Sermon (November 7, 1981)

by Herbert W Armstrong

Greetings everybody, it’s nice to be with you again. As it was announced, it’s going to be the last chance for about three weeks I’ll have now to be with you here. But we’ll be with our brethren in England next Sabbath. After that, I’ll probably be in the Middle East, where we won’t have a congregation.

I’d like to read a passage to you, but first let me tell you: I remember talking to my own sister many, many years ago. She is still staying with the church in which I was reared, and I lost all interest in going to church when I was eighteen. I never had been interested. I went because my parents sent me. But it was the Quaker church; and there are two kinds of Quakers, I understand.

At least the Quaker church where we attended in Des Moines (the only one, of course, there) was more like a Baptist or a Methodist fundamentalist church today. It wasn’t one of those where they twiddle their fingers. I remember, when I was a boy, we took another boy to a Sunday night service one time. We wanted to have some fun with him, so we told him he had to twiddle his thumbs all the time while he was there. So he did it, and everybody began to laugh at him. Well, I did a lot of things when I was around 10-11 years old – some of which I did get spanked for, and others in which I should have been.

But my sister is still clinging to it, even to this day I guess. I was explaining some things in the Bible one time, and she says, “You don’t read the Bible to try to understand it, do you, and to get meaning out of it?” I said, “Why certainly.” I said, “Don’t you read the Bible?” She said, “Oh, yes. I read it.” “Well,” I said, “What do you read it for?” She said, “Just for inspiration. I always look to our preacher to give us any meaning of any kind. We can’t understand the Bible.”

Well, that is not what the Bible is for. I want to read you this scripture. It’s in II Timothy 3, verse 16:

II Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

Now you notice that scripture is profitable for those things. She didn’t read it to be corrected. She read it only for inspiration, just sort of a feeling; but for instruction in righteousness? No: For reproof? No: For correction? No.

Well, that reminds me of one of our graduates of years ago. He became a young minister. He didn’t last too long; he’s not with the Church any longer. This was, oh this was, I think, at least 20 years ago. We had a small Church up in Portland, Oregon at the time; and the service was held in the afternoon, Sabbath afternoons up there. I was up there to speak one time, and he was giving a sermonette. There was a little intermission of some kind in between, and he had given them a scorching correction sermon. He was correcting them.

Now, he was probably at that time about 22 years old; but he looked more like 18 or 19. I heard a couple of other men, in a sort of a cloakroom where they hung coats (and it was in the winter, where they hang up overcoats), and one of them said, “Well, did you get properly corrected? Did you hear the sermonette?” And another one said, “Yes, I heard the boy.” And I learned then … I talked to him, and I said, “Listen, there are different kinds of sermons; and the Bible is profitable for different things.” I said, “You look younger than you are, and you should not yet (until you are a little older) preach corrective sermons.”

Do you know why Jesus didn’t begin His ministry until He was about 30 years of age? I think the mind reaches a certain maturity by age 25. I have thought that for a good many years. However, a man (at least the male of the species) does not appear to be fully mature, where he can have influence over other people in speaking to them, until about 30. Jesus didn’t begin speaking with the authority He did until He was about 30. If Jesus couldn’t speak authoritatively until He was 30 years of age, how can a young boy of 22 (who only looks about 18 or 19)? So I was thinking of that.

But that’s one advantage that I now have over some of the really younger ministers. I can speak corrective sermons, and sometimes we need to do that – as well as informative and inspirational sermons. But the Bible is profitable for those things. Many of our ministers preach expository, or (I was going to say) instructive sermons, and sometimes with reproof. But few of them seem to speak very loudly on giving you actual criticism, reproof, and correction. That’s one of the things that I think comes with age, and with maturity, and with experience.

I just wanted to tell you I’m going to have to preach a corrective sermon this afternoon, and I pray that God will help me to do it in love and not in any other manner at all. I have no other idea in mind. But for some 3 years now, Jesus Christ has been working to get this Church back on the track. We had gotten off the track, and I want to go into it this afternoon a little bit.

How did we get off the track? We were getting off the track in many ways. We were getting off the track in the matter of prayer. We were getting off the track in relying on God even for healing, and going to doctors and taking drugs and medicines. We were getting off the track in Church attendance. We were getting off the track in many, many different things. But how did it all start? I want to come to that this afternoon.

The liberal movement in the Church, more recently it started. There had been some of it trying to rear up its head earlier, but it really started along in 1974 – with and after the big rebellion we had of about 30-35 ministers in the spring of 1974{1}, when about between 30-35 ministers went out of the Church and tried to take their congregations and all the members they could with them. Well, they took a certain number. In less than 6 months, though, we had more than brought in new members to replace them. The Church 6 months later had more members than it did when they took some out. God was still with us, and always has been. But a liberal movement did start in the wake of that, and most of it did not start … Well, some of it started before that. But it really started in the autumn of that year, and I’m going to go into that a little later.

But one of the things that we were getting off the track on was the matter of personal appearance when we come to Church. Now, on some jobs you can’t dress up. You don’t wear evening clothes. A man doesn’t wear a tuxedo and a white tie. If he’s painting a house, or if he’s a mechanic, or if he’s working underneath an automobile, or he’s a carpenter, or something of that kind – he’ll wear overalls, or he’ll wear the kind of clothes you need to wear on that kind of a job.

Women are the same way. They don’t always dress up at home in their kitchen. Women will dress a certain way if they are working in an office, and so many of them are employed today. That is a thing that has taken place since I was young. Very few women worked at all when I was, well say, 18-25 years of age – very few. It was almost unheard of.

I remember, it was during World War I, and it must have been about 1917 (about the time we got into World War I), I was so shocked when I found women actually operating the elevators in the Marshal Field store in Chicago. We had never seen a woman operating an elevator before. That was always a man’s job! So women had begun to take over the jobs of men. Recently I was reading an article of how many … or I believe it was a television program, of how many women are now (what percentage of women are) making more money than their husbands. Many of the husbands are turning into women; and they do the cooking, wash the dishes, make the beds at home, and become househusbands. Women don’t want to be housewives any more.

The whole world is going in a certain direction; and, brethren, many of our people have wanted to go along with the world, in the way the world is going. It’s a thing that we have to watch constantly, if we ever want to get in the Kingdom of God.

Well, as this liberalism and this letting down of the bars progressed, members became careless in their attire – in the way they would come dressed to Church. I know I had to speak on that several years ago, over in Big Sandy; and then I believe I had a sermon here, before this auditorium was built. We were either in the Shakespeare Club at that time, or in the college gymnasium; but I believe I did speak on it here.

