealed new knowledge to me, and through me to the Church, just this year (since the first of the year). I’m going about to groups like this all over, almost every week now, to get this knowledge out to you people. We are called out of Babylon! Babylon is the religion of this world.

Now what’s wrong with the world? Let’s take a look at it. The world is what its leaders have made it. The leaders are what education has made them, because the ignorant (the uneducated) have not made the world. They’re not the leaders. All is the result of an incident that happened long, long ago – the incident of the forbidden fruit.

FOR EVERY RESULT there has to be a cause, a cause for every effect. The effect today is nothing but trouble, sorrow, discontent. People are not happy today. Many are in abject poverty. The world is filled with sickness and trouble. Actually, in just a few years (ten or fifteen years), the amount of money spent on doctors, hospitals, medicines, nurses will equal the amount of the gross national product of the whole United States, in this country. I’ve been researching that recently, and that’s how great it will be. As we have more and more inventions, more and more development, we also have increasing troubles.

When I was a young boy, back at the turn of the century (That’s back before most of you, even before most of you were born.), I lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I would go down in the country to see my country cousins. Driving on Iowa dirt or mud roads behind the horse and a buggy (which was the only transportation we had in that day), we would go past farms; and there would be a farmer tied behind a horse or a team of horses, and a plow or a farm implement, singing at the top of his lungs! Happy! You don’t see that anymore.

People are not happy today. The world is filled with discontent, with bitterness, with resentment – person against person; and unhappiness is filling the air today. Absolutely filling it! Well, I say, it had to have a beginning. People don’t realize: if you can’t get to the cause, you can’t understand it, and you can’t possibly have an effect. It all had a beginning, at the time of the creation of the first man.

Now, we’ve been going right over that incident. It’s been ridiculed, and laughed at, in the world – called “Adam’s apple.” Adam didn’t eat an apple. But, you see, it was not only the one Tree (that they seem to think was an apple, which it wasn’t). There were Two Trees in that garden. No one ever thought to ask: What if Adam had taken the other Tree – the Tree of Life? No one ever thought to ask that question, it seems. We’re going to ask it this afternoon.

That’s where all of your troubles began. That’s where began all of the escalating accomplishments of science, and industry, and technology, and government. That’s also the place where began all of man’s troubles, and the unhappiness and the wretchedness, the discontent that we are all having to live in. It’s not a pleasant world. It’s not a good world. It’s not a world that is right.

Now, it really all began long before that. Where everything began, you find in the Bible … And the Bible is like … You know, it’s a different Book than any other book that I know. The Bible is like a jigsaw puzzle.

I’m sure you’ve seen jigsaw puzzles, maybe worked them. It’s a beautiful picture; but it’s cut with jigsaws, and curly-cues, and different little pieces (maybe up to a thousand or more pieces). When they are scattered, a piece of that picture doesn’t make any sense at all. By itself, it doesn’t give you any picture. It doesn’t have any meaning. And it’s pretty hard to put one piece properly next to and adjoining another piece. You work at it for hours and hours. It takes a long time. It’s a good way to pass time away. It’s a good pastime. But finally, if you ever get it all together, a beautiful picture comes out and makes sense. A picture of harmony and beauty!

You know, the Bible is like that. You begin with Genesis 1:1 –

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Oh, but you know there are a lot of things in other places in the Bible that have to do about that. What He created, who and what is God, what did He create, when – all about it. But the real beginning in order of time sequence is not the first place in the Bible. The real beginning is the fourth book of the New Testament – John 1, verse 1; and there it speaks of a WORD.

John 1:1 The Word was with God.

That was written in the Greek language; and the word “Word” is translated from the Greek word “logos,” and it means “word.” It means “spokesman” – the revelatory thought, the one who speaks. A personage! The Word was a definite person, and the Word was with another person called God. So there were two persons. Now{2}:

John 1:1 The Word was God [also].

Now both are God; but there are two persons there, not just one (and not three, not a trinity). Then:

John 1:3 All things were made by him [the Word].

And then in the 14th verse you read:

John 1:14 The Word [later]was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father). [Jesus Christ]

The Word had always existed. In the book of Hebrews you read that the Word, or Christ, was without father, without mother, without beginning of days or end of life, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life – having ALWAYS existed! Your mind cannot conceive of that. You can’t see. You think there had to be a beginning somewhere. Well, who made God? Nobody. God has always been; and the one who became Christ has always been, but He was not the Son of God at that time. He became the Son of God when He was born just a little over 1950 years ago (about nineteen hundred and thirty some) of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judea. Then He became the Son of God. He gave up all of the glory that He had had for all eternity!

Now then, by Him – the Word – all things were made. But in Ephesians the 3rd chapter and verse 9, you will read how GOD created all things by Jesus Christ. God created them by Christ. God told Christ what to do. Christ is the Word. He spoke; and you read in one of the Psalms (the 104th Psalm and verse 30) you will read how the Spirit of God went forth; then He spoke, and the Spirit moved and did what He said.

Psalm 33:9 He spake, and it was done.

You know, once I saw the maker of the Ford car in Detroit. That was in the first week{3} of 1914. Henry Ford had just made the headlines in the newspapers. He had done a great thing. He had a $5.00 wage. The average union wage at that time was $3.85 per hour for a 10-hour day. (A 10-hour work day, think of that! $3.85) Henry Ford now paid a $5.00 day wage for a 9-hour day. He cut the number of hours down to nine, from ten. And I was sent by a national magazine to Henry Ford to get the story for the national magazine because it was big news at the time.

Now I saw Henry Ford. I saw him in a breezeway between the office and the big factory. At that time it was down on Highland Avenue in Detroit. They’ve moved it since. That was long before the Bullrun factory. Henry Ford had on a business suit (such as I have and a great many of you men have, and most of you here), yet he was the maker of the Ford car. I didn’t see him making any cars. But in the factory I saw hundreds of men in overalls working. Henry Ford employed them, and by them he made the Ford car. But they had machines and the power of electricity, and they were making it by that power.

