The Elijah to Come

Ron Weinland

Dec. 19, 2009

As I mentioned in last Sabbath’s sermon I’m always inspired because it’s exciting to see how God leads us, how He works with us and how He gives and inspires the sermons we have and how that is a process of leading us...and then at a point down the road of being able to put it all together.  And part of that process right now is being able to go back through our history like we have, going through seven sermons like we have and then seeing some of the things that God is bringing to the forefront here...some of it I’m going to be discussing today and some other matters as well, but how this is all fitting together to better show where we’re going and how we’re to go about it and what God is doing and what Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church is doing in our lives – leading, guiding and directing us.  Because He is the head of the Church – God has given that to Him and He leads, guides, directs and works with us, moulds and fashions us; and so it’s an exciting process.

And I mentioned last week that we were going to go into a particular subject matter because it was covered in some of the material that was covered.  Today’s sermon is entitled The Elijah to Come. What  I’m going to do is go all the way back to 1981 to look at some of our history.  It’s important to go back and see how God used Mr. Armstrong as the ‘Elijah to come’ and what he was doing. In 1981 Mr. Armstrong began to go into some of the things concerning Elijah as we’re going to go into this particular article here in the Worldwide News.  He didn’t really address these things until about this time when he started going back through these things about Zerubbabel and the Elijah to come because in times past when he was asked, “Are you the Elijah to come?”  He flatly said, “No!”  And it’s kind of an interesting process here where God began to reveal to him some of those things and there is much we can learn from some of this and I’m going to begin going through that then in this particular article and just reading some of what Mr. Armstrong was saying at this particular time and making some comments on it as we go along and I think that will be the best way of addressing all of this and bringing everything together like we’re going to do.

This particular article is from March 6th , 1981 and its entitled...

‘CONGRESS OF LEADING MINISTERS HEARS DEFINED AND REEMPHASIZED SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH’

Greetings everybody!

I have called this as a congress of the leading ministers of God’s Church worldwide.

We have here today the office managers from our different offices around the world, the evangelists and top ministers from the United States.  In other words, a congress of the leading ministers of the United States.

I would like to read what I have today.  I have called this congress of leading ministers of God’s Church worldwide because, first, conditions in the world fulfilling biblical prophecies are now fast accelerating, indicating that we are indeed in the very last of the last days.

And that’s an interesting perspective, to be led by God to understand that he was the messenger of a particular era of Philadelphia, and to be given some of the things he was given concerning Europe and the things that were going to take place concerning a final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire – those things that God gave to him.  And then for that understanding that at the end of 6,000 years, when you look at time, and look at how much time there is here.  Sometimes we can think 20-30-40 years is a long, long time, but when you compare it to 6,000 years it really isn’t that long.  It’s the very end of that period of time.  40 years compared to 6,000 years in the scheme of things... and so this is a lot of the context here: the last of the last times; knowing full well that very soon Jesus Christ was going to return.

We were always encouraged to plan 5 and 10 years ahead with our lives and so we did.  And the ones who’ve been around for some time, who came up through Worldwide and so forth – that was our life, it truly was.  That’s the way we thought in all of our planning.  As I mentioned here not too long ago, every car my wife and I purchased it was like... this is the last car we’re going to purchase.  Going back into the 70’s and then into the 80’s, especially when we got into the 80’s... this is going to be the last car!  Mr. Armstrong was seeing some things to a certain degree but not everything because, as we’re able to look back now, we understand things a lot more clearly of what did take place and why he wasn’t to see those things that were all going to take place.

So anyway, going on in this particular article and he says...

And things are coming to a crisis at the close very rapidly in the world.  I do not think they are going to be delayed very much longer.

This is March, 1981 and within 5 years he died.  An incredible perspective when you go back and you look at time and what was taking place – he died in January of 1986 and he was being led to have an understanding at that point in time, as he brings out a little bit later in this article, he was 89 at this point, getting ready to turn 90.  Incredible!  ...getting ready to turn 90!  And to see the strength and the power God was giving to him to come back very strong in the Church, starting in 1979 especially...preaching about putting the Church back on the right track.  Because by this time some of the campuses had to be closed down because of problems, not because of finances, but because of problems and things that were taking place.  He was having difficulties within the ministry; he was having difficulties within the head of the ministry and he saw the condition of the Church and what had happened during a period of 4-5 years when he was getting weaker because of health and he finally had a heart attack.  He finally regained his strength and came back with tremendous power and he saw a condition within the Church and believed, if you were to put yourself in his shoes to see what was taking place, knowing you’re 89 years old, but also knowing that God can take you to however long is necessary but feeling as you are leading and guiding and directing the Church that time is pressing in on you – time-wise... especially if you feel you are the one who is going to be leading the Church up to the very end; then indeed things were getting pretty close...and this was on his mind as he was advancing in age.  When you get into your 60’s and your 70’s and then into your 80’s and then at the very end of your 80’s you realize you have lived beyond the three score and ten that God has given you.  Going on, he said...

Secondly, this necessitates a dynamic stepping up in the intensity of God’s Work by His Church, proclaiming Christ’s Gospel of the coming Kingdom of God, which is not being proclaimed to the world by others and has not been for 19½ centuries to the world – except what we are doing now ourselves.

Very powerful and bold statements, but he understood his responsibility in a commission that God gave to him in Matthew 24 and he was doing it, very powerfully so with tremendous zeal.  I was thinking as I was driving over here... I don’t have that kind of zeal. I don’t have the kind of drive that he had.  I don’t have the qualities and characteristics that Mr. Armstrong had, but God uses different kinds of vessels for different things and it’s by the power of God that it’s done.  But I think if he had the technology we have today he would, if he were able to talk to me say... “What have you been doing?!”  Because of what he was able to do with what he had at his disposal.  But going on he says...

I want to acquaint you leading ministers with the plans for this intensified homestretch finishing of the Great Commission of the living Jesus Christ that the living Jesus Christ has called us to do.

And third, to update you so that you may update the brethren and the other ministers and brethren under you in the true purpose that this, the organization and the government of the Church of God , has for this time – this present Commission in the time that we have left.

And he relied upon those ministers to go back and faithfully teach what he was giving to them.  It didn’t happen that way in all cases.  Things got watered down.  Some went back and began to be divisive in some of the things they were doing – even in 1981, even at a time when he came back with tremendous strength.  They weren’t being faithful with what they had been given and yet that is the desire of leadership, for ministers to be faithful to the task before them.  I am going to read farther down in the article because there are some things more pertinent to what I want to get to here

The Kingdom of God is different from the Government of God.  The Kingdom of God is the Family of God, which will administer the Government of God.

Jesus said, “I will build my Church and the gates of the grave shall not prevail against it.”  The word [as he says here] hell used there in Matthew 16 means the grave.  The Church of God, which He founded in A.D. 31, is a spiritual organism.

As I was going through this I thought – amazing!  Because I think back to the time that we had the by-laws written for the organization we finally formed after Worldwide split up and we became ‘The United Church of God – Toledo’, not knowing what to call ourselves before the United Church of God began, before we became affiliated with them for a time.  I think of some of the things that were written in there and some of the conversations I had with Terry and a legal thing we had back in Toledo at one time where we were explaining some of these concepts to an attorney about a Church and how we’re organized and I had forgotten some of the things that Mr. Armstrong had said about this but it was in our minds and that’s why it was written this way; that as far as the church is concerned there are no members of the organization, of a physical organization.  A physical organization is a physical organization of a physical church that gives us the ability to function but we are members of the Body of Christ, the Church of God, and so these are the types of things that he’s getting ready to go into and explain that are profound but the world has a hard time understanding it because to them a church is a building out here somewhere that you go to services in every Sunday and they don’t understand.

The Church is a spiritual organism, but it is organized and organized on God’s spiritual pattern as explained primarily in I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 and other New Testament scriptures. Of course, God the Father is the head over all.  But Jesus Christ is the living Head of the Church.  He’s in heaven on God’s throne.

Under Him on earth are apostles.  Apostles were given the oversight of the Church and it’s organized Work.

Originally there were 12 apostles.  The principle work of the 12 apostles, if you will read carefully in the book of Acts and if you will analyze their sermons, included not only the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, but they put emphasis on the big question at that time in Judea – Jesus’ messiahship.

That’s what they talked about over and over again because the world hadn’t heard of Jesus Christ let alone things about ‘The Christ’, ‘The Messiah’.  By that time Judaism was already pretty messed up and had been for some time.  He goes on to say...