I’d like you to notice something that in Luke … Well, first I want to tell you about an experience that just comes to my mind. I was in Israel; and, as a matter of fact, it was on the December 1, 1968. I remember the very event and the very date, because we were having a meeting with the President of Israel – President Shazar. Before the time for the meeting at the President’s mansion, I was in one of the university office buildings of the Hebrew University with Dr. Aviram. Dr. Aviram is one of the prominent faculty members there.

In Israel, they are a little bit careless of their attire and their dress. The men, except for real dress-up occasions, do not wear a necktie. They just have their shirt collars out open. They usually put them over the jacket collar and no necktie. Sometimes they go without a coat or jacket of any kind.

So we were leaving Dr. Aviram’s office to go over to the President’s mansion, and we got down the hallway towards the elevator; and he said, “Wait a minute. I’ve got to go back.” He said, “We’re going into the presence of the President. I must put a coat on.” So we went back to his office, and he put on a coat. Of course, he didn’t bother to put on a necktie; but at least he had to put on a coat. He couldn’t go into the presence of the President just dressed in a shirt.

When we come here, we are coming in the presence of a real King – a far greater king than President Shazar was. And I’ve seen many men coming in here just in their shirtsleeves. It doesn’t make any difference to them how they come dressed before a king. I want to read you a scripture on that. It’s in Luke, the 12th chapter and verse 40. It’s in one of the parables of Jesus, and it’s speaking here about … No, what I have is the 22nd chapter of Matthew. (That other scripture we’ll be coming to later.) Matthew 22{2}, beginning with verse 11, in this parable: There was a wedding supper that Jesus was talking about; and there was a king there, who had a wedding supper. They were coming in the presence of a king.

Matthew 22:11- 14 And when the king [rose up] to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment.[He hadn’t come properly attired, or properly dressed.] (12) And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And [the man] was speechless. [He just didn’t have anything to say.] (13) Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (14) For many are called, but few are chosen.

Brethren, some of our people have been called; but they are not going to be chosen and get into the Kingdom of God. Now, another scripture that I had not intended to read; but I do want to read at this point. In I John the 1st chapter and verse 3:

I John 1:3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us [Now, we come for fellowship and for worship to Church.]: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Brethren, when we come to Church, its God’s holy Sabbath day. In the first place, it’s His day – it’s His time – not ours. In the second place, He is here with us. When 2 or 3 are there together, He is there in their midst He says. Our fellowship is with the Father and with Christ – both God the Father and Christ. When we come here, we are coming into the PRESENCE of Almighty God and of Jesus Christ.

I said this over at Big Sandy on the Sabbath during the Feast, and I repeat it here now. I don’t mean go out and try to buy more expensive clothes or something you can’t afford. That’s not what I am talking about at all! But I’m saying, when you come to Church, come dressed up with the best you have! And remember you are coming into the presence of Jesus Christ. Did you ever see me come into the Church service with overalls, or in my shirtsleeves? Have you ever seen me do that – ever? No, brethren, you just never have. But some of us seem to treat Jesus Christ and God Almighty with contempt. We don’t care how we come dressed in their presence. After this, come dressed!

Now, some women don’t feel dressed unless they have a lot of paint on their faces. That’s another thing altogether. That’s not the kind of dress God is looking for. When it comes to attire and garments, you don’t put them over your face to hide your face, or change your face, or color it. That’s something else.

Now you go back into the book of Genesis and you will find that God clothed Adam and Eve. They were ashamed. They had been with Christ, and they were naked, and they were not ashamed. Then after Satan got to Eve – that changed their whole attitude, and their mind, and the way they looked at things. Probably the next day, when God talked to them (or that same night, or whenever it was), they were hiding; and God called to them. Adam said, “Well, we heard Your voice; and we hid because we were naked.” He said, “Who told you you were naked?” Well, Satan had told them. Nobody else had talked to them. Christ certainly never had, or God in the form of Christ (that is, He was not Christ yet; but He became Christ later) He’d not told them anything about that. But then after that, God did clothe them. They took fig leaves to try to cover up themselves, but God clothed them.

If you’ve read my book on THE MISSING DIMENSION IN SEX, you will have read about that; and that the Hebrew word is ‘labash,’ He ‘labashed’ them. That does not mean the kind of covering up to cover something shameful. Rather, it is a kind of covering – it might even be adornment; but it is covering. God did want the bodies covered, or He wouldn’t have covered them. It was not to cover something shameful, but something that could be made shameful if people want to look at it that way. But He was not covering their faces, only their bodies; and that’s what we do cover today.

Now, along the line of how we come dressed and attired, I want to read you a few things. When we come here, we are appearing before the greatest majestic King of all – God Almighty! We don’t seem to pay any attention how we come attired, and how we dress. Brethren, we are trying to get back on the track; and I say this not to condemn, not to scold. I don’t mean it that way. I think it’s like the apostle Paul who said, or even Christ who said, “Maybe you didn’t know?” And Jesus said to the Pharisees at one time, if you had not known (or not had knowledge) you would have had no sin.

You see, it’s “to him that KNOWETH to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” [James 4:17] To him that knows to do good and does it not. Now perhaps you didn’t know these things before? But, I’m telling you! Or let’s put it this way: Jesus Christ is telling you through me. I’m only an instrument that He’s using in telling you; and this, believe me, is coming from Jesus Christ; and you’d better pay attention! I want this to get out to the whole Church. We need to be careful how we come into the presence of Jesus Christ and of God.

Moses came to the burning bush. A voice came to him out of that burning bush and said, “Moses, Moses, take your shoes from off your feet.” Why? “For,” He said, “the ground where you stand is holy ground.” [Exodus 3:5] What made it holy? Christ (that is, the YHWH who was to become Christ) – the ever Living – was in that bush. Moses was there IN HIS PRESENCE; and Moses had to show respect, to take his shoes off! I hope I have emphasized that enough to make that plain so that we won’t have to go into that again.

Now a few things that have come to my attention are that, in the family rooms here in the auditorium parents{3} (and you people who are in the family rooms are listening downstairs now. Please pay attention.), parents allow children to make too much noise with toys and things of that sort. That prevents others from listening.

You know, too often parents think when they have a new child (a baby is born) they don’t try to teach the child. They just take care of it. They act as a servant of the child, but they certainly aren’t a teacher. If the child does what they think is wrong, they may spat them a little bit (or spank as it grows older); but they don’t teach.

It took me some time, as a father, to learn that I should teach first and only punish when they had done what they knew was wrong. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If you had not known, you would have no sin. But you say you know. Therefore your sin remains. To him that knows to do good it is sin.”