That’s the way God created everything through Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ had the power (the machinery, the power) that did the work – the Holy Spirit – when He spoke. He is the Spokesman.

Now then, going back to John 1 again. I am just quoting this. I’m going to read plenty scriptures before I get through, so I won’t take the time to read that in John 1:1 (to I think now we’re at about verse 3 or 4).

John 1:4 In him was life.

L-i-f-e. “In Him was Life.”

Alright, now then let’s go back to Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the word for “God” there … This is written by Moses in the Hebrew language, and we have the English translation because we speak English here. Moses wrote this in the Hebrew language; and, instead of “God,” he wrote the Hebrew word “Elohim.” Elohim created the heavens and the earth. Now Elohim is a uniplural noun{4}. It is a word that means more than one person; but yet it is one entity, one God. But God is more than one person. God is a Family.

It is like the word “family.” You can have two people in a family. You can have twelve or fourteen people in a family. It depends upon how you describe the family – the family with grandchildren, great-grandchildren, can finally become pretty great with a large number of people.

It’s like the word “church” – one church, but many members. Like the human body, like in the 12th chapter of I Corinthians – one body, many members. Ten fingers, ten toes, two hands, two feet, legs, arms; and yet one body. Not ten bodies, not twenty bodies – one body!

God is only one God, but more than one person – consisting of those two. But the Spirit of God is not a person ! The Spirit is the Spirit that emanates from God everywhere in the universe, and the POWER that does what the Word of God commands. But Jesus, when He became the Son of God, said “I have not spoken anything of Myself. The Father that sent Me told Me what I should say and what I should speak.” So it ALL came from God the Father, who created all things by Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, when He came as a human being, He said: “I have kept My Father’s commandments. My Father is greater than I.” And yet in another time, He said: “I and My Father are equal, and We are one.” And He said that we in the Church could become one, just as They are one; and we will be in the Kingdom, or the Family, of God someday – IF we grow in grace and knowledge, IF we endure unto the end.

Brethren, a lot have not endured. I look back in past ENVOYS of Ambassador College; and I see students that I loved, and some who actually made the ministry and became ministers, no longer with us. They didn’t endure. They are gone. It just gives me heartache every time I look at one of those old ENVOYS. Of course, I look at others; and look how wonderfully they have progressed, and how wonderfully they are doing today. Some of those are here today, this afternoon. But I guess some day God will just take out of our minds the others, who didn’t make it; because we won’t have to be discouraged, worried, and saddened by thinking about it. But it’s just too bad those who don’t endure. Don’t forget that! If you ever make it into the Kingdom of God, you’ll have to endure unto the end.

Well, now, God created the heavens and the earth. Actually, this was a recreation. I won’t have time to go into all of that today. You read it in the 104th Psalm and verse 30. God is the author of government. God put angels on the earth before man. When God first created the earth, angels were here; and they SHOUTED FOR JOY because it was to be their abode, their home. But He set a government over them. He set a throne on this earth, and He put one on that throne who had been trained at headquarters (just as some of our ministers have been trained at headquarters in Pasadena, California; and then sent out into what we call the field, as ministers).

Well, here was a super archangel called Lucifer – a cherub. He had been trained. He is one whose wings spread right over the very throne of God in heaven over the whole universe. He was trained in the government of God. He was set on that throne of the earth, to rule the whole earth; and there were only angels here. He ruled over the angels. But he was a traitor. He rebelled against the government of God.

Now, the government of God has a foundation. You can’t have government without a constitution or a basic law. I see right by our hotel is the local … I don’t know whether you call it Parliament, or whatever it is, for this providence. For Ontario, isn’t it? But there is law, even for this providence. There is law for Canada. There’s a basic Constitution for the United States. You have to have a basic law or constitution for any government.

The basic constitution or law of the government of God is THE LAW OF GOD, which is a spiritual law; and it can be summed up in one word: L-O-V-E. That leads to something that was in the one who became Christ: L-I-F-E, Life. But love is the fulfilling of the law; and the only love that will fulfill the law of God is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. (But more about that later. That’s one thing I am coming to.)

Now then, there was a revolt. The angels followed this Lucifer. Lucifer became Satan the devil. The angels became demons. Desolation had come to the earth. In Psalm 104 verse 30, God renewed the face of the earth; and that’s what happened in the six days of Genesis 1. It was a renewing of the earth. It had been existing, we don’t know, maybe billions of years. We don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say.

Now God was renewing the earth. The Holy Spirit was moving on the waters, then God spake. It was Christ, the Word, who spoke: “Let there be light, and there was light.” He just spoke, and the Holy Spirit did the work – the POWER. (I’ll show you later the Holy Spirit was not a person; but is an essence, a power.)

On the sixth day of that week of renewing the face of the earth, God made animal life. You read in the 25th verse:

Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.

So there was dog after the dog kind, cat after the cat kind, elephants after the elephant kind – each after its own kind.

Genesis 1:26 And [then] God said, Let US …

Not “Let Me.” “Let US” – more than one person. That is, the Word and God.

Genesis 1:26 Let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness.

”Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness.” Man was made different from the animals. Man was made to have a contact with God, and man was made after the God kind. But man was not God. He was only man. But he was made to have a relationship with God, and to become God! (You have to find that in other places in the Bible later.)

All right, now what is the very next thing that God created? He created man. Next He created something for man, something very good. You come to the second chapter of Genesis.

Genesis 2:1-2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (2) And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made …

He didn’t end creating. He only ended working. Now He was going to create something by rest, and not by work. God ended the work which he had made:

Genesis 2:2-4 … and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (3) And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made. [Now then, you go on and … ] (4) These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth [in the day] when they were created …

The heavens (plural) and the earth – all created in the same time. So the whole universe was created at that time. All right, now what about man that He made. I said that man was made after the God kind. But here’s something else in the seventh verse.