The Jews had been influenced by the Pharisees and Sadducees to not believe in the existence of Jesus as the Messiah.  Now the Pharisees knew, as Nicodemus said in the third chapter of John, that Jesus was the Messiah.  But they feared Him because they had government positions over their own people.

Isn’t that amazing what people will do and how far people will sometimes go to twist, to distort, to refuse God and to refuse to obey God?  Going on...

The Roman Empire ruled Judea as a vassal state.  And while they allowed a king and they had garrisons of soldiers there, they make the Jews rule themselves and that was done by the Pharisees.

The Pharisees had nice jobs and they didn’t want their situation disturbed.  They knew Christ was preaching the overthrow of the governments of the world...

It’s quite a message, when you understand and you hear certain things of what God is going to do – that is what the Messiah is going to do in essence.  The Messiah, when He comes, will have one government on the earth – God’s Government on the earth – and nations will no longer rule themselves – see?  And that isn’t popular with a lot of people.  They don’t like that.  Government did not like Mr. Armstrong saying the things he did, especially when he became more popular, in the sense of other countries and peoples around the world; and so they were kind of limited in what they could do and how they could go about it because he was recognized by so many around the world as an Ambassador for Peace.  And so how do you deal with him... it was a bit of an enigma for them, a bit of a problem for different ones.  They operate about the same today.

They knew Christ was preaching the overthrow of the governments of the world and they thought it was to be in their lifetime.

It’s not something that man does, it’s not something the Church does, its something that God does!  And the world doesn’t understand that – that God is going to allow mankind to do to himself what he’s going to do – basically bring himself to the brink of total destruction and then God steps in to stop it all and ushers in His Government, His Kingdom.  Incredible!  Going on...

In other words, they looked on the fact that Jesus would be viewed as a subversive and off would go their necks and out would go their jobs if it were found out.  They had to be loyal, they thought, to Caesar.

That’s the way man is – he sees the physical, he doesn’t grasp the spiritual unless God’s calling them.

Now the common run of the people were not told that Jesus was the Messiah.  And the 12 apostles – God needed 12 because they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection – put main emphasis during the first years of their ministry on the fact that they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection, proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

And so that’s a lot of what they did, the messages out there over and over again that you read about: that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

Jesus sent them on a mission.  He said, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The lost sheep of the house of Israel at that time were in Britain and Western Europe.

After a few years you see no more of the history of the New Testament of Peter and the other apostles, except that John was on the isle of Patmos in the 90’s A.D.

The reason I’m reading some of this and what Mr. Armstrong went through at that time is because there are things in British history that talk about visits.  I remember being in Bricketwood, England and they had old Roman walls just north of there.  You could see old Roman ruins all over that area.  The Roman Empire was in Great Britain and the ability to travel there wasn’t that hard to do and God sent them there.  There are many stories about Peter and his travels and things kept in history that have been run down through time right in the Bricketwood area as well as the western part of Great Britain and so there are people who debate those things, whether it was true or not, but you very easily could have gone into that part of the world as well as some other areas of Europe because that’s where God sent them in time and that’s what Mr. Armstrong is addressing.  It goes on to say here...

But we do begin to see Paul.  And why does Paul suddenly become so significant?  Because the others had gone to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Jesus Himself said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Paul was the main apostle to the Greek world, and he had the oversight over all those churches, as he very plainly said.

So though the Church is a spiritual organism, it is organized not on a carnal human pattern, but on God’s spiritual pattern.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the message that Christ proclaimed.  That message was the Good News or the gospel of the Kingdom of God.  That is the message He preached, the restoration of the Government of God by the coming Kingdom of God.

Over and over again Mr. Armstrong addressed matters of government because that’s what it’s about.  God’s Kingdom is about government and how He works with mankind.  I don’t know that I ever heard a sermon from him where he didn’t have things about government contained in it because that was a vital message and yet I think about those people who were listening to him at that time and how many of them couldn’t really be trusted!  Because as he said, “they’re like vultures waiting for me to die!”  Who’s going to be in power?  Who are you going to give your allegiance to?  Which one of the evangelists… and different evangelists wondering in their lives, by their fruits and so forth, is it going to be me?  Sick, sick, sick!  Going on...

The apostolic Church from A.D. 31 proclaimed it.  They proclaimed that message but with special emphasis, as I said, on the resurrection of Jesus Christ of which they were eyewitnesses.  It required 12, as in a 12-man jury, to make it absolutely certain and to convince the people in Judea.

It’s God’s way, that which is complete, that which is perfect and that which pictures perfection in the sense of a witness.  After the death of Jesus Christ, God did use 12 to go out and proclaim that He was the Messiah and He died for the sins of mankind.  Going on...

The two spiritual areas, which are the real purpose and mission of the Church, are one, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God for a witness to the nations of the world.

As I say, in the first century the first apostles put great emphasis on the resurrection of Christ.  I’m going to show you later that the emphasis now is on the coming Kingdom of God as this is the generation to which it is coming.

God, through time, has changed what was being given to the Church and what was being taught and what the purpose of a particular era or group of people was.  Mr. Armstrong understood that his purpose was different from that of the original apostles and what they did and how God worked with them.  He understood that he had a commission to fulfill, that God gave him that very early on and that was everything in his mind.  Matthew 24:14.  He hit that over and over and over again because he understood that was his mission, he was driven by that very powerfully because God was using the Philadelphia era to fulfill that.  Mr. Armstrong was leading and guiding and directing that in a powerful way through the use of TV and radio and modern technology was coming into being through his time.  I think of computers and how in just the last few years things have changed so much for us to help us even more.  All the materials that were printed back then, ‘The Plain Truth’ that went out like it did in the millions per month worldwide...  He’s addressing those things and he goes on to say again...

Now the second mission of the Church is to feed the flock, as Jesus said, on the spiritual food of the Word of God.

That’s something that God has always done in the Church, to feed the flock, to feed the Church, to mould and fashion the Church and it’s through that means that God does this.  But he recognized something else as a commission that he had and that was that the Gospel was to go out into all the world as a witness.  He never got the rest of the verses behind it. Something else had to happen and then the end would come.  Let’s just read that to make sure we have everything in context here today as we go through some of this because he didn’t continue on with the verses as he continually referred to this verse.  This is the primary one he used over and over again, Matthew 24:14 - And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.   And that’s where he stopped.  Then it goes on to tell of what was to follow, of what would lead to the very end, of something candidly that he was not to see, that he was not to experience, that he was not to witness, that he was not to be a part of – thankfully.

And then it goes on to say, When you therefore shall see the abomination of the desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso reads, let him understand:)  That takes us to the end and that wasn’t for his time.  God didn’t give that to him for his time.  It’s for our time, it’s what we’ve lived through, it’s what we’ve experienced, it’s what we have witnessed.  There’s a purpose in all that – what God has given to us to witness at the end-time.

He continues on in the article here and he says...

When the legal battle hit us a little over two years ago, we soon formed a new corporate organization:

This is going back in history.  This is when the State of California tried to take over the Church.  To try to take over the Church, incredible!  Because of all the garbage that was being said out there about Mr. Armstrong.  Before that period of time he was getting sicker and he wasn’t able to do as much and he came to the point of a heart attack and so what happens?  Vultures try to come in, they’ve hated it all this time and Satan then stirred things up.  Mr. Armstrong believed, and I have no reason to think otherwise in any fashion or form that some of the things in Revelation came to pass at that particular time.  Satan was cast down and  he stirred up a state government to try to take over God’s Church.  To us, it boggles the mind!  But what a history for the Church that something like that would take place.  It’s not new to the Church.

And so he talks about that ‘legal battle that hit the Church a little over two years ago’... He says...

...we soon formed a corporate organization:  Herbert W. Armstrong, (Apostle) for the Worldwide Church of God, a Corporation Sole.

It was a long time when he was no longer in California.  He moved to Arizona and all funds quit being sent into the Worldwide Church of God.  So what power did California have when there’s no more money coming in? How could they take care of the Church?  How could they have a judge there that was given power of receivership over the church if he didn’t have the funds coming in to take care of all the business of the Church?  It kind of tied their hands.  I think about how God works things out sometimes... Stan Radar was used at that time in a very powerful way – God used him for a particular purpose there because he was a genius of a lawyer and so certain things were done.  So the monies started going into Arizona – Mr. Armstrong.  We wrote out our cheques ‘Herbert W. Armstrong, a corporation sole’ – amazing!  Going on...

We’ve changed all the salaries and handling of things and the actual operation of the Church into that Corporation sole.

So he’s talking about those things that were still being handled.  He says...

Now for the organizational diagram of the Worldwide Church of God.