A little child has to know. A little child has to be taught. But PARENTS NEGLECT their little babies and their little children! But listen: SATAN DOES NOT NEGLECT THEM! Satan begins pumping into their little minds selfishness, and vanity, in the first 2, 3, or 4 months of their lives. As their minds develop and the brain grows, Satan (the prince of the power of the air) is broadcasting right through the air. You can’t see him. You can’t see the sounds that are in here right now. But if you had a radio set and put it right on this desk, turned it into the right wavelength, and you’d hear a lot of sounds coming into the radio – or television, you’d get pictures. They are here in the room right now; but you are not hearing them, because you are not tuned in. But EVERY MIND – every normal spirit of man – is tuned in on the wavelength of Satan!

Now he doesn’t broadcast in sounds or words, but he does broadcast in attitudes – attitudes of pride and selfishness, of resentment of authority, of competition, the desire to get, and selfishness (self expressed in many, many different ways). So children must be taught. Teach your children; train them, so that they will not make too much noise in the family rooms below.

Now, another point: mother and mothers’ rooms. Mothers are often conversing with each other and playing with their children instead of taking care of the child’s needs and then returning to the family room to listen to the program.

Next point: Unsupervised children coming to Church, children having the run of the building, stairways, going up and down elevators. Children should never be allowed … In fact we’re trying, I think now we’re posting someone at the elevators to see that no child gets into the elevator without a parent with him. I mean children, and that does not include 16 or 18-year-old children; but little children going up and down the stairways, into elevators, into closed rooms (Of course, they just open the door and go right in whether they belong there or not. They don’t know any better if you don’t teach them.), through doors, etc. instead of children sitting with their parents.

And adults, again, milling around during the services, conversing, coming and going. I’ve noticed so much of that. And I noticed during the Feast of Tabernacles, where we had … well, at one Feast where I was, there must have been 11,000 people there; and constantly people were going and coming, here and there, up in the balconies and all around. People were getting up and going, and walking.

Now, there are certain needs you should take care of before you come so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the service and go to the restroom. That’s part of your responsibility, to take care of those things. We’re coming into the presence of God and of Jesus Christ. Let’s conduct ourselves worthy of being His begotten children.

Another thing: some come late for services. Now I’ve been trying … that’s another thing we’ve been trying to get back on the track. I’ve been trying to get the services to start on time and to end on time. Now I myself have certainly been guilty of preaching way over time and keeping people long after the time. It’s been very difficult to learn. If I see that the time is up in about two minutes and I still have about 5 or 6 other scriptures, oh, what a temptation it is. I must get those scriptures in! I must get those over to you.

Well, you see the thing is: you don’t know I have those scriptures; and, if you don’t hear them, you didn’t hear them and you don’t know about them; and what you don’t know you don’t know you didn’t know it, did you? So if I just bring it to a close right at that point, you don’t know I had anything else in mind.

I have had to learn to stop about 2/3rd or 3/4th of the way through a sermon and bring it to a close and make a fitting ending and get through on time. I won’t say I’ve always done it, and it’s taken me years to learn that; but I hope our ministers will learn that, because many of our younger ministers, they have an outline and they still have some texts in the Bible that they’ve got to read; and, boy, they’ve just got to go on and read it no matter how long they keep you. Well, that’s for … I should tell our ministers that, not you.

But, nevertheless, let’s all get these things together. We’re trying to get ready to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air as He’s coming soon.

Another thing is improper care of the songbooks. Those songbooks cost money. We want to keep them nice. We’ve tried to provide you with nice songbooks. So take care of them, and don’t let the children mark them up.

Again: improper care of the building. Here is the most, really the finest auditorium on the face of the earth today, right here; and we are privileged to be here. This is the House of God. It’s dedicated to God. His name is in gold in the front, in the front grand loggia . When we come here, God is meeting here with us in the Sabbath services. So let’s come with due respect for God, and let’s remember these things.

Now, I’ve had to write an article on a subject that had been troubling me now for the last four years, and I just hadn’t gotten around to it sooner. I’ve been getting other things – trying to get the Church back on the track. Finally, I just had to get this off my own conscience because it was bothering me; and I think that I would have to answer in the judgment to God if I didn’t get this over to you. That is on the matter of women’s makeup.

You know, it’s a funny thing. I mentioned that just in part of a sermon over at Big Sandy on the Sabbath. It wasn’t the regular holy day message. It was just a special message on the Sabbath day. I tell you, news of that traveled from woman to woman and to women ALL OVER the United States. I began receiving letters. Women write, “Mr. Armstrong, I want to give you a woman’s viewpoint on that.” Yeah? Well, you know, I’m far more interested in getting God’s viewpoint, women. Did you know that?

You should have heard the sermon this morning – how king Saul was interested in getting the people’s viewpoint. He wanted to please the people. That’s just the trouble. We had MINISTERS HERE IN CHARGE OF HEADQUARTERS that wanted to please the people and do whatever was popular with them. One man over the ministers, he had been the student body president when he was a senior in college many, many years ago. I think that’s over, yes, twenty some years ago.

Do you know why he was made student body president? I did it. I’ve done a lot of things I had to ask God to forgive me for later. I used bad judgment. I made him student body president because he was the most popular student on the campus. I didn’t realize something in that man’s makeup and character at that time. He always wanted to do whatever would please people.

He would make any compromise. He would give in anything. He wouldn’t hold to the truth. He would compromise with God’s truth if that would please some other person. He wanted to know what pleased people and he wanted to please people, not God; and He did that as a minister. He had something to do with this very subject. As a matter of fact, he had something to do with starting this whole movement of liberalism in the Church.

Liberalism is a whole lot more than just makeup. That’s only one thing. The reason that I’m getting to it is that this is what STARTED everything off the track! Now I’ve written a good-sized article. It will appear in the Worldwide News [16 November 1981 issue], and has appeared this week in the Pastor General’s Report. I’m going to read what I wrote and make some comments as I go along about it, and use that in lieu of the sermon here this afternoon. It’s titled “How subtly Satan used MAKEUP to start the Church off (on) the (wrong) track,” and “How Satan began injecting liberalism into God’s Church.”

For over three years now the living Christ has been working to put this Church back on the track! But how did the people of the living God get off the track? How did it all start? How did we get off the track in the first place? How did the whole world first get off of the track? How did the world get off the track, and then how did … Now God got us back on the track part way, and we came out of the world; and then we began to get off the track.

First, how did the world get off the track; and, then, how did the Church start to get off the track? Well, it got off the track with mother Eve. Did you ever notice that? Satan got the whole world off the track through a woman; and he got this Church off the track through its women, believe it or not. Oh, Satan is a wily deceiver!