Genesis 2:7 And the [Eternal] God formed man of the dust of the ground.

Oh, oh, God is not formed of the dust of the ground! You’ll read in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit.” God is composed of Spirit. Christ was composed of Spirit originally. “In Him was Life.” L-I-F-E. Spirit Life, Life inherent, immortal Life. But now man did not have Life. I want you to noticed:

Genesis 2:7 The [Eternal] God formed man of the dust of the ground [Just a lot of dirt, that’s all.], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [Just a breath of temporary life. That is, of temporary physio-chemical existence. That’s all.]; and man [the dust of the ground.] became a … soul.

Not an immortal soul! It says: “a living”– just temporarily living. Well, so were the cattle living. So were the dogs and cows living. But not forever; just temporarily, for a little while. Out of the dust of the ground, breathing air. God doesn’t have to breath air to live. God doesn’t have to have blood pumping in His veins to live. God has SPIRIT LIFE, INHERENT LIFE, IMMORTAL LIFE; but man did not have.

So man, like the animals, was made from the dust of the ground. Man breathed the same air as animals. Man dies the same death as animals, as the Bible says. They both die the same death. We have the same kind of life. The breath is called “the breath of life.” Well, the only life we have comes through the breath. You stop … some way stop your nose, and you can’t breathe. Shut up your mouth so you can’t get any air in through the mouth. You won’t be alive in five minutes. Try it sometime! But you won’t come back and tell me the answer, because you won’t be living to do it. You just won’t be living to do it.

YOU DO NOT HAVE LIFE! But God offered Adam Life. He didn’t have it, but he was offered Life. Now, I want you to get this. Man was composed of matter. He did not have Life. He had a temporary existence, for a little while. Now, in that sense, he was just like the animals; and so science thinks man is an animal, and science is all wrong. But man has the same life as an animal, and man dies the same death as an animal; but man is different than an animal. Man is made after the God kind.

Now, God has hands and feet. God has fingers. God wrote the Ten Commandments on tables of stone with the very finger of God. You can read about His feet, you can read about His hands, in the Bible. God has hands and feet. Animals don’t. Animals have hooves, paws. Birds have claws.

Now, something else: Man has a mind, animals have a brain; and there is a great difference. But what is the difference? In the modern science of brain research, they take a brain apart; and they look at it. I was seeing some brain research things on television just the other night on a documentary, and on an educational channel. They were even showing the brain of a rat and what a rat could do.

You can train an animal. He has an instinct. You can train him to do something that is not instinct by repeating over, and over, and over, and over – doing it with a system of rewards and punishments until it becomes a habit; and an animal will do it. But an animal cannot think. An animal cannot know what a man can know. An animal cannot think and reason. An animal cannot come to conclusions.

In our home in Tucson, Arizona, we have three dogs. You’ve heard of one of those dogs in The Plain Truth. He is a German dachshund – a little bitty fellow, just little short legs only about so high. A long body, short legs. He owns the place. Of course, we have a great big dog that’s a very large dog, but Sir Hans really owns the place and runs it; and he patrols it. He’s a deputy sheriff, and he wears a badge on his collar. It says he’s the deputy sheriff.

But, now, if someone is coming … You see, he patrols the place. We have two other dogs, and he assigns the other dogs to patrol the place. But all the dogs start to bark if someone is coming (whether in a car, or by foot). They even know they are coming before we do. I don’t know whether they smell it or hear it, but they know it. But do you think Sir Hans Armstrong stops to think: “Well, let me meditate. Let me think a while. Shall I bark, or shall I not bark, this time? I think I’d better bark.” Oh, no, he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t know why he barks. That’s instinct. He doesn’t know why he does it.

But A HUMAN BEING IS DIFFERENT! A human being has to think, and has to direct everything he does by his mind. He doesn’t know how to do anything. An animal knows certain things – just what it is to do – by instinct. That’s all. For example, did you ever see a calf born? A little calf is born; and, in less than two minutes, it is learning to walk. It is on all four legs, and it knows how to walk; and it knows where to go. It goes for its dinner, and it knows how to suck milk. No one has to teach him anything.

Ever see a baby born? I have. I’ve seen three of my four children born. They didn’t walk right away, not for about a year. They had to be taught everything. They had to be taught to suck milk. They didn’t know how to do anything.

You know, people need to be taught how to walk. They don’t even know how to walk. Did you ever watch people walk? Go out on the street sometime where people are walking by; and just stand, and just watch their legs. Just watch them walk. Some of them go along galloping up and down like this, and some of them so along backwards and sideways you know. Others just go right along straight. All kind of different walks: some are clumsy, and some are not. They just learned to walk, and no one taught them. They should have been taught, because they didn’t learn properly.

I’ve even read that people need to be taught how to sit and how to rise from the seat, because most people don’t know how to do it gracefully. HUMANS HAVE TO BE TAUGHT. We have to LEARN. We have to get it though our MINDS. Humans have a mind; animals have a brain. Yet, look, they take the brains of animals apart and the brains of people after they die; and you know that the animal brain is precisely like the human brain. No difference!

The scientists would like to say there’s a tiny bit of difference. It’s so little. I think the truth is it’s exactly the same. Physically, qualitatively, exactly the same! An elephant brain is larger than a human brain. A chimpanzee brain just a little smaller, but all the same composition – made the same way, the same kind of matter, the same form and shape. But there is a difference in the output. The human can think; the animal can’t. The human can know things and have knowledge an animal can’t have.

The difference is there is a spirit in man. God is a Spirit, and He gave man a spirit so man can have a contact with God, so man ultimately can be born of God and BECOME GOD! Animals are not in the image of God. They can never become God. They don’t have to have God knowledge. But man needed knowledge! Animals did not. They just were born with instinct. Now there is quite a difference.