And so this is in this particular article.  It says...

God is the Supreme Head over all.  In heaven is God, And Christ under Him as Head of the Church but under God the Father.  Below we come to the earthly area.  First, under Christ is His chosen apostle.  Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them.

He’s talking to the ministry because he’s had difficulties with some of them and so he’s reminding them again how God works and is reminding them very clearly so: here’s God the Father, here’s Jesus Christ who’s head of the Church, and under Him, on earth, is God’s apostle.  He had to tell them this again and again and again and again through time.  It didn’t stop there.  It continued on until he died in 1986.  He went on to say...

So now we are incorporated under myself.  I am appointing an Advisory Council of Elders, not a Board of Directors.  This type of corporation doesn’t require a Board of Directors.  I want an advisory council, Advisory Council of Elders, because Solomon says in the multitude of council there is safety.

I want to mention that we had a meeting last night for the purpose of being able to discuss some things.  I try to do that from time to time when I’m visiting different areas, especially with the evangelists, to discuss things on occasion, to bounce some things off of them but as a whole, to be quite blunt and clear about it, because of what I went through and what I had to learn and have my nose rubbed in some things...because I had forgotten some things about government, as I said last Sabbath and God brought me to a point to realize, no, it comes from God and it comes through Jesus Christ, it comes from Jesus Christ who is the Head of the Church and it’s given to an individual, a single person on earth.  That’s how I function, that’s how I’ve worked and certain things of an advisory council are fine as long as it’s kind of clearing up certain things, discussing certain things in the open, bouncing certain things off and getting feedback – but the bottom line is there is one way that God works and inspires and leads and guides and directs and there is no one else responsible for that except for the one through whom God is working.  And that’s how I’ve been striving to function and work for several years now.  And so in one respect, I’ve taken this a little bit farther than even Mr. Armstrong is discussing here because of what God took us through in order to get to a certain point in time.

But going on here...  He went on to say a little bit later...

It must always be that way.

Talking about some of the things here, in the same context...

Sometimes I didn’t agree with the others when we went in and when we came out I did.  I think that more often the others agreed with me before it was through, but there were times when I had to change my mind.  We didn’t want our own way.  I still want this Advisory Council of Elders.

And I’ll be real candid with you, I don’t, and it’s not organized that way today.  We get things out in the open, we discuss things, but I understand that there’s a way that God works and I’ll just be clear about that.  I know how it is.  It’s through a revealing of various things and either I do it or I don’t and I’ve learned to strive to do it – even though sometimes I don’t enjoy doing it.  Just like some of the things that are going to come out in the sermon here today.  Sometimes we do things that make us  uncomfortable.

I think about when you’re first called.  I think Terry Wrozak was the first ever to bring this up in a sermonette or a sermon one time back in the Toledo area when he talked about the word ‘being called’.  There’s a word there in the Greek that means ‘to drag’.  And that’s the way we are sometimes.  We’re kind of kicking and screaming a little bit along the way and that doesn’t just go away at times.  That doesn’t just quit before your called and before your baptized.  Sometimes you’re not necessarily being dragged, but now you’re being given a shove on occasion.  You know, you need to do this, you need to do that and first things have to be first.  And so that happens to all of us, you know?  It’s a part of a process we go through and God works with us, He moulds and fashions us, because the work is going to get done!  God’s going to do it, but He does it through human vessels, always, always, always...

And so, I went through some things to learn this doesn’t work.  You don’t ask people how certain things should be done in the Church.  We had a Board set up in a certain way and I learned very quickly that it doesn’t work that way, you know!?  I’m glad God took us a bit of a step farther in some of that, just as I’m glad, as I mentioned in the books, especially the second book, about how it was written in a specific way and it wasn’t done in trying to convince people but rather as a matter of just stating that this is the way it is and people either accept it or they don’t.  Going on much farther in the article he says...

Now I want to turn first to Matthew 24.

We were just there...

Jesus was giving a prophecy here, which is the longest prophecy that Jesus gave.  The same general purpose is recorded in Mark 13 and Luke 21.  Usually we use Matthew 24.

That’s the one he went to over and over again.  Going on...

Anyway, He was showing them what would happen at their time.  He told them of the false prophets that would come.

And that has gone through time hasn’t it?  It’s always been that way.  Going on...

But they had also asked Him about the sign of His Second Coming and the end of this world, and the setting up of the World tomorrow, or the Kingdom of God.

And He came to that in verse 14: “And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end [that is the end of this world] come,” [and he went on to say] and the beginning of the world that will be ruled by Christ and the saints, with the saints under, and with Christ.

I said a while ago that in the first century the apostles put first emphasis on the fact that Jesus’ resurrection proved His Messiahship because that was the point of interest in that generation at that time.  But the point of interest is different in this generation –

Just as it is with us.  We’re different than the period of time of Mr. Armstrong. Our job is not to have a gospel message at this time go into all the world in the same way it did with him.  His was unique in the way it went into the world.  Ours is going to be unique in the way it goes into the world as well.  You already understand that process of what God’s doing and why it’s going to happen in a different manner.  But going on he said...

But the point of interest is different in this generation - this is the generation at the end of this present world and that should live on into the coming of the World Tomorrow.

This is true to a point.  It’s just not everyone and we’ve seen what happened.  Going on...

This is the time just before the Great Tribulation and before the Day of the Lord that will stop the Great Tribulation.  This is the time when the Gospel of the Kingdom is to go to the world.

It’s also the time for one or two other things.  God made a prophecy in the third chapter of Malachi, verse one, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me [that is before Christ]: and the Lord, whom you seek...even the Messenger of the covenant...”

He goes on to explain some of this...

He did come as the Messenger of the New Covenant.  He’s coming to make the New Covenant at His Second Coming.

I want to add that it actually starts when you’re baptized – there’s a process that starts when we enter into a covenant agreement with God but the actual fulfillment of it all, the promise that’s connected with it takes place at a resurrection when we’re finally changed and come into the God Family and this is what he’s focusing on in this article here.  He went on to say...

But He’s the Messenger of the New Covenant just as Moses was the mediator of the Covenant at Sinai.  The Sinai Covenant, which we now call the Old Covenant, made Israel a nation.  The New Covenant will make the children of God, the Family of God, a nation – the Kingdom of God.

So in other words the completion of it, the fulfillment of it isn’t until members are actually born into the God Family and that’s when it’s finally totally finished, fulfilled, sealed if you will.

Continuing: “...shall suddenly come to His temple...”  What kind of a temple is He coming to?

Mr. Armstrong, back in 1981 , began to very powerfully teach, very much so, and even before that, that the temple is about the Church!  And yet there are scattered groups out here today who believe that Jesus Christ – they’re talking about a temple – things that have to be redone there in Jerusalem as though a temple or at least the altar has to be set up in Jerusalem because that’s what Christ is coming back to.  It blows my mind because they heard these things over and over again.  The temple is the Church!  And that’s what Jesus Christ is returning to... a temple that has been in the process of being built for some time.  And so this is what he’s addressing here.

Are the Jews going to tear down the Dome of the Rock and build a new temple? Oh no!

He bellowed this out in the way that it’s written here.  Going on a little farther...he’s talking about the temple and he says...

A holy temple!  Christ is coming to His Church!  Christ is coming to His temple!  And the Church is the temple!  Do we see that?  The Church is the temple.

And then he quotes here...

“...in whom you also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

Quoting Ephesians...

God will reside in us through His Holy Spirit being in us.

And he went on to say...

Let me read another scripture in the fourth chapter of Malachi, in the fifth verse:  “[But], I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord...”  The Day of the Lord is what will come to shut off and to stop the Great Tribulation.  The Great Tribulation will be caused by Satan the devil.

We’ve had the days of Satan, or the day of man influenced by Satan for nearly 6,000 years.  The Day of the Lord is the day when God will take over and intervene in the world’s affairs and begin to take over the rulership of the world.

That’s when He destroys all the governments that are causing the problems on the earth, in Europe,  China, Russia, and all those areas of the world.  Going on in the article he says...

He begins with great signs in heaven.  That’s the beginning of the Day of the Lord, signs in the sun and the moon and the stars.  I’ve been proclaiming that for more than 40 years to the world.

And then he quotes it again here...

“...and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to [their] children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

Powerful and he explains what that is.  I think I’ve mentioned this before but God never fully gave it to him to understand what this part of the verse was all about in the sense of the, ‘heart of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children’, and that’s why youth programs like S.E.P. and Y.O.U. were pushed to the degree they were – because it was with the understanding that that was fulfilling some of this, and that’s not what this verse is about.