Was mother Eve, the very first woman (who was a direct creation of God), was she insincerely evil? Did she deliberately want to disobey God? No. No, she was deceived. Undoubtedly, she thought she was doing right. She didn’t see any wrong in it.

You’d be surprised how many women have been writing me this last week that they can’t see anything wrong in makeup. They think it’s all right; and if so-and-so (we can reason around) … well then is it wrong? And, if it isn’t wrong, can’t we do it? As one woman says, “Well, I want to appear well before the world. I want the world to think well of me.” She needs to read where Jesus says, “Woe unto you when the world thinks well of you.” We always think about what the world thinks of us.

The forbidden tree, after all, (or the fruit of the forbidden tree) was “good for food” and it was “pleasant to the eyes.” [Genesis 3:6] and Satan had assured Eve that she would really “not surely die.” God knew better than that: that she would die. Satan assured her she was an immortal soul. And then, besides, Satan had said it would make her a god intellectually. So it appealed to her intellectual VANITY. Satan got to her through vanity and what looked beautiful. It looked good. It was “pleasant to the eyes.” So she couldn’t see anything wrong with it; and she said, “If it isn’t wrong, why can’t I do it?” So quote:

Genesis 3:6 She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

He was not deceived. Now that was SIN, and we need to get this sin question a little better in mind; and just what is sin? A lot of them say, “Well, what can I get away with?” and “Do I just have to do it?”

You know, when God called Abraham out of his country to go to a land God would show him, he didn’t say, “Well, can’t I go just part way? I don’t want to go all the way.” Or “Do I have to?” and “Can’t I put it off?” Or “Can’t I avoid it?” Or “Maybe some other time” Or “Why can’t you let somebody else do it?” No, you just read Abraham went; and so he became the heir of the promises that you and I also are heir to – the promises made to Abraham, the promises Jesus came to confirm, the promises made unto the fathers. That’s the only hope you and I have, because Abraham obeyed God and kept God’s commandments.

So the whole world was started off on the wrong track, when they took of that forbidden fruit. And Satan is still at it! He’s still on the throne of the earth. Now you read in Revelation 12:9 “The Devil, and Satan … deceiveth the whole world.” He is now deceiving THE WHOLE WORLD, and has deceived a lot of the women in this Church. They couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Well, “to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” [James 4:17]

So some of our women have just not known, and I want to make it plain. It isn’t something that I am going to study and research more. That’s already been done, and this is THE DECISION; and this is FINAL! It isn’t going to be watered down any further in this Church, unless it’s over my dead body – let me tell you that!

You know God could have compromised. He didn’t have to sacrifice His Son. He had THE POWER to forgive our sins without Christ’s sacrifice. Do you know that? But we would have never had character, and we could never become God, because God is a perfect character; and we could never have become that, if He had done that. We never would have.

He could have given us eternal Life and let us go our own way; and we would have been unhappy and miserable forever, and ever, and ever! But [John 3:16] “God so loved the world, He GAVE His only begotten Son,” rather than compromise one ten-trillionth, millionth, of an inch with His law and with sin. He just didn’t do it. Well now, brethren, neither can we, because we are heirs of God to become His children and to become God, and we have to be like God. We have to be like Him.

Now this: The apostle Paul feared “lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted” (II Corinthians 11 verse 3); now that applies to us today just as much as it did in the days of the apostle Paul, 1950 years ago.

Do you think that the same wily Satan could not deceive people in God’s Church today? Are we above being deceived by Satan? Are you smarter than Satan? No. He’s been deceiving some of us in the Church, brethren. Of all the people on earth, WE are the very ones that Satan wants most to deceive. He has the rest of the world deceived all ready. He’s not worried about them. He’s got them deceived. WE are the ones God got back on the track, and WE are the ones that have some of the truth, and WE are the ones that Satan wants to get off the track! Did you ever think about that?

Satan did get to our women, our wives, today. They certainly had no evil motives. I don’t think they were doing something to deliberately see how wrong they could be, not at all. I’m not accusing them of anything of that kind. They just didn’t see any harm in it. But they did want to look right to the world, they did want to follow the world, and they did have vanity; and don’t tell me they didn’t. If they think they didn’t, they don’t know their own minds!

There are only two reasons: VANITY and wanting to follow the world (or look well before the world, or look like the world). There is no other motive of heart, and sin is AN INTENDED wrong motive of heart. They hadn’t wanted to do wrong any more than mother Eve did. They’ve been deceived.

Now we can ask the question: Haven’t they already repented, received Christ, and come into the Church? There were no evil motives or evil intentions in their minds; they too saw no harm in it; just as Eve didn’t see any harm in taking that forbidden fruit. They themselves would look good, just like this fruit looked good to Eve. They would look good to the world. Makeup on the face would be “pleasant to the eyes,” just as that fruit was to Eve. Do you see how Satan was deceiving our women? Exactly THE SAME WAY he deceived mother Eve!

You know, I wonder why Satan didn’t deceive the men and get us men wearing makeup. Wouldn’t that be nice if we come up with … ? You see, the new fad in makeup now, they’re going back to real deep red lips once again. (I’ll read you something on that a little later.) Just as soon as God has called on me to bring up this question, Satan is getting before the world with it. I’m going to show you in the newspaper. There’s a big section of the newspaper on women’s makeup here.

Satan did get to our wives today. They didn’t have any evil in mind. They didn’t have any evil intentions. They, too, didn’t see any harm in it. They themselves would “look good” (just like that fruit did) to the world. Makeup on the face would be “pleasant to the eyes” (and that’s quoted from the way the fruit looked to Eve). And it was intellectual to follow the intellectual liberals in the ministry (They are no longer in the ministry however!) who reasoned that this little detail and that little point could be interpreted to see “no harm in it” – and, after all, if we don’t see any harm in it, isn’t it all right to do what the world has done and what the world is doing? Why can’t we follow the world? Why can’t we be part of the world?

“I want to be part of the world. I want to go along with it.” You know that’s what troubled me in 1927, in the spring of 1927, when I had to face the question. I saw I’d been wrong, and I saw what the Bible said. I saw I was a sinner. I hadn’t been doing things that I thought were much of a sin. I thought I was pretty good. But I began to think: What about my business associates that I know? And I’d been quite successful in business, and I had known the great and the near great; and I began to wonder: What are they going to think of me? Well, they won’t have any use for me at all if I go in for religion.” They’d turn thumbs down on me right away. And I knew that – if I accepted the truth of God and gave myself to Jesus Christ – that that meant my former business associates would spurn me and have nothing to do with me.