In Job 32, verse 8, you will read that there is a spirit in man. Now in I Corinthians the 2nd chapter (I won’t take time to read this, but I will tell you how it says.), verse 9, that:

I Corinthians 2:9 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart [or the mind] of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

In other words, SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot enter the mind of man normally or naturally. You can’t know the spiritual knowledge naturally. You can’t see spirit. You can’t hear it. You can’t feel it. You can’t smell it or taste it. How are you going to know anything about it? Well, 99.99999% of the people don’t.

Adam was made with a spirit that he could know and have certain knowledge. But he NEEDED ANOTHER SPIRIT – the Holy Spirit of God, which he did not have. It was made available to him. He did not get it. He did not take it. He could have. It was offered to him. God wanted him to take it. But he had to make a choice of whether he would rather have that or have another spirit (just the spirit he did have). He was born with a spirit.

All right. The spirit he was born with gave him the possibility of receiving knowledge to deal with material things. Now get this. Adam had the capacity by his creation; and his children, like us, by our birth since that time – we have had the ability to deal with things and to reason out and to properly do a thing. We can make a table like this {5}. We can make an electric light like that. We can make airplanes, and fly to the moon, make motion pictures and make it work. The THINGS THAT MAN HAS ACCOMPLISHED are all physical and material, and Adam was created with ability to do that.

But Adam needed three kinds of knowledge. He not only needed knowledge to deal with matter and the earth out of which he came. He was made to need to deal with people, because God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth.” He was given a wife so he could have children; and they were able to have children; and their children had children; and finally there was going to be a big population. Adam lived 930 years. There must have been a few million people of all his children before he died.

Now he needed knowledge to get along with his children and to get along with his neighbor. If he got organized, he could get along with other organizations. He needed knowledge to deal with people. Now he needed another kind of knowledge to deal with God and to have a companionship with God.

The Bible also says two cannot walk together except they be agreed. He had to come into harmony and agreement with God to walk with Him, and that takes knowledge. He did not have spiritual knowledge. Now back to I Corinthians the 2nd chapter. You cannot see, hear, or taste, or smell, neither can it enter into the mind of man spiritual knowledge; but GOD HAS REVEALED THOSE THINGS TO US. How? BY HIS SPIRIT!

And the Word of God – these words are spirit and they are truth. You know, the words of the Bible, they are material words; and they do speak about physical and material things. Many carnal minds can understand the physical, materialistic things that the Bible says. They can’t understand the spiritual knowledge to save their lives. They just simply cannot. They don’t know why. I do, but they don’t. They don’t.

Adam needed knowledge to have a contact with God. He needed knowledge to deal with people. The reason we’re having trouble in the world today: we don’t know how to deal with one another. Adam desperately needed the Spirit of God.

All right. Before Adam were the Two Trees. One was the Tree of Life. What IF Adam had taken the Tree of Life? What would that have done? Would he have had eternal Life{6} just that quick? God does not change. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So is Christ. Today the Tree of Life is open to you and me. We are promised eternal Life through Christ, are we not? Do you get it just when you repent, and receive Christ, and when you are baptized? No. What you get – IF you have really repented, IF you have really believed in your heart really and sincerely and deeply – you receive the Spirit of God.

Now then, if you do not have the Spirit of God, you are none of His. But IF the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead will also make immortal your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you – through a resurrection. IF the Spirit dwells in you, you will come to have inherent Life, eternal Life, Life inherent within yourself. But you don’t have it now.

Now remember: in Christ was Life. In Adam was not Life. In Adam was a temporary existence. That’s the first Adam. You and I were born of Adam. We were born like Adam. But Adam had to make a choice. If he had taken of the Tree of Life, that meant just what it means today. He would have received the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Holy Spirit, you don’t get immortal Life right away. What you get the knowledge of God right away. You learn about the law of God. You receive spiritual knowledge, and God says the law is SPIRITUAL.

You know, the law of God – it doesn’t tell you how to make a desk like this. It doesn’t how to go to the moon and back. It doesn’t tell you how to make a bicycle, how to make an automobile. The law of God doesn’t tell you how to do those things. Man has done that without the law of God. Man doesn’t believe in the law of God, but man can do those things. But THE LAW OF GOD does tell you how to get along with your neighbor. The law of God does tell you how to have a right relationship with God, and one of those things I just read to you – the keeping of His Sabbath.

Most people don’t think that means anything or makes any difference. Now that was there and made known to Adam, because God was made the Sabbath before He even made Adam … or before He began to put Adam to the test, at least. No, He had created Adam first. But it was after He made the Sabbath that He put Adam into the garden of Eden, in which were the two symbolic Trees in the center that were very special Trees because they had a very deep spiritual meaning.

God’s purpose is to make us God – to make man{7} into God. GOD IS REPRODUCING HIMSELF. Have you ever reproduced yourself? Did your parents reproduce themselves when you were born? They sure did. Now just stop and think a minute, and think of the exact comparison.

You originally were an ovum in your mother’s ovary. That was shot out of the ovary into a fallopian tube (that has just like a hand at the end of it); and then it goes in through the tube down into the uterus, or the womb. That ovum had a temporary life not exceeding 28 days – just a temporary existence, no life really at all. It had the possibility of life, but it needed to have a male sperm cell to impregnate it and impart life to it.

So a male sperm cell from your father’s body entered (Either in the fallopian tube or in the womb, whatever. Doctors may not quite understand where.), and life was added. That life was the beginning of you. That’s the way you began, and you didn’t know anything then. You were just an impregnated ovum. I never can think of that word that I want{8}; but, anyway, after four months you became a fetus – instead of an embryo. You were first an embryo. That’s all.

You began to take on human form after about four months inside of your mother. Your mother was protecting you and feeding you from physical food. The physical food that she ate brought nourishment from which you developed and grew; but she had to protect you from harm. You had to be fed through her to grow on physical food; but you weren’t ready yet to be born, and birth didn’t come until five more months (or a total of nine months). Then you were born; and, when you were born, at first you gave a squawk with the first breath: “Blah.”