This verse is about what happens when people are called and are brought into the Church.  We talk about ‘our fathers’ when we talk about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; when we talk about our forefathers; when we talk about different ones in scripture; when we talk about Moses and so forth. And it’s talking about what they had and what they preached and what they wrote in these books that are in the Old Testament and so forth and the hearts, what was in their hearts, what was in their minds – what God gave to them is given to the ‘children’.  And how?  By God’s calling because God begins to work with the children, those who come generations later, or at different times, or in the past 2,000 years in the Church!  And then it says, ‘and the children’s hearts to the fathers...’ it’s talking about them, to what they had to say.  So it was given to the ‘fathers’, our forefathers if you will, and their lives were filled with the word of God, they recorded the word of God in scripture and then as God drew ‘children’ through time, the children He was working with so that they could be a part of His Kingdom, a part of His Government, a part of the Family.  What happens to you when that process begins?  Your hearts are turned to that message of what they wrote over the centuries – see?  Powerful in what was said there.  But we didn’t understand it back in 1981.  For a purpose and for a reason.  I hope that today we now fully understand what that means.  It’s not about physical things.  Yes, there is a type of that in a physical way if you want to refer to it in that manner, that those things should happen physically in our lives – ‘children to parents, parents to the children’ and so forth – family – yes. But that’s not what this is about.  It goes way beyond that as far as what God is saying and how God works with us and moulds and fashions us and calls us.

Going on it says...

“...lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”  That word curse is translated in another place from the Hebrew word as utter destruction.  That is total, complete destruction.

That’s what God says.  Certain things have to happen or He’s going to destroy everything.  Amazing what God says.  So God’s going to perform this, God is going to accomplish this because His purpose is not to destroy everything.  In other words, if these things didn’t happen in this way that’s what would be left.  And so God is doing an incredible thing through time and especially at the end-time in how certain things are going to be accomplished and how He’s going to stop mankind from destroying itself and His plan continues on.  So Mr. Armstrong continues to say...

We are in the days of total destruction in which it is now possible, unless those days were cut short, that no flesh would be saved alive.  In other words we’re at the time when humanity can be erased from off the face of this earth by man.  Man can destroy man.

For the first time in all history, the weapons of mass destruction are available that can erase all human life and all life from off this plant Earth.  God says it would happen if He doesn’t intervene.  And He will intervene.

Now the disciples asked John the Baptist, are you the Elijah that was to come.  He said, “No, I am not.”  I have been asked. “Are you the Elijah?” And I say, “No.”

People in the Church had approached him about this, they felt that some of this could be taking place, a fulfillment of this and so they asked him if he was ‘Elijah to come’.  And at that point in time he said...

And I say, “No.”

But something began to change and he began to introduce some of that here to the Church, to the ministry first – that he began to recognize.. God is doing something.  He went on to say...

Jesus said though, if you can bear it, Elijah has already come.  And then He explained that John the Baptist was a different man, not the same man as Elijah.  Elijah by that time was dead and buried.

But John the Baptist was a man in the power and spirit of Elijah.  John the Baptist came to prepare the way before the First Coming of Christ.  He was a type of someone to prepare the way for the Second Coming of Christ.

Speaking of what had to be accomplished in time, in prophecy...

I’m going to say something to you now, that I would not have said five or six years ago under any circumstances.  I don’t go out trying to fulfill prophecy.  But Jesus said, by their fruits you know.  And sometimes you look back on fruits and you can tell some things you couldn’t tell in advance before the fruits had been performed.

The fruits of the productivity of things that have happened in the Church as a result of what’s been given, what God did through him.  You can go back and look at certain things and he said that can then lead you to see and understand certain things you couldn’t see before.  And that’s what we do as well.  That’s how we function in many of the things we do; and that’s why so often I tell people to go back when there are times of doubt and things that happened in your life and pulls and what people say out here; whatever it is, and you’re in a weakened moment in time – go back to the 50 Truths.  Go back to a few of those that are so plain, so powerful...things about Jesus Christ not eternally existing.  Those things should just be so powerful in our minds to understand... they came from God.  There’s no other way and there’s no one else out here within the scattered group and so those things help to strengthen us.  Because the truth is your strength, it truly is.  The truths that God gives to you of a way of life, of what He has given and those are very powerful and they are our strength, they truly are.  He went on to say...

John the Baptist was a voice crying out in the wilderness of the Jordan River, the physical wilderness of the Jordan River, to prepare the way before a human, physical Jesus Christ coming as a Messiah, coming to a physical temple built of stone and wood and with gold and silver and other materials and coming to His physical people and carnal people, Judah.

Jesus’ coming was to announce that someday, more than 1,900 years off, He would set up the Kingdom of God.  His First Coming was to proclaim His message, His Gospel, the Kingdom of God.

So now prior to the Second Coming of Christ, there is someone...

It says here...

...before the Second Coming of Christ with a voice in the spiritual wilderness of all the mixed up Babylon of religions that we have in the world today.  A voice crying out amid religious confusion, spiritual confusion and preparing the way not for a physical Jesus, but a glorified Christ coming in all the supreme power and glory, to rule all nations, and coming to His spiritual temple, which is going to rise.

Powerful!  He said you can look at the fruit and you can see and this message that’s gone out and what’s being said is being done in a spiritual wilderness in a very powerful way.  And so he was saying here there is someone, and this is being accomplished – a voice going out in a spiritual wilderness and indeed it was, very powerfully so.  Going on he says...

The dead will rise first and we which are alive and remain will be caught up to meet Him in the air.  We shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.  And this mortal will put on immortality.  And when we meet Him in the air, we come right back down that same day with Him, because on that same day, His feet will stand on the mount of Olives.

As He went from the mount of Olives up into the clouds, He will come in clouds and come down and descend onto the mount of Olives.  He’s coming to His spiritual temple.  He’s coming to His spiritual people and not a physical people that rejected Him.  He came to His own, Judah, and His own received Him not.

This time, He’s coming to the Church that has received Him and is going to meet Him [speaking of the Church] in the air changed to glorious immortality.

So again, speaking of the 144,000 through time and those that are going to be resurrected to meet Him...and the rest of the Church obviously continues on and... because it doesn’t stop, never quits.  There’s just part that’s going to be resurrected and part that continues on – the spiritual Body at that point – some born into the family and some still continuing on in their begettal until they’re born later on.  Going on...

And He’s coming not to announce that someday He will set up the Kingdom of God.  He’s coming to set it up and to rule and to reign over all the nations of the earth.  Does that make sense – that one is the type of the other?

God does things in a dual manner.  There was a first Adam; Christ was the second Adam.  There’s the Old Covenant, which is physical; the New Covenant which is spiritual.  You could go on and on.  I don’t have time to do that today

Now there’s something else I’d like to read in Haggai, the second chapter of Haggai,

And so he’s quoting this...

“Who is left among you that saw [the] house in [it’s former] glory?”  It’s talking about the temple of Solomon.

This is the time when a colony of Jews had been sent from the Persian Empire, which then had taken over from the Chaldean Empire and was ruling the world, and sent them back to build the second temple.  That’s the temple to which Christ came the first time, the physical temple.  Solomon’s temple had been destroyed.

And so he went on to say here about Zerubbabel.  He started understanding some things about Zerubbabel at this time and he talked much more about him in the years to follow and about Elijah as well.  But he said...

Zerubbabel was the governor of that colony.  And Zerubbabel was given the commission to build that temple.

Might add – to rebuild the temple... see?  Because it’d been destroyed.

“Who is left among you...”

So he’s quoting these verses here again...

“...[who] saw this [temple] in [its] first glory?  And how do [we] see it now? [it had been totally destroyed]...yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; and be strong O Joshua [then it gives his father and parents’ names]...and work [in other words, work to build this physical building to which Christ came the first time]: for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you; fear ye not.”

And so again, Mr. Armstrong continuing on talking about certain things that were taking place.  We’re going to read some more things here about Zerubbabel and so forth.  But again, tremendously powerful here, the story flow of what he’s going through and what he’s talking about concerning Elijah and he’s putting all these things together – what Haggai said and what happened with Zerubbabel and the coming back and the rebuilding of the temple that was taking place.

And he talked about a type of duality and I don’t know any other way to say it today here, but just to tell you... I also am an ‘Elijah to come’.  That is uncomfortable as all get out to say, but it’s a reality and there is a duality in what Mr. Armstrong did and what I’m doing.  It’s just a reality.  It goes right along with having to announce that I’m an apostle; right along with that Thunder that I’ve been talking about and this one here is a big one.  There are people out there who are going to have a hay day with it and so be it because it’s a part of a Thunder in a very powerful way that’s going to become stronger and stronger and there are things about the Elijah to come that Elijah did that will come to pass now that couldn’t come to pass before this – okay?  Time is winding down.  We don’t have much time as it is anyway and we continue to go forward, but God is still working things out in a very powerful way.