It meant giving up EVERYTHING I’d been ambitious for and had worked so hard for, for a good many years – from age 16 on to, at that time, age 34. But I had to give up. I had to give up what I thought I wanted, because I found greater goods. I’m looking for something … You know, at that time I was living in Chicago as young man; and I wanted to have a nice home. I didn’t crave money (I never did.) for itself. But I did want some of the things money would buy. Mostly I wanted to be important in the eyes of important people, and I wanted to live well. I wanted to have a nice home out on the north lake shore in Winnetka where the millionaires lived, someday. I thought, well, someday – when I’m getting up past middle-aged, maybe I could be out there. But I was willing to work hard for it and to pay the price; and I had been working.

And it meant giving ALL OF THAT up! But I found something more to live for – the Kingdom of God and eternal Life. And, you know, sometimes it’s like … you know you are in water, in a swimming pool or the ocean, especially if it’s cold water, you just hate to go in; and you just can’t stand it, but if you really get in and you get wet all over, well I’ve heard people say, “Well, come on in. The water’s fine (once you get in).” But, oh, it’s just terrible to start getting in. And that’s the way it is when it comes out of Satan and comes to getting into the way of God and of Christ.

But Satan did get to our wives today; to many of them. I didn’t say he got to all of them. I don’t know what percentage, but I know it was a very large percentage. They certainly had no evil motives, even as mother Eve had none. They had repented and they didn’t see any harm in it, they themselves would look good. (Well, I’ve read all of that. I’m just reading what I have here.)

It was all done SO SUBTLY. That is how Satan works. Now let’s understand WHAT DID HAPPEN and HOW IT HAPPENED. (Going right back to the time, so that you can see.) How far does God compromise with sin? Well, I mentioned that a while ago; and I have that here – how He gave His only begotten Son rather than compromise.

God’s Church, the now imminent Bride of Christ, is not going to rise to meet the descending King of kings in the air (as He’s coming to rule the world) with painted faces and plucked out and repainted eyebrows! How cleverly, without our suspecting it, did Satan influence leading ministers to derail the Church in so many ways – not only makeup, but other ways! We began to relax on prayer. We didn’t trust God for healing. We began to compromise on this, that, and the other thing.

Now some of those ministers are now no longer keeping the Sabbath, the holy days. They are going back to Christmas and Easter. Some of those same ministers! That’s what they are doing. I want now to take you – you brethren – though a history of this seemingly minor question of female makeup as it progressed during the ‘50s, the ‘60s, and the ‘70s in the Church.

Brethren, CAN WE remove prejudice, vanity and self-will from our minds and OPEN OUR EYES TO GOD’S TRUTH and to what has happened? We are not going to face God in “the judgment” like the world. I mean we are not going to face God in “the judgment.” The world is. What I mean is WE ARE BEING JUDGED NOW. We are facing our judgment now. Judgment has already begun at the house of God. [I Peter 4:17] You are I are now being judged – right now! Our judgment is here now.

Some of us have weakened. Some of us have been caught off guard. I am human like all of you, and I was caught off guard; and, not at the time realizing it, I allowed this liberalism to creep stealthily into God’s flock. I now repent of that. I have gone into my conscience. I had my part in it. I confess that. I am human just like you are.

I think some people think that I couldn’t be God’s apostle unless I’m inhuman – or divine, and not human any longer; and that is not true. God is working through human beings; and every man of God (that God has worked through) had his weaknesses, and made mistakes, and even sinned, and then had to repent of it afterwards. Every one! David did. Moses did. Abraham did. Elijah did. Every one of them! So did the apostle Paul. Paul once said, he said “I’m the chief of sinners;” and sometimes I’ve felt that I am.

But I now repent of that, and the living Christ leads me to do what He inspires me to do to correct it and to get this holy Body of Christ back completely on the track – for we have not been fully back on the track even yet!

This may be somewhat of a minor question – this matter of makeup. Other questions are a lot more important really. But even a little thing is important when it comes to stand between you and God. That’s all. Yet it was used by Satan to help derail the Church and to start the derailing. It is only one of a number of points that led the Church off the track.

This question was raised in the Church in the mid ‘50s. In the July, 1955 Good News, the following (under my by-line) began on page 1 under the headline, “What the Church Ruled on Makeup;” now that goes back to July, 1955. Quote:

The question of lipstick and other forms of makeup had to be settled. Some of the Church held very definitely that “makeup is wrong; it’s worldly.” There was in some cases an attitude of prejudice and accusation against those who wore it.

I mean on the part of women against other women. Actually, it was all started by a protest from women themselves against it. So actually the question was first raised by women, who felt that face-changing was wrong; and it was not started by the ministers.

The next paragraph continued, quote:

But others insisted, ‘I can’t see any harm{4} in wearing makeup.’

And that’s what some of them are still saying to this day!

Many articles followed on the question. These articles covered many specific points and specific scriptures. There was an effort to get to every detailed point or question, even in “the gray areas.” But we need to learn that God’s law is A PRINCIPLE TO BE APPLIED. (I want to explain something about sin and about the law of God now that the Church needs to know.) It has to do, first of all, with an ATTITUDE OF MIND. Above everything else, the law of God is a matter of attitude of mind! And what Satan gets into your little babies in the first months of their lives is an ATTITUDE of selfishness, self-will, resentment of authority, and that sort of thing. It’s an attitude above anything else!

The Church ruled AGAINST THE USE OF MAKEUP based primarily on specific “do” and “don’t” scriptures. (We wanted to look at a detailed scripture. And if we could find detailed scriptures that definitely said this is wrong, well then it was wrong; and otherwise we thought it would be all right? Oh, that’s not the way to look at it, brethren, not at all!) We looked at those detailed scriptures, rather than the application of the PRINCIPLE of God’s law of love. Now love is never towards self. It’s always out flowing towards others – love towards God, love towards neighbor.

We did make the mistake of applying God’s spiritual law as the world applies man’s laws. Do you ever think of the difference in how the world applies man’s laws? It’s so different from the way we should apply God’s law! The average policeman today has to enforce at least six times as many specific different little laws as he is capable of remembering. He can’t remember all of the specific little laws and infractions that he’s supposed to enforce. There are so many of them.

God’s law is not like that.

I am reminded of the comic strip. Maybe some of you may remember that comic strip. It was entitled “There Ought to Be a Law.” Every day, in the comic strip, someone seemed to be thinking up a reason for making a new specific law to cover some new infraction. It illustrated how ridiculous is man’s way of making laws. We’ve got to get down to a specific “do” or “don’t” to every little thing, even in the gray areas. (And you can’t apply it that way – the law of God.) No wonder we have crime. No wonder the world is going the way it is.