With that breath, a SPIRIT entered into you! Now that spirit is no part of you. It’s just something in you{9}. But that spirit imparted intellect to a physical brain that an animal doesn’t have. Let’s go back to I Corinthians 2.

I Corinthians 2:9 God hath revealed [these things] to us by his Spirit … [which eye can’t see, ear can’t hear – the things of God].

Now then, “What man … ” In verse 11:

I Corinthians 2:11 What man [can know] the things of a man, except by the spirit of man, which is in him?

Man is not a spirit. That spirit doesn’t impart life to the man. The breath imparts life, and the blood imparts life. The blood thereof is the life thereof{10}. Your temporary life, your temporary existence, comes from breath and from blood – not from that spirit.

The spirit only gives you the power of thinking and of knowing. It gives you the power to know materialistic knowledge. It does not give you the power to know spiritual knowledge. It doesn’t give you the power to know how to get along with people. It doesn’t give you LOVE towards people. So you develop the spirit of competition, because Satan gets that injected into you: competition, and strife, and getting and taking (instead of giving and helping and sharing).

Now then, are you with me? Are you following? This is a little bit deep, but this is the very beginning. This is where everything is. Just the same, you could not have the knowledge you have except by that spirit that is in you. But, in the same manner, no man can know the things of God and have spiritual knowledge save by THE SPIRIT OF GOD. The Spirit of God!

Now look, Adam was made a male. He was not complete. He needed another human being by his side, a wife. He couldn’t reproduce until he had a wife, another person. So God made him a wife. Alright. His mind was only half there too. He needed ANOTHER SPIRIT, just like he needed another female person beside him. That is, another person, who would be a female, beside him.

God freely offered him that Spirit. If we receive the Holy Spirit, we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts to fulfill God’s law. The Holy Spirit opens our mind to understand God’s law. The Holy Spirit opens our mind to spiritual knowledge, which we were not born with and which we did not have before, and which most people do not have. In other words, most people (who do not have the Holy Spirit) are mentally deficient. They are mentally only half there. Now maybe you call that being crazy? I don’t know. That’s what they are.

I don’t care how many letters they have after their names. Some people have a couple of PhDs after their name. Some have a PhD and an MD, and other kinds of “D’s” or doctorates. They are only half there, unle ss they have the Holy Spirit of God. They cannot know spiritual knowledge. They cannot get along with God.

But the Holy Spirit of God imparts the presence of Life, just like the sperm cell from your father imparted life to an ovum. You are an ovum; and you have a limited life of, some would say, an average of 70 years. Some live to over 100. I’ve lived up into my 90th year already. It’s up to God whether I live past 100 or not. I don’t know.

My mother asked me one time, when she was getting well into her eighties, “Do you think I’ll live to be 100?” I said, “Of course you will, Mother.” Of course, I wanted to be nice to her. Well, she didn’t quite make that; but she was ninety-five and a half. I’ve had other grandparents and granduncles (great uncles) that were up into their nineties. So God can keep me around as long as He wants to. It’s up to Him. I belong to Him. I don’t belong to myself. It’s up to Him. As long as He wants to use me, He can keep me going full steam ahead. I’m not thinking of retiring. I reached retirement age about thirty years ago, but I’m not thinking about that at all. I still have plenty of energy, plenty of life.

[** Part of the sermon is missing at 1:00:12]

… the Spirit of God. That would have given him spiritual knowledge. It would then given him the love of God, so he could have had love for his neighbor and love toward God. It would have given him the faith of God; and his God, that talked to him, was Christ. Actually the one who became Christ was the Word (Yahweh). And he would have had the Spirit of power to overcome Satan, just like we receive those things. If he had endured for the rest of his life, then he would have received immortal Life. He wouldn’t have received it right away.

But, IF HE HAD DONE THAT, Satan would have been taken away; and the whole world would have been different! You wouldn’t be living in a world like you do today. When Christ comes, Satan will be put away; and people won’t be living in a world like you’re living in today either.

Now, then, the other Tree in the garden was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Notice: one Tree was the Tree of Life; the other was the Tree of Knowledge. But if they took of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would DIE. God said, “If you take of that, you will SURELY DIE.” He only had a temporary existence. He didn’t have Life. But in Christ was Life! He was the God speaking to Adam. He had Life to give.

But Adam followed Eve; and he said, “No, thank you. I will take to myself the knowledge that I need.” And the only knowledge he could take to himself was knowledge to make things, to deal with things, but not how to deal properly with people. So he has never gotten along with people, but he has done very well with things. He has made marvelous progress.

Did you ever understand why we have a world making such marvelous progress in some material and physical directions, and yet having such great troubles? Because the world doesn’t have the Spirit of God, that’s why. That is the reason. But that’s not the end of the story at all, not yet.

When Adam did that, then God did something. Adam had to make a decision. He made that decision for himself and his children. Then we turn to the 3rd chapter of Genesis and the last few verses here. Beginning in verse 22{11}:

Genesis 3:22-24 The [Eternal] God said, … lest he [now] put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; (23) Therefore the [Eternal] God … (24) drove out the man; and he placed at the east in the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Lest he go back and live forever in sin, and disobedience, and going the wrong way, and without spiritual knowledge – without the knowledge to deal with God or people; and he would be unhappy. That’s what’s made humans unhappy ever since; and God{12} was not going to allow that.

So GOD CLOSED UP THE TREE OF LIFE. Now get that! Christianity doesn’t know that! Protestants don’t know that! The Roman Catholic church doesn’t know that! They DON’T KNOW the Tree of Life has been closed. They think all you have to do is get the password (Christ), and you automatically will be saved. Oh, no.