In the rest of this sermon I’ll be talking about some of those things that have been taking place and it’s an incredible thing...we too look back at our history, we too look back at certain things that have happened.

When Mr. Armstrong came along there were certain things that were a matter of duality for the end-time that were taking place.  Just like certain things that happened through John the Baptist... it’s going to become very exciting with some sermons coming up in time here... and how it’s all coming together and what God is doing.  It’s an exciting thing – truly is, because there are certain prophetic things that are still being done in a very powerful way that a few weeks ago I had no knowledge of, no understanding of in any fashion or form – and now they’re there.  And so this is going to be an incredible year, it’s going to be an incredible 2½ years that we go through – it truly is.

But when Mr. Armstrong came along the temple hadn’t been cast down yet, the stones had not been thrown down, it did not fulfill those prophecies at all.  He came onto the scene at a particular time, as we mentioned last Sabbath, when we went through a particular article called, ‘Dead, Revived, Rejected!’  Speaking of Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea and what would happen within the Church.  Mr. Armstrong came on the scene at a time where God had to raise up someone to restore all things necessary to the Church so the Church again could be strengthened, could be revived again to push forward for the end-time.  And that’s how God used Mr. Armstrong and did fulfill that portion, that type of the ‘Elijah to come’ in a very powerful way – and it was done in the spirit and the power of Elijah and what God gave to Mr. Armstrong.  Awesomely so!  But it wasn’t a complete fulfillment of those prophecies... what we’re doing now is and they’re night and day – they truly are.

We came on the scene at a particular time when all the stones of the temple, those things that are prophetic about a spiritual temple – that had never happened in history – were cast down.  And I remember a sermon series...5 sermons that were given – ‘Rebuilding On The Temple’.  Little did I know what that meant.  I knew what it meant for us at that time because of the things that it talks about back in Ezra and Nehemiah were very meaningful to us.  So we went through things in Ezra and Nehemiah and we talked about what had happened to the Church; we had come to understand what it said in Matthew 24 when Christ said, “Not one stone will be left upon another.”  And what it said in Revelation regarding Laodicea, “...that I will spew you, vomit you out of my mouth for what you have done!”  That didn’t happen to Sardis.  They were dead spiritually – doctrines were dying out, and someone had to be called and raised up – an apostle to restore truth and doctrine to the Church of God, or we wouldn’t be here today!  The Church wouldn’t be here today if God hadn’t done those things through Mr. Armstrong – see?  Incredible what’s taken place.

And so, again, a type of duality for the end-time as well.  But little did we know what was really going to happen to the Church.  We always knew certain things about the end-time and certain prophecies about a ‘man of sin’ and ‘son of perdition’ but we didn’t know what that meant, what the fulfillment of that would be.  We really didn’t.  We knew about Laodicea coming on the scene and it was so unimaginable to think what would happen...  We actually believed that Philadelphia would continue on side by side with Laodicea to the very end because it was so unfathomable to believe or to think in any fashion or form that the whole Church would be Laodicean...it would happen to the entirety of the Church!  That didn’t enter into our minds.  That’s why so many out there today believe they’re still Philadelphian!  They thing that maybe they are living in the Laodicean period of time, but they’re still Philadelphian!  And they’re not and they don’t understand: everyone was spewed out of the Body!  Everyone was cut off from the flow of God’s spirit.  And so when we started going through Ezra and Nehemiah it was heart-wrenching, it was very moving to us – and those scriptures came alive very powerfully so because we could see the parallels of certain things that were happening to us spiritually that happened to them – to Judah physically...when the temple was destroyed and what took place after that.  And then finally they got to come back and started a rebuilding on the temple and all the things about the walls and building up the walls and what they had to go through.  They had to start building up the walls first from those who would come in and cause problems and destroy and it talked about those who wouldn’t build the walls properly so somebody could break through an area because it was weakly built.  You couldn’t help but think of things that the ministry was doing and the false doctrines that were out here and what was still taking place in the Church.

We had 5 sermons in that particular series, talking about rebuilding the Temple... and it has been rebuilt.  God’s blessed us mightily because every stone was cast down and God had blessed us at the end-time to fulfill powerful prophecies about the rebuilding of a temple and what was being done there by Zerubbabel – see?  And things about Elijah that God is going to do that’s written in the book that has to do with the analogies and the type of Elijah as well that has not been accomplished, that has never been done before – see?  That’s why certain things are written that are going to happen to certain people, because of what Elijah had to say that happened to the prophets of Baal and so the analogy and the type is what’s going to happen at the end here now with others who are not going to live on into the World Tomorrow – who are going to die...and people get upset and get angry about that.  “Who are you to say such things?”  Well, I’m telling you today: I am the ‘Elijah to come’ – see?  And these things are going to be accomplished, they are going to be fulfilled.  God is going to fulfill various kinds of prophecies here.  We’re living in those things; we’re living in the fulfilling of those things.  And that’s why sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp the magnitude of what God is doing with us at this end-time as SMALL AS WE ARE!  As small as we are.

That’s why a long, long time ago I knew that there would come a day when we won’t have to pay for radio and TV; we won’t have to pay a dime for any advertising because the day will come when God is going to see to it that there are going to be 2 Witnesses out there and there are going to be people who are going to want to hear – there are going to be people who are going to want to report on what is taking place and what is being said because it’s going to scare people to the foundation of their being.

We’ve only had a taste of some of that toward the end here – around 9/11 – just a teeny bit.  And we had a bit of a taste when the economy began to go to pot and people began to panic.  When they saw  Wall Street saying: “where’s the end, and where’s the bottom; and is this the end...”  There were government officials who were deeply concerned that this was the end.  There were people who reported and talked about the end of an economy, the end of a dollar, the end of various things in this world as we know it...and it didn’t happen.  And so people with sick, perverted minds begin to mock and ridicule certain things because, “Oh, we’re getting it back now... it’s all coming back.”  No, it’s just going to be a greater fall... just going to be that much more difficult when it finally comes.  The day is coming and I don’t know when.  I know a timeframe of when it has to take place, but on what day, what week, what month, even what year... whether it be 2010, or 2011 – I do not know; but it’s going to take place.  It’s going to happen exactly as it’s written –  exactly as God says it’s going to take place.

Somebody said something about a month ago – maybe a little bit before that... but a couple months ago if someone had said something like this I’d have said to them a “get back” type of thing, but not today – see.  And so there are things we go through and there are things we learn and there are things we tolerate in this world – knowing that people don’t understand.  People have a hay day with it – we understand – and so don’t let those things bother you because sometimes things that have happened out there – sometimes it does bother people, but we continue on and understand the times in which we live in and we are to have compassion on the world around us – with mercy as God is having mercy in a very powerful way.

That’s why I have made comments in times past about everyone who is a part of this Body, everyone who’s a part of this group...that you have no comprehension of what’s coming.  You cannot begin to fathom and imagine the impact you’re going to have, in your life, by what you know and what you can share with others.  I can’t wait until the next series here.  Some things that are going to dumbfound some people, but through that process giving us a far greater ability to fulfill even far more prophecy in scripture – things that are going to be exciting to be a part of, to live through, to see, to experience, and to understand what God is doing with this end-time.  I am deeply, deeply moved and humbled by those things that are recorded for the end-time here.  It’s mind boggling... that description cannot even come close to it.  A prophet, an apostle, an end-time Elijah – things that it says in other scriptures and so forth...and it’s by the power and the might of Almighty God that everything is done – not by any human being.  We simply yield ourselves to the process.  We all have problems, we all have difficulties, we all have struggles and battles in life, but God is going to do what God is going to do and it’s exciting.  And all we do then, in that respect, is yield ourselves to the process and fight for it because we treasure what He’s offering us.  How awesome is that?  ...to be able to have opportunity like we’re given.  That’s why I hate it when people give up at the last moment in time and you think... this is not a time to let down, this is not a time to give up, this is not a time to not be alert and on guard.  This is the time to fight!  This is the time when you see the finish line up there.