Actually, God’s spiritual law is expressed in just one, simple, four-letter word: LOVE. (L-o-v-e.) We apply that law to given circumstances. Jesus, for example, “magnified the law and made it honorable{5}.” That is from scripture.

At Mt. Sinai He, as YHWH, expanded the law from the word “love” and love towards God and love towards neighbor; He expanded it into the ten points – the first four of the Ten Commandments defining the PRINCIPLE of love toward God, the last six of the PRINCIPLE of love toward neighbor. From there it expands IN PRINCIPLE to cover ANY AND EVERY question that may possibly arise! It’s just a matter of knowing the principle and applying the principle to a given circumstance.

Now, they bring so many questions to me to settle. They get into gray areas: about marriage and divorce, about this and that and the other thing. There is a definite principle to be applied, and I have to get to the principle; and I have to have all the facts.

What, when and how did this thing of sin begin? It all began with the super archangel, the cherub Lucifer. Now let’s see how sin began. Let’s look at it. Lucifer was “perfect in his ways” from the day that God created him (in Ezekiel 28). Then iniquity – or lawlessness, rebellion, and so on – was found in him. His heart was lifted up in vanity because of his beauty, Ezekiel 28:15-17. His beauty lifted him up into VANITY and started sin. That’s what got Satan, a great archangel, into sinning.

What about some of our women? It has done the same thing to them and they can’t see it. They just can’t see it. Well, I’ll have to see it for them then, I’m afraid.

The wisdom of Lucifer’s mind was lifted up in VANITY. This violated love in the form of obedience and submission to God. Vanity was glorifying himself and not glorifying God. He wanted to glorify himself. A spirit of competition entered his mind. He said:

Isaiah 14:13 I will ascend into heaven [which is God’s throne]. I will exalt my throne above the stars [or the angels] of God.

Self-exaltation, vanity, jealousy, envy, rebellion against authority, competition, desire to “get” and to “take” seized the perverted mind of Lucifer, who had a far greater mind than any human (except Christ) has ever had.

Sin, spiritually, is self-centeredness, self-exaltation, desire to be beautiful, vanity, coveting, desire to “get” and to “take,” to exalt the self, jealousy and envy, competition resulting in violence and war, resentment, and rebellion against authority. Those are the things that Satan went in for, and those are the things that are sin today and that he’s misleading the world on. These are the PRINCIPLES of spiritual sin.

Now, there is also the matter of physical sin (a lot of people don’t know that.) – transgression of the physical laws that work in the human body Often physical sickness and disease result from this transgression. You may not be guilty of it. Maybe you didn’t cause it. I had typhoid fever when I was nineteen years old. I don’t know how I got it. I think I must have swallowed some germ in the water I was drinking down in southern Mississippi at the time. But, nevertheless, it did VIOLATE the working of the laws of my body. Those laws were violated. Whether I did it or not, they got violated!

Often physical sickness and disease result from this transgression. While Jesus paid the death penalty for our spiritual sins by His shed blood, He also paid the penalty for physical transgression of the laws of our body – the laws that operate in our bodies and our minds – “by His stripes,” by being beaten with stripes before He was crucified. Many do not seem to understand that healing is the forgiveness of sin – that is, physical sin (not spiritual sin) – because Jesus paid that penalty in our stead “by His stripes.”

But the Church in the 1950s was still growing in knowledge, as well as in numbers; and we ruled on makeup based on specific scriptural “dos and don’ts” (We didn’t apply the principle, as we should have done.) as we then interpreted those “dos and don’ts.” Actually, we came to the right ruling, but by a wrong method perhaps. A very few women argued a bit at that time, but I remember specifically of none who rebelled and left the Church. As near I could observe, our women were happy to leave their faces as the Master Designer had made them in the first place.

The Church was being blessed and was growing up to about 1968. For 35 years God had caused this Church to grow, and all of its work, at the phenomenal and the unmatched rate of 30% average increase per year (over the year before). I don’t know of any institution that ever grew that fast that long, that steadily. Then, beginning in 1968, Christ – the living Head of the Church – began to send me to the capitals of nations all over the world. I was unable to give day-to-day management at headquarters.

Sin entered the Pasadena leadership. This thing of watering down the truth began. The Church stopped its phenomenal growth. Christ was not blessing it any longer. We weren’t growing like we had up to 1968. I had to deal with sins near the top of the ministry in 1971 and 1972. In the spring of 1974 the ministerial rebellion, led to a considerable extent by two top-ranking ministers at Pasadena headquarters{6} (and both of them are out of the Church, of course, now), resulted in some 30 or more ministers leaving the Church.

In early fall of 1974, my son caught me on the run as I was leaving for Tokyo and for Manila, where I was to hold a big campaign. Well, I did hold it there at that time. It was a time when certain so-called ‘scholars’ among our leaders – in the ministry and in the college faculty {7} – were engaged in “doctrinal research.” (I put those two words in quotes.) I had not realized until later that most of them – not all, but most of them – were actually researching to try to prove Church teachings were in error (because they didn’t agree with me, and it was prejudiced against me personally to a great extent), rather than to discover truth. I admit now and repent of the fact that, not realizing the real motive, I did approve of this doctrinal research team at that time.

My son said this team had found … He came to me; he caught me on the run one time when I was on the way to the airport. He wanted to get that to me before I left. That this team had found [we had {8}] the wrong meaning on four such detailed specific scriptures, and the use of makeup was okay after all. Well, one of them is all I remember. I don’t remember him saying anything at all about the other; and I think that was put in without my knowledge, into the bulletin that was sent out to ministers at the time.

Now I want to show you a little bit of the conspiracy and how this thing got into the Church: Those who know me best know that I have a single-track mind. That is, I can concentrate deeply on one subject at a time; but, when my mind is on one subject, I often do not really “get” something said to me. You can say something to me and my mind is on something else; and later you can tell me you said that, and I’ll say “Well, I don’t remember you ever saying that to me.” I didn’t even … I said “Yeah, yeah” because my mind was on something else, and I paid no attention. Well, it was pretty much that way at that time, when my son caught me on this point.

I was handed a short statement regarding … Well, as I remember it, I got it in here{9}; and you’ll find it printed (those four), but I only remember the one really. I think I should correct this before it goes into the WORLDWIDE NEWS. But I do not remember any but the one in Isaiah – that specific scripture. I had especially based most of the decision on this one scripture – Isaiah 3:16 – and contextual verses, and on the Adam Clarke commentary of that scripture.