THE HOLY SPIRIT – ETERNAL LIFE – WAS CLOSED until the Second Adam. Alright, go back. Take it from the time of the Flood. Nobody had the Holy Spirit. All of them, their minds were only on evil continually; and so came the Flood, and Noah alone and his family were saved. Later God called people out of Egyptian slavery, and made them His nation. They didn’t have the Holy Spirit. God didn’t offer them the Holy Spirit. Ancient Israel had the law of God, but they couldn’t obey it because it’s a spiritual law; and it takes the love of God in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and God did not give them the Holy Spirit. Ancient Israel did not obey God and God’s law. So what? Well, it’s just like you read in Hebrews 9:27.

Hebrews 9:27 It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

ALL ISRAEL is going to come back to judgment. You read that in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel {13}. You should hear that preached on the Last Day of the Feast of Tabernacles – that Great Day, the day of judgment. In that day of judgment, they’re going to give account for what they did; and the penalty is death. Christ will be the Judge; and He’s going to say to those in that judgment, “You are sentenced to DEATH. You are found GUILTY.”

But, you know, a lot of them (I think nearly all of them.) are going to throw themselves on the mercy of the court. “Well, I accept it, your Honor. I know I am guilty. I know I did do these things. Oh, if I could just live all over again, I wouldn’t do it.” He’ll say, “You mean, if you had a chance, you would do differently.” “Oh, yes, your Honor. That’s what I mean.” Well, He’ll say, “You know, I’m going to give you a chance. You know, I took all your sins. I paid that penalty for you; and, if you will live the right way, you still can have eternal Life.”

That’s going to be the judgment of all those people. But they didn’t get it in this life! The Holy Spirit was CLOSED UP from them. “It’s appointed to men once to die, after this the judgment.”

I Corinthians 15:22-24 As in Adam ALL DIE [They’ve all been dead, and they didn’t have the Holy Spirit.], [but] so in Christ shall all [The same “all” who died.] be made alive. (23) But every man in his own order:[first] Christ [resurrected] … afterwards they that are Christ’s [That’s us.] at [Christ’s] coming[That’s pretty soon now.]. (24) Then cometh the end [and the final Great White Throne Judgment, after the Millennium].

Oh, why can’t people understand the teaching of God – the wonderful revelation of God, and how merciful God is. EVERYONE who ever lived is going to have their chance, but they are not getting it now! Their minds are closed; and the natural mind of man, even to this day, is hostile against God. Romans 8 and verse 7, the natural …

Romans 8:7The carnal mind is enmity [which means hostile] against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Then in Jeremiah 17 (Isn’t it? Yes, I believe.), verse 9, I believe:

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart [or the mind of man] is deceitful [and wicked] above all things, and … who can know it?

That’s the way … We’re not born exactly that way, but you’re born without the Spirit of God. Satan is alive, and Satan is broadcasting; and he broadcasts competition, and strife, and selfishness, and ego, and vanity into you – beginning the first day of your life.

Now, parents are neglecting their children the first months of their life, the first year. They say, “Well, wait until he’s six-years-old; and we’ll send him to school, and let the teacher teach him.” Yeah, you neglect your children. SATAN IS NOT NEGLECTING YOUR LITTLE CHILDREN. Satan begins working on your children the first two or three months of their lives. By six or seven months, eight months, children are naturally selfish. They weren’t born that way, but they get that way within a few months because Satan is not neglecting your children. You parents who have little children, how dare you neglect your little children! Satan is very mindful of them. He’s getting after them.

Go back and teach your children. Teach them the way of God: cooperation, love, kindness, sharing, and obedience, and the things they need to know; because they haven’t been taught those things.

Now then, Adam chose self-produced knowledge. He took to himself the knowledge of what is right and wrong, of good and evil. He could have had the knowledge of what is good and what is evil from the other Tree. But he took it to himself. God would have revealed it to him, if he had taken of the Tree of Life; but he didn’t. His Tree led to death. The other Tree would have lead to Life. His Tree was a tree of knowledge. So was the other Tree a tree of knowledge. One was the knowledge that would lead to Life. The other was knowledge that would lead to death.

And man has been pursuing knowledge ever since, but man has been unable to deal with man. Man does not get along with man. Man has not had a relationship with God, and the natural mind of man is hostile against God. He doesn’t want anything to do with God. He gets hot and bothered if you speak about religion or God to him. He doesn’t want to hear about it, and he doesn’t know why.

He gets in trouble and he doesn’t know the way out. You know, if he had the Spirit of God, he would be able to go to God; and God would HELP HIM OUT. You read in the 34th Psalm, verse 19:

Psalm 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous : but the LORD delivers him out of them all.

Man needs that companionship with God to deliver him out of trouble! I’m going to tell you: this Church as been in real trouble since the first of this year. Most of you don’t know about it, but I’ve had to rely on God; and God is delivering us out of the trouble. We’re not clear out of it yet, but God is delivering us. Oh yes, there was a conspiracy to get me out of the driver’s seat (among other things). I’m still in the driver’s seat, brethren. God is on His throne.

Now there’s only one reason why God is on our side, and that’s if we are on His side. I’m trying my best to be on God’s side, and I hope you will too. None of us has always been on God’s side, but we can be there now.

Well, after six thousand years, we came to the place in the last couple of centuries (the last century or so) modern science has said, “Well, we’ve grown in knowledge so much now that we can safely throw away the crutch of religion. Religion is only a superstition anyway. We don’t need it any more. Science is the new messiah, the new god, that is going to deliver us from all of our troubles.”

Modern science! Do you know what science has done? Modern science has had the weapons of war, and stirred up war after war. Modern science has produced, finally, its crowning achievement – the weapons of mass destruction that will erase all of us off the face of the earth. Destruction! They haven’t saved us from anything.

In the decade of the ‘60s, Dr. Clark Kerr, president of the University of California and one of the world’s great educators, said the modern university is a factory. What are we manufacturing? We are manufacturing knowledge. Oh, yes. Adam took the knowledge – only the ability to manufacture physical, materialistic, knowledge. That’s ALL they have in the universities. That’s ALL they have at the schools. They only teach MATERIAL KNOWLEDGE. They don’t know spiritual knowledge. They are only half there. The knowledge is only half complete. That’s why I’ve been saying for years there’s a missing dimension in knowledge, and it’s been missing since Adam. A missing dimension!