And every time I say this I think of the race I mention in Bricketwood so often; that 3 ½ miles that I loathed with all my being because I was a short distance runner.  You give me a 400m race and I’m happy – I’ll run my legs off, I was blessed with a little bit of speed, but take me beyond that and it became a battle.  Take me up to a mile… I don’t have the lungs and so you have to fight against your mind in those things because your body is saying to give up and quit.  And so sometimes you go through things in your life right now that are hard.  HARD!  WHO CARES HOW HARD IT IS!!  It isn’t that hard!!  ...compared to what God is offering you and what God is placing in front of you – is it?  Nothing is that hard!  What kind of a price would you pay?  You can’t pay it!  ...for what God is offering you – to be a part of!  Just a short time and Jesus Christ is going to stand on this earth!  Just a short time and 144,000 are going to stand with Him!  Just a short time and China and Russia and every country on earth will no longer be countries on earth!  And some don’t like to hear that!  I could care less what you like!  This isn’t about you!  This is about mankind!  This is about the world!  This is about salvation!  This is about blessings to the earth!  Man’s wanted peace – this is the only way it’s coming!  You’ve tried your ways!  Nations, peoples!  You’ve tried to give peace to the world!  And you call it the United Nations or whatever else you want to call it... and it’s a JOKE!  And people don’t like to hear that.  You can’t bring peace... We cannot bring peace to Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan or any other place on earth!  You can’t change regimes and give peace.  We can’t establish one government, like we did at one time – Saddam Hussein – and he turns to be a bad man!  Oh, we don’t like him anymore!  Let’s take him out!  Picking  and choosing, and all the smuggling of weapons that take place in the world behind the scenes; all the garbage that takes place in the world where thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed – that governments are responsible for!  Sick world!  Because “we”, whoever “we” are, know better, know what‘s best for the world!  No, we don’t!  But we try to influence governments to take power and when they don’t do our bidding...sometimes we take them out, you know?!  Our motivation, we say, is to give peace to the world.  Sick, sick, sick!  Mankind is sick!  The mind of man is sick!  ...and God Almighty is going to save us from ourselves.  Given just a little bit more time and all this “giving peace to the world”... that’s why Europe does what it does to the United States... it’s to stabilize the world – to give some peace.  Their motivation isn’t like what Hitler did, it’s a night and day difference.  Nations are going to get pulled into some of that... and don’t be surprised if there’s some Israelite nations involved in it, and not 5 in the East and 5 in the West like some believe because of what Dr. Hoeh had to say.

I can see when the 5th Trumpet comes about, there are going to be many people in the Church that was scattered who are going to say... “Oh we have this great conflict in the world, but it’s not the end yet, it’s not fulfilling those prophecies because those nations can’t be involved, so something else has to take place still in the future, so maybe now we’re just going to go through a war...”  I know that’s going to happen in some people’s minds.  “Maybe we’re going to go through a war and we’re going to have this battle and then prophecy will happen later on...”  Just like what some have believed about the 144,000... “We got to get big enough again so a great falling away can take place.”  I get worked up over these things because I think of our history and what we’ve gone through, I think of the agony and the pain and the suffering...not only in the world, but in the Church, and what we’ve experienced.  We don’t get there easily, do we?

So this isn’t a time to let down.  This isn’t a time to let up.  This isn’t a time to complain about how bad things are.  I know how things are bad out here in the world, but I’ll tell you what... thank God that things didn’t start off in the way that we know they will be one day – okay?  Be thankful that you’re still able to come together on the Sabbath and that you’re still able to turn on the light switch, and you’re able to do the things you’re doing!  Enjoy it as long as you can!  And thank God, because all the other problems we have in life are not to be compared with what’s coming.  All the struggles we go through are not to be compared with what’s up the road here.  So don’t get out your violin’s...keep them in the container, better yet, take an axe to it and then throw it in the fire!  Just thank God for every day you have of peace...where you’re still able to do some of the things you are, where you’re able to have a full meal.

I am the final fulfillment of the ‘Elijah to come’.

Going on...Mr. Armstrong said...

“For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land...

And he asked then...

[What is he talking about?  He’s not talking about the time in which Zerubbabel lived; He’s talking about our time; this was a prophecy.  Haggai is not a book of history, it’s a book of prophecy]; and I will shake all nations [He hasn’t done that yet.  He didn’t do that in Zerubbabel’s day,

And He didn’t do it in Mr. Armstrong’s day either.  Going on...

Zerubbabel lived about a little over 500 years before Christ],

Then he goes on to say quoting here...

...and the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.”

“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.  The glory of this latter house shall be greater [more glorious] than [in] of the former [meaning greater than Solomon’s temple], says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give [you] peace, says the Lord of hosts.”

That’s where the ultimate peace is, in the Family of God, because as we had sermons at the Feast this year – we still have human nature throughout the Millennium and even in the Great White Throne, there’s still struggles in the human mind and in life and in families and everything isn’t just hunky dory, peachy keen where everybody gets up in the morning and it’s a type of ‘Leave it to Beaver’.  I don’t even like to think about that, that the world be that way, you know?!  Life is life – human beings are human beings and people say things, they get upset, they get their feelings hurt and those things don’t disappear just because the Millennium’s here and because 144,000 and Jesus Christ is on earth – you know?!  God’s teaching us and helping us to understand greater balance, greater understanding, greater purpose because the greatest true peace comes when we’re in the Family of God...IN the Kingdom of God – finally.

Going on he says...

“...the glory of this latter house shall be greater...”

I don’t think I finished one section; let me go back up... okay...

He’s talking about the peace at the Second Coming of Christ.  He’s talking about a temple that will be more glorious than Solomon’s.  The temple, the physical temple that Zerubbabel built, was not.  It was remodelled later and even added onto by Herod, a Roman ruler.  And that was the same temple that Jesus came to the first time.

But again, it is a duality.  It is a type of the spiritual temple to be built later, that will be more glorious.  Christ is coming to His temple, and that is a spiritual temple, that will meet Him in the clouds of the sky as He’s coming.

Then dropping on down here he goes on to quote scripture...

“The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, says the Lord of hosts.”   You ministers can read the rest.

God was going to prepare someone to come and build that temple to which Christ is coming at this time, the second time.

See - it was already built.  It hadn’t been destroyed yet... weak, spiritually dead – yes – see?  We’ve lived in a different time.  We have witnesses something different in our lives – truly. Going on...

God was going to raise up someone who is going to prepare the way for the Second Coming and calling people, preaching...

...and calling people... that’s exciting to me because I think of the hundreds of thousands that are going to have the opportunity, especially coming out of the areas where Ephraim and Manasseh are scattered and some of the other nations there in Western part of Europe.  Amazing what’s going to take place – exciting what’s going to take place and what God’s going to do and how He’s going to do it.  Peoples from all over the world who live in the boundaries of those nations – because that is where God is going to do the primary work – that’s where it begins.  Going on...

...going to prepare the way for the Second Coming and calling people, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.  That’s exactly what Elijah did physically.  He reminded them that they had gotten away from the Kingdom and the Government of God, and needed the restoring of the Government of God.

And now before the Second Coming, as John the Baptist fulfilled that before the first coming, someone had to announce it again.

And I think how much more powerful, how much greater is that going to be, how much more resounding is that going to be in the time to come?  ...in the last year of it all even.  How powerful will it be?  ...when there are things happening all over this earth.  How mighty will it be?  ...when just because it’s being said, and because of what people are experiencing that their hearing is going to be sharpened immensely so...powerfully so!  See?!  Incredible what we’re blessed to live through.  Going on he says...

As Zerubbabel built the first temple, someone had to build the spiritual temple.  Of course, God is doing it all.  Christ is the One who is doing it.

And so again, it’s rebuilt, it’s not built – see?  And yet we just didn’t understand some of those things.  I want to finish this part of what he had to say.

Have you ever heard me say that I built this campus?

There was a minister one time that got upset with the organization that he was in so he started his own.  I thought at one point in time that he was having true motives to begin working with people who were scattered and he was asking about some of the things we were doing, and how we were doing it and what the message was and so forth and how to help people who are scattered.  And I really thought he was going to make some changes and begin trying to help people who were scattered.  That wasn’t his whole motivation I found out later on.  But one of the things that used to irk the tar out of me when he was talking about this organization that he helped... he said ‘I’ raised up so many churches in a certain area, a certain state.  ‘I’ raised up churches over here and ‘I’ had this number of churches for this organization.  I didn’t say it to him and I wished I had the chance again because I would say it so loud – “You didn’t raise up a thing!  You never raised up anything in your life!  You were part of something that God was doing if God was doing it...”  ...and God wasn’t even doing it.  When you take the credit to yourself, how horrible, how sick is that.  Anyway, going on...

Have you ever heard me say that I built this campus?  What have you heard me say?  You’ve heard me say that Christ built it, but he used me in doing it, didn’t He?