I took the note with me {10}; and on the plane I typed a brief statement that appeared on page 522 of the October 23, 1974 Bulletin {11} . I did not return to Pasadena for several weeks. In my absence, my brief statement appeared with my signature under it – just like I write it. Now, what I believe now is that the mention of those other three scriptures had been appended and that I did not write it. I don’t remember that at all! I think that was put in there and my signature under it, without my knowledge.

What I never knew until now (and just a day or two before I wrote this, the first time that I knew it – just last week) was that, after my signature, Mr. Wayne Cole (then director of Pastoral Administration) added a few pages giving the new liberal watered-down reasoning – changing the truth of God! And even since I wrote that, I’ve found that all ministers were COMMANDED to read every word of what they wrote there and that came under my signature (not over it, but under it) – but giving the impression that it came with my approval, which it did not! It didn’t come with my knowledge. I would never have approved it, if I had read it at the time.

Ministers were commanded to read that in their various congregations, and it was a deliberate conspiracy to get this LIBERALISM into the Church WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE. They never let me see that. It was never printed. It was printed, I mean; but never sent to me! I didn’t return for several weeks; and they saw that no copy of that ever came to my attention, but it did go to the ministers of the Church. That’s the kind of conspiracy that went on with top men that I gave the responsibility of supervising the Work in my absence. But I’m back here in charge now, and that kind of thing isn’t going to happen any more – believe you me.

Satan masterminded this in such a manner that it all appeared under my signature, as if I fully approved all that followed after my signature – when, in fact, I never saw it until the day before yesterday (at the time I wrote this, which was last week). It was subtly handled and kept from me. (Or did I? I think I wrote that early this past week. I don’t want to get mixed up, these days are going by so rapidly.) I DID NOT AND NEVER WOULD HAVE approved of what Mr. Cole, without my knowledge, published beneath my signature (giving the impression that it had my approval)!

Even now, at this late date, I learned that this “about-face” altering of a decision the Living Christ had put into His Church caused great consternation among loyal ministers and members in England. But by this maneuver of Satan, the people of God’s Church started OFF THE TRACK! That started them off the track, and then they went off the track on a number of other points. I say “started off” – for watering down of God’s truth on healing, the Sabbath, many more vital doctrines followed in its wake.

But, as Satan maneuvered to start ALL HUMANITY off the track in the Garden of Eden, so in these latter days, he maneuvered to use the women of God’s Church to start the end-time Church off of the track; and the whole Church was deceived!

At the time my son came to me with the report that the Adam Clarke commentary was in error on Isaiah 3:16, my mind was primarily on other things; and I made a hasty decision without fully weighing the matter. I have come to realize this. I have deeply repented of it! I now correct it before the entire Church.

Brethren, let’s get one thing straight at this point: Jesus Christ chose and has been using a human instrument to lead you. Maybe you think He should have gotten, or sent, at least a divine angel down here to lead you. But He didn’t. He chose a human. And He had humans leading the first Church. Will we then blame Jesus Christ for that? He is infallible. He makes no mistakes. But who among you could He choose as His instrument – as His apostle to lead you – who is already supernaturally divine and unable to make a mistake? (To lead you, is what I meant to say.)

He took me with my single-track mind and used me in starting this Philadelphia era of God’s Church. He has used me, in spite of a few mistakes, in bringing all of you into His Body, the Church. He revealed His truth to me and through me to you! And now He is using me as His instrument in correcting a mistake, and leading you back on the track. Thousands of you have written me that you are behind me 100%. Are you? That’s the question. Jesus Christ, through me, has been getting us all back on the track – ready for His return to earth as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

The Church, as His Bride to be spiritually{12} married to Him, is to rise to meet Him in the air as He descends. Women of the Church, do you think that Jesus Christ will say to me, “Send out a proclamation to all the women in the Church to prepare for My coming. Tell them to go immediately to their dressing tables, pluck out their eyebrows, paint in new ones higher up on their foreheads, and use cosmetics to make up their faces to meet Me in the air”?

Wouldn’t that be a great proclamation, if I would make one? No, dear people, I don’t think He will have me make any such proclamation; but rather He will say “Wash the dirt off your faces and get ready to meet Me in the air.” And paint is a kind of dirt that you put on. Now Jesus Christ, through His chosen apostle, is going to RULE on this question once and for all. It needs to be settled, right here and now.

It was through me that He ruled on smoking. At the time only men smoked. That goes back to 1927. That’s before any of you came into the Church, 1927. No specific detailed scripture says: “Thou shalt not smoke.” But I know (I did know) in the spring of 1927 when I was converted, that God’s law is to be applied to given circumstances according to its basic principle. I asked myself “Why do I smoke?” (Can you believe that I used to smoke? Some of you would be shocked! Yes, I did – until I was converted.) Then I had to ask myself “Should I continue smoking?”

I will say I was never a heavy smoker. I averaged about three cigarettes a day. Not three packs, only three little cigarettes. But anyway, I was smoking a little. But I asked myself “Why do I smoke?” I wanted to know the attitude and the purpose. Did I do it to please God? Answer: No. Did I do it because other men in Satan’s world do it? Answer: Yes. To please the five senses? Answer: Yes. (The sense of smell, not the sense of taste incidentally. You can’t taste smoke. Did you know that? You can only smell it.) Does it express love to God? No. Does it express love to neighbor? No. To some, it was offensive. Did I do it for my health? No. I knew that it was harmful to whatever extent. I didn’t know it would have anything to do with lung cancer. I don’t think anybody did at that time. But I knew the purpose of the lungs, and breathing air in and out; and I knew that it would be harmful to the purpose of eliminating toxins and poisons through the lungs. I knew it was harmful to whatever extent. It was a worldly habit.

I quit. Through me, Christ caused His Church to turn from smoking. So smoking is kaput, as we say, in the Church. Our men and our women do not smoke. One minister did. He’s not a minister any longer. He didn’t while he was a minister, but he got to smoking; and he’s out.

Now, apply God’s law to makeup. Why do women use makeup, to please and glorify God? No. God is the Master Designer as well as Creator. The world seems to think that God did not design women’s faces properly, and they try to do a better job of making up their faces. (They call it “makeup.” It’s make up the face.) A better job than God did. Does makeup please God? His Spirit certainly says to me that it is displeasing to Him! And I, like the apostle Paul – or, like the apostle Paul – I think that I have “the mind of Christ.” Do they do it to exalt God? No. Rather to exalt the SELF (to look pretty to themselves in the mirror, to look nice to the world and to look more like the world), which debases God.