Now God shut up the Spirit from man, and man has not had access to the Spirit of God. Alright, so finally came the Second Adam – the one who is the Word, the one through whom God created all things. He divested Himself of all that great glory. He came down and was born as a lowly babe, in a manger, of the virgin Mary. He grew up, and Satan tried to kill him right then. Then, when He began His ministry – not as the Son of God (which He was), but as the Son of man – and He functioned only as a Son of man, setting an example for us and for the ministers of the Church today. Ever think of that?

Jesus Christ said, “I will build My Church.” “I will build My Church.” So He called apostles. Now He called them. God called them through Christ, because God does everything through Christ. He created all things through Christ. Peter and Andrew were fishing, and they wanted to be fishermen. They didn’t want to be ministers. But Jesus called “Come on, and follow Me. I’m going to make you fishers of men.” (Well, I always wanted to do other jobs.) But Christ called them to follow Him; and He trained apostles to start the Church.

Now Joel had prophesied – Joel 2:28. Joel, a prophet, prophesied:

Joel 2:28 It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

Now the Spirit of God had been shut up, and was shut up from mankind. THAT HAS NOT BEEN TAUGHT IN THIS CHURCH BEFORE. That’s news to you people. Will you get it? Will you believe it? But Joel prophesied a time would come when God would begin pouring out His Spirit upon ALL FLESH. He hasn’t begun yet. But, on the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter said, “This is that prophesied by the prophet Joel: ‘In the latter days, saith God, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.’”

It began coming at that time, and the Spirit of God was being poured. The Spirit of God was not a “he.” It was an “it.” An “it.” The Spirit of God sat upon the heads of each one of them like flames of fire they could see, and it came with the sound of a rushing mighty wind. And some people say the Holy Spirit is a “he,” and never spoken of as an “it” in the Bible. Turn to the 2nd chapter of the book of Acts, and you will find it.

But Jesus said, “NO MAN CAN COME TO ME except the Father that sent Me draw him.” Now, God is the real author of the law. Jesus said, “I have kept My Father’s law, My Father’s commandments.” When you sin, you are cutting yourself off from God. It is Christ’s blood that will reconcile you to God Christ’s blood does not save you! The 5th chapter of Romans, the blood of Christ doesn’t save anybody. Did you think it did? You were wrong. The blood of Christ, though, reconciles you to God. And no one can come to Christ except God the Father draws them, and there’s no way to get back to God except through Christ. But God has to choose you.

Read again the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. To those brethren at Ephesus he said, “God chose you.” Just think, He looked down; and He’s only choosing one here, and one way over there, and one somewhere else in another city. But you were the ones He chose. Brethren, there are (What is it?) 2 1/2 million or so people right here in this city, but we are a small group; and we come from all over. God has chosen you! What a wonderful privilege: that God looked down and chose you.

Well now, He’s going to choose all the others; but later. Their time hasn’t come yet. He’s chosen you at a time when you’ve got Satan to fight. You’ve got Satan’s world to fight. They won’t have to buck that. They’ll have it easier. If they live into the Millennium, the Spirit of God will be poured out on them. The Spirit of God is like essence. It’s not a being. It’s not a person. It can be poured out.

Jesus said on the last day of the great feast – after the Feast of Tabernacles, when He was on earth over 1900 years ago:

John 7:37-39 If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. (38) … out of his innermost being will flow RIVERS OF LIVING WATER. (39) (But this spake he of the Spirit [of God, which had not yet been given because Jesus was not at that time yet glorified].

The Holy Spirit of God can be poured. You don’t pour a human being, or a person, or a divine being. The Holy Spirit is not a personage. God is not a trinity. You don’t limit God to three persons. God started as two, but you and I can be born into the God Family. If there are only three, you and I could never be born of God. Then God is complete. God is not complete, and is not going to be for a long time!

People don’t know why God put humans on earth, or where we are going, or what, or why, or anything about it. Oh, the ignorance in this world. It’s terrible.

Now then, Jesus brought the gospel.

Let’s see how we are doing with time here. I’ve got a little bit of time yet. I’m speaking more than an hour to them; already more than an hour, but I’m not going to speak as long as Gerald Waterhouse. [Audience laughs.] But you don’t get this message … You’ve never heard this message before, and I want you to get it. You didn’t come here to see me. I’m no celebrity. I’m just a burned out old hunk of junk, who thought he was no good to himself no longer and gave himself to Christ; and Christ has been using me. That’s all. That’s all you are looking on. But your ears are hearing something you’d better listen to. If you have an ear to hear, you’d better hear.

All right. Christ came and preached THE TRUTH – the Kingdom of God, the Family of God that will rule the world, and the government of God. He put His government in the Church! But only a few were called now. Others … “It’s appointed unto men once to die, after this the judgment.” “As in Adam all die (Others have died, billions.), all shall be made alive.” Oh, their time is coming. It just hasn’t come yet; and, when their time comes, there won’t be any Satan they’ll have to overcome.

You and I are having a harder time of it now. But, IF WE OVERCOME, the promise is we shall sit with Christ on His throne. We shall be given power to rule the nations and help save the nations. Oh, we get a greater reward. Now, we get eternal Life not as a reward. That’s the gift of God, by grace; but the reward comes by works. God is calling us now, if we make the grade.

So He had the gospel, and the Church was started. It started off with a fine, wonderful burst of joy and happiness, and the Holy Spirit. That was 31 A.D. But in about 53 A.D. (only about 21-22 years later) – the Church was just barely of age – the apostle Paul wrote this to the Churches up in Galatia (Galatians 1, verses 6 and 7):

Galatians 1:6-7 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel[The gospel now was no longer going to be preached to the world. It was going to be suppressed.]: (7) Which is not another, but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

So the gospel was perverted. The gospel was perverted, and has been for 1900 years. Now we come to our day, and there is a false church (I read that to you at the beginning.) – BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS; and we are called out of that. We’re called to the true Church of God. The true Church of God is pictured in the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation: a small Church, persecuted, having to flee the governments that are really ruled by the false church.