God is not the author, physically or spiritually, of inferiority.  The things of quality and of beautiful design are the work of artisans.

I deeply appreciate that about Mr. Armstrong because I learned from Him, part of the mind of God, quality! Quality!  ...in life.  We can’t always afford it, but when we can, we should strive for quality, we should appreciate quality!  I loathe things that are only built to last a little while!  I love things that you can go back to a thousand years later and they’re just as beautiful!  Things are going to change in the Millennium – we’re going to make things that are quality.  There are certain abilities of construction, of work today that are just about lost, gone!  There have been things in time in civilizations that have been lost because man doesn’t work for quality.  Of course, how they accomplished some of the things in the past wasn’t too pretty either… What a beautiful time the future world will be because of quality!  And so some people get upset with some of those things.  They got upset with the amount of money that was being spent to put into campuses or certain building projects.  I remember when the House of God was being built and Mr. Armstrong didn’t waste anything when it came to quality!  It was going to be dedicated to the Great God – and you think... what are you going to build?  You want to build junk?  You can go down the highway sometimes and you see these buildings out there and they have some goofy name on it... I say goofy because I hate it when people misuse God’s name out there on license plates or on tags on the back of a car or signs along the highway.  So you can see a so called temple, or whatever they call it and it’s a piece of garbage with a tin roof, you know!  And you think... That glorifies God??  Wouldn’t it have been a lot better to build something a whole lot smaller with good quality than to build that piece of junk that’d burn down in 10 seconds?  Anyway, if you put God’s name on something it had better be quality.  We’d better be quality!  That’s what we learn.  We better yield ourselves to quality and what God is building and fashioning within us because that’s what He desires, that’s what He wants and we yield ourselves to the process... all the time knowing what we are, but thankful for what God is moulding and making within us; and you don’t get there without suffering do you?  Going on again...

Quality is the selection of better material and quality materials that comes out of the earth and more careful and more meticulous workmanship.

When people take enjoyment of what they build and what they make.  Where people can leave something and be so fulfilled for what they’ve done – see?  And today, things aren’t done that way, it’s how quick it can be done, it’s how quick you can get the dollar, and the corners you can cut in order to accomplish it and so forth.  And it’s not about quality.  Detroit, today, is suffering today because at one point in time they had to be reminded of things about quality because they went to trash.  They did.  Some of the junk they started putting in cars... we can sell them, let’s build them cheap.  And you saw some of the changes to some of the cars and you thought... what is this?  This is the new model?  I really liked the old one a whole lot better and it was made a whole lot better, and this thing is made to fall apart quicker.  When you leave quality out someone else can come along... look at what Japan did and as a whole Germany always kept building quality.  I couldn’t help but throw that out.  Going on...

That is God’s way.  I have tried to build this as I thought God showed me.  God has built it, but He has used me.

Do you think that has happened?  Do you think we’re near the time of the coming of Christ?  Has anyone proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom of God?  Has anyone proclaimed the law of God?  Has anyone been calling on them to repent?

That’s a message to be heard at the end here.  When people’s ears are far more attentive and the response that’s going to come from people because God’s going to begin pouring out His spirit on the earth because now they can hear due to what they’re experiencing.  Man has to be humbled in order to hear.  You had to be humbled in order to hear.  There is a physical aspect of a spiritual calling because we’re carnal and because of the way we are and the way we think.  But when you see things being stripped away from you concerning whatever it is, your finances in your life, everything you have built up to...when you see other things being stripped away from you in life and the humbling that can come from part of that process and you become scared and you become afraid.  It’s amazing how quick people are.  You’re sitting in a fox hole with bombs going off all around you; it’s amazing what people will promise God at a time like that.  Their hearing is sharpened up so much more – see?  And sadly that’s just the way we are.

But what an awesome thing when there’s a message going out saying, “Repent!  Repent!”  I think of some of the interviews I’ve had and the questions that are asked “well, what are we supposed to do?”  They were not ready to listen then.  I knew they weren’t ready to listen then... but I know we’re coming to a time when they’re going to be ready to listen and what a powerful message then: not because it’s being said any differently, not because the words have changed but because the conditions have changed, because now they want to listen, because now they know that something has to be done.  Now what they’ve hoped in and believed in... now they can receive God’s help and God’s spirit into their life when God’s offering it.  Awesome what’s going to take place!  ... and baptisms?  That’s what they’re going to be told.  “Repent!  Repent and be baptized!”  Isn’t that the message that goes all the way back in time?  Don’t you want all your sins forgiven? Don’t you want to go forward and obey God and do the things that God says and get your life turned around and be a tool and an instrument that can help your family; that can help to even save the life of your family physically?  Don’t you want that?  ...isn’t that the message of the books?  ...especially the last one?  Absolutely!  But what about the power when it’s given?  Whew... we haven’t seen anything!  And we are going to be blessed to do great things...awesome things... that I’m looking forward to sharing with you that I can’t share with you today.  God gives us the blessing of wanting to know more and more and more... that’s good – God gives that to us...  So he asks...

Has anyone been calling them to repent?

You can call till you’re blue in the face in this world can’t you.  But God’s got to prepare the world, and that’s what it’s about.  It’s about what He’s preparing the world for.  He went on to say...

Have you been reading the Wall Street Journal ads?  Have you noticed what I was saying even on last Sunday’s broadcast to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and how he was nodding while he smoked his pipe?  But he was getting the Gospel of the Kingdom, if you were listening to the words that were right there on the television program.

I remember smug ministers making comments... “Well, he’s not preaching...”  It’s like you’ve got to open up the book and refer to scripture the entire time... “Okay Anwar, let’s go over to Ephesians chapter 4 here...”  And it’s like if he didn’t do that he wasn’t preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.  How dumb can people be?  Ministers!  And yet, his message... just because he wasn’t quoting scriptures to them doesn’t mean they weren’t receiving a message about the Kingdom of God – because they were!  I heard them!  And I think, how blind.  But it’s a matter of spiritual sight and insight, you know?  And so anyway, he is asking did you hear it, did you hear what was said to him and yet, President Anwar Sadat didn’t repent – did he?  Leaders around the world didn’t repent – did they?  And yet they were drawn to him.  His Japanese sons: 8 in the Japanese Diet who called them his Japanese sons; some who became Prime Ministers.  Various things that have happened through time and different ones there that were drawn to him. It was awesome what we went through.  God giving favour, but not a one of them hearing spiritually – because it wasn’t time for them yet.  We live in a time when it’s getting ready to be time for the world to be able to repent, not everywhere, just certain areas because of what they have to experience first, because they have to be humbled first – see?  That’s why China and Russia and most of Europe doesn’t have that opportunity until the very... let’s say, the 2nd day... because their attitudes begin to change on the very last day...the day that Jesus Christ is returning when the 7 last plagues are poured out.  Going on about Anwar Sadat and he says...

...he was getting the Gospel of the kingdom, if you were listening to the words that were right there on the television program.

But I think it’s time we come to know what God is doing, and to know that the time is here and there’s very little time left.

You know what I’m going to do?  I’m going to go on as far as I can here today with some of the things that he had to say because I really want to get on to the next group of sermons here... time is expedient that we do so, so I’ll finish with this topic today... I’ve announced what I needed to announce and I’ll continue on here and maybe come back at a later time if that’s God’s purpose to go into some of the scriptures and discuss it more fully, but I’m sure it will come out in sermons as we go along.

But anyway, he went on to say farther down in the article...

We plan to greatly expand this means of sending out Christ’s message.  We have plans for stepping up the newsstand circulation of The Plain Truth.  We plan to resume the purchase of large space for Christ’s message in such publications as Reader’s Digest and TV Guide, which have massive circulation reaching many millions every issue.

For all of this I am having to ask our own members and our co-workers to make extra sacrifices and to increase their freewill offerings.  We do not and will not solicit the public for contributions, but God does expect His people to make sacrifices for Him and especially at this critical time.

God expected the people of the Old Testament to make sacrifices.  But then they made sacrifices of animals, and sheep and goods.  Today we translate all that into money as the medium of exchange.  But God expects us to make sacrifices today.  And they made sacrifices besides the tithe [the 10 percent] and so we must.

I’m calling on our people to do it now, because we’ve got to step up this Work.  And it’s going to cost a little extra money.  I shall need the support of our ministry in this, so that the additional expansions may be finished.

Now I’m not asking it because we’re in debt and need to ask the brethren please come and bail us out.  In the last co-worker letter I said the budget is balanced.  I’m asking for the money for expansion that the Work can go ahead.