It is pure and simple VANITY, no matter how you want to use human reason out of it. If you want to use it, walk out of the Church. Go out into the world and use it. Enjoy it now. You won’t enjoy it in the life to come, I promise you; because you won’t be there. So take your choice. God knows it is {13}, even now if some women are self-deceived and protest that it isn’t. It is done to glorify the SELF, not to glorify God! Now, just think of that. What is the motive? It isn’t to glorify God. It’s to glorify the self.

One woman says it is an ornament of dress, and she doesn’t feel dressed up without it. God says, “whose adorning … let it be … the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit” (I Peter 3:3-4). Let it be HUMILITY, exalting GOD. Let’s look at it that way for a change.

Do women do it because other women in the world do? Emphatically YES! Tell me any other reason. Do they do it so they’ll be different from the world? Oh, no. Not at all! Even as I once smoked because other men did it. It is done to be like the world! But if the world – even its religion, specifically the Christian religion – God says, “COME OUT OF HER, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” And those plagues are coming on the women that do use makeup, believe me; and they are coming very soon, in our generation. The plagues are now soon to come (Revelation 18:4).

One woman says, “But since it is considered an essential part of good grooming by people in the world, it does help me feel better dressed.” The way it’s considered in the world! Let’s see, I believe that is a woman who is really quite prominent in the Church. Some ministers’ wives have written me. I believe this is from a woman who is not a minister’s wife, but her husband is prominent in the Church as well as she.

A woman says, “I don’t wear makeup to change my appearance.” Just to enhance her appearance; but not to change it, she says. But another woman, who writes the same thing, wears so much that when I mentioned having received a letter from a woman saying such a thing (without me naming the woman at all), he{14} replied, “If I were a betting man, I’d bet I could tell you who wrote that letter.” He said it would be one of two women. So I said, “Who do you think?” But the first one he mentioned was the very one that had written the letter. How did he know? Because she wears so much makeup that it stands out, and several noticed and mentioned it! That was during a Refresher Course on campus, and it was a minister’s wife. I’m afraid she’s going to have to quit wearing it, or her husband is going to be out of a job. It’s just about that important.

Some women will say it is adornment, and they mention how God adorned Israel. Well, let’s look at that scripture a minute. It’s the 16th chapter of Ezekiel, and it begins “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations .” The abominations of Judah are the subject. Then God says symbolically of Israel and Judah, as a newborn female child who grew up, she grew up polluted by the world; and at the time of love, God adorned her. How? God used apparel as a symbol of righteousness.

Here He used the symbol of covering her with the finest apparel and adornment – His law, which is the finest in SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. The apparel and the jewelry mentioned are not mentioned to approve worldly adornment, but indicate the finest quality in apparel and indicating the finest quality in character by it. God mentioned only the finest in material adornment to typify the finest in spiritual adornment. But He avoided including any face-painting whatsoever!

He only mentioned clothing; and God did clothe man and woman, but the Hebrew word is ‘labash,’ He ‘labashed’ them. It is a word that means covering in an adorning way; but it is covering the body, not the face. The face is the countenance; and, well there’s something I’m going to read a little later about that in Isaiah. I’d better see how the time is going because the time is about up now. I don’t have time to finish it unless I go over, and violate my own rule; and I don’t like to do that.

The beauty that God lavished on Israel was SPIRITUAL beauty – of His way of life, the way of His law. This spiritual beauty went forth over the world (verse 14). “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty and played the harlot,” (verse 15 and on). And so it is not encouraging the way of the world in any way.

Now, why did I smoke? I had to be honest about it; and I quit, and I taught the Church to quit. Why do women use makeup? Shall they be honest about it, or self-deceived into arguing their way to be like the world? Well, they say, “Mr. Armstrong, what’s the world going to think of me?” Yeah, that’s the first thing I thought about being converted – what will my former business acquaintances think of me if I go God’s way? I was more interested not in what are they going to think of me, but WHAT DOES GOD THINK ABOUT ME? Not what is the world going to think about you.

There are two reasons, and variations of these two reasons; and God, who knows humans hearts better than we know our own, knows this. They are VANITY, the desire to be like the world that God calls us out of, or so to appear to the world. What other reason is there? You don’t need to do it to please God. You don’t need to do it to please the Church, because the Church isn’t going to be pleased by it.

One woman candidly said that she would rather have a good looking face than a knowledgeable and understanding mind. She would rather have facial makeup than God’s righteousness. That was many, many years ago. She made her choice. She no longer believes that there even is a Creator God. Now she is turning into old age, and all the facial makeup won’t help her look beautiful any longer. She has NO HOPE for the future of any kind!

One of the hardest tests that I had to win to be converted, in the spring of 1927 … Well I am mentioning what I’ve just already said and so I won’t read that.

Now finally, let’s again look at these specific scriptures that some use to JUSTIFY vanity and worldliness. Well, then I go through the scriptures. Now time is up, and I’m not going to go on with the rest of it. There are several more pages here, but you’ll get it in the next number of THE WORLDWIDE NEWS. It’ll be within a week or ten days, something like that.

I just want to say in closing: Here is from a section in the newspaper, just I think yesterday or the day before (I don’t see the date on it) on women’s makeup; and here is the second page of it – it’s quite an article of it – continued over on to the second page. I just want to read a couple of real short paragraphs.

Through the early years of the Twentieth Century, the use of makeup was restricted to prostitutes and actresses. The popularization of the movies changed all that: The enormous influence of the movies, and the drastic changes in female fashions that followed World War I, made lipstick socially acceptable.

It was all a process, those that did do it at first. When I was young man, no women ever smoked but prostitutes. Finally the cigarette manufacturers … They began by running ads with a man smoking and a woman sitting by and beginning to admire the smell of the smoke second-hand. Then men had the woman sort of handing the man his cigarette; and then finally they began to show pictures of women smoking, and they finally got the women to doing it. Now that’s how subtle Satan works – to try to lead us into ways of that kind.

Let’s see, I think there was one scripture I wanted to read in closing. That’s Luke 12:40.

Luke 12:40 Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at [such a time as] ye think not.

You don’t know when He is coming. BE READY! I don’t think women are going to be ready at their lipstick and facial makeup table, and I don’t think we’re going to see much more of it in the Church from now on. But I wanted you to know how that was used, how subtilty Satan used it to start the Church on the wrong track and to get us off on the wrong track on so many other things – many of which were more important even than that, by far! Anyway, I wanted … I tried to get the Church back on the track on the more important things first. Now there are still a few things that I’m going to have to keep chipping away at it until we do get READY FOR CHRIST’S COMING. I want to see all of us rise up to meet Christ in the air when He comes, and I think you all want to be in that number too; and I hope that we all will.

Well, I may have gone about 4 minutes over and I apologize for that so I won’t burden you any further.

{1}