Now, for our time now, you would read in the 24th chapter of Matthew, where they asked Christ about the time of His coming. But they also asked Him about the time when the temple would be destroyed, and that was to be in 70 A.D.; and He said, “Many will come in My name, saying that I am Christ (preaching Christ to the nations) but yet deceiving the people.” That has happened.

But He said, “WHEN THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM IS PREACHED,” and it was not preached until I went on the air over the United States, and finally in 1953 (100 time cycles from the time it was suppressed) I was able to go on the most powerful radio station on earth – Radio Luxembourg, over all Europe and England – with the true gospel. One hundred time cycles! That should mean something. When …

Matthew 24:14 This gospel of the Kingdom [is] preached in the world for a witness unto all nations …

God has sent me to kings, to presidents, to prime ministers all over the world. I didn’t go to convert them; but I did go to open the way to get the gospel into their countries, and the way was opened. The way was opened. But I tell you, the true Church even – even the true Church – began to lose the gospel.

Now how did the true Church get its gospel? How did it get its teaching? How did the true Church get its message, its beliefs? It got it from the apostles. But how did the apostles get it? They got it from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. I said that in the beginning this afternoon. Jesus Christ was the Word of God. They got it direct from the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God in person. The Bible is the Word of God in writing. Same Word exactly!

After these 1900 years, God raised me up and somehow beat me down where I was willing to submit and willing to believe Him. I was really whipped and beaten, after I had been quite a success financially and economically. I began to see that the Bible said just the opposite of what I had been taught in one of these churches “in Babylon” I had never really been part of; but I was brought up in one from childhood.

I went further. I saw that the soul that sins will die. It was not immortal, as I thought. I saw that no man would go to heaven. I began to learn the church was teaching just the opposite of what the Bible says. I began to prove that the Bible was true. I began to prove that God exists and that God is true. I began to believe what God says. Adam didn’t. People didn’t believe what Christ said. (Not very many. Only 120 out of the thousands upon thousands who heard Him.)

I don’t know any reason why God should have chosen me. I’m no better than anybody else. I’ve known all kinds of people with more ability than I have, better personality, better appearance, better everything than I have. But God didn’t choose any of them. He hasn’t used any of them. So He had to take someone who wasn’t quite so good and use to bring YOU THE TRUTH THAT YOU HAVE HAD. And all of you directly or indirectly are my children in the Lord, because you got the knowledge directly or indirectly through me. Christ got it to{14} me; but Christ is the living Word, and I got it through the living Word in print, in writing, just as the early apostles did.

I found that the Church had lost most of that truth. They had the name “Church of God.” They had the Sabbath. That’s about all they had. They didn’t have the gospel. They didn’t know what the gospel was. They knew there’d be a Millennium. They had no conception of what was going to happen in the Millennium. They knew we are not an immortal soul. They did know a few of those things. They knew we don’t go to heaven. But there were so many things they just did not understand at all.

God began to reveal truth that had been lost – been lost because the third generation of the Church got their doctrine from the second generation. The fifth generation got it from the fourth generation. The seventeenth generation got it from the sixteenth. If you saw the whispering game going along from person to person, you start a sentence down here; and by the time it gets to the other end you won’t recognize it. It will have changed.

Just like rumors. It goes from one person to another, and every time it gets changed a little bit. That’s what happened to the truth in the Church. But God has kept the words straight in the Bible, and I come to you; and you don’t have to believe … You don’t have to just trust me because I say, “Don’t believe me. Look in the Bible and see if I am telling the truth.” And you’ve looked there; but you didn’t see it there until I brought it to your attention, did you? But you can check up on me.

Now the early Church couldn’t check up on Peter, and Paul, and the apostles. But they knew it was the truth, and they had the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit energized them and gave them Life. Well, so it is. God has called us, and chosen us; and God has raised up one to bring this to you. Now, that is the truth.

I have some more I was going to use, but I’m not going to go through it now. I was going to show you that we are the Bride of Christ, the Church that shall have made herself ready. We are trying to get back on the track. I read a letter on the way coming up here from a member of the Church – that was a member of the Church locally – that said next time she heard anything about this getting back on the track she’s going to throw up. That woman is no longer in the Church. She’s not hearing it. She’s not here today. At least, she’d better not be.

You bet cha! We’re still trying to get back on the track. We’re almost there, brethren; and we’re going to get there because God says the Bride shall have made her … the Wife who’s going to marry Christ will have made herself READY. Now, those that are ready are going to go in; and those that are not you read of in the 25th chapter of Matthew. Some are not going to endure until the end. You’d better be sure that you do!

I’ve given you truth today you haven’t heard before. I hope it will mean something to you. We’re on trial now. God is with us. God will bless us according as we obey Him, and as we are close to Him. Brethren, we need to pray as we’ve never prayed before. We need to read and study our Bibles as never before. We need to COME OUT of Babylon, OUT OF THE WORLD and be separate. We are a separate and a chosen people. We are called to be a holy people. You bet we’re going to get back on the track, and we’re just almost there right now; and God is beginning to prosper the Work. It’s beginning to prosper.

Do you know that for several years we had practically no prospective members coming for the local ministers to go and visit, and now they are just coming in almost every day. All of a sudden God is blessing us. We have been getting back on the track. Now we’d better still get there. But don’t become weary with well doing. That’s another scripture. But pray as you never did before because it’s not going to be easy; and he that endures unto the end, the same will go in. I hope that the door won’t be shut in any of your faces.

Well, thank you brethren for coming. I hope I haven’t tired you out. I’m a little older than most of you, and I haven’t tired myself out. So I hope I haven’t tired you out.