So anyway, because of things like age and because of time, he really felt we were there.  And he was moved and motivated to work in a different fashion because of the time we were in and because of the peace we had in this country and because of the conditions and so forth that were taking place and some of the things that sometimes God uses to try our attitudes and our spirit to see what we do.  And I’ve been very thankful in that respect that God hasn’t used me in that same manner to do the same thing, after the same thing, because that would be something that would be extremely difficult to do.  We talked about running down the hill together and there are people who made sacrifices, but I’m thankful to God that He’s given us everything we’ve ever needed to do what we do and we just use whatever He gives us – that’s our allowance: no more, no less.  Don’t need anymore and whatever He gives us to do, for whatever purpose, that’s what we have and that’s how we function, that’s how we operate and to me that’s exciting and inspiring.  Anyway, going on...

So he talks about the desire and the need for various things here and then the things that were accomplished.  He went on to say...

The additional money that we must put into this expanded program now is like old-fashioned pump priming, where we used to put an amount of water into the pump to prime it and then it produced a flow of water multitudes of times larger than the original priming.

That was in his mind and God let it be so in his mind and that’s what he saw fully and so you have this little bit that’s able to accomplish this that God can use... and feeling that that’s what God was doing.  And incredible things were accomplished, but it just wasn’t the end yet, was it?  Other things had to take place first.  Going on...

I would have thought, well the next one will be a...

Okay, this is interesting.  This is where some of his thinking’s coming in.  He’s thinking about where he is in time, how old he is – he’s already discussed some of that.  He saying that his 90th year is less than 6 months away for him and he’s going through and talking about some things like the birth of his children and about his two daughters that were born and part of a process he went through then in life when his wife was told that they couldn’t have any more children and so he didn’t believe he was going to have any sons, any more children at all and so, anyway... he talks about some of this and he went on to say...

I would have thought, well the next one will be a son, maybe God will give me a son yet.  But then they said I couldn’t have a son.  Then God healed my wife.

So he went through a process here of some things where they were told they couldn’t have any more children.  He says...

Actually we didn’t know from what – we found out later it was this negative/positive RH blood factor.

So back then, you think back in time and there were certain things that weren’t known and where we are today and you think... thought we knew that long before that but anyways...

But God completely healed and we had two sons.

But when the automobile crash came in July 1958, there was my son Dick just beaten.

His jaw was cracked in at least six or eight places and they were trying to wire it together.

So he was serving in the ministry in the Church and his son, Dick, was in a bad automobile accident and so he’s going back to 1958 discussing some of this back in time.  He says...

It was an awful condition.  His heart had been shoved over and collapsed a lung.

His kidneys didn’t work.  He died because his kidneys didn’t work.  He did stay alive for one week exactly.

But again, I had to face the question.  I knew God was calling on me as He did Abraham,

would I give up my son?  He was my firstborn son even though I did have a second one.

I had to say when I was praying that if that was God’s will I would give him up.

But I didn’t think God would make me do it.  Maybe I...

He’s reminiscing, he’s going back and thinking about some of these things, the trials the tragedies of life and so forth and what’s happened because there were times in the Church when there was talk about if  Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Garner Ted Armstrong would be the two witnesses at the end-time.  That was commonly believed and then when Garner Ted was gone it was like... who’s going to be the second witness?  Because Mr. Armstrong lived in the end and that end is approaching and so, anyway... those were the things because that was just a natural given type of thing in our thinking back then.  So he’s going back thinking about some of these things.  Who’s going to be with him and various things. Anyway, he says...

But I didn’t think God would make me do it.  Maybe I wouldn’t have said it if I thought He would.  But He did make me do it and I did give him up.

And then he talks about Garner Ted because of what he did and he had to be put out of the Church at different times and finally one final time and it was something that tore him apart.  He went on to say...

And then I’ve had to give up my second son.  Fellows, that hasn’t been easy.  My son said on local television just over this weekend that I’m a dictator and that a dictator never appoints anyone to succeed him.

So again, the different ones were talking about when he was going to die and who’s going to succeed him, who’s going to take over the Worldwide Church of God type of thing.  So he went on to say...

I once appointed my son Garner Ted to succeed me.  I didn’t know any better.  Today I wouldn’t.  What I’ve told you today is something, as I said, I would not have said a few years ago.  But I look back and I look at the fruits and I see what prophecy says and I see that prophecy has been fulfilled.  I wonder if you brethren see it?

So what he’s saying is that he’s seeing things about Zerubbabel, he sees things about the Elijah and He sees something that God has done in his ministry to restore things to the Church, to restore all things that were necessary for the Church to grow again...for us... the 18 Truths – basic foundational things that we talk about in past sermons over and over again – that’s written in the books and so forth and things that we had to have in order to be a part of the Church, in order for the Church to be revived again.  And so... anyway, God used him in a very powerful way to do that and going on to say here...

And brethren, I have to say to you, no one is going to succeed me.

He didn’t know, but that’s what he felt at the time.  He felt God was going to take him all the way to the end.  And, in one respect, no one did succeed him, but anyway, that’s another story.  We could quibble about words... but anyway...

God has called me to a job, to a commission.  Mr. Radar has said time and again publically that he doesn’t expect anyone to succeed me, that God has never let anyone die until what God has called him to do is completed.

And he completed it.  ‘And the Gospel of the Kingdom shall go on to all the world... and then shall the end come.’  Amazing!  We didn’t know what that meant until it happened, until after it happened and then we can see God used him to send the gospel in the world in the way that God did – through TV, radio, and the printed press in a very powerful way and the world didn’t change.  Nothing changed.  The Church became larger, the Church became greater and we were about to fulfill the most awesome prophetic things ever recorded of what would happen with people who were impregnated with God’s spirit – that they can fall asleep, that they can turn against God, that they can become anti-Christ.  Incredible what we experienced and what we went through, it truly is.  And so that’s what was to follow his death.  So he did complete a job – the Philadelphia Era – and sadly the scattered church out there today can’t accept that.  Going on...

I think that when God lets me die, the thing He’s called me for will have been completed,

True... true, true, true, just didn’t know what it was.

...preparing the way for the Second Coming of Christ carrying that Gospel of the Kingdom to the world for a witness to all nations.

So yeah, that’s what happened.  And then it quit.  That’s why different groups out here are trying to do the same thing of old.  They want to preach the gospel in all the world for a witness and then the end will come –see?  It’s already been done.  God did it through Mr. Armstrong.  That’s not our job today.  Our job today isn’t to publish the Good News into all the world the way God did through Mr. Armstrong.  What will happen later on and what will be told the world is going to happen a different way and we don’t have to pay for a dime of it, you know, and that’s a different story all together.  We’re Preparing for the Kingdom of God... awesome what God’s doing with us.  It’s exactly what He’s doing with us. So he went on to say...

I don’t know whether God’s going to keep me alive for the rest of this day.  I don’t know whether He’s going to keep me alive until next year.  I don’t know whether He’s going to keep me alive for the next five or 10 years.

So a lot of mixed emotions and feelings in all this – truly.  He went on to say...

I know He’s able to keep me alive for 20-30 more years if that’s what God wants to do.  My God is that powerful.  He can do it!

I have been persecuted ever since I gave myself to God.  I try to be on the giving and not the getting side.  I’ve been practicing the way of giving for just about 54 years now.

But I think God has called me for a job to do.

And He had – he just didn’t know how much it was specifically about Matthew 24:14...and then the end would come.  Incredible.

If I have been someone in the power and spirit of Elijah, remember there is no prophecy that God will have an Elisha following Elijah.

And there isn’t.  It’s just there is something more to be accomplished to be fulfilled, fully in prophecy, concerning the Elijah.  And so that’s what we’re addressing in part here today.  He went on to say...

There is no one in the Church that has the qualifications, the experience that could carry on the work that God has given me to do.

It’s just that God wasn’t going to carry on the work that he gave him to do.  That’s a big difference.  The Church had to come to a point when there wasn’t one stone left upon another.  So we’ve gone through some incredible times and that’s moulded and fashioned who we are, that’s made us who we are.  What I’ve experienced I know full well has made me what I am today to do the job that’s in front of me.  What you’re going through and what some of you have gone through – especially those of you who are going to be a part of the 144,000 – what you have gone through God has prepared you for a long time ago – has been moulding and fashioning you and taking you through various things and making you who you are so you can accomplish what He has yet in front of you.  Awesome things!  Truly awesome things that we have opportunity for. There’s much prophecy yet to be fulfilled and we’re blessed to be a part of it.  What an incredible thing!

~~~end